John Cornyn

Mr. CORNYN

Mr. CORNYN. I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. CORNYN

Mr. CORNYN. Madam President, last night we all witnessed a rather extraordinary event. Certainly for the first time in my time in the Senate, we saw rule XIX of the Standing Senate Rules invoked. That rule says: ``No Senator in debate shall, directly or indirectly, by any form of words impute to another Senator or to other Senators any conduct or motive unworthy or unbecoming a Senator.'' I certainly agree with the ruling of the Chair and the decision of the Senate as a body that that line was crossed last night. A Senator can't evade that rule by somehow claiming: These weren't my words; I was reading what somebody else said. Specifically, in the case of our former colleague, now deceased, Senator Ted Kennedy claimed that the nominee for Attorney General was somehow a disgrace to the Justice Department and ought to resign. That certainly crossed that line. Our colleagues want to point to a letter written by Coretta Scott King. That was part but not the whole of the speech given by the Senator from Massachusetts. I hope that maybe we have all been chastened a little bit, and maybe we have all learned a little bit of a lesson here. I yearn for the day when the Senate and, frankly, the country as a whole would pull back from the abyss of recrimination, personal attacks, and we would get back to doing what this institution was designed to do--which is to be a great body for deliberation and debate--and we would treat each other with the civility with which we would all want to be treated. We are at a pretty challenging time in our Nation's history, when many people who were surprised and disappointed at the last election are unwilling to accept the results of that election and the verdict of the American people. I can only hope that, after the passage of some time, they will return to their senses, and they will agree that no one is well served by this race to the bottom in terms of decorum and in terms of rhetoric, in terms of how we treat one another. The American people are better served when we treat each other with civility and respect and when we don't make personal attacks against Senators because of the positions that they take. This debate over the nomination of Senator Jeff Sessions has taken on some rather unusual twists and turns. I want to comment briefly on some of the remarks made by our colleague from Minnesota about voting rights because I think this is exemplary of the way that Senator Sessions' record on voting rights has been misrepresented. We all know that in 2006--those of us who were here in the Senate, including Senator Sessions, including the Democratic whip and myself-- we all voted to reauthorize the Voting Rights Act. That included section 2 and section 5, which was later struck down. Section 2 is the provision of the Voting Rights Act that applies to the entire Nation, and it authorizes a lawsuit to vindicate voting rights that are jeopardized by some illegal practice. Section 5, which was the subject of the decision by the U.S. Supreme Court in the Shelby County case that was decided in 2013--that was directed not at section 2, which applies to the entire Nation, but to section 5, which applied only to a handful of jurisdictions around the country. It was based on voting practices that existed in the middle 1960s. I would be the first to admit that the record of vindicating the rights of minority voters in 1965 was nothing to be proud of. We have come a long way in this country, and it has been because of the Voting Rights Act. It has been because of our collective commitment to the right of every citizen to vote that I believe those statistics which existed in the mid-sixties are no longer valid today. In fact, if you look at many of the jurisdictions covered in the 1960s, including places like Alabama, where Senator Sessions is from