Child Care and Development Block Grant of 2014

Floor Speech

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Mr. CARPER. Mr. President, I did not come to the floor to praise Senator Landrieu, but while I am at it, I would like to say a few words.

I have the privilege of chairing the committee on governmental affairs. Senator Landrieu chairs the appropriations subcommittee that deals with Homeland Security. She is also a member of the authorizing committee. So she works both vineyards. She is as tenacious and tireless in her defense of our country against cyber attacks, against terrorist attacks, against all kinds of ills that would otherwise be visited on our country. She still finds time as chairman of the energy committee to focus not only on issues that are important to her State--and this is one of them--but also issues that are incredibly important to our country.

I said to my wife the other night--we were talking about Senator Landrieu and her tenacity. That word has been used tonight a couple times about her, as an unrelenting advocate for her State and the causes she believes in. Others have mentioned that she is a tireless advocate not only for Louisiana but for the causes that she sees that are just.

There is no quit in this one, as I said to my wife this week. She said, ``How is Mary?'' I would never want to run against this woman, and fortunately I would never have to. And for those who have to, good luck and God bless. But I am proud to be here with MARY, and with Senator Heidi Heitkamp as well.

The reason I come here tonight is to discuss a number of nominations that have been considered and approved by the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee that both Senator Landrieu and Senator Heitkamp and I serve on. Senator Coburn, our colleague from Oklahoma, is the ranking Republican on that committee, and we have worked tirelessly ourselves for the better part of the last 2 years to try to make sure there is a full complement of leadership in the Department of Homeland Security to provide the leadership for one of the most important agencies in our government. I have spoken with people on this floor and wherever else I could find a venue about the large and very troubling backlog of nominations in this Senate. I call it executive branch Swiss cheese. Executive branch Swiss cheese.

There are a couple of ways you can cripple an administration. No. 1, you can refuse to provide appropriations and funding. Another way to cripple an administration is to not approve the nominations of people who fill key leadership positions. The most important ingredient I found in any organization--I don't care if it is a legislative body such as this, a State such as Minnesota or Delaware or Louisiana or North Dakota--I don't care if it is a college or a business, a church. The most critical factor in all of those is leadership.

When we deny a President or a Governor or a mayor, for that matter, the ability to put his or her leadership team together--even when they are nominating well-qualified, competent people, people of integrity--we do not do just a disservice to that person who has been nominated and has gone through the process, but to the State or the county or the country in which they have been nominated to serve.

I think it is every Senator's constitutional role to provide advice and consent on the President's nominations in a thorough and timely manner as part of the Senate confirmation process. I have exercised that constitutional role and our right and our obligation. I think we do our country no service and do ourselves no honor when we leave critical agencies--and Homeland Security is certainly one of those--without proper leadership and leave honorable men and women who are willing to serve in the government twisting in the wind.

I am a big believer in the Golden Rule, as our Presiding Officer knows: treat other people the way we want to be treated. How would we like it if we were nominated, and we have a job--maybe it is an important job, maybe it is a job that pays a lot more than what they have been nominated to do in service to our country. All too often people are asked to put their lives and their family on hold. They don't know if they are going to be uprooted from wherever they are in the country to come here and live or for their spouse or father or mother to work. It is not fair.

In some cases, it is just to put people before committees and berate them publicly for sins of omission or commission that may be fabricated. No wonder it is hard to get good people to serve.
In this case, I have several people that I will talk about tonight. These people deserve not just our consideration but our strong support.

During my 2 years as chairman of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, I have made it one of my top priorities to work closely with our ranking Republican, Dr. Tom Coburn, who is a physician and also a Senator, and to vet the President's nominees that we have jurisdiction over and move them in a timely manner when they meet muster, scrub them good, make sure we have drilled down on what they believe in, their credentials and competency for serving, and when they do pass muster, try to move them along and bring them through our committee--almost every time--with a bipartisan vote and then bring the nomination to the floor.

