[Congressional Record Volume 164, Number 66 (Tuesday, April 24, 2018)]
[Senate]
[Pages S2363-S2364]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                      Senate Rules on Nominations

  Mr. LANKFORD. Mr. President, earlier today, the minority leader came 
to the floor to talk about multiple issues. During that conversation, 
he called me out by name regarding a rules proposal that I have in 
front of the Rules Committee this week. He said that he vehemently 
disagrees with that rules proposal. He even mentioned that he knows 
that I came here in 2014 and that I should study the history of the 
Senate a little bit more before I bring up a rules proposal. Well, I 
would only tell my colleague that I have studied the history, and I 
would like to get a little bit of context around those comments.
  The rules proposal that the minority leader is opposing is the exact 
same rules proposal that he actually voted for in 2013 when he was on 
the Rules Committee and then voted for again when it came to the floor 
of the Senate. This is not some radical proposal.
  In 2013, Democrats found intolerable what was happening with the 
nomination process, so at the beginning of 2013, they worked with 
Republicans and said: We need to be able to put a structure in place to 
get nominations through because a President should be able to have his 
staff put in place, and there shouldn't be an arbitrary slowdown of 
that process.
  Republicans came on board, even during a very contentious time, 
because Republicans did not agree with the policies of President Obama. 
Yet they agreed.
  With a vote of 78 total votes, 78 votes on the floor of the Senate, a 
rule change was made that was proposed by Senator Reid, supported by 
Senator Schumer, and supported by Senator McConnell, to say that this 
is a rule change that will go into place. It was a very simple rule. 
The rule was just for nominees.
  When nominees come to the floor, the minority can always ask for 
additional time to debate. Most of the time in the past, they have not, 
but they could. The time allotted for that purpose is 30 additional 
hours for debate. The assumption is that it is a controversial nominee 
when 30 additional hours of debate is required.
  The time was lowered in this 2013 rule so that for district court 
nominees, just 2 hours of debate on the floor is needed because, quite 
frankly, district court nominees had never been held up on a cloture 
vote, so 2 hours of extra time. The nominees have already been through 
the committee process. They have already been approved. Now

[[Page S2364]]

