Senate Cloture Vote
Floor Speech
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, my Democratic friends from the other side of the aisle often come to me and ask me to cosponsor bills so they will be bipartisan, making it more likely we will get a result. Sometimes they come to me on a difficult issue, and they ask me, in their words, ``to rise above politics'' and support the institution and the Constitution, and often I do that. I think my reputation for that here is pretty secure.
So I have an offer, an invitation I made earlier to my Democratic friends to invite them to join me in rising above politics--it will be a harder vote for them than it will be for me--and help us change the Senate rules in the correct way to restore the Presidential nomination process to the stature that it deserves and work together to try to achieve what we did in 2011, 2012, and 2013.
On March 14, the Democratic leader came to the floor, and he said the following words:
There are times when loyalty to America, to our Constitution, to our principles, and to what has made this country great should lead Members to rise above and rise to the occasion.
He was talking about the vote on the national emergency declaration President Trump made.
The Democratic leader continued:
I hope and I pray that this moment is one of those times when Members choose country over party and when Members rise above politics for the sake of fidelity to our constitutional principles and this great United States of America.
That was the Democratic leader, the Senator from New York.
The next day, 12 of us did just that. We voted for the resolution to overturn the declaration of emergency, or, as I have explained to many of my constituents who have said something to me about it, I voted for the Constitution.
A month or so earlier, we were encouraged by the Democratic leader and our friends on the other side to vote to open the government. It was the same sort of speech, the same opportunity to rise above politics. Six of us did--six of us on this side of the aisle.
In 2011, 2012, and 2013, when Barack Obama was President and Harry Reid was the leader of the Democratic majority in the Senate, it occurred to me and others that the Presidential nominating process was in shambles. It was embarrassing to ask distinguished Americans to be nominated for a position and then say ``You are innocent until you are nominated'' or drag things out for a long period of time. It was a bad process.
The President of the United States has 1,200 nominations to make to Federal appointees--1,200 today, but then, it was more like 1,400. One of the most important and perhaps the best known function of the Senate is advice and consent. Our advice and consent to the Presidential nominations is a crucial part of the checks and balances in our constitutional system that was established to keep one part of our government from having too much power. In other words, if the President wants somebody and we don't, that is it. If he does and we confirm, then that person knows us, knows this body, and knows about article I, and when he or she wants money for their Department, they have to come to the Congress elected by the people. That is the Presidential nominating process. That is why it is so important to the Senate and to the people of this country.
So in 2011, 2012, and 2013, Senators Reid, McConnell, Schumer, Barrasso, Levin, McCain, Kyl, Cardin, Collins, Lieberman, and I all, along with some others, worked to change the Senate rules to make it easier for President Obama and his successors to gain confirmation of Presidential nominees. As a Republican Senator during a Democratic administration, I spent dozens of hours on that project to make it easier for that Democratic President, with a Senate majority that was Democratic, to form a government.
We changed the rules the right way. In other words, we followed the rules, and the Senate passed standing orders, with large, bipartisan margins, to do a number of things. We ended secret holds. We removed 163 major positions from the necessity of advice and consent. We removed 3,163 minor positions from advice and consent. We created 272 positions that are Presidential nominations and made them privileged so they could come to the floor and then go on to be voted on if no one objected or required them to go to committee. We made it easier to bring legislation to the floor. We made it easier to go to conference. We simplified the forms you have to fill out if you are a nominee. We did all that in a bipartisan way.
One more thing: By a vote of 78 votes, we decided we would reduce the postcloture debate time for sub-Cabinet members to 8 hours and for district judges to 2 hours. As a practical matter, that means if the majority leader brings up a sub-Cabinet member on Monday, we have to wait an intervening day--that is Tuesday--and then we vote on cutting off debate on Wednesday. And how many more hours do we need to debate it? Then it was 30. Today it is 30. We said: Then let's make it 8 for sub-Cabinet members and 2 for district judges. That expired at the end of President Obama's time because we made it for just one Congress, but that is what we did.
I might add, Republicans did not insist that these new rules should be delayed until after the next Presidential election, when there might be a Republican President. You might say we rose above politics.
I might also add that today some people say: Well, they don't want to vote for anything that might seem to support President Trump because he is not popular in the Democratic primary. I can tell you that in 2013, President Obama was not all that popular in the Republican primary in Tennessee or in any other of the primaries, but we thought it was more important to defend this institution and preserve its traditional and constitutional role of advice and consent.
So, on February 25 of this year, I came to the floor and, in effect, invited my colleagues on the other side of the aisle to rise above politics--the same thing they often say to me. I invited them to work with me, Senator Lankford, and Senator Blunt to speed up the confirmation of Presidential nominees, to rise above partisanship and to rise above politics for the benefit of the institution. It was a pretty easy ask, I might say, because I am basically inviting them to do what 78 of us agreed to do in 2013, which is to reduce the amount of postcloture debate time for sub-Cabinet members and district judges.
