[Congressional Record Volume 171, Number 132 (Thursday, July 31, 2025)]
[Senate]
[Pages S4961-S4962]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                              Nominations

  Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, I know all of my colleagues, Republicans 
and Democrats alike, are anxious to be able to go back home and talk to 
their constituents, perhaps have a long-delayed medical procedure or 
doctor visit, or simply take a family vacation during the traditional 
August recess.
  My Republican colleagues and I are, likewise, eager to go back home 
and talk about the benefits of the One Big Beautiful Bill. I was in 
Amarillo, TX, in the Texas panhandle on Friday, and just in having a 
back-and-forth Q&A with the folks who were there, it is evident to me 
that there is so much in the bill that it takes a while to really 
explain the benefits.
  We know we avoided a tax increase that would have totaled trillions 
of dollars, roughly benefiting $3,000 per Texas family.
  But there were other benefits that helped our agriculture community, 
things that, ordinarily, we would have put in a farm bill but made sure 
we strengthened the safety net for the folks who produce our food and 
fiber. And then there are other provisions, like the no tax on tips, no 
tax on Social Security, or overtime.
  So there is so much in the bill that is hard to communicate, which 
means we need to get back home and talk about that and why it is a 
grand slam home run for our constituents.
  But having said that, I don't believe that the Senate should leave 
town without ensuring that President Trump has his nominees and his 
team in place. We still have somewhere on the order of 140 backlogged 
nominees by this President that have been obstructed by the Democrats. 
We find ourselves really in an unprecedented situation where Democrats, 
rather than picking and choosing the nominees they choose to object to, 
have simply chosen to object to all of them, forcing us to burn a lot 
of valuable floor time that we could be using for other more 
constructive purposes and delaying President Trump who, after all, won 
the election last November, the team that he is entitled to help him 
govern and carry out his policies.
  It is absolutely unprecedented, the sort of stonewalling that we are 
up against. Our Democratic colleagues, after all, are the ones who are 
holding up this process. I know some people listening may say: Well, 
isn't this sort of partisan grid lock normal?
  The answer is no. We certainly have our fights here and that is OK, 
that is all well and good. But the reason why Republicans are 
complaining and the President is complaining about Democratic 
obstruction is that there is no precedent for objecting to nominees by 
a President by allowing either a voice vote, which is a nonrollcall 
vote, or unanimous consent when they are noncontroversial nominees.
  This chart to my left indicates that civilian nominees, as opposed to 
military nominations--which the Senate also confirms--but nonmilitary 
nominees confirmed by voice vote or on an expedited basis or unanimous 
consent during a first term.
  You see George Herbert Walker Bush. So 98 percent of his nominees to 
Senate-confirmed positions were confirmed by voice vote or unanimous 
consent. Again, Clinton, similar numbers, 98 percent. Then you get to 
George W. Bush and Barack Obama. That number dropped from 98 percent to 
90 percent. That is still a pretty good record of expediting these 
nominees, making sure that the President, whether that President be a 
Democrat or Republican, have their team on board, which is what the 
American people voted for when they were elected. Then you see when 
President Trump came along, the rules of the road were changed where 
only 65 percent of his first-term nominees were confirmed by voice vote 
or unanimous consent on an expedited basis. It literally took years for 
President Trump to get all his nominees on board because of the foot-
dragging by our Democratic colleagues back in his first term. Then you 
see what goes around comes around. Biden's nominees, roughly 57 percent 
of them, handled on an expedited basis. But what we have seen this 
term, after this most recent election, is without any precedent, as you 
can see here.
  Basically, what our Democratic colleagues are saying is we will agree 
to no confirmation votes on Trump nominees during his second term. This 
is part of what, I guess, you would call the resistance and the 
polarization of our politics and the fact that our Democrats are not 
the Democrats of old. These are radicalized people who cannot agree to 
anything, even when it really is not something that is controversial.
  Again, it is fine to disagree about things that we do disagree on. We 
see the world in a different way or we think we have different and 
better ideas about what would serve the interest of the American 
people. But to mindlessly object to President Trump's nominees and deny 
the American people the benefit of their vote in the last election is 
simply unfair. It is unfair to the American people whose interests are 
being harmed by denying these people from being in place and doing 
their job. It is unfair to President Trump, who is being denied the 
team that he is entitled to help him carry out his policies. And, 
finally, it is unfair to the nominees themselves, many of whom have 
quit their jobs, sold their business, and are simply waiting month 
after month after month to be able to be confirmed. These are people 
who are, by and large, not political partisans. They are people who are 
interested in serving their country in some capacity or another.
  Many of these nominees--I think, roughly, 30 of them--are Senate-
confirmed nominees to serve as an ambassador in our embassies around 
the world.
  I don't have to remind all of us that the world has become a much 
more dangerous place, and the idea that the United States would not 
have Senate-confirmed Ambassadors in these Embassies around the world 
is simply shooting ourselves in the foot. China and Russia and our 
other adversaries certainly have their Ambassadors working in each of 
those countries to further their interests, but the idea that the 
United States would be absent because Senate Democrats simply refuse to 
confirm these Ambassadors is really beyond the pale. It hurts not only 
the United States and our foreign policy and our diplomatic efforts, 
but it also, again, causes harm to the individuals who volunteered to 
give up their lives and their livelihoods to serve our country, just to 
be left hanging without any real hope of getting confirmed on a timely 
basis.
  We are not talking about lifetime-tenured judges. Those, obviously, 
are sort of a different category. We aren't even talking about the 
President's Cabinet, which is a handful of his most key and most 
important advisers. What we are talking about, really, are rank-and-
file people who are confirmed by a vote of the Senate.
  I personally believe that we should change the law and not require 
Senate confirmation for many of these positions. It is a formality, 
really, to have to vote on some of these nominees. For example, there 
is the Chief Counsel for Advocacy of the Small Business 
Administration--I am not sure exactly why the Senate should be voting 
to confirm at all somebody who has been nominated to that position--or 
the Director of the U.S. Geological Survey or the general counsel for 
the Veterans' Administration. But regardless of whether or not they 
should be confirmed by the Senate, they currently are required to be 
confirmed, and the Democrats simply are mindlessly obstructing the 
confirmation of these noncontroversial, really apolitical nominees.
  We also have people like the Federal Transit Administrator and the 
Director of the Amtrak Board of Directors--both waiting for 
confirmation.
  The level of partisan gamesmanship that we are currently seeing is 
really something we have never seen before. This is not healthy for the 
country, and it is not healthy for this institution.
  Again, what we have tended to see is that what goes around comes 
around. So the temptation will be, if President Trump can't get his 
team confirmed, when the next Democrat gets elected President of the 
United States, what will be the natural reaction to that President's 
nominees? Well, it is going to be to try to do to him what they did to 
President Trump. I don't think that is good for the country.
  We need to break this logjam, and we need to do it now. I believe, if 
we can't

[[Page S4962]]

reach some sort of negotiated outcome that is satisfactory to President 
Trump, then we need to either stay here or change the Senate rules. I 
believe that the status quo is unacceptable and that something has to 
give.
  The Senate Democrats are the ones who brought us to where we are 
today. They are the ones responsible for the blame. But more 
importantly than that, the American people deserve the services of 
these individuals who have been nominated for these various Senate-
confirmed positions. President Trump is entitled to his team, and this 
mindless obstruction has to come to an end now.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from North Carolina.