[Congressional Record Volume 171, Number 134 (Saturday, August 2, 2025)]
[Senate]
[Pages S5498-S5499]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                              Nominations

  Mr. CASSIDY. Mr. President, Americans want Congress to deliver. 
Americans want Congress to work. They want Congress to not just work as 
in being here but work as in collaborate and cooperate in order to get 
things done. But the reason there are such low expectations is because 
of days like today.
  My colleagues--are they proud of this? Is this what they think their 
constituents want?
  If you go back to any State and talk to, like, normal people--
Democrat, Republican--they probably all agree that

[[Page S5499]]

this place worked better. So why do my Democratic colleagues seem 
intent on undermining the normal operating procedure of the Senate, 
frankly grinding us to a halt? Who is asking them to do this? If they 
go to the States, are their Democrat voters saying: Hey, listen, can 
Congress do a worse job? Can you become even less effective?
  Now, if you would be too embarrassed to ask your own constituents, 
you should be embarrassed now.
  We are 7 months into President Trump's administration, and we have 
approved zero percent of his nominees by voice vote or unanimous 
consent.
  You may say: Well, that is not anything strange.
  No, it is quite strange. You can see that under H.W. Bush, 98 percent 
of the nominees were voice vote or unanimous consent; President 
Clinton, a Democrat, 98 percent; George W. Bush, 90 percent; Barack 
Obama, 90 percent; Trump 1--if you don't like Trump, you could have 
stopped then--65 percent; and then President Biden, 57 percent. I guess 
there has been a decline, but this is an abrupt stop.
  It is frustrating. Zero percent. Zero percent.
  Now, we would all like to be with our families. We would like to be 
meeting our constituents. We would like to find out what is going on in 
our own districts. But we are having to battle this in order to get 
some of President Trump's nominees through.
  By the way, as others have emphasized, these are not controversial 
nominees. This is like the Ambassador to the Vatican. That is about as 
noncontroversial as you can be. These are like not the Cabinet 
Secretary, not the Deputy Cabinet Secretary, but a couple positions 
below that. So this is obstruction for the sake of obstruction.
  The other thing that concerns me terribly--Roy Blunt, a former 
Senator from Missouri, used to say that whatever one party does to the 
other party, that party will do it to the other going forward, which is 
to say that we create precedents in this Chamber. We have always had a 
precedent of having a significant percentage of people who have been 
confirmed by voice vote or unanimous consent, as we just pointed out on 
this chart. But now we have to grind, grind, grind--2 hours of debate 
between when someone is first put up until there is a final vote. But 
no one in the Chamber debates; it is just that for 2 hours, you find 
something to do. That will set a precedent.
  Now, I love the Senate because I love my country. And our Founding 
Fathers set up the Senate to be the place where we would come--we the 
people, with our representatives, would come and make laws that are 
beneficial for our country.
  I grew up with this incredible esteem of the Senate, and now we are 
seeing the Senate ground down, where the comity, the cooperation that 
allowed people with different perspectives to come together and find 
common ground for the benefit of our country is being exploited merely 
to delay President Trump's agenda. The Ambassador to the Vatican--
putting a stop on his nomination and then his final approval doesn't 
really stop the President's agenda.
  So it is not just shattering precedents, it is creating new ones, 
establishing a pattern where next time, if Republicans are in the 
minority, we will, unfortunately, feel motivated to create the same 
gridlock that is being created here.
  I don't know of any American who wants that. I don't know of the most 
partisan American who wants that because they know that when their side 
is in power next time, they will want to get something done.
  By the way, we are talking about the Ambassador to the Vatican. This 
is not--this is not--the Secretary of Defense. This is not--you name 
the position.
  Now, I know my Democratic colleagues care about the institution as 
much as I, and I appeal to that concern. I appeal to that sense of, we 
have to make this place work if it is going to work for the American 
people, and must be careful about what we do because it will be done 
unto us.
  I suppose this could be done in the name of resistance. I would say 
it is resistance to the will of the American people--the American 
people that want the Congress, that want the Senate to function, to get 
on to bigger and better things, to not break precedent to set a new 
precedent where, in the future, we work even less well together.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Connecticut.