Tom Coburn and I try to do that religiously with respect to our nominees. We try to do the same kind of bipartisan approach with our legislation. We have had a lot of success and we are grateful to our colleagues for supporting what we have done in our committee. We are grateful to Majority Leader Reid and Senator McConnell and their staffs. They have been valuable partners in this effort. Gary Myrick, who works on the floor for the Democratic side, and Laura Dove, who works on the Republican side for Senator McConnell, have been terrific to work with, and we thank them for their stewardship.

Just yesterday our committee reported out three more outstanding nominees, one of them, Sarah Saldana, to be head of Immigration and Customs Enforcement at the Department of Homeland Security. It is a big job, it is an important job, and it is a tough job. Russell Deyo has been nominated to be the top management official at the Department of Homeland Security. Mickey Barnett has been nominated by the President to serve another term on the Postal Services Board of Governors.

I believe Ms. Saldana and Mr. Deyo will almost certainly be confirmed in short order. I urge my colleagues to review their qualifications and work with Dr. Coburn and me to fill these two vacancies at the Department of Homeland Security in the coming days.

I wish to spend a few minutes of my time tonight discussing the nomination of Mickey Barnett, who is already serving on the Postal Board of Governors. He is a Republican and nominated again by the President. I will then talk about a couple of lower profile nominees that I think we urgently need to confirm as quickly as we can--certainly this year during this lameduck session.

Mickey Barnett is among a group of five partisan nominees to the Postal Board of Governors. His nomination was submitted by a Democratic President. Two of the nominees are Republicans, and Mickey is one of those, and three of them are Democrats.

If we don't confirm Mr. Barnett and his colleagues by December 8--a little more than 4 weeks from now--Mr. Barnett, who is currently the Board's chair, will be forced to leave the Board. If that happens, the Postal Board of Governors will no longer have enough members to achieve a quorum and will not be able to conduct business.

At a time when the Postal Service is struggling to address a number of financial challenges and adapt to the digital age and

the Internet world we live in, being unable to conduct business would not be good for the Postal Service. In fact, it would be very bad. We need to avoid that from happening. I think if it does happen, we will be inviting a disaster.

Today, because of our inability in Congress to come to a consensus on postal reform legislation--and they are actually creeping closer--the good work by Dr. Coburn and a number of other people to actually develop a bipartisan consensus around the legislation that was reported out of our committee--I believe in a 9-to-1 vote earlier this year--the Postal Service will continue to twist in the wind, able to only do so much to address the financial challenges they face and to transfer themselves in a digital age. They need to figure out how to make themselves relevant--a 200-some-year-old establishment--in delivering that work that goes to every business and every residence in this country, for the most part, 6 days a week.

How do we enable the Postal Service to make money? They are figuring it out, and we can help them with our legislation.

Meanwhile, the customers of the Postal Service are left with uncertainty about what the future holds for the Postal Service. Are they going to be around? Are they going to be able to do the job? Are they ever going to modernize their fleet? Are they ever going to modernize their processing centers and the post offices themselves? We can answer that question and enable them to be financially viable once again. We would make that uncertainty that surrounds the Postal Service even worse if December 8 comes and goes and our five Postal Board nominees are still waiting for us to act.

The same goes for our nominees to fill vacancies, not on the Postal Board of Governors, but on something called the Postal Regulatory Commission. It is a five-member commission. It is the regulator, if you will, for the Postal Service. The two people who have been nominated by this President are Nanci Langley and Tony Hammond. They have been waiting since the spring of 2013 to be confirmed. As a result, the commission has been working with only three commissioners out of five. We need to do something about that as well, and waiting for another year--waiting for another month is foolhardy.

These people deserve a vote. We ought to vote them up or down. They have been unanimously approved and confirmed by our committee, and I think they need a vote. When they get a vote, I am sure they will be confirmed.

Also pending before the Senate are two nominations to the District of Columbia Superior Court, Judge William Nooter and Judge Steven Wellner. They are both well-qualified nominees who, like the Homeland Security and Postal nominees I have discussed, won bipartisan support in the committee and are needed to fill vacancies on the District of Columbia's very busy trial court.

