[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
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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.
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