[Congressional Record Volume 167, Number 218 (Friday, December 17, 2021)]
[Senate]
[Pages S9274-S9279]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                             CLOTURE MOTION

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Pursuant to rule XXII, the Chair lays before 
the Senate the pending cloture motion, which the clerk will state.
  The senior assistant legislative clerk read as follows:

                             Cloture Motion

       We, the undersigned Senators, in accordance with the 
     provisions of rule XXII of the Standing Rules of the Senate, 
     do hereby move to bring to a close debate on the nomination 
     of Executive Calendar No. 528, Atul Atmaram Gawande, of 
     Massachusetts, to be an Assistant Administrator of the United 
     States Agency for International Development.
         Charles E. Schumer, Richard J. Durbin, Brian Schatz, 
           Martin Heinrich, Alex Padilla, Jacky Rosen, Margaret 
           Wood Hassan, Dianne Feinstein, Benjamin L. Cardin, 
           Richard Blumenthal, Angus S. King, Jr., Jon Ossoff, 
           Bernard Sanders, Christopher Murphy, Sheldon 
           Whitehouse, Sherrod Brown, Christopher A. Coons.

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. By unanimous consent, the mandatory quorum 
call has been waived.
  The question is, Is it the sense of the Senate that debate on the 
nomination

[[Page S9275]]

of Atul Atmaram Gawande, of Massachusetts, to be an Assistant 
Administrator of the United States Agency for International 
Development, shall be brought to a close?
  The yeas and nays are mandatory under the rule.
  The clerk will call the roll.
  The senior assistant legislative clerk called the roll.
  Mr. DURBIN. I announce that the Senator from California (Mrs. 
Feinstein), the Senator from Georgia (Mr. Ossoff), the Senator from 
Michigan (Mr. Peters), and the Senator from Vermont (Mr. Sanders) are 
necessarily absent.
  Mr. THUNE. The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator 
from North Carolina (Mr. Burr), the Senator from Arkansas (Mr. Cotton), 
the Senator from North Dakota (Mr. Cramer), the Senator from Montana 
(Mr. Daines), the Senator from Iowa (Ms. Ernst), the Senator from 
Nebraska (Mrs. Fischer), the Senator from Oklahoma (Mr. Inhofe), the 
Senator from Wisconsin (Mr. Johnson), the Senator from Wyoming (Ms. 
Lummis), the Senator from Kentucky (Mr. McConnell), the Senator from 
Kansas (Mr. Moran), the Senator from Kentucky (Mr. Paul), the Senator 
from Ohio (Mr. Portman), the Senator from Idaho (Mr. Risch), the 
Senator from South Dakota (Mr. Rounds), and the Senator from Alabama 
(Mr. Shelby).
  The yeas and nays resulted--yeas 49, nays 31, as follows:

                      [Rollcall Vote No. 506 Ex.]

                                YEAS--49

     Baldwin
     Barrasso
     Bennet
     Blumenthal
     Booker
     Brown
     Cantwell
     Cardin
     Carper
     Casey
     Collins
     Coons
     Cortez Masto
     Duckworth
     Durbin
     Gillibrand
     Hassan
     Heinrich
     Hickenlooper
     Hirono
     Kaine
     Kelly
     King
     Klobuchar
     Leahy
     Lujan
     Manchin
     Markey
     Menendez
     Merkley
     Murkowski
     Murphy
     Murray
     Padilla
     Reed
     Rosen
     Schatz
     Schumer
     Shaheen
     Sinema
     Smith
     Stabenow
     Tester
     Van Hollen
     Warner
     Warnock
     Warren
     Whitehouse
     Wyden

                                NAYS--31

     Blackburn
     Blunt
     Boozman
     Braun
     Capito
     Cassidy
     Cornyn
     Crapo
     Cruz
     Graham
     Grassley
     Hagerty
     Hawley
     Hoeven
     Hyde-Smith
     Kennedy
     Lankford
     Lee
     Marshall
     Romney
     Rubio
     Sasse
     Scott (FL)
     Scott (SC)
     Sullivan
     Thune
     Tillis
     Toomey
     Tuberville
     Wicker
     Young

