[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 155 (2009), Part 11]
[Senate]
[Page 14477]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                              NOMINATIONS

  Mr. REID. Mr. President, we have 25 nominations the Republicans have 
held up. They are important. I was visited by Secretary Salazar 
regarding Hilary Tompkins, who is somebody he needs. She would be a 
lawyer for the Interior Department. She has a great education and 
background. That was cleared yesterday, and then the Republicans said 
no.
  We have numerous people. For the Sentencing Commission, there is 
William Sessions of Vermont. We hear that is being held up because 
Senator Leahy is from Vermont and they don't like the way Chairman 
Leahy is handling the Judiciary Committee. That is what we have been 
told. We also have Harold Koh. I heard on Monday, day before yesterday, 
from Secretary Clinton that this is somebody she needs very badly. Mr. 
Koh is going to be the lawyer for the State Department. We have a 
number of people under the auspices of the judiciary, and we can go 
through these. We have somebody who is going to help run the Department 
of Homeland Security, Rand Beers, who is well-qualified and a good 
person. The topper of them all is LTG Stanley McChrystal to be the man 
who runs Afghanistan.
  I hope people will search their consciences and try to get these 
done. I cannot file cloture on every one of these. So that people 
watching this will understand our Senate procedure, it takes days for 
us to do that. With 25 nominations held up, it would take all summer--
until we finish the July recess and beyond that--for us to get this 
done, filing cloture on every one of these. I hope it doesn't come to 
that.

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