[Congressional Record Volume 171, Number 133 (Friday, August 1, 2025)]
[Senate]
[Pages S5179-S5180]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                              Nominations

  Mr. BARRASSO. Mr. President, I rise today to shine a spotlight on 
what the Democrats are doing in terms of unprecedented obstruction--
obstruction to the Senate nominating process.
  The nomination process has been ground to a halt as a result of the 
Democrats. Today, like every other day this Congress, Senate 
Republicans will burn hours of floor time on votes that for every other 
President of the United States would have taken only seconds until now.
  President Trump is the only President in modern history not to have a 
single nominee confirmed by voice vote or unanimous consent--not a 
single one. Even the most routine nominations are being filibustered. 
Positions that usually just fly through the Senate by voice vote or 
unanimous consent are now being treated and taken as political 
hostages.
  This isn't normal. This is petty partisan politics at its worst. And 
it is petty.
  Let me tell you the facts that the Senate Democrats don't want the 
American people to hear. George Herbert Walker Bush, President of the 
United States, 98 percent of his nominees were confirmed by a voice 
vote or unanimous consent. Bill Clinton, President of the United 
States, 98 percent of his nominees were confirmed by voice vote or 
unanimous consent. George W. Bush, President of the United States, 90 
percent of his nominations were confirmed by voice vote or unanimous 
consent. President Barack Obama, 90 percent of his nominees were 
confirmed by voice vote or unanimous consent. Then President Trump took 
office in his first term and Democrats' obstruction began. The numbers 
dropped from 90 percent under President Obama to 65 percent under 
President Trump in that first term. Remember, today it is zero. It was 
65 percent in his first term. Even Joe Biden, a President the 
Republicans strongly opposed, had 57 percent of his nominations 
confirmed by voice vote or unanimous consent.
  Republicans did not sabotage each and every Biden Ambassador and 
every Biden Under Secretary simply out of spite. No. Over half were 
confirmed by unanimous consent. Today, Democrats are obstructing simply 
for the sake of obstruction. Senate Democrats continue to stonewall the 
Senate nomination process and to slow-walk every single one of 
President Trump's nominees.
  So I have a copy of today's list. Here we are. I have the Executive 
Calendar for Friday, August 1, 2025, with totally routine nominees for 
positions who sailed through the Senate for every other President. Yet 
Senate Democrats have demanded cloture votes for every single one.
  I would ask a single Democrat in this Chamber, without mentioning 
President Trump's name, tell me why, on the schedule today, the legal 
advisor for Advocacy for the Small Business Administration is somehow 
controversial.
  Last night, right here, when we were doing cloture votes, a Democrat 
came in. One of the Republican Senators, after that Democrat voted no, 
said: Who did we vote on?
  The Democrat Senator said: I don't know.
  Well, what is wrong with him?
  I don't know.
  What is the position?
  I don't know.
  Well, you just voted no on him. Why was that?
  Oh.
  He was nominated by President Trump. That was the only reason that 
that nominee got a negative vote from the Democrat.
  That is what is happening. That is what we are seeing here, and that 
is what the Democrats continue to do. Why should this nominee be held 
up in filibuster? The Democrats can't tell you why. They have no idea 
why, other than that the nomination was made by President Trump. This 
isn't about the qualifications of the nominees. This isn't about 
questioning their resumes or their past histories. This is just 
resisting President Trump.
  Automatic Democrat obstruction doesn't make our communities safer. It 
doesn't make our country stronger. It doesn't make families and small 
businesses more prosperous. It just wastes time and weakens America.
  Well, despite the Democrats' wall of obstruction, Senate Republicans 
are continuing to press forward. We have, so far, confirmed 120 
nominees since President Trump's second term began. We are doing it one 
at a time, 1 day at a time, 1 vote at a time, 1 nominee at a time. The 
good news is we have confirmed twice as many positions and nominees in 
President Trump's second term compared to his first term.
  Let's be clear: Republicans are not backing down. We are going to 
continue to confirm President Trump's nominees the easy way if we can, 
the hard way if we must. The American people elected President Trump 
and the Senate Republicans to get America back on track. After 4 years 
of high prices and open borders under the Democrats, they expect this 
President to have his team in place, and that is what the Senate 
Republicans will continue to do.
  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.
  Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, the Senator from Wyoming was just on the 
floor and spoke about the schedule of business here in the U.S. Senate, 
particularly the question of nominations. Senator Barrasso is my 
friend. We disagree on a lot of political things, but we respect one 
another, and I certainly respect him.
  There is an important chapter that he just left out of recounting the 
history of the nominations process in the Senate. I call it the JD 
Vance chapter.
  Listen to this: When Donald Trump was in his first term, he nominated 
over 90 U.S. attorneys. Every one of them passed with a voice vote, 
with the possible exception of one in Massachusetts. Every one of these 
passed with a voice vote. In other words, we didn't require any 
rollcalls. We filled these vacancies for U.S. attorneys.
  Then came Joe Biden. Under the Biden Presidency, a decision was made 
by one Senator, JD Vance of the State of Ohio. He came along and said: 
I no longer will allow you--it is my right as a Senator to stop it. I 
will no longer allow you to have a nominee for U.S. attorney go through 
without a rollcall.
  That sounds like a very minor request, but with potentially over 90 
of these rollcalls, we found ourselves backed up in a situation where 
we couldn't approve any U.S. attorneys. We didn't have the time on the 
calendar to do it because of the JD Vance requirement.
  I came to this floor--this very spot--eight times, pleading with 
then-Senator JD Vance: Please, don't do this. We have comity and 
understanding on U.S. attorneys. We did under Trump in his first term, 
and we certainly did in the early stages of Biden, but now you are 
requiring rollcall votes on each of the U.S. attorneys, and it is going 
to create an obstacle to progress on the floor of the Senate. Eight 
times I came to the floor, asking unanimous consent for Senator Vance 
to withdraw this demand. He refused each time.
  Then he went off to run for Vice President, and while he was gone, 
running for Vice President, I came to the

[[Page S5180]]

floor again and asked the Republicans who were remaining in the Senate 
Chamber to allow me unanimous consent that nominees for U.S. attorneys 
will not go through this rollcall process. Unfortunately, a number of 
now-sitting U.S. Senators on the Republican side came to the floor and 
objected. They wanted to keep the Vance rule in place. I warned them 
that the obstacles they were creating under President Biden that were 
unprecedented and had not been seen under President Trump in his first 
term would come back to haunt all of us, and now they have.

  This requires us to sit down at some point and have an understanding 
moving forward not just on nominees and whether there are rollcalls on 
the floor but on fundamental and basic questions as to whether or not a 
minority position, for example, on an important Agency or council is 
going to be respected.
  What the Trump administration has done, for example, in many places 
on commissions and in Agencies is to eliminate the Democrats--to fire 
them from their jobs--and leave vacancies unfilled. Then the 
Republicans come to us and say: Well, we have Republican nominees for 
the spots, the Republican spots.
  And we say: What about the Democratic nominees?
  They say: We are not going to allow you to call any of those.
  There has got to be some understanding and comity, and we think that 
grown-ups should be able to resolve this issue, but the representation 
of what our problem is this morning did not include those two elements 
and many others. I hope we can resolve this in a favorable way for the 
benefit of the American people, but there is a history behind it. 
Fundamentally, we are in the minority now on the Democratic side, and 
we don't believe that the rules that the Republicans insist on should 
be to their benefit only; they should benefit both political parties. 
Unfortunately, we are in a position where that is not happening.