                             NOT VOTING--20

     Burr
     Cotton
     Cramer
     Daines
     Ernst
     Feinstein
     Fischer
     Inhofe
     Johnson
     Lummis
     McConnell
     Moran
     Ossoff
     Paul
     Peters
     Portman
     Risch
     Rounds
     Sanders
     Shelby
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. On this vote, the yeas are 49, the nays are 
31.
  The motion is agreed to.
  The Senator from New Jersey.
  Mr. MENENDEZ. Mr. President, I rise to express my support for a 
number of foreign affairs nominations that should receive not just 
cloture votes today but should receive votes on their nomination.
  It is a long list, including Dr. Atul Gawande to be the Assistant 
Administrator for the Bureau of Global Health at the U.S. Agency for 
International Development; Mark Gitenstein to be the U.S. Ambassador to 
the European Union; Julissa Reynoso Pantaleon to be the Ambassador to 
Spain; Rahm Emanuel to be the Ambassador to Japan; Governor Jack 
Markell to be the U.S. Representative to the Organization for Economic 
Cooperation and Development; Marcela Escobari to be Assistant 
Administrator for Latin America and the Caribbean at USAID; and Marc 
Knapper to be the Ambassador to Vietnam.
  Just think about it. Think about these assignments. Think about these 
assignments and what they mean to the United States. These are quality 
nominees, people who will represent the United States at home and 
abroad with skill and dignity.
  I appreciate that the majority leader has made it a priority to 
confirm them prior to the end of the session, and I encourage all of my 
colleagues to support their nominations. But let's face it--there is 
little to celebrate when it comes to nominations in the Senate. The 
truth is that some Republicans' unprecedented obstructionism is 
straining the system to the breaking point, leaving the President 
without a team on national security positions that are critical to the 
national security and interest of the United States and the American 
people, leaving our Nation weakened--weakened. I will talk a little bit 
about that as it relates to these nominees.
  I am thrilled that we are voting today on the nomination of Dr. Atul 
Gawande. His medical background and track record in public health are 
impressive, and he is clearly superbly qualified for the role of 
Assistant Administrator for the Bureau of Global Health at USAID. But 
it should not take this long. Dr. Gawande was nominated 5 months ago.
  We are in the middle of a pandemic, a global pandemic, and he will be 
key to helping us fight COVID internationally. Do you think that our 
Republican colleagues would think it is urgent to get someone in a 
position that can help us to deal with the global COVID challenge? 
Republicans should have been pressuring us to move his nomination at 
lightning speed instead of slowing it at every turn.
  Similarly, I am pleased to support Ambassador Gitenstein to be our 
point person in Brussels. He has a long and distinguished career in 
both the public and private sectors, including previously as U.S. 
Ambassador to Romania, and is deeply committed to strengthening 
transatlantic ties.
  He should have been in Brussels weeks ago, as the President is 
working tirelessly to ensure a strong and unified European reaction if 
Russia dares to invade Ukraine. He has to do so without an Ambassador 
to the European Union. We want the European Union to be on our side and 
join with us in multilateral efforts to give Russia the consequences of 
any action militarily against Ukraine, but, you know, you need to have 
someone at the EU making the case.
  Marcela Escobari--her experience and knowledge are deeply needed at 
USAID, where she would be leading our efforts in Latin America and the 
Caribbean, regions that are facing immense challenges, from Haiti to 
Venezuela to the Northern Triangle. She was confirmed by voice vote for 
this very same position in 2016. Yet, this time around, her nomination 
has languished due to Republican holds.
  Now, we are worried about immigration, right, undocumented 
immigration coming to the country? Well, if you don't have somebody to 
help create stability in Haiti, guess what. You are going to see a lot 
more people at that southern border. If we don't deal with the Northern 
Triangle, we are going to continue to have a challenge. If we don't 
deal with the humanitarian challenges of the dictatorship in Venezuela, 
we are going to continue to see a challenge there. Shouldn't we have 
the person in charge of dealing with these challenges so that we, in 
our national interest--forget about being a good neighbor--in our 
national interest, are protected?