they are coming to the floor, and if there is a request for additional 
time, they would get an additional 2 hours on the floor. For any other 
nominee, they would get 8 hours of additional time, if they even asked 
for more time. Supreme Court, circuit court, and Cabinet-level nominees 
would remain at 30 hours.
  That was the agreement that was made and that we functioned under in 
2013 and in 2014. Fast-forward to today. A historic new precedent has 
been set for any President coming in. It was absolutely not done by 
Republicans in the past, and it was absolutely not done by Democrats in 
the past, but it is being done now.
  Right now, there are 67 judges pending and 139 executive nominees 
pending--139. In just the past year and a few months, Democrats have 
requested 85 cloture votes--that is asking for an additional 30 hours 
of debate time.
  They can say: Well, these nominees need to be vetted. These are all 
nominees who have already gone through the committee process, have 
already waited in line. There has been a tremendous amount of vetting. 
Even if this was additional vetting--an additional 30 hours of debate 
on the floor--for most of these nominees by far, there has been less 
than an hour of actual debate on the floor for these individuals, but 
30 hours has been requested. It is not 30 hours of debate. In fact, 
just over the past couple of weeks, we have had district court judges, 
and they have had a demand for a cloture vote on them, and we had less 
than 15 minutes of additional debate time for those individuals on the 
floor, but 30 hours had to be allocated. There was less than 15 minutes 
of actual debate on that person.
  This is not about vetting. That is a good line for the media. That is 
a good line for the base. This is about slowing down the Senate. This 
is about slowing down the process.
  Again, giving a side-by-side, the minority leader said that this is 
about keeping intact the power of the minority, that the power of the 
minority needs to be maintained in the Senate. I totally agree. That is 
why I am trying to work this through a normal rules process--the same 
rule the minority leader supported on the Rules Committee in 2013 and 
the same rule he voted for on the floor. The only difference now is 
that it is not Democrats in power, it is Republicans in power. 
Republicans joined Democrats in 2013 to be able to put this in place, 
but for some reason, now that Republicans are in power, Democrats are 
saying that this is an onerous rule that will take away the power of 
the minority.
  The only real thing that has changed here--other than that now the 
Republicans are in control rather than Democrats--is one other thing; 
that is, the nuclear option. When Senator Reid and Senator Schumer put 
in place the nuclear option at the end of 2013, at that time, there 
were 20 judges pending and 56 executive nominations. But they 
unilaterally changed the rules of the Senate to be able to drop down 
nominations from 60 to 51 because they were so frustrated that there 
were 20 judges pending and 56 executive nominations. May I remind my 
colleagues that right now there are 67 judges pending and 139 executive 
nominations pending.
  The minority was so frustrated when they were in the majority that 
they had to go nuclear and unilaterally change the rules in November of 
2013, even after Republicans joined them in January of 2013 to change 
the cloture rules because there were 20 judges pending. Yet now there 
are 67 judges pending. At that time, there were 56, so they went 
nuclear on the executive nominations. Now there are 139.
  Listen, this is not an argument that I am trying to make based on a 
partisan issue. I am trying to go back to the agreement that was made 
in 2013, which was a bipartisan agreement. That worked for that time 
period. Republicans and Democrats supported it, and it worked. We 
actually had a process that was in place. I am asking to take that 
Democrat-written document and say: Let's make that the rule from here 
on out--not just for this session but from here on out--so that we 
would have consistency whether Republicans or Democrats are in control.
  All I am asking is that Democrats vote again now for the same thing 
they voted for in 2013 when they asked Republicans to join them; for 
Democrats to join us and to say: Let's make this the clear rule for 
everyone. That is the history that I think needs to get into this 
conversation.
  Quite frankly, I am not asking for something radical. I am trying to 
do a rules change the right way, by the rules as they are written, 
going through the Rules Committee and having a hearing, which we had in 
December, having a markup in the Rules Committee, and bringing it to 
the floor of the Senate and actually implementing a rules change. If 
there is another proposal we want to consider, I will be glad to have 
that conversation.
  I am not looking to make it contentious; I am trying to actually 
solve a bad precedent because the precedent that has been set by the 
minority party right now will be the new precedent when the next 
President comes. So the next time there is a Democratic President, I 
can assure my colleagues that Republicans will say: We will just do the 
same thing the Democrats did to the Republican President--we will do 
that to the next Democratic President. And year after year, this toxic 
environment will get worse. The only way to dial back the volume is to 
actually fix the rules to make sure they stay fair for everyone.
  Again, this is not a partisan move for me; this is trying to get the 
Senate to actually function and work again.
  This rule change that was done in 2013--Senator Reid and Senator 
McConnell came to the floor of the Senate and had a colloquy, and in 
that colloquy, Senator Reid said:

       It is our expectation that this new process for considering 
     nominations as set out in this order will not be the norm--

  That is, asking for additional time for every person--

     but that the two leaders will continue to work together to 
     schedule votes on nominees in a timely manner by unanimous 
     consent, except in extraordinary circumstances.

  Those were Senator Reid's comments. But now, this has been invoked 
more than 80 times by the minority just this year. There have not been 
80 extraordinary circumstances. Quite frankly, many of these 
individuals waited out additional time for cloture and then they were 
confirmed almost unanimously. They weren't controversial; it was about 
slowing down the Senate.
  Let's get this fixed. When the Senate is broken--and it is certainly 
broken in process right now--the Senators can fix the Senate by fixing 
our own rules. That is what I am encouraging our body to do. I do 
understand the history--although the minority leader is right, I wasn't 
here when the nuclear option was imposed. When Democrats did the 
historic change to the Senate rules, unilaterally--I wasn't here then. 
Senator Schumer did support that and did make a radical change at that 
time. I have to read about that history. But I can tell my colleagues 
that we can fix our future--and not just for Republicans but for the 
country--if we actually fix this rule change for the future.
  With that, I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The majority leader.

                          ____________________