[Congressional Record Volume 165, Number 39 (Tuesday, March 5, 2019)]
[Senate]
[Page S1646]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                              Nominations

  Madam President, we will continue to push through a long list of 
executive and judicial nominations pending before the Senate.
  People may wonder, well, why are we making such an emphasis on 
nominations? That is mainly because of all of the foot-dragging and 
obstruction we have seen from our friends on the other side of the 
aisle. They have basically burned the clock and have caused many 
nominees to simply withdraw. There are not many people who can put 
their lives on hold and wait a year and a half for the Senate to act on 
their nominations, especially when it is not a controversial nomination 
in and of itself.
  This is simply a continuing reaction to President Trump's election in 
2016. Many of our colleagues simply haven't gotten over the fact that 
he won. They are just not willing to engage in the normal sorts of 
advice and consent that the Constitution calls for, nor will they let 
the President and his administration get the people they want on his 
team, even if there is not an extraordinary problem.
  Under previous administrations, we know the process to confirm 
nominees is relatively quick and unremarkable and that cloture votes 
were rarely required. As soon as you start talking about cloture votes, 
people start falling asleep, but it is actually a pretty significant 
problem.
  Cloture votes basically mean we have to burn the clock and go through 
the procedures--all of the different hoops that you have to jump 
through absent some consent or an agreement.
  As you can see, under President Trump, the Senate has had to file for 
cloture 128 times, so it has caused an extended debate, even on 
uncontroversial nominees. What is worse, even after you vote to close, 
which is what cloture is, then you still have to burn 30 hours 
postcloture, which makes it very difficult for us to do anything else 
in the Senate other than to confirm uncontroversial nominees.
  As you can see, when President Clinton was in office, in his first 2 
years of office there were only eight cloture votes on nominees. Under 
President George W. Bush, No. 43, there were only 4, and, of course, 
under President Obama, there were 12. That is a far cry from the 128 
nominees who were essentially obstructed by our colleagues across the 
aisle.
  They aren't forcing these votes because these nominees are 
controversial or because they are unqualified. Just look at one of the 
nominees we just confirmed as an example. Nearly 400 days after he was 
nominated, John Ryder was finally confirmed for a board position with 
the Tennessee Valley Authority.
  Mr. Ryder was initially nominated on February 1 of last year--more 
than a year ago. Not long after he testified before the Committee on 
the Environment and Public Works, we saw unanimous support from the 
members of the committee--bipartisan support.
  During simpler times, the process would have been pretty 
straightforward. He would have been confirmed by the full Senate 
without any valuable floor time. He probably would have been confirmed 
by consent or by a voice vote, which would not have burned all of this 
valuable floor time, which is necessitated when you have to file for 
cloture. It is now clear that these simpler, more civil, and more 
bipartisan times have gone out the window.
  Our Democratic colleagues have forced cloture on this nominee. Again, 
it is not because he is not qualified and not because he is 
controversial but because they are literally using every trick in the 
book to bring the work of the Senate to a crawl.
  It is not Republicans who are being hurt; it is the American people. 
We are here to serve the American people and not to engage in these 
sorts of political games that result in nothing.
  Sometimes we have important battles, debates, and disagreements, but 
usually they are over important principles. But here, it is just about 
burning time and making nominees wait, sometimes for a year or more 
before their nomination is even voted on.
  I am personally aware of a number of nominees who have said: Do you 
know what? No more. I have a life to live. I can't put my life on hold 
waiting for the Senate to vote on my nomination, even if it is not 
going to be controversial.
  I am afraid we will see the Democrats' political theater continue. 
One of the nominees we will soon be voting on is John Fleming of 
Louisiana, who has been nominated as Assistant Secretary of Commerce 
for Economic Development.
  Mr. Fleming's nomination was first received by the Senate in June of 
last year. Again, the committee held a hearing and favorably reported 
out his nomination within 6 weeks. Here we are, 7 months later, and he 
still hasn't been confirmed because the only way our Democratic 
colleagues will allow that is by going through this long and laborious 
procedure of filing for cloture and burning hours on the clock.
  Again, under previous administrations, a nominee for this sort of a 
position would be confirmed with little or no fanfare and certainly 
without sitting on the calendar for 7 months.
  Again, this isn't about Republicans versus Democrats. Honestly, this 
is about punishing the American people and these nominees who want to 
serve by keeping them hanging and forcing them to wait more than a year 
before they are confirmed. This, again, is part of the ``Never Trump'' 
syndrome, part of the Trump derangement syndrome that seems to be an 
epidemic here inside the beltway.
  I personally see no reason these games should continue to play out, 
and that is why I am an advocate for the proposed rule changes to 
expedite the process.
  These expedited changes we will make is something that, if the shoe 
were on the other foot and we had a Democratic President, Republicans 
could gladly live with. This isn't about gaining some advantage by a 
rules change; this is simply about returning the Senate to some sense 
of normalcy.