  Look at the other nominees. Look at the other nominees. Spain. Spain 
happens to be the head right now--one of the Spaniards happens to be 
the head of the EU's--basically their Secretary of State, their Foreign 
Minister. Wouldn't it be great to have an American Ambassador in Spain 
pressing both the Spanish and that Foreign Minister on the questions of 
Ukraine, on the questions of Venezuela, on the questions of Cuba? And I 
could go on and on. But we have nobody in Spain. Spain hasn't been the 
most forward-leading, as we would like to see them, even though they 
are involved heavily in our hemisphere, but we have no one in Spain to 
make the case.
  How about Japan? As we are trying to meet the challenge of China in 
that part of the world, we have no one in Japan to help galvanize the 
challenges that we want to meet as it relates to China--no one. We have 
a new Prime Minister in Japan. It would be great to have somebody on 
the ground already engaging with the Japanese in coordination with the 
QUAD as we deal with the challenges of China. I hear a lot of talk here 
about China, but here we are, when we could do something about it, and 
we have nothing.
  Marc Knapper to be the Ambassador to Vietnam--a country that is 
feeling the pressures and coercion of China economically and elsewise. 
Wouldn't it be great to have a U.S. Ambassador there to help 
proselytize Vietnam into our orbit as they meet the challenges of China 
in the days ahead?

[[Page S9276]]

  So, supposedly, these people are being held up in pursuit of some 
national security initiative. Yet we are putting all these other 
national security initiatives at risk in order to deal with one 
person's vision of the world and what should be done. I don't 
understand that logic. I don't know how, supposedly to promote the 
national interests of the United States and its security, you then 
create a series of risks for the United States and its national 
security across the globe. That is what is happening. That is what is 
happening. It is pretty outrageous.
  Now, I am in pain here, but these nominations have to get done. They 
have to get done. So if we are going to stay here, we are going to stay 
here, but these nominations have to get done. These people need to be 
in their positions so that we are not going to be in pain across the 
globe. Something is going to happen in one of these places, and we will 
not be there to ultimately have someone to promote our interests to 
protect ourselves.
  Let me close by saying that I didn't come to the Senate to fight 
about nominations--certainly not what I did when I aspired to come to 
the Senate. I don't think most of our colleagues did as well. We came 
here to work for our constituents, to find solutions that move this 
country forward, to make a positive difference. We need to rededicate 
ourselves to making the Senate work, to fulfilling the constitutional 
duty of advice and consent. We are not fulfilling our constitutional 
duty of advice and consent in this manner.
  Giving the President--I didn't agree with President Trump on a lot of 
his foreign policy decisions, but I voted for a lot of his nominees, 
and I didn't hold them up in any way, shape, or form, as we are seeing 
in this unprecedented fashion. He needs qualified people to help the 
Nation confront the challenges we face.
  I urge my colleagues, let's move forward. Let's expeditiously get 
these nominees out. If you don't want to vote for them, don't vote for 
them. That is fine. But don't stop the process of the advice and 
consent that ultimately is needed to put these people in the positions 
that are critical to the national security of the United States.
  With that, Mr. President, I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Louisiana.