I don't think rising above politics ought to be a one-way street. At a time when many complained that the Executive has too much power, the Senate is deliberately weakening itself when we undermine our advice and consent role. What is the result of that?
Well, it diminishes our constitutional role to advise and consent because what happens in the executive branch is it just is loaded up with acting appointees who have never had to go through our confirmation process.
President Trump is probably pretty happy with that. He could just put an acting person in a particular position. That person doesn't have to go through the process and doesn't have to answer a lot of questions. He or she is just there and immediately there. Such as John Ryder, the TVA board member from my State, who doesn't have to answer a lot of questions or such as two district judges from my State--excellent individuals--who waited 10 months to be confirmed or such as the U.S. marshal for the Middle District of Tennessee, who had already been the U.S. marshal before, who had to wait more than 1 year. There was none of that. Just put in an acting person and run the government without regard to the Senate.
As the Democratic leader said to me 2 weeks ago and 6 weeks ago, I would ask him and others to rise above politics for the benefit of this institution and change the rules the right way to speed up the confirmation process.
The Senate Rules Committee gave us the right way. They adopted a resolution in the regular order. Basically, it is the same resolution, with a few differences, that we passed with 78 votes in 2013.
In my February 25 speech, I said to my friends on the other side: If you don't like it in exactly the form it is, please suggest something reasonable back. That is the way we do things. Let's amend it. Let's do it exactly the way we did it before in 2013.
I have been encouraged by some discussion by some Members on the other side of the aisle but nothing certain. The proposal offered by Senator Blunt and Senator Lankford would not reduce the number of hours we debate Supreme Court Justices, wouldn't reduce the number of hours we debate Cabinet members or certain Board nominations, but it would divide the 30 hours of postcloture debate equally between Republicans and Democrats. Basically, it would put the Senate back in the place where the Senate has always been throughout the history of the Senate.
Nominations have been decided by 51 votes--not 60 or 67 but by 51-- and they have been decided reasonably promptly. Sometimes they were defeated, but they were decided. The Blunt-Lankford resolution would do just that. Nominations would be decided by 51 votes, and they could be decided reasonably promptly so we would not be diminishing the advice and consent role of the Senate.
Everyone in this body knows what the problem is. One hundred and twenty-eight times the majority leader has had to file a motion to cut off debate--we call that cloture--in order to advance a nomination. Let's say it is for a Tennessee Valley Authority part-time board member. So he will file the motion on Monday. We don't do anything on Tuesday. Nothing would change with that. We vote on cloture on Wednesday--that is 51 votes--and then we have 30 hours of debate. Now it is Thursday. So we could take a whole week dealing with a part-time TVA board member. That has been done 128 times. That was almost never done for previous Presidents.
We are faced with a truly miserable choice. We know this has to change. Our friends on the other side know it has to change. They know if they have a Democratic President in 18 or 20 months, there will be at least one Republican Senator who will do to them what they are doing to President Trump. The Democratic President will not be able to form a government, and so we will further diminish the Senate in its role. So we have a truly miserable choice: either we continue to diminish the constitutional advice and consent role of the Senate--we could do that--or we use what we call the Harry Reid precedent to change the rules of the Senate by a majority vote.
The problem with the Harry Reid precedent is, it doesn't really change the rules. It just says the rules don't mean what they say. It is as if the referee said: Well, the rule book says first down is 10 yards, but I am going to rule that it is 9. It is a Senate precedent, and the majority may do it, but we should avoid that if we possibly can.
I don't like the Harry Reid precedent. I believe it presents a truly miserable option, but even more miserable is continuing this debasement of the advice and consent role of the Senate--one I worked to do more about in 2011, 2012, and 2013 with the distinguished Democratic leader, the Republican leader, and so many Senators.
As my friend the Democratic leader, who I see has now come to the floor, said to me and other Republicans 2 weeks ago: ``I understand the politics are difficult--much harder for you than for me--but our nation, our Constitution, the beauty of this government, demands that we rise to the occasion.'' Well, on the declaration of the national emergency on that occasion, 12 of us did; and on reopening the government a few weeks earlier, 6 of us did; and in 2011, 2012, and 2013, 78 of us voted to reduce the postcloture time for sub-Cabinet nominees.
I know it can be a difficult vote in the Democratic caucus, but I earnestly hope that between now and the time we vote this week, that we will not be presented with this truly miserable choice of continuing to debase the advice and consent tradition of the Senate or using the Harry Reid precedent to change the Senate rules by majority vote.
If some of us can rise above partisanship on article I to vote against the declaration of emergency, to vote to reopen the government, and to remove the delay in Presidential nominees when there is a Democratic President and a Democratic leader of the Senate, it is my hope that some of my Democratic friends will agree to do that this week and help us avoid what I have described as a truly miserable choice.
I thank the Presiding Officer.
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Source