“Of the Democrats who filibustered all 109 subcabinet nominees, the average Democrat debate was two minutes. 81 nominees had zero Democrat debate… In other words, the Senate Democrats declined to come to the Floor to discuss 75 percent of these subcabinet nominees…”
WASHINGTON, D.C. – U.S. Senator John Barrasso (R-Wyo.), Senate Majority Whip, today spoke on the Senate Floor about new data highlighting the unprecedented level of obstruction by Senate Democrats against President Donald J. Trump’s nominees.
In August, Senator Barrasso wrote in the Wall Street Journal about the need to update the Senate rules to end the Schumer Confirmation Shutdown.
Click HERE to watch Senator Barrasso’s remarks.
Sen. Barrasso’s remarks as prepared:
“For nine long months, the Senate Democrats have waged an unprecedented effort to slow down the Senate and delay the President from getting his team on the field. It has been an unprecedented blockade. President Trump was elected to get America back on track. And that means getting the team on the job.
“So what does Chuck Schumer, who spoke here on the Senate Floor a moment ago, have to say? He put out a press release in August, and he said that ‘historically bad nominees deserve a historic level of scrutiny.’ He has treated every nominee from President Trump as controversial, and he’s treated every nominee as an existential threat to our nation. If Senator Schumer and Senate Democrats have specific concerns with specific nominees, they should come down to the Senate Floor and discuss them and share their concerns with the American people. That’s not what’s happened.
“Here are the facts. Senate Republicans have now confirmed 109 sub-cabinet nominees. That’s in addition to the cabinet that we’ve confirmed, the judges that we’ve confirmed. Every single one of those 109 sub-cabinet nominees has been filibustered by the Democrats. Yet only seven of them received more than 10 minutes of debate on the Senate Floor. You know, when they filibuster, it consumes two hours on the Senate Floor to debate the nominees. They’ve chosen to waste the time but not to discuss the credibility of any of these nominees or their qualities for the service we will get.
“In fact, of the Democrats who filibustered all 109 sub-cabinet nominees, the average Democrat debate was two minutes. 81 nominees had zero Democrat debate. Only seven of them went for more than ten minutes. In other words, the Senate Democrats declined to come to the Floor to discuss 75 percent of these sub-cabinet nominees that ultimately were all confirmed by the United States Senate. This is in spite of the fact that each one of them required two full hours of debate.
“We’ve done all the math. We watched all the speeches. Two minutes and twelve seconds by the Democrats were consumed discussing each nominee on average. 218 hours of debate time spent on the Senate Floor – ignored by the Democrats, wasted time, couldn’t do legislation, couldn’t do other things because of this historic obstruction by the Democrats of what the American people voted for.
“For all the bluster and all the so-called historic scrutiny, the Democrats and Chuck Schumer, when it came to nominees, have been missing in action. These guys actually spent more time on the Senate Floor debating and discussing wasteful Washington spending, such as using taxpayer dollars for electric vehicles in Africa, than they did on all 109 sub-cabinet nominees combined. The Senate Democrats and Chuck Schumer froze the Senate Floor for 210 hours from doing the important public business as a result of their unprecedented blockade.
“It is time for the Senate to return to normalcy – to regular order. And that’s because there are still 145 nominees on the executive calendar that we have right here on our desk waiting to be confirmed. These are people who have gone through the hearing process, been voted out of committees, and are stuck here in the Senate limbo, waiting to see what’s going to happen with their confirmation. They’re waiting to help in the fight to get America back on track and to do the people’s business. And the Democrats are obstructing every step along the way. It seems like the Democrats just want to sabotage our effort to get America back on track. Otherwise, why are they standing in the way of the progress of our nation?
“We know these nominees are all qualified, the 145 I just referred to, because committees have actually reported them out to the Senate. They’ve had background checks from the FBI. Their ethics reports have all been confirmed. And they have actually been approved by the Senate committees – the committees whose job it is to scrutinize them. That’s why half of the 145 who are still waiting to come to the Senate Floor – they’ve earned bipartisan support coming out of committees. They’re ready to go, ready to get put to work.
