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Floor Speech

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Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. President, on NDAA, for the past six decades, Congress has worked on a bipartisan basis to pass an annual Defense bill without fail. After today, this year will be no different.

Later this morning, the Senate will hold a vote to pass NDAA legislation for fiscal year 2022 that has been negotiated on a bipartisan, bicameral basis. After it is approved by this Chamber, the bill will go to the President's desk for his signature.

With so many priorities to balance, I thank my colleagues for working hard over these last few months, both in committee and on the floor, to get NDAA done. I want to particularly recognize my colleague Chairman Reed for his work shepherding this important process through. Build Back Better Act

Mr. President, now, for a Build Back Better update, this week, Democrats also continue working on getting the Senate into a position where we can vote on the President's Build Back Better legislation. We are also continuing to hold conversations, as Senate Democrats, on the urgent work of advancing the Freedom to Vote Act and the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act.

There is universal view in our caucus that we need to pass legislation to protect our democracy. What the Republican legislatures are doing--on a purely partisan basis--is undermining, destroying our democracy.

We believe that we can restore the Senate to work the way it is supposed to and at the same time deal with voting rights. And that is what we are aiming to do. Judicial Nominations

Mr. President, now, on judicial nominations, in addition to our legislative agenda, the Senate is also making good progress this week on confirming more of President Biden's nominees, both to his administration and the Federal bench.

Today, we will vote to confirm two more of the President's judicial nominees, and it is possible I will file cloture on more today. At the district level, we will confirm Samantha Elliott to serve as district judge for the District of New Hampshire. And we will also vote on the confirmation of Jennifer Sung to sit as a circuit judge for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.

Throughout her career, Ms. Sung has proven herself to be an exceptional and impartial adjudicator, a valiant advocate for working Americans, and I am confident she will be an excellent judge who adds to the personal and professional diversity of the Ninth Circuit.

For much of her time in private practice, Ms. Sung dedicated herself to representing workers in disputes against unscrupulous employers. The folks she has fought for over her career haven't been privileged individuals. On the contrary, they have been everyday working Americans: low-income workers, minority workers, and largely underserved communities--folks who just want a fair shake.

As a member of the Oregon Employment Relations Board, where she has served in a quasi-judicial role adjudicating disputes between workers and management, Ms. Sung has displayed immense skill striking a delicate balance between protecting the interests of working Americans while applying the law fairly and impartially and without preconception. This balance is crucial for anyone under consideration for the bench, and that is the point.

We are having, of course, demographic diversity. Ms. Sung represents that as an Asian American. But we are also having professional diversity, where people from different walks of life and different experiences serve in these very important courts, not just prosecutors and people from big law firms. So this is a very, very important change that we are making to the bench.

This year, we have made progress in adding that new level of diversity to the bench, but we still have a lot of work to do to make our courts reflect the diversity and richness of our democracy.

And on one more judge, Ali Nathan, earlier this morning it was my honor to come before the Senate Judiciary Committee to introduce Ali Nathan, nominated by President Biden, on my recommendation, to serve as circuit judge for the Second Circuit Court of Appeals.

Judge Nathan is a remarkable and barrier-breaking nominee for the Federal bench. A graduate of Cornell Law School, a clerk for both the Ninth Circuit and the Supreme Court, under Justice Stevens, and a member of President Obama's White House counsel and the Office of the Solicitor General in New York, Judge Nathan's resume is nothing short of impeccable.

I can happily say that this will be the second time I have recommended Judge Nathan to serve on the bench. A decade ago, I urged President Obama to consider Ali Nathan to serve as district judge in the Southern District.

I am glad President Obama listened. And after a decade of admirable service on the bench, it is clear that appointing her was the right decision. And, one more important point, if confirmed to the Second Circuit, Judge Nathan would only be the second LGBTQ woman to serve as a Federal appellate judge in the United States--another important step in tearing down the barriers in the halls of justice.

If confirmed, I am confident that Judge Nathan will serve with distinction and excellence on the Second Circuit.

So, thanks to Senate Democrats, President Biden has more total circuit and district judge nominees confirmed before December 15 of his first year than any President since Ronald Reagan. By the end of the day, the tally will stand at 31 new judges confirmed in 2021.

Let me repeat that. By the end of today, the Senate will have confirmed 31 judges in President Biden's first year--20 to the district courts and 11 to serve as appellate judges on the Federal circuit.

Four years ago, under President Donald Trump, Republicans lacked any robust legislative agenda and focused almost entirely on rubberstamping the parade of far-right, unqualified, and highly ideological nominations to the Federal bench.

This year, we are administering the antidote: All year long the Democratic majority has begun rebalancing our courts with mainstream, highly qualified, and diverse judges--historically diverse both in their profession and personhood.

Over half of the new judges are women, over half are people of color, and all of them are immensely qualified by virtue of their skills, their experience, and their unique perspectives they bring to the Federal bench.

We are going to continue working as much as we can for the rest of this year to confirm more judges. And you can be sure that we will push even harder in 2022.

Mr. President, one more point on Republican nomination obstruction, besides judicial nominees, we have a responsibility in this Chamber to confirm President Biden's nominees to his administration. Every President--and this one too--deserves to have his administration filled, and for years in the past, both sides have worked together when possible. But this year, we are seeing a new low from Senate Republicans. Because of the cynical blockade of a handful of Members on the other side, the Senate now faces a backlog of at least 150 nominees, many of whom would have sailed through the Chamber in years past.

We have now had to file cloture on twice as many nominees at this point in President Biden's administration as Republicans had to do under President Trump.

Let's be clear about the nominees at issue. We aren't talking about partisan firebrands or candidates who come out of left field. The bulk of these men and women are uncontroversial, by the book, professional public servants. Many of these nominees would work on issues like supply chains and national security, which our Republican colleagues say they want to address. But now those lives, and the lives of their families, have been thrown into total limbo, all because a handful of Republicans have hijacked the rules of the Senate to slow the confirmation process to a glacial pace, against precedent and common sense.

We have been working over the past day to secure a lift on many of these holds. I want to echo what Senator Menendez has made clear: If the Senator from Texas offers a proposal that does not include lifting all State, Treasury, and USAID nominees, we cannot come to an agreement.

Democrats are working to clear as much of the backlog as possible by consent. If we can't make too much progress, we may need to stay and hold votes on nominees this weekend and next week until we do.

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