Strengthening America's Security in the Middle East Act of 2019--Motion

Floor Speech

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Mr. LANKFORD. Mr. President, there has been a lot of conversation about the damage to our economy and to the basic operations of government from the shutdown. Rightfully so, it is something we should talk about and spend some time trying to figure out how to manage this for the future, what shutdowns do to our future.

What has been interesting is how absent that same conversation has been over the last 2 years as my colleagues on the other side of the aisle actively worked to shut down the basic operations of government by not allowing nominations to proceed in the normal process.

In December, with little fanfare and into early January, 386 nominations from the Trump administration were returned back to the Trump administration with a ``no action''--386 people. Those were judges, those were potential board members, those were individuals, many of them Deputy Assistant Secretaries of different Agencies, individuals who keep the basic functioning of government open and working. Three hundred and eighty-six of those nominations had no action on this floor because something very different was happening during the last 2 years. It had not happened like this before in the beginning of any Presidency--in the first 2 years--that his nominations were blocked on the floor not with a vote, with time.

In the past, with nominations, a person would be nominated by the President. They would go to the committees. They would get a full background check investigation. There would be questions for the record. The committees would then have an open debate in the committee. They would vote as a committee. If they were voted out of committee, there would be additional questions for the record. Then, once those were done, they would get an up-or-down vote. Often those were voice votes, even here. It was something that was assumed because they had been approved by committees, and the background checks had been done.

In the last 2 years, 128 times, Members of the Senate required what is called a cloture vote--one more hurdle to go through--so that literally they would have to file cloture on those, allow for an intervening day for them to sit out there, and then 30 hours of debate on that person--30 hours of additional debate. That is after the intervening day. You have 24 hours, plus another 30 that is all set out there, to add a little additional time.

With over 1,000 nominees whom the executive branch would do, it is not possible to get through all of those if you continue to request an additional 2 days in the process to work on each of them.

For individuals to prevent these different Agencies from working and functioning, to prevent the activities of government, you can just request cloture votes over and over again--128 times to basically slow down the Senate so much and to slow down the workings of government all over DC so much that it can't operate at its capacity.

This has to be resolved.

Two years ago, I saw this trend that was moving in the Senate, and I said that long-term for the Senate, this will damage the functioning of government and of the Senate. We have to address it.

So 2 years ago I asked for a reach-out to say: How do we actually resolve this? We had some ongoing meetings. We had a full committee hearing dealing with the issue of the nominations process and how to resolve this in December of 2017. That was after months and months and months of meetings in preparation for that.

We had a markup in April of 2018 to talk about how we could resolve this and what proposals are out there.

I had numerous conversations with Republican and Democratic Members of the Senate to be able to resolve the issue in the Senate because, although in the past you could always request a cloture vote on someone if there was someone truly controversial, this was being used differently. This was not being used to address someone truly controversial; this was being used to shut down the functioning of government.

Many of those individuals--once they did get their cloture vote and that obligatory time--passed with 80 and 90 votes. They weren't people--I have heard people say that if Trump would put up better nominees, then this would be easier. It wasn't that. It was purely dilatory, to slow down or shut down Agencies' operations based on not allowing them to hire staff to actually do the job. That government shutdown, which has been ongoing for 2 years' time, will continue to go until this Senate resolves it.

So after 2 years of meetings, I am making a proposal to this body: We need to fix this. We need to fix the nomination process to have an orderly process so that when there is a controversial nominee, they can be addressed with additional time on the floor, even past the committee time, even past the background checks, even past the additional questions they are asked--to give additional time but in a reasonable way so we can continue to operate as the Senate.

My simple proposal is that we have 2 hours of additional debate, if additional time is allotted, and, quite frankly, that is after the intervening day, so there would be a full day of debate and then an additional 2 hours on the next day that would be allotted to give full time to anyone who may be a problem. That is 2 hours of additional blocked-off time in addition to the additional day that is put in place. I think that is plenty of time.

If it is a Supreme Court Justice we are talking about, if it is a Cabinet official, maybe 30 hours would be the best option for that, as well. So we would do 2 hours for most nominees, 30 hours for Cabinet level and for the Supreme Court or circuit courts. That would give plenty of time to do additional debate, and it would simplify the process.

This proposal is not really all that controversial. I have talked to many of my Democratic colleagues, and they seem to nod their heads and say: Yes, this is a better way to resolve it. The answer I am getting back is: Let's vote for that now but let it not start until January of 2021.

Their assumption is that they are going to beat President Trump in an election, and they will take over, and they certainly don't want the Senate to function when there is a Democratic President the same way it is functioning when there is a Republican President.

My gentle nod back to them is that there is absolutely no way we should ever agree to that. Why would we ever do that? What is happening is, the last 2 years of this shutdown--the slowdown of all of these Agencies, which has happened by blocking all of these nominees--have created this muscle memory in the Senate, and if we don't fix it now, it is going to keep going.

My Democratic colleagues who say ``We are going to continue to block you for the next 2 years the same way to shut down the functioning of Agencies'' with some delusional belief that 2 years from now this will not happen to them if they happen to win the Presidency--that is false, and they know it. If we don't resolve this now and allow this President to be able to function with his nominees, as any President in the past has, then this is going to just keep going, and it will hurt the long- term functioning of our government. So it is an absurd thought to say: We will vote on it now, but it will not actually take effect until 2021. The reasonable thing is, let's resolve it now.

This simple proposal I am putting out in the next few days will make it public, and in February I hope there will be a meeting with the Rules Committee to allow open debate in the Rules Committee, for Republicans and Democrats alike to look at this issue and resolve it, to make any edits or changes. If there is a different way to resolve this, I am open to any other resolution. But for the long-term health of our government and of the Senate and how it operates, we have to resolve this because we can't have individuals hanging out there for over a year and expect that this is going to get better.

Let me give you some examples. For over a year, the Assistant Secretary of Health and Human Services sat out there and then was returned back to the President at the end of the session and will have to start all over again. It is the same with the Chief Counsel for Advocacy in the Small Business Administration, the inspector general in the Office of Personnel Management, Governors for the U.S. Postal Service, the Assistant Secretary of Commerce, the Ambassador to Colombia, the Ambassador to Morocco, and the General Counsel for the Department of Navy. These were all individuals who were out there for over a year with no action, waiting.

We will not get the best and brightest in our country to set aside their life for a nomination process that is over 1 year and then goes back to the White House, and then they have to start all over again the next year, and maybe it goes another year. Who in America can put their life on hold for all of that time? We want the best and brightest to be able to serve. Blocking them with slowdown tactics will prevent that from happening in the future.

I am trying to be fair in this process. Let's do this the right way, the way we all know it should be done. Let's take it to the Rules Committee. Let's put a proposal out there to fix the nomination process. Let's get the 60 votes that are required to resolve the nomination process through the Rules Committee to the floor of the Senate and actually fix that as a standing order. Let's resolve it now, lest this drags on for another 2 years and it never gets better.

This has been a 2-year process to get to this point, and in the days ahead, when we release this text, I hope my colleagues will engage in reasonable conversation to resolve that. I am open to that, but I want us to fix the problem and admit that a problem needs to be fixed and solved.

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