“So the Minority Leader needs to stop pretending that he’s leading some kind of grand investigation because he’s not. It’s time for him to admit that this has nothing to do with the qualifications of the nominees. His objections have everything to do with his obsession with President Trump. That’s what we’re dealing with here. Many of these bipartisan nominees have been waiting for months to get put to work. They’ve been nominated. They put their lives on hold. They’re ready to go. Yet the Democrats, through their sabotaging, have slowed the process to a crawl. And there’s absolutely no reason for this.
“This latest Schumer shutdown of this confirmation process, it really does leave critical jobs unfilled. It does weaken our economy. It does undermine our international diplomacy. And it jeopardizes our safety. The Senate in the past didn’t operate this way. And we need to change things to get America back on track and get the Senate back on track.
“You know, 98% of George H.W. Bush’s and Bill Clinton’s nominees, they were confirmed by voice vote or unanimous consent. They’d gone through the committee process. They were voted on and sent to the Senate and worked through the process pretty quickly. During President Trump’s second term, the number that went by voice vote or unanimous consent – here we are nine months in – zero. Absolutely zero. Why? Because of what the Democrats are doing in an unprecedented way. They seem to be obstructing for obstruction’s sake.
“Today 45 of the 145 nominees stuck on the calendar are interestingly for positions that never before in the history of the Senate have actually had to come up for a roll call vote. They always went by voice or unanimous consent. So I would ask the Senate Minority Leader here on the Floor to tell me why the Chief Counsel for Advocacy at the Small Business Administration – that’s a position – why that needed to be filibustered. Why did he and the Democrats filibuster the Chief Counsel for Advocacy for the Small Business Administration? What was so critical about that position or so wrong with the nominee that the Democrats would decide it was worthy of spending two hours of Senate Floor business to filibuster this nominee who got confirmed anyway? And in the past has never had a vote on this. It has always gone by unanimous consent. Or by voice vote. Confirming positions like this used to only take seconds. Now it can take days – and it’s because of the obstruction by the Democrats.
“The Senate has a role of advice and consent. That’s why we have the committee process. But what we’re dealing with is stalling and delaying. Now, Mr. President, there are still more than 800 positions that still need to come through the Senate. Some that may not have been named yet. The President has over 1100 nominations to make to fill out the government and the people that do the job of the people. But without a change to try to get through the next 800, that will take years – over a thousand hours on the Senate Floor. And that’s if the Senate did nothing else. Because every time they filibuster one, that’s two wasted hours and they end up spending two minutes of debate – and 75 percent of those nominated who got approved, the Democrats spent zero time on the Floor even talking about.
“Look, under this Schumer confirmation shutdown, it’s impossible for the United States Senate to pass legislation. Can’t do it. The Floor is iced. Legislation such as the National Defense Authorization Act that we’re getting to today, we’re considering it this week. Funding bills that we need to do – the appropriation bills that Schumer never even brought to the Floor when he was Leader. We want to get those passed, doing the people’s business.
“The Senate and the nation cannot continue to be run this way and controlled this way and function this way. If Democrats won’t stop abusing the rules of the Senate, Republicans are prepared to change the rules. Later today, Mr. President, Senate Republicans are going to discuss how to update these rules to restore the Senate’s long-time practice – a practice of confirming nominees in a reasonable fashion. Now, we’re not talking about cabinet secretaries or Supreme Court justices. We’re talking about restoring the norms of the Senate for the hundreds of routine, qualified nominees who come through the committee process, go through the scrutiny, and then come to the Senate Floor to be put to work.
“I would say enough with the Democrat obstruction, enough with this phony scrutiny, and enough with another Schumer shutdown. The American people elected President Trump and they elected Republicans to get America back on track. And that is what we continue and will continue to do.”
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