                      Tribute to Rolfe McCollister

  Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I would like to take a few minutes to 
talk about two prominent Louisianans who are either transitioning or 
have transitioned into new ways to serve our State.
  And I am not unbiased about these individuals, as you will shortly be 
able to tell. But I think most Louisianans who are fairminded will 
agree with what I am about to say.
  The first person I want to talk about--and I have known both of these 
folks for a long time--is Rolfe McCollister.
  Rolfe did own--he has sold a number of his companies. What did he do? 
Well, let me just say generally, first, Rolfe is a very astute and 
successful business person. He is one of the most prominent, if not the 
most prominent, publisher in Louisiana.
  He started from scratch a periodical called the Baton Rouge Business 
Report, and from that, Rolfe expanded. I mean, the list of his 
publications is very impressive. He started with the Baton Rouge 
Business Report. He publishes 10/12 Industry Report, 225 Magazine, 
inRegister, Daily Report, 225 Dine, Best of 225 This Week.
  He also started a very important tradition, which is looked forward 
to in my State, called the Business Awards and Hall of Fame.
  He started the influential Women in Business, and he started the Top 
40 Under 40 list, to recognize some of our younger citizens.
  Rolfe is retiring effective at the first of the year, and despite all 
of Rolfe's success in the business world--he is also a banker and he 
does other things, all self-made. Aside from his success in the world 
of publishing and journalism, the most important thing Rolfe 
McCollister has is his passion.
  Now, he is smart. He is very intelligent, a graduate of LSU, 
extraordinary character, very dependable. If you need something done, 
you go to Rolfe. Trustworthy. But it is his passion that has most 
impressed me about Rolfe McCollister.
  I first met Rolfe in 1987. I knew of him, but I met him. Louisiana 
had elected a brand-new reform Governor, a former Congressman by the 
name of Governor Buddy Roemer.
  Like many of our reform Governors, Buddy was to serve one term. And 
when Governor Roemer took over, gosh, the State was a mess. We had, I 
think it was, a $7 or $8 billion budget. We had a $1.1 billion 
structural deficit. When Governor Roemer became Governor, we couldn't 
make payroll. Our schools were a mess. We had no charter schools in 
Louisiana. Our universities were floundering. And when you don't have 
adequate funding, universities tend to cannibalize each other. They 
were all competing for the dollars. It was like Lebanon; you didn't 
know which faction was going to be the winner today.
  Our campaign finance in Louisiana was a mess. At that time, it was 
legal, and not out of the ordinary, for somebody to put $200,000 cash 
in a suitcase and take it to a political candidate, and it was 
perfectly legal for that candidate to take it and perfectly legal for 
that donor to give it.
  Governor Roemer set out to try to fix some of these problems, and by 
his side was Rolfe McCollister, not in a paid position.
  I was working for Governor Roemer then as his lawyer. Rolfe just 
spent all his time helping, and we needed him, because Governor Roemer 
would listen to him, and Rolfe was there every step of the way.
  And after Governor Roemer got beat, Rolfe didn't stop. He has never 
stopped. He has been a leader in the charter school movement in 
Louisiana for as long as I can remember. He believes that competition 
makes all of us better, and it will make our public schools better.
  He did a stint on the LSU board of supervisors, which runs our 
flagship university, LSU. Rolfe didn't ever hold back. I mean, he said 
exactly what he thought about what was working at LSU and what wasn't 
working, and Rolfe made a lot of people mad.
  But Rolfe always believed, as did Governor Roemer, and, frankly, as 
do I--I learned a lot from both of them--that if you make the right 
people mad, you are doing your job. And this was all because of his 
passion, because he cared so much about Louisiana, to make it better. 
He didn't make any money off of it; it cost him money. And I am sure 
his family said: Hey, Rolfe, you know, can you come home a little 
earlier tonight, you know?
  But Rolfe is just a fine person, and I am very proud to have him in 
Louisiana. When I count my blessings, I count Rolfe twice, and he is 
transitioning to a new role. He sold his company to his partner, who is 
another great guy, Julio Melara. But Rolfe is going to still be 
involved in my State, and I just want to thank him.


                      Tribute to Melinda Deslatte

  Mr. President, the second person I want to mention briefly--totally 
different in terms of the way she contributes to our State--her name is 
Melinda Deslatte.
  Melinda is the new--I want to get her title right--research director, 
which is the No. 2 position at the Public Affairs Research Council.
  The Public Affairs Research Council is a big deal in Louisiana. I 
think it is our oldest think tank. It is one of the premier think 
tanks. They are not Republicans; they are not Democrats. I don't know 
what they are, except smart and straightforward.
  They periodically publish white papers, exhaustively researched, 
about issues like the environment, fiscal policy, education. Every year 
when we amend our constitution--and, unfortunately, we amend our State 
constitution just about every year--PAR puts out a publication 
explaining--not advocating for or against, but explaining--the 
amendments. I read their white papers and their writings like 
clockwork.
  The No. 2 position there is research director. So it is important. 
Melinda Deslatte is the new research director. I think Melinda has 
taken over the Public Affairs Research Council, and I am bittersweet 
about it. I am very happy for PAR because they got one of our best and 
our brightest, but I am really sad for journalism.
  Melinda ran the Associated Press in Baton Rouge for 22 years--22 
years. And, for me, the three things that you have to have to be a 
respected journalist are, first, you have got to have

