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Floor Speech

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Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, I know all of my colleagues, Republicans and Democrats alike, are anxious to be able to go back home and talk to their constituents, perhaps have a long-delayed medical procedure or doctor visit, or simply take a family vacation during the traditional August recess.

My Republican colleagues and I are, likewise, eager to go back home and talk about the benefits of the One Big Beautiful Bill. I was in Amarillo, TX, in the Texas panhandle on Friday, and just in having a back-and-forth Q&A with the folks who were there, it is evident to me that there is so much in the bill that it takes a while to really explain the benefits.

We know we avoided a tax increase that would have totaled trillions of dollars, roughly benefiting $3,000 per Texas family.

But there were other benefits that helped our agriculture community, things that, ordinarily, we would have put in a farm bill but made sure we strengthened the safety net for the folks who produce our food and fiber. And then there are other provisions, like the no tax on tips, no tax on Social Security, or overtime.

So there is so much in the bill that is hard to communicate, which means we need to get back home and talk about that and why it is a grand slam home run for our constituents.

But having said that, I don't believe that the Senate should leave town without ensuring that President Trump has his nominees and his team in place. We still have somewhere on the order of 140 backlogged nominees by this President that have been obstructed by the Democrats. We find ourselves really in an unprecedented situation where Democrats, rather than picking and choosing the nominees they choose to object to, have simply chosen to object to all of them, forcing us to burn a lot of valuable floor time that we could be using for other more constructive purposes and delaying President Trump who, after all, won the election last November, the team that he is entitled to help him govern and carry out his policies.

It is absolutely unprecedented, the sort of stonewalling that we are up against. Our Democratic colleagues, after all, are the ones who are holding up this process. I know some people listening may say: Well, isn't this sort of partisan grid lock normal?

The answer is no. We certainly have our fights here and that is OK, that is all well and good. But the reason why Republicans are complaining and the President is complaining about Democratic obstruction is that there is no precedent for objecting to nominees by a President by allowing either a voice vote, which is a nonrollcall vote, or unanimous consent when they are noncontroversial nominees.

This chart to my left indicates that civilian nominees, as opposed to military nominations--which the Senate also confirms--but nonmilitary nominees confirmed by voice vote or on an expedited basis or unanimous consent during a first term.

You see George Herbert Walker Bush. So 98 percent of his nominees to Senate-confirmed positions were confirmed by voice vote or unanimous consent. Again, Clinton, similar numbers, 98 percent. Then you get to George W. Bush and Barack Obama. That number dropped from 98 percent to 90 percent. That is still a pretty good record of expediting these nominees, making sure that the President, whether that President be a Democrat or Republican, have their team on board, which is what the American people voted for when they were elected. Then you see when President Trump came along, the rules of the road were changed where only 65 percent of his first-term nominees were confirmed by voice vote or unanimous consent on an expedited basis. It literally took years for President Trump to get all his nominees on board because of the foot- dragging by our Democratic colleagues back in his first term. Then you see what goes around comes around. Biden's nominees, roughly 57 percent of them, handled on an expedited basis. But what we have seen this term, after this most recent election, is without any precedent, as you can see here.

Basically, what our Democratic colleagues are saying is we will agree to no confirmation votes on Trump nominees during his second term. This is part of what, I guess, you would call the resistance and the polarization of our politics and the fact that our Democrats are not the Democrats of old. These are radicalized people who cannot agree to anything, even when it really is not something that is controversial.

Again, it is fine to disagree about things that we do disagree on. We see the world in a different way or we think we have different and better ideas about what would serve the interest of the American people. But to mindlessly object to President Trump's nominees and deny the American people the benefit of their vote in the last election is simply unfair. It is unfair to the American people whose interests are being harmed by denying these people from being in place and doing their job. It is unfair to President Trump, who is being denied the team that he is entitled to help him carry out his policies. And, finally, it is unfair to the nominees themselves, many of whom have quit their jobs, sold their business, and are simply waiting month after month after month to be able to be confirmed. These are people who are, by and large, not political partisans. They are people who are interested in serving their country in some capacity or another.

Many of these nominees--I think, roughly, 30 of them--are Senate- confirmed nominees to serve as an ambassador in our embassies around the world.

I don't have to remind all of us that the world has become a much more dangerous place, and the idea that the United States would not have Senate-confirmed Ambassadors in these Embassies around the world is simply shooting ourselves in the foot. China and Russia and our other adversaries certainly have their Ambassadors working in each of those countries to further their interests, but the idea that the United States would be absent because Senate Democrats simply refuse to confirm these Ambassadors is really beyond the pale. It hurts not only the United States and our foreign policy and our diplomatic efforts, but it also, again, causes harm to the individuals who volunteered to give up their lives and their livelihoods to serve our country, just to be left hanging without any real hope of getting confirmed on a timely basis.

We are not talking about lifetime-tenured judges. Those, obviously, are sort of a different category. We aren't even talking about the President's Cabinet, which is a handful of his most key and most important advisers. What we are talking about, really, are rank-and- file people who are confirmed by a vote of the Senate.

I personally believe that we should change the law and not require Senate confirmation for many of these positions. It is a formality, really, to have to vote on some of these nominees. For example, there is the Chief Counsel for Advocacy of the Small Business Administration--I am not sure exactly why the Senate should be voting to confirm at all somebody who has been nominated to that position--or the Director of the U.S. Geological Survey or the general counsel for the Veterans' Administration. But regardless of whether or not they should be confirmed by the Senate, they currently are required to be confirmed, and the Democrats simply are mindlessly obstructing the confirmation of these noncontroversial, really apolitical nominees.

We also have people like the Federal Transit Administrator and the Director of the Amtrak Board of Directors--both waiting for confirmation.

The level of partisan gamesmanship that we are currently seeing is really something we have never seen before. This is not healthy for the country, and it is not healthy for this institution.

Again, what we have tended to see is that what goes around comes around. So the temptation will be, if President Trump can't get his team confirmed, when the next Democrat gets elected President of the United States, what will be the natural reaction to that President's nominees? Well, it is going to be to try to do to him what they did to President Trump. I don't think that is good for the country.

We need to break this logjam, and we need to do it now. I believe, if we can't reach some sort of negotiated outcome that is satisfactory to President Trump, then we need to either stay here or change the Senate rules. I believe that the status quo is unacceptable and that something has to give.

The Senate Democrats are the ones who brought us to where we are today. They are the ones responsible for the blame. But more importantly than that, the American people deserve the services of these individuals who have been nominated for these various Senate- confirmed positions. President Trump is entitled to his team, and this mindless obstruction has to come to an end now.

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