[Congressional Record Volume 164, Number 74 (Tuesday, May 8, 2018)]
[Senate]
[Pages S2545-S2546]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                     Nomination of Michael Brennan

  Ms. BALDWIN. Mr. President, I rise this afternoon to urge my 
colleagues to oppose the confirmation of Michael Brennan to the U.S. 
Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit. By bringing Mr. Brennan's 
nomination forward without my support, Chairman Grassley and Leader 
McConnell are breaking with a longstanding Senate tradition that has 
guaranteed a voice for home State Senators, regardless of party, in the 
consideration of judicial nominees.
  The blue slip is an important part of this institution and its 
historic respect for the rights of each Senator, as well as the rights 
of the minority party. As the chairman of the Judiciary Committee, Mr. 
Grassley himself wrote in 2015:

       This tradition is designed to encourage outstanding 
     nominees and consensus between the White House and home State 
     Senators. Over the years, Judiciary Committee chairs of both 
     parties have upheld a blue-slip process, including [most 
     recently] Senator Patrick Leahy of Vermont . . . who 
     steadfastly honored the tradition even as some in his own 
     party called for its demise. I appreciate the value of the 
     blue-slip process and also intend to honor it.

  Today, respect for that time-honored blue slip comes to an end. Not 
only is Michael Brennan being considered on the Senate floor, but 
tomorrow the Senate Judiciary Committee will hold a hearing on a 
nominee for a traditional Oregon seat on the Ninth Circuit for whom 
neither Oregon Senator has returned a blue slip. I urge my colleagues 
to recognize that while today's action disrespects my role as the 
junior Senator from Wisconsin, tomorrow it may well be you. With the 
majority's choice to end this tradition, each of us is diminished in 
our own ability to represent the constituents who chose to send us 
here.

  I did not return a blue slip for Michael Brennan because his 
nomination does not reflect the consensus between the White House and 
home State Senators that the chairman of Judiciary Committee, Mr. 
Grassley, praised in 2015. Mr. Brennan did not receive the requisite 
support from Wisconsin's bipartisan judicial nominating commission, 
which has been used in some form for nearly four decades to identify 
candidates for Federal judgeships in my home State. Senator Johnson and 
I have worked to continue this longstanding process during my tenure in 
the Senate, and it has actually produced consensus nominees who have 
been confirmed to two vacancies on our district courts and for two U.S. 
attorney positions.
  More troubling still is a fact made clear in Mr. Brennan's answers to 
the Judiciary Committee's questionnaire; namely, that President Trump 
never intended to respect that commission's work for this vacancy. The 
White House interviewed Michael Brennan for the job on the very day our 
bipartisan nominating commission began to solicit candidates for its 
consideration.
  Chairman Grassley has made an argument that the White House engaged 
me in meaningful consultation regarding this vacancy. It is true that 
White House Counsel Don McGahn called me to inform me that Mr. Brennan 
was the President's choice. I urged him, instead, to consider consensus 
nominees who could garner bipartisan support, including Donald Schott, 
who earned the requisite support of Wisconsin's nominating commission. 
He also garnered Senator Johnson's and my blue slips in the last 
Congress as well as the support of a bipartisan majority of the Senate 
Judiciary Committee. Sadly, he didn't come up for a confirmation vote 
due to obstruction in setting the calendar--a choice by the majority 
leader. Unfortunately, instead of nominating a consensus candidate, 
President Trump chose to move forward in a partisan manner on this 
vacancy.
  Seven years ago, the U.S. Senate respected the prerogative of my 
colleague and my senior Senator, Mr. Johnson--then a newly elected 
Senator from Wisconsin--when he objected to a nominee for this very 
vacancy whose selection he had not had a role in. Mr. Brennan himself, 
at the time, coauthored an op-ed in our State's largest newspaper that 
praised Senator Johnson's refusal to return a blue slip for that 
nominee, Victoria Nourse. When President Obama made a second nomination 
for this position in 2016, I am confident Senator Leahy would not have 
allowed that nominee, Donald Schott, to have advanced in the Judiciary 
Committee without my senior Senator's blue slip.
  Today, I am not being accorded the same respect. Today, we send the 
message that neither this nor a future President needs to respect the 
role of home State Senators in the selection of judicial nominees. I 
urge my colleagues

[[Page S2546]]

to oppose this action and this nominee and this dispensing with a time-
honored tradition of this institution.
  I yield the floor.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.


                         Joint Referral--PN1884

  Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that PN1884, 
the nomination of John Lowry III, of Illinois, to be Assistant 
Secretary of Labor for Veterans' Employment and Training, sent to the 
Senate by the President, be referred jointly to the Health, Education, 
Labor, and Pensions and Veterans' Affairs Committees.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that 
notwithstanding the provisions of rule XXII, the postcloture time on 
the Engelhardt nomination expire at 12 noon tomorrow, May 9, and the 
Senate vote on confirmation of the Engelhardt nomination with no 
intervening action or debate; further, that if confirmed, the motion to 
reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table and the President 
be immediately notified of the Senate's action.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

                          ____________________