[[Page S9277]]

brains. Melinda has brains aplenty. I am not saying she is the smartest 
person I have ever met, but to paraphrase Coach Bum Phillips, the list 
she is on, it doesn't take long to call the roll.
  You have got to be willing to work very hard to be a successful 
journalist, and, boy, Melinda has a work ethic. But you have also got 
to be fair, and Melinda Deslatte was--she is now at PAR--the fairest 
journalist I have ever dealt with.
  I don't know what her politics are. I never asked her. I don't even 
know if she is in a party. And I have been on the long end and the 
short end of some of her pieces.
  She was unspinnable. By that, I mean it is not that she wouldn't 
listen. You could call Melinda. She was a great listener. You could sit 
there and talk to her and give her your speech for 20 minutes, 30 
minutes, and if she wasn't on deadline, she would listen to you. But I 
always got the impression it didn't do any good because she was so 
smart and so hard-working and so dedicated to her profession that she 
was just going to call it like she saw it, and she did. She did.
  She was not an agenda journalist. She was a real journalist. And I 
know, you know, that Melinda is probably not going to like me saying 
this. Melinda is the kind of journalist that if a politician praised 
her, you know, it is like: I must be doing something wrong here. You 
know, you don't want too much praise from politicians.
  But she has left her job. So I feel like I can do it. And she has 
gone on to another way of helping our State.
  I wish all of our journalists were Melinda Deslatte. I wish all of 
them were Melinda Deslatte.
  But, anyway, thank you, Rolfe. Thank you, Melinda. Thank you both for 
giving so much to Louisiana.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Ms. Cortez Masto). The clerk will call the 
roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mrs. BLACKBURN. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the 
order for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.


                     Democratic Legislative Agenda

  Mrs. BLACKBURN. Madam President, I am looking around this Chamber, 
and I am talking to my colleagues, and it is so apparent; we should not 
be here right now. Our business should be done. We have had all year.
  We should have wished one another well last week, and then we should 
have gotten ourselves home to our families, to our church families, to 
our neighbors and friends. And right now, I should be in Tennessee 
wishing Tennesseans well for this Christmas season.
  But with the way things are going, I am beginning to believe that Joe 
Biden and the Democrats do not wish the American people well because 
the fact is, everything they have done this year, in some way, shape, 
or form, has made life harder for Americans and for Tennesseans, and it 
has taken away just a little bit more of their freedom.
  I was talking with a Tennessean last night, and they were making this 
point to me about the gains that they had seen during Republican 
control of the House and the Senate and the Trump administration and 
being able to keep more of their money in their pocket. This was a 
veteran who talked about our standing in the world. Our allies knew 
they could trust us. Our enemies, indeed, feared us. All of that is 
gone. Life is harder; life is more uncertain; it is less predictable; 
inflation is through the roof.
  As Tennesseans have turned on the news this week, they have heard an 
avalanche of news reports holding one or two Members of this body 
responsible for ``obstructing the democratic process''--something that 
sounds pretty scary when it is taken out of context, doesn't it?
  In my opinion, I consider it media malpractice to blame one or two 
Members of this Chamber for a year's worth of bad-faith delays because 
Members have asked for a vote on certain national security issues, and 
the Senate should have weighed in on these issues long ago. The Senate 
has had the time. The leadership has had the time. So, no, that 
narrative cannot stand.
  All these delays and all this strife is the natural conclusion of the 
Democrats' single-minded obsession with their reckless tax-and-spending 
spree.
  My colleagues on the left have, indeed, squandered months trying to 
strong-arm their moderate colleagues into rubberstamping what I call 
their ``Build Back Broke'' agenda. It is so toxic that even economists 
who many times are friendly with the White House have turned their 
backs on the proposal. Even they deem it socialist in nature.
  This month, we have reaped the consequences of their obsession in the 
form of 6.8 percent inflation. It is already at a 40-year high. It is 
still ticking up. Gas prices are increasing. Food is costing more. 
Warehouses are being cleared out. One hundred and seventy cargo ships 
are still off the coast of California, 150 miles out.
  But yet, until a few hours ago, really, the Democrats were pushing 
for final passage on a spending bill that would make things even 
worse--would make it worse. It is not $1.75 trillion; it is $5 
trillion. It is not paid for. It is not, ``Oh, it doesn't cost a 
dime''; it costs $3 trillion. That is the conservative estimate.
  If you look back through the record, you will find almost no help for 
our supply chains that I mentioned that are all backed up, and you will 
find at least one terrible mistake that made the bad situation worse.
  Joe Biden's vaccine mandates started inflicting damage on the economy 
and our supply chains well before the courts started throwing up their 
roadblocks, and thank goodness the courts are backing where the 
American people are on this mandate issue.
  In Tennessee, these foolish mandates could cost businesses more than 
$70 million and force 37 percent of our labor force out of work.
  My Democratic colleagues, however, have wasted hours here on the 
Senate floor defending what is truly a blatant power grab. Does it make 
the lives of Tennesseans and Americans better? Absolutely not. It makes 
them worse.

