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Floor Speech

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Mr. LEE. Madam President, I rise today to speak in support of my motion to table the Ramona Manglona nomination.

My issue with the nominee at hand is not with the nominee at hand. In fact, she is quite well-qualified. She passed out of the Judiciary Committee, on which I serve, with my support, by a vote in committee of 21 to 0. But the Senate should not be processing nominees right now. The Senate should be laser-focused, instead, on preparing for the trial for Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, whom the House impeached in February.

Instead of confirming yet another nominee, we should be considering and organizing a resolution to set up that trial, which we are constitutionally compelled to conduct. Unfortunately, that is not what we are doing. Instead, Senator Schumer is preparing to enact a nuclear option by tabling the Articles of Impeachment for the first time in American history. Senate Democrats want to avoid even examining the evidence presented against Mayorkas. We should not be going about business as usual while Senator Schumer prepares to nuke the Senate.

If this motion to table is successful, then with respect to Manglona, we could move to legislative business to consider an organizing resolution for the impeachment trial. I ask my colleagues for support.

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