Judge Nooter and Judge Wellner were reported out of our committee with unanimous bipartisan support months ago. In Judge Nooter's case, it was more than a year ago.

As I have discussed, these men are not alone in waiting so long for confirmation, but the problem is particularly unfair when it comes to the District of Columbia's court system. Earlier this fall during the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee Hearing on DC statehood, the current vacancies on the DC Superior Court were included as just one of many injustices the District faces simply because it serves our Nation's capital.

The District of Columbia already suffers from not having control over its laws or even its own local dollars. The citizens of this city should not have to face a compromised legal system as well. While we in Congress may not be able to fix everything, I do think this is one of the few issues we can and must address now.

The DC Circuit Court is a local court. It hears primarily local matters. Most nominees are entirely uncontroversial and used to go through the Senate without a recorded floor vote. But because these local judges go through Senate confirmation, they have been caught up in a broader political stalemate of the Senate floor. I hope that is going to come to an end.

Meanwhile, no other local or State jurisdiction must have its non-Federal judges approved by the Congress. If we are talking about Federal District judges or Circuit Court of Appeal judges or Supreme Court Justices, of course they should come through and be debated and approved here. These are local judges, and it is only by a quirk in the law that they have to come here for a confirmation at all. They are local judges in the District of Columbia.

How would we like it if we had been nominated and held up for over a year--particularly in courts where there are huge backlogs. We are talking about caseloads of tens of thousands of people, and they don't have a full complement of judges because of us. How fair is that? Well, it is not.

No other local or State jurisdiction must have its non-Federal judges approved by Congress, and no other State or locality is without a vote in the Senate to help push for action on nominations of concern to that community.

The DC Superior Court is operated by the Federal Government and its judges are appointed by the President and confirmed by the Senate for 15-year terms. It is important to note that although this court is operated by the Federal Government, it is separate from the Federal Government. Instead, the Superior Court is the local trial court for the District of Columbia. It handles matters such as local crime and domestic and civil disputes.

Nevertheless, because this court is operated by the Federal Government, the President nominates candidates for judicial vacancies from a slate prepared by a nonpartisan nomination commission and the Senate must confirm the nominees.

Currently, there are four vacancies on the Superior Court. Due to planned retirement and medical leave, this number will rise by the end of the year, and it is going to get worse. These vacancies hinder the Superior Court's ability to administer justice for DC residents. The Superior Court judges already carry, as I said earlier, enormous caseloads. The existing vacancies--the majority of which are in the family court division--threaten to undermine the judge's ability to give proper attention to each case, including those cases in family courts that affect the welfare of families, and particularly the welfare of children.

Recently the chief judge of the Superior Court and the Bar Association in the District of Columbia sent to both Senate leaders and Dr. Coburn and myself a letter raising these concerns and ultimately seeking a Senate vote on Judges Nooter and Wellner. They are preaching to the choir.

Judge Nooter is currently the presiding magistrate judge on the Superior Court and has served as a magistrate judge for the past 14 years. As presiding magistrate judge, he manages 23 fellow magistrate judges and serves on the leadership team of the chief judge of the Superior Court.

Meanwhile, Judge Wellner currently serves as an administrative law judge for the District of Columbia Office of Administrative Hearings. Since 2011, he has led the unemployment insurance division, and by all accounts skillfully coordinates a team of 10 administrative law judges and support staff to adjudicate over 3,000 unemployment insurance cases per year.

Given the caliber of these nominees, the lack of controversy over their nomination, and the unanimous bipartisan support they have received from the committee of jurisdiction, I urge--and I am sure I urge with the full support of Dr. Coburn, our ranking Republican member of the committee--this body to move their confirmations forward as soon as possible. Justice delayed is still justice denied. It has been that way for centuries and these delays are insufferable.

I will close by saying that what we are doing is not just bad judgment, it is not just bad form, I think it is shameful, and we need to fix it.

With that, I am finished, and I am looking around to see if there is anybody else seeking recognition. I don't see anyone, so with that, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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