Motion to Discharge

Floor Speech

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Mr. LEE. Mr. President, I stand today in opposition to this illegitimate motion to discharge the nomination of Vanita Gupta to become the Associate Attorney General of the United States.

I say that this motion to discharge is illegitimate because it was-- because the Senate Judiciary Committee and its chairman decided unilaterally to ram through a vote on Ms. Gupta in violation of the rules and precedents of the Senate Judiciary Committee.

As has been the longstanding tradition in the Judiciary Committee, members were debating the nomination of Vanita Gupta and expected that everyone would be given the opportunity to speak.

But in the middle of a speech being delivered by one of the Judiciary Committee's members, Senator Cotton from Arkansas, the chairman of the committee, Senator Durbin, cut him off and unilaterally proceeded to a vote, effectively nuking the committee rules that should have allowed Senator Cotton and others to speak.

Never, in the more than 10 years that I have served on the Judiciary Committee, have I seen a chairman of that committee so blatantly, brazenly violate rule and principle and precedent in this way. This behavior is not only unusual, but it is inexcusable.

Lengthy debate in committee markups is actually much more common than some in this Chamber might have you believe. For example, Democrats filibustered the nomination of former Attorney General Jeff Sessions for so long that then-Chairman Chuck Grassley was forced to delay a consideration of his nomination until the next markup.

You have got that right. Chairman Grassley actually followed the committee rules and allowed for all of our colleagues to speak, notwithstanding the fact that they disagreed with him, notwithstanding the fact that it was contentious, notwithstanding the fact that he didn't like what they were saying.

And by doing so, he was forced--because he was complying with the rules and the precedents of the Senate--to delay the consideration of Attorney General Sessions' nomination. But that is what he did. He did that instead because it was preferable to an act of unilaterally forcing a vote and thereby nuking the Judiciary Committee's rules.

Now, to put this in context, we need to understand that Judiciary Committee rule IV states:

The Chair shall enter a non-debatable motion to bring a matter before the Committee to a vote. If there is objection to bringing a matter to a vote without further debate, a roll call vote of the Committee shall be taken, and debate shall be terminated if the motion to bring the matter to a vote without further debate passes with twelve votes in the affirmative, one of which must be cast by the minority.

Rule IV essentially preserves the right of minority members to speak.

Chairman Durbin decided to nuke that part of rule IV in particular because he knew that he didn't have 12 votes to prematurely end debate.

Now, when you are in the majority, it can be tempting to run right past certain rules, knocking things over in the process in order to get your party's nominees confirmed. But I think it is important for us to resist that temptation in order to protect the rules of our institution from partisan passions.

Following these rules, respecting minority prerogatives, is precisely what allows us to maintain bipartisan cooperation in the Senate and lower the partisan tensions in our country. This is all the more important when we consider that there is no true majority in the Senate, and there is no majority at all on the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Unfortunately, with this breach, it looks like some of my colleagues might prefer convenience over debate. I find that most unfortunate, especially because I have worked with so many of them on a bipartisan basis on so many issues.

Now, some of my colleagues may claim that Republicans have done this very thing many times. That, however, is not the case. On multiple occasions, we allowed for extended debate and even delayed reporting of matters before the committee, like Attorney General Sessions' nomination and the Crossfire Hurricane subpoenas, until the next markup. When we set votes with the consent of the majority, the chairman followed committee precedent and did so through a rollcall vote--again, consistent with committee precedent.

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