[Congressional Record Volume 170, Number 172 (Wednesday, November 20, 2024)]
[Senate]
[Pages S6644-S6645]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                          Judicial Nominations

  Mr. TILLIS. Mr. President, I would like to start by thanking Senator 
Warnock for letting me jump ahead in the speaking order today. I 
appreciate it. I am only going to take a couple of minutes.
  Yesterday, in the press report, apparently, I had reported what I 
said at lunch for the news about me talking about a simple concept. I 
don't know. I think the American people are on board with me. We have 
to show up for work, right? I think we have to.
  The reason we had 18 votes on Monday night is because some of my 
colleagues on my side of the aisle--folks, this is not a partisan--it 
is partisan. It ended up focusing on some of my colleagues. You have to 
show up for work. We have got work to do here. And I understand there 
are all kinds of good reasons. But there is no excuse to let Chuck 
Schumer force these judicial nominations down our throat.
  We have got to show up for work. What happened on Monday night only 
occurred because Republicans were not here. They are my colleagues. 
They are my friends. But they are business associates first who have a 
job of making sure that we prevent Chuck Schumer from driving a lot of 
these judicial nominations that, if we are here, won't be successful.
  The only reason we were here until midnight on Monday night is 
because some of my colleagues didn't show up. I am just saying, folks, 
this is pretty

[[Page S6645]]

simple. I have spent most of my career in business. If my senior staff 
didn't show up or my former partners at Pricewaterhouse didn't show up, 
we would find them another job.
  We get this job, whether we want it or not, unless we resign. You 
can't fire us in the midterm or in the middle of our terms. But I can 
express my concern with giving Chuck Schumer an easy way to beat 
Republicans who want to vote against and potentially defeat some of 
these very liberal judges.
  So all I am saying--so that the press gets it right--people put words 
in my mouth at a private lunch. That is OK. People do that around here. 
I don't. But let me say what I said at lunch: 90 percent of success is 
showing up. If we were here on Monday night, we wouldn't have been here 
until midnight because we would have defeated Chuck Schumer's 
opportunity to do it then.
  If we are not here every single day--I had somebody ask me: Well, 
when do I need to be there for that Fourth Circuit nominee? When is 
that vote going to occur?
  I said: When you are not here.
  We have got to show up, folks. The American people expect us to show 
up for a job. These are my friends. These are my colleagues. These are 
people I work together with. But they let me down on Monday. They 
better not let me down for the rest of the session or every time we 
fail because we failed to show up. I will be back down here to remind 
my colleagues that the American people and the people who elected us in 
our great States want us to do our jobs. You can't do your job if you 
are not here.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Ms. Cortez Masto). The Senator from Georgia.