Executive Session

Floor Speech

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Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, to borrow from Yogi Berra, it is deja vu all over again in the Senate this week. Once again, the Senate is taking up a lot of judicial nominations, and, once again, we will spend a lot of time considering noncontroversial nominees.

Now my colleagues across the aisle have started to complain about the Senate's focus on nominations. I am pretty frustrated myself, not because we are considering these nominees--it is our constitutional duty, after all--but because we are being forced to spend so much time on their nominations, but that is what my Democratic colleagues have obliged us to do.

Back in the day, most of the judicial nominees we are considering would have been confirmed without the time-consuming cloture vote process. By this point in President Obama's first term, Republicans had required cloture votes on just three of President Obama's judicial nominees--three, Mr. President.

Contrast that with today. As of June 5, Democrats have required cloture votes on 76 of President Trump's judicial nominees--76 to 3. Now, of course, some might leap to the conclusion that this is not obstruction for obstruction's sake. They might assume that President Trump has been nominating unqualified or deeply controversial candidates for judicial office, and the Democrats have no alternative but to obstruct and delay the nominations--except that is not the case because Democrats have repeatedly made it clear that they have no problem with many of the President's nominations by turning around and voting for the same people they have obstructed.

That is right. Again and again, Democrats have voted in favor of the very same nominees they have delayed. Take Monday and Tuesday's confirmation votes on two nominees for district judge. Democrats forced cloture votes on both nominees. Yet when it came time to confirm them, Democrats turned around and supported the nominations. One nominee received the support of 24 Democrats, including the Democratic whip, while the other nominee was confirmed with the support of 39 Democrats, almost the entire Democratic caucus.

Democrats aren't obstructing because they oppose all or even most of President Trump's nominees; they are obstructing because they still can't get over the 2016 election. It has been 2\1/2\ years since the last Presidential election--2\1/2\ years. We are closer to the next Presidential election than to the last. Yet Democrats still can't let the 2016 election go.

I realize their preferred candidate did not win, and I realize they are not fans of President Trump, but Democrats act like they are the only people who have ever lost an election, like they are the first to have to deal with a candidate they don't like.

To my Democratic colleagues across the aisle, I would like to say: Welcome to life in our democracy. Welcome to life in a free country. While it is never fun, sometimes your candidate is going to lose. That is what happens when you have free elections.

I am not suggesting that Democrats should start rubberstamping every item on the President's agenda. They have serious philosophical disagreements with the President's policies, and it is right that they should air them, but to reflexively oppose everything the President says or does simply because he is the President is deeply irresponsible. There are serious consequences to pointlessly delaying nominees, such as backlogs in our court system or a government that isn't functioning the way it should because of vacancies in leadership positions.

There are even more serious and immediate consequences to obstructing other measures. Right now, Democrats are holding up desperately needed funding for the serious humanitarian and security crisis at our southern border simply because it is the President making the funding request. The security of our country and the well-being of tens of thousands of immigrants are at stake, and Democrats are refusing to address the situation because they don't like the President.

In the first 8 months of this fiscal year, nearly 411,000 unaccompanied children and families have crossed our southern border, more than in any previous full year. Resources are stretched to the breaking point. Shelters are overloaded, and providing adequate medical care is becoming more and more difficult. Federal agencies are simply running out of money. Money appropriated for the care of unaccompanied children could run out by the end of this month. That means caregivers for these children would have to work without pay, and private organizations with Federal grants to care for these children would go without their funding.

Democrats like to style themselves as the party of openness and compassion, and yet they are willing to ignore a humanitarian crisis of massive proportions out of political spite--not to mention the serious security issue.

The Department of Homeland Security is being forced to divert resources to deal with the humanitarian crisis pulling more than 700 Customs and Border Protection Officers from legal points of entry to assist with the surge of migrants.

I don't think there is a Member in this body who wouldn't agree on the importance of fully staffing our ports and cargo processing so we don't create new vulnerabilities, but Customs and Border Protection is left with little choice.

After 2\1/2\ years of unprecedented partisanship and obstruction from Democrats, I would like to think that the Democrats would finally turn their focus to the business of government. Unfortunately, I think it is more likely that their obstruction will continue and that we will see a lot more pointless delays when it comes to nominees and more difficulty getting Democrats to work with us on legislation.

I do hope--I do hope Democrats can hold their relentless obstruction long enough to provide humanitarian relief along our southern border and to address the increasingly precarious security situation. It doesn't seem like too much to ask.

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Mr. THUNE. The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator from Tennessee (Mr. Alexander) and the Senator from Montana (Mr. Daines).

Further, if present and voting, the Senator from Tennessee (Mr. Alexander) would have voted ``yea.''

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