[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 152 (2006), Part 1]
[Senate]
[Page 1429]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]


                         EXECUTIVE NOMINATIONS

  Mr. FRIST. Mr. President, over the last several weeks and months, we 
have run into a situation where executive nominations are brought to 
the floor, but they are being held up for a final vote for reasons that 
are totally unrelated to those individuals and the positions they seek.
  It has been done historically to some extent, but it is done in a way 
that one Member--not necessarily a Democrat or Republican but a Member 
in this body--uses that nomination in some way to focus attention on an 
issue or focus attention on something they need or want. Therefore, it 
can be very useful leverage for an individual Senator, but it has now 
gotten to the point that it is unfair to that individual. We have 
public servants who are dedicating their lives and have been nominated 
by the President of the United States for executive positions, and then 
they are being stopped or held up for this unrelated matter. And, 
therefore, in a systematic way we were going to address that.
  Yesterday, on one such event, I filed a cloture motion on the 
nomination of Eric Edelman to be Under Secretary of Defense for Policy. 
Mr. Edelman had been reported out of the Armed Services Committee on 
July 29 of last year, 2005--came out of that Armed Services Committee 
and has been held up by someone on the other side of the aisle since 
that time.
  In order to overcome that, I filed a cloture motion to ensure that 
the Senate was able to act on that nomination. We did that last night. 
That vote would have occurred tomorrow morning on cloture, and, because 
it is one person holding up Mr. Edelman, we would have gotten cloture 
and then it would have required a rollcall vote.
  I understand that the other side has agreed to vitiate the cloture 
vote, and has agreed to a voice vote now--this evening--instead of 
requiring that cloture vote tomorrow and a rollcall vote. Our side 
appreciates that, and I think most Senators appreciate that since the 
vote would have probably been 100 to 0 if we had that vote.
  What all this means is we will finally be able to move forward on a 
nomination, and we are not going to have to have a vote tomorrow. Some 
of my colleagues have said that we are expecting a vote tomorrow, and 
you are going to have a vote that we need to have the vote. On the 
other hand, since cloture can be vitiated with this unanimous consent, 
we will go ahead and approve it by a voice vote.
  The larger issue is we need to systematically address executive 
nominations which are being held up for unrelated reasons.
  Again, Mr. Edelman came out on July 29, and already we are in early 
February of 2006.

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