  They have somehow neglected to acknowledge that these mandates don't 
reach as far as our southern border. Isn't it amazing? In fact, most of 
the policies they are so eager to force on the American people that are 
making their lives worse evaporate once you hit the border, which is 
even more chaotic now than it was on day 1 of the Biden administration.
  If you look back on the past year, you will find little in the way of 
assistance for our Border Patrol agents and other law enforcement 
officers. Oh, no, can't do that. Oh, no, let's reinvent the police. 
Let's reinvent law enforcement. Oh, no, we can't put more assets on the 
southern border to defend our sovereignty. It makes you believe that 
the Democratic Party is pleased with the chaos that they are seeing in 
border communities all across that southern border.
  What my friends across the aisle have done is basically to hand 
power, control, and billions of dollars to those cartels. And they have 
opened up their arms, and they have welcomed now right at 2 million 
people to illegally enter this country. No vaccine mandates apply to 
them. Oh, no, sir, not at all--preference. Let's go ahead. They can go 
through a separate TSA line when they get on a plane with a taxpayer-
funded plane ticket. And all the time, the lives of Americans under 
this administration, they are not as well off as they were a year ago. 
Their life is not as comfortable as it was a year ago.
  Now, if security was even an inkling of a priority with my 
colleagues, if security had any importance at all, securing this 
Nation--you know, it is kind of one of the first things we are supposed 
to do, provide for the common defense. But this week, we finally got 
around to passing the NDAA. How about that? Finally got it done.
  Now, we wouldn't have had to wait until this week to take the threat 
of what I call the ``axis of evil'' seriously--the threats coming from 
Russia, China, Iran, North Korea. I can assure you, they are watching 
us very closely, and they are keeping up with what we are doing to 
protect this Nation.
  Why are they so aggressive right now? They are looking at Joe Biden, 
and they are saying, He is weak, he is not going to do anything to push 
back on us. You know, he talked about a few economic sanctions with 
Russia, but Putin is not worried about that. How

[[Page S9278]]

about sanctioning, stopping trade, sanctioning so many other areas, 
stopping the Nord Stream 2--how about that--to show that we are going 
to deal with them as they, an adversary of ours, deserve to be dealt 
with?
  We don't do any of that. Oh, no, let's not make Xi Jinping mad. Let's 
not do anything like that. Let's not call him into account. Let's let 
him keep carrying out that genocide on the Uighurs. Oh, and you know, 
let's do this; let's just have a diplomatic boycott of the Olympics. 
But go ahead and let our corporations, let our TV networks and their 
cameras broadcast to the world the glory of Beijing and Xi Jinping.
  Inconsistencies and weakness do not serve us well. They do not. And 
instead of looking at things that should be a priority, my colleagues 
across the aisle have kept their focus on trying to pass a gigantic 
spending bill that the American people do not want and programs they 
say we don't need.
  But the Democrats are saying that we are going to pass it by whatever 
means necessary--whatever means necessary. We are going to get this 
done. Thank goodness, we are leaving here, and it is not done.
  Now, woven into this exercise in partisan brinksmanship was an 
ongoing effort to punch holes in the very institutions that keep our 
government from collapsing into chaos. We have watched our Democratic 
colleagues fail to gain traction with policies that people haven't 
asked for and, as I said, don't want. But instead of setting their 
power grabs and wish list aside, the Democrats tried to find ways to 
crash through constitutional and institutional backstops and force 
their will on the American people.
  You hear it all the time: Time is running out. We are going to lose 
the House; we are going to lose the Senate so we have got to do this. 
We have got to transform the country.
  Well, they have gone round after round with the Supreme Court and the 
Federal court packers, the anti-filibuster crowd, and those who wish to 
attack the integrity of the ballot box. They don't want to make it 
easier to vote and harder to cheat; they are trying to make it easier 
to cheat and harder to vote. And, repeatedly, they continue to try to 
look for somebody who blame. It has got to be somebody else's fault.

