Hire More Heroes Act of 2015

Floor Speech

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Mr. GRASSLEY. OK. I want to reserve the right to object, and I will object.

I would like to make a few comments on the pace of judicial nominations. First of all, during President Obama's Presidency thus far the Senate has confirmed 313 judicial nominees. In contrast to that, there were 283 judicial nominees that the Senate had confirmed at this very same point of the previous Presidency. That is 30 more judicial nominees confirmed at this point than in the year 2007.

Concerning this year's pace, the Senate is simply following the standard that my colleagues on the other side established in that year, 2007. By this point in 2007, the committee had held six hearings for a total of 20 judicial nominees. So far we have held 7 hearings for a total of 21 nominees, 5 executive nominees, and 16 judicial nominees, including hearings on both the Attorney General and the Deputy Attorney General.

I would like to remind my colleagues that the Attorney General and Deputy Attorney General nominees took significantly more time to process on both staff and Members. So we are doing a little bit better than the pace that was set on the other side during the last 2 years of the previous Presidency. And I am trying to compare to the last 2 years of that Presidency to this Presidency.

I would also note that the nominees from New York are below other Article III judges on the Executive Calendar. As I understand it, our side has agreed to vote on the next judge on the calendar when we return.

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Mr. GRASSLEY. With respect to the judges on the Executive Calendar, everybody knows at the end of last year the Senate rammed through 11 judges, which under regular order--and regular order is very important in the U.S. Senate--should have been considered at the beginning of this Congress. That is what happened in 2006 when 13 nominations were returned to the President instead of being returned to the U.S. Senate in the next Congress. The end of 2006 is comparable to what was done at the end of 2014. Had we not confirmed those 11 judicial nominees during the lame duck last year, we would be roughly at the same pace for judicial confirmations this year compared to 2007. So put that in your pipe and smoke it, Senator Schumer.

We are moving at a reasonable pace. Therefore, I object.

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Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, the Senator from New York gave very good words that I want to follow up on. He said that we were promised when Republicans took over we said things would be different in governing. They are different. I would just like to show the Senator from New York that promises made are promises kept. I think the best example of promises made was a January 2014 speech by the leadership of the Republicans where a speech was given that if there were Republican control of the United States Senate, then we would govern.

I think the best way to show that Republicans are governing is this: there were 370 House bills that died in the U.S. Senate under the leadership of the Democrat majority. We had 15 amendments with rollcall votes. So far this year, we have had over 160 rollcall votes on amendments.

We have passed over 40 bipartisan bills, reported over 160 bills out of committee, had 29 bills signed into law, and balanced the first budget for over a decade. Under Republican leadership, we had a budget agreement for the first time in 6 years, whereas under the Democratic majority we had one budget in 6 years. The law requires that we adopt a budget every year, and we have done that.

We made a promise that the Senate was going to function as a deliberative body, unlike the way it was run under the Democratic majority for the 6 years of this Presidency. From that standpoint, we have done that with the statistics that I just gave you.

The Senator from New York says we were promised a Senate that would govern, but the only metric he is using is whether judges are moving at the same pace as they did when they took over the U.S. Senate in 2007. And that is an inadequate way to measure how well the Senate is governing. We must look at all the work the Senate is doing. And the Senate is doing the good work we promised we'd do before the election. We have delivered.

I yield the floor.

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