Barrasso: Time for Democrats to stop obstructing and start confirming Trump nominees

Posted 8/3/17

Barrasso: Time for Democrats to stop obstructing and start confirming Trump nominees

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Barrasso: Time for Democrats to stop obstructing and start confirming Trump nominees

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WASHINGTON, D.C.— On Tuesday, August 1, U.S. Senator John Barrasso (R-Wyo.) delivered the following remarks on the Senate floor:

Excerpts of Senator Barrasso’s remarks:

“President Trump has been in office for just a little over six months.

“We had an election –the American people said that they preferred the Republican vision for the direction this country should go.

“But it seems today that Democrats in the Senate think the Inauguration never happened.

“For more than six months, Democrats have engaged in a historic effort to obstruct the work of the Trump administration and the United States government.

“Normally on Inauguration Day, the president gets a substantial number of people confirmed to his cabinet.

“The idea is to let the president get his team in place, so they can go about in hitting the ground running.

“President Obama had six of his cabinet secretaries confirmed on Inauguration Day in 2009. All of them were confirmed by voice vote. They didn’t even have to do a roll call.

“Republicans in the Senate did nothing to try to block any of those cabinet secretaries for President Obama.

“We understood that it’s best to give the new president a chance – and for all of us to work together when we can.

“President George W. Bush had seven people nominated and confirmed on his first day in office.

“That’s the way it usually works.

“But not anymore.

“Now Democrats aren’t really interested in giving a Republican president a chance.

“They weren’t interested in working together.

“Last January, President Trump only got two people confirmed to his cabinet on Inauguration Day.

“Just two people ready to get to work on the day he took office.

“The secretary of defense, and the secretary of homeland security – these were the only two jobs that Democrats let the president fill. 

“By the end of January in 2009, President Obama had 10 of his cabinet secretaries in place.

“His cabinet was almost entirely set by the end of the month he took office.

“Because of ongoing obstruction by Democrats in the Senate, President Trump still only had three cabinet secretaries in their jobs by the end of January.

“That’s an incredible level of obstruction when you compare it to what’s happened historically.

“And it didn’t just stop with members of the cabinet– and it didn’t just end in January.

“Democrats have continued to make the Senate jump through procedural hoops.

“In President Obama’s first half year in office, 206 people confirmed to serve in his administration.

“In President Trump’s first six months, Democrats continued to block the way, allowing us to approve only 55 of his nominees for those first six months.

“President Obama got nearly four confirmations for every one of President Trump’s over the same period of time.

“The difference is stark, and the reason is simple.

“Democrats have been putting up roadblocks one after another on even the most non-controversial of nominees. 

“That’s not how things worked in the past. 

“In previous administrations, many of these nominees for important jobs would get approved by what we call in the Senate, unanimous consent, or with a voice vote.

“Republicans have been willing to let a lot of Democrats take their jobs without wasting time on roll call votes and running out the clock.

“In President Obama’s first six months of office, Republicans allowed 182 of his nominees to be confirmed by unanimous consent or voice vote.

 “That’s almost 90 percent of the jobs filled in those first six months.

 “In the same time, the Democrats allowed just five of President Trump’s nominees to get through without a roll call vote.

 “That’s the level of Democrats’ obstructionism.

 “They’ve been blocking judges, cabinet secretaries, and other high ranking officials.

 “Many of these nominees even had Democratic support – they’re not controversial at all.

 “Democrats in the Senate forced us to file cloture 34 times on people nominated to fill important jobs in the United States government. We had to force the Democrats to act.

“In President Obama’s first six months, there were only eight cloture votes. 

“There is no way Democrats can argue that they had principled objection to these 34 nominees where we had to file cloture on their motions

“The only explanation is that they did not want the president to have his team in place.

“Now when you look at these 34 people, that we had to go ahead and file cloture on, half of them ended up getting 60 or more votes for their confirmation.

“So they had support by Democrats as well as the Republicans.

“One nominee, who we had to file cloture on and go all the way through the process, even got a unanimous confirmation vote, roll call vote in the United States Senate – 100 to nothing.

“Democrats blocked him as long as they could – but yet not a single Democrat stood to vote against him when his name was called for a roll call vote.

“Why are Democrats blocking votes on people who they then intend to support, and do support with their votes? They’re just trying to slow things down.

“The Democratic leader actually admitted that that was his plan. That was during the debate over confirming the number two person at the Pentagon.

“It’s someone who the Senate eventually confirmed with 92 votes in his favor.

“Republicans wanted to speed up the process a little, Senator Schumer objected.

“Did he have a problem with the nominee’s qualifications? No.

“The Democratic leader said on the floor, ‘We’d be happy to consider the nominee in regular order, and maybe once things change a little bit in health care we can.’ 

“It had nothing to do with the person who was nominated. It had nothing to do with anything according to Senator Schumer, other than the fact that we were discussing health care in this country.

“It was all because Democrats were trying to stall the debate over health care reform.

“Republicans are trying to keep the federal government functioning by filling these jobs that have been empty.

“Health care is a very separate thing. Both of these are important.

“The only thing that they have in common is that Democrats have been playing politics with both of them. This is not normal – and it is not acceptable.

“The Democrats’ blockade against President Trump’s nominees has caused what I believe has been a dangerous backlog.

“We still have 84 people who have been nominated by the president for positions in the government, 84, who have cleared the committees. And are now just waiting for a vote on the Senate floor, slowed down by Democrat obstruction.

“Democrats are trying their best to drag this out, it seems to be, as long as they possibly can

“The Senate rules say that means up to 30 hours of debate once we vote to move forward on a nomination. Maybe that’s too long.

“Senator Ron Johnson had an op-ed in the Washington Post over the weekend, with a headline ‘Let’s break this Senate logjam.’

“He suggests that we cut the time back from 30 hours of debate to two hours of debate. That would certainly speed things up – and maybe that’s a step we’re going to have to take if this level of obstruction continues.

“Whatever we do, we cannot allow this logjam to continue. These are important jobs.

“The American people deserve to have someone doing their work.

“Last Friday after the health care vote, Senator Schumer called for us to work together.

“He said: ‘There are some things we can do rather quickly, including moving a whole lot of nominations.’

“I’m going to hold the Democratic leader to his word on this. Let him show that he meant what he said.

“We should be able to clear the decks of these 84 nominees, who have come through the Senate committees, who have been approved by the committees, and are waiting here to be confirmed. We should do it by unanimous consent.

“If Democrats object to one or two of them, let’s have a roll call vote so we can get it on the record.

“It’s time to stop this mindless obstruction that serves no purpose except to delay.”