  Just yesterday, we saw a wave of righteous indignation over the 
Senate Parliamentarian's refusal to allow the Democrats to shove 
amnesty for illegal immigrants into a budget bill. That is right.
  They should not have been surprised by the ruling. They tried it 
once, twice, three times, and every time, they should have known how 
this was going to end. You can't do that.
  It is almost as if all this has nothing to do with the policies 
printed on the thousands upon thousands of pages the Democrats are 
hoping nobody reads--because they feel like they have got a deadline, 
they have got to do this, time is running out. By whatever means 
necessary, let's just get it done.
  Well, there is no serious person--none--who could look at this past 
year and conclude that Joe Biden and his allies in Congress have been 
acting in good faith, doing things the people want to see done, because 
their agenda has been the opposite of that.
  That is why so many elected representatives in the House and the 
Senate are saying: Hey, I am going home, and I am talking to people. We 
are getting calls in our office. We are getting emails. People are 
speaking up. They don't like this. The more they know about what we are 
doing, the less they like it.
  There is no serious person who could look at these underhanded 
attacks on our institution and conclude that the Democrats believe more 
in the common cause of freedom than they do in passing their ``Build 
Back Broke'' agenda. They have got to have it. They have just got to 
have it.
  And no serious person could look at the past year and dispute that it 
is Joe Biden and the Democrats who were the architects of their own 
destructive agenda. And the reason we are all still here at the 
eleventh hour waiting on the majority is because they have put their 
power before the people.
  I yield the floor.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Ms. STABENOW. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Van Hollen). Without objection, it is so 
ordered.


                     Nomination of Shalina D. Kumar

  Ms. STABENOW. Mr. President, I am so pleased today to rise to speak 
about two incredibly competent women who are going to be coming before 
us for votes for the Michigan Federal district bench a little bit later 
today.
  First of all, I rise in support of the nomination of Judge Shalina 
Kumar to be the U.S. district court judge for the Eastern District of 
Michigan. During her nomination hearing, Judge Kumar spoke about her 
father, Dr. Krishna Kumar, who moved to the United States from India. 
Dr. Kumar taught all of his children to believe in themselves and that 
they could be anything if they put their minds to it, and that is just 
what Shalina Kumar has done.
  She was born in Royal Oak, MI, received her undergraduate degree from 
the University of Michigan, and graduated from the University of 
Detroit Mercy School of Law. She spent a decade in private practice 
before being appointed by Governor Jennifer Granholm to the Oakland 
County Sixth Circuit Court in 2007.
  She has since been elected by Michigan voters, and since January 
2018, Judge Kumar has served as the chief judge of the circuit court. 
During her time as a judge, Judge Kumar has presided over more than 
10,500 cases, and she has served as presiding judge of the Adult 
Treatment Court, which allows people to avoid jail time by getting 
mental health treatment, help with employment and education, which is 
so important. During her nomination hearing, Judge Kumar talked about 
the amazing transformation she sees in people and how grateful they are 
for the opportunity to contribute to society.
  She has also served as the chairperson of the Oakland County Criminal 
Assignment Committee, a member of the Michigan State Bar 
professionalism committee, and a member of the Executive Committee of 
the Michigan Judges Association.
  If confirmed, Judge Kumar would be the first Federal judge of South 
Asian descent in Michigan, and there is no doubt that her father and 
her home State of Michigan will be very, very proud. I enthusiastically 
support this nomination and hope that my colleagues will do the same.


                    Nomination of Jane M. Beckering

  Mr. President, secondly, I rise also to give strong support as well 
for the nomination of Judge Jane Beckering to be U.S. district court 
judge for the Western District of Michigan. I can think of few people 
more qualified or more respected and more ready to serve the people of 
Michigan in this new role.
  Jane Beckering is a native of West Michigan. She attended the 
University of Michigan and then the University of Wisconsin in order to 
carry on her family's legacy. Both her father and her grandfather were 
trial lawyers--two of the world's finest, according to Judge Beckering. 
They believe that America's system of justice was the best in the 
world, and they taught Judge Beckering that civility, integrity, and 
respect for others are the trademarks of the legal profession.
  Judge Beckering has spent her career upholding these ideals. During 
her more than three decades of legal experience, she has presided over 
and issued an opinion on more than 4,000 cases. Since 2007, she has 
served as a judge on the Michigan Court of Appeals and is the chief 
judge pro tempore of the court. She was first appointed to the court by 
then-Governor Jennifer Granholm and later elected by the people of 
Michigan.
  Before that, Judge Beckering was a trial attorney in Grand Rapids, 
and she has been actively involved in the West Michigan legal 
community. She has a broad range of experience in a wide range of 
cases, including multi-State commercial litigation, product liability, 
personal injury, and wrongful death cases.
  For all of these reasons, Judge Beckering was strongly supported by 
the Western District Judicial Nominations Advisory Committee. She was 
unanimously rated ``well qualified'' by

