[Congressional Record Volume 165, Number 36 (Wednesday, February 27, 2019)]
[Senate]
[Pages S1506-S1507]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                         Prosposed Rules Change

  Mr. LANKFORD. Mr. President, 2 years ago, I came to this floor of the 
Senate to talk about the rules process and nominations in particular 
because, even 2 years ago, we were experiencing the beginning of what I 
saw to be a trend.
  When elected to office, every President has about 1,200 nominations 
that have to come through the Senate for what is called advice and 
consent. Those individuals go through background checks at the White 
House, they go through interviews through the White House, and they go 
through the extensive review of references. Then they are recommended 
to the respective committees here, where they again go through 
background checks, have conversations, interviews, public hearings, 
questions for the record after the hearings are over, and go through 
any followup from any individual American who wants to give input 
whether that input be from outside groups here or from anywhere else in 
the country. Then they come to the floor of the Senate.
  In the past, those individuals moved through quickly because there 
were 1,200 of them, but the minority has always had the right to have 
one last, little slowdown when they have gotten to the floor. They can 
make what is called a cloture vote request. The minority--any 
individual--could always make a request for a cloture vote to say: I 
know they have gone through all of these extensive checks, that they 
have already passed the committee, that they have gone through all of 
the process, but at the end, I want an additional 30 hours of debate on 
these people. Yet it is not just 30 hours of debate; it is actually 
what is called a full intervening day. After that, there is an 
additional 30 hours of debate for that person.
  That has been done in the past but very rarely in the first 2 years 
of a Presidency because there are so many nominations that have to go 
through the process. If we go back to President Clinton, there were 
eight of those requests. For President Bush, there were four of those. 
For President Obama, there were 12 of those. For President Trump, there 
have been 128 of those.
  Two years ago, I saw the trend of where this was heading. This was a 
new structure for the beginning of a Presidency. I was concerned at 
that time, but I have an even greater concern now. It is the trend of 
where we are headed as a Senate. Is this going to be the new normal? 
This used to be what was normal: Occasional nominees would come through 
if they were very controversial. Yet most of these nominees were not 
really all that controversial. In fact, 48 percent of those nominees 
who had the additional cloture time then got more than 60 votes. In 
fact, 37 percent of them got more than 70 votes. These were not 
controversial individuals coming through; it was just an intentional 
slowing down of the process.
  I have heard folks say: There are so many of these judges who are 
coming through at the district court level that they become very 
controversial.
  Quite frankly, every single judge who comes through has to be 
approved by the two Senators from that State through what is called the 
blue-slip process. This is for all of those district court judges. It 
is a process that has been honored by previous administrations and by 
this administration. This Senate has honored those same blue slips for 
all of the district court judges. If the judges are from a Democratic 
State, both of those Democratic Senators have to approve of them before 
they come. If the judges are from a State that has one Democrat and one 
Republican, it has to be split. If there are two Republicans, they both 
have to agree to it. This is for all of the district court judges. Yet 
they are still being slowed down. They have gone through the background 
checks, and they have been approved by their home State Senators 
regardless of party; yet they are slowed down.
  So whether they are executive nominees or whether they are judicial 
nominees, these 128 individuals being slowed down has created a new 
slowdown in the Senate.
  Two years ago, I made a proposal to go back to something that Harry 
Reid proposed and was passed by this Senate in 2013, which was long 
before I was here. It was a 2-year agreement to just say: Here is how 
we are going to deal with what is called postcloture debate time. If 
there is a controversial nominee, here is how we will handle it.
  I went to my colleagues and said: Let's revive that rule. Instead of 
making it for 2 years, which was the Harry Reid rule, let's just make 
it from here on out. I made that proposal in the last Senate. We took 
that to the Rules Committee. It passed the Rules Committee, but it 
could not pass on this floor.
  I thought it was eminently kind and bipartisan to say that I would go 
back and grab Harry Reid's rule and that if it was good for the 
Democrats when they were in the leadership, it should be good for 
everybody regardless of whether it is the Republicans or the Democrats. 
It did not pass.
  I have once again come back and made a proposal to say let's fix this 
and to not just fix this for now but to fix this from here on out. 
Whether there will be a Democratic President or a Republican President 
in the future, let's have a simple rule: If we get to a nominee who has 
gone through the background checks of the White House, has gone through 
the committee and passed the committee, and has gone through additional 
questions for the record--all of that--if people still want additional 
time, they can still request the intervening day, but then instead of 
30 hours after that full day, it would be just 2 hours of additional 
time.
  Quite frankly, during most of the time that we have had the 30 hours 
of debate, there hasn't really been debate on the floor for 30 hours; 
there has been debate on the floor for, say, 15 or 20 minutes. For the 
rest of the time, the floor has sat empty or we have debated other 
things other than the nominee.
  So we would set aside 2 additional hours. We would do this for 
district court judges, and we would do this for most of the nominees 
for the executive branch, but we would still hold that 30 hours for 
things like nominees for the circuit court, the Supreme Court, and 
those at the Cabinet level. For those types of positions, sure, keep 
the 30 hours, but for the other 1,000-plus nominees who are to be the 
Deputy Secretaries or assistants of whatever it may be, allow them to 
go through the normal process and not slow it down.
  The Chief Counsel for the IRS has not been confirmed. He went through 
the last Congress, but he didn't get there. He passed 25 to 2 out of 
committee. He passed 26 to 2 out of committee this time; yet there is a 
requirement of 30 additional hours of debate on the floor. He will 
probably pass overwhelmingly, but it is just a tactic to slow down this 
floor.
  We have a lot of business to do. Let's make a rule that is fair, and 
let's make it work for everyone. My concern is, long-term for the 
Senate, this will be the new trend, and the next time there is a 
Democratic President, this is what Republicans will do to Democratic 
Presidents, and this will be the new way that we operate.
  This isn't helpful for any President; this isn't helpful for the 
Senate; and this is something we need to fix.
  We have 2 years of muscle memory on this now--of doing it over and 
over

[[Page S1507]]

and over. I don't think this gets better because I think the political 
pressure will be there just to keep doing this and slowing things down 
for everybody.
  So we put a rule out there. It has gone through the Rules Committee. 
I have encouraged my Democratic colleagues to join in with this because 
there will be a Democratic President someday in the future, and they 
will not want this coming back at them and will say this is unfair, and 
I will agree. But it will happen, so let's fix it now. Let's resolve 
this in this Senate in this time from here on out--not a short-term 
rule but long-term, permanent--to take us back to this being the norm, 
when we could work better together.
  I love hearing everyone say that we should be more bipartisan as a 
body. I would love to get this body working again. That is this 
proposal. This proposal is not a partisan proposal. It is not trying to 
get leverage on anybody. It is trying to get this body back to working 
again, and I hope in the weeks ahead, when this rule actually comes to 
the floor of the Senate, we can get overwhelming bipartisan support for 
it so that we can get back to working together.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Michigan.