Nominations

Floor Speech

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Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, now on another matter, yesterday the Senate confirmed the first of six nominees slated for consideration this week, Claria Horn Boom to serve as district judge for the Eastern and Western Districts of Kentucky. She was confirmed 96 to 1. There was just one Senator in opposition.

This is the kind of uncontroversial nomination the Senate could typically dispatch by a voice vote, but not these days. Over and over again, we have had to file cloture and exhaust floor time on amply qualified nominees who then soar through their confirmation votes by lopsided margins.

Since President Trump took office, the Senate has had to hold 82-- 82--cloture votes on judicial and executive nominations. In the first 2 years of President Obama's administration, there were only 12 such cloture votes--12 for President Obama, 4 for George W. Bush, 8 for President Clinton, and already, just a few months into President Trump's second year, there have been 82. The numbers speak for themselves.

Today we will have the opportunity to confirm yet another qualified nominee for a critical post. John Ring's nomination to serve on the National Labor Relations Board is an important next step to continue cleaning years of regulatory rust off of the American economy. It is a natural addition to the progress we have made scaling back unhelpful regulations that make it harder for American businesses to create jobs and make opportunities for American workers more scarce.

Mr. Ring's confirmation will give the country a fully staffed NLRB once again and turn the page on the previous administration's efforts to remake this bipartisan Board into a one-sided political weapon. Even in a short amount of time last year, we saw just how much good a fully functioning NLRB can do for American workers when it calls balls and strikes fairly instead of bending over backward to meet Big Labor's every demand. Today we will have the chance to get things back to normal for the long term.

Mr. Ring has a distinguished record in labor negotiation. I would urge my colleagues to join me in voting to confirm him today.

After Mr. Ring, the Senate will turn to the nomination of Pat Pizzella to serve as Deputy Secretary of Labor. The fact that this Cabinet agency has gone 15 months without its No. 2 official is yet another testament to the historic obstruction visited on this administration by Senate Democrats. He has been sitting on the calendar for 6 months despite his ample qualifications. I would urge all of my colleagues to vote to finally advance Mr. Pizzella's nomination.

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