[[Page S9279]]

the American Bar Association, and she received bipartisan support in 
the Senate Judiciary Committee.
  She is just the type of person we need in the Federal judiciary, and 
I am eager for her to begin her new role. I wholeheartedly support this 
nomination and encourage my colleagues to do the same.
  Both Judge Kumar and Judge Beckering are extremely qualified and 
competent judicial nominations that are in front of us today, and I 
hope everyone will be supporting them as strongly as I am. And I know 
people in Michigan are very, very proud of both of them.
  I yield the floor.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The senior assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Ms. HASSAN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.


                       Vote on Gawande Nomination

  All postcloture time has expired. The question is, Will the Senate 
advise and consent to the Gawande nomination?
  Ms. DUCKWORTH. Mr. President, I ask for the yeas and nays.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there a sufficient second?
  There appears to be a sufficient second.
  The clerk will call the roll.
  The senior assistant legislative clerk called the roll.
  Mr. DURBIN. I announce that the Senator from California (Mrs. 
Feinstein), the Senator from Georgia (Mr. Ossoff), the Senator from 
Michigan (Mr. Peters), the Senator from Vermont (Mr. Sanders) and the 
Senator from Virginia (Mr. Warner) are necessarily absent.
  Mr. THUNE. The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator 
from North Carolina (Mr. Burr), the Senator from West Virginia (Mrs. 
Capito), the Senator from North Dakota (Mr. Cramer), the Senator from 
Montana (Mr. Daines), the Senator from Iowa (Ms. Ernst), the Senator 
from Nebraska (Mrs. Fischer), the Senator from Oklahoma (Mr. Inhofe), 
the Senator from Wisconsin (Mr. Johnson), the Senator from Wyoming (Ms. 
Lummis), the Senator from Kentucky (Mr. McConnell), the Senator from 
Kansas (Mr. Moran), the Senator from Kentucky (Mr. Paul), the Senator 
from Ohio (Mr. Portman), the Senator from Idaho (Mr. Risch), the 
Senator from South Dakota (Mr. Rounds), and the Senator from Alabama 
(Mr. Shelby).
  The result was announced--yeas 48, nays 31, as follows:

                      [Rollcall Vote No. 507 Ex.]

                                YEAS--48

     Baldwin
     Barrasso
     Bennet
     Blumenthal
     Booker
     Brown
     Cantwell
     Cardin
     Carper
     Casey
     Collins
     Coons
     Cortez Masto
     Duckworth
     Durbin
     Gillibrand
     Hassan
     Heinrich
     Hickenlooper
     Hirono
     Kaine
     Kelly
     King
     Klobuchar
     Leahy
     Lujan
     Manchin
     Markey
     Menendez
     Merkley
     Murkowski
     Murphy
     Murray
     Padilla
     Reed
     Rosen
     Schatz
     Schumer
     Shaheen
     Sinema
     Smith
     Stabenow
     Tester
     Van Hollen
     Warnock
     Warren
     Whitehouse
     Wyden

                                NAYS--31

     Blackburn
     Blunt
     Boozman
     Braun
     Cassidy
     Cornyn
     Cotton
     Crapo
     Cruz
     Graham
     Grassley
     Hagerty
     Hawley
     Hoeven
     Hyde-Smith
     Kennedy
     Lankford
     Lee
     Marshall
     Romney
     Rubio
     Sasse
     Scott (FL)
     Scott (SC)
     Sullivan
     Thune
     Tillis
     Toomey
     Tuberville
     Wicker
     Young

                             NOT VOTING--21

     Burr
     Capito
     Cramer
     Daines
     Ernst
     Feinstein
     Fischer
     Inhofe
     Johnson
     Lummis
     McConnell
     Moran
     Ossoff
     Paul
     Peters
     Portman
     Risch
     Rounds
     Sanders
     Shelby
     Warner
  The nomination was confirmed.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Kelly). Under the previous order, the 
motion to reconsider is considered made and laid upon the table, and 
the President will be immediately notified of the Senate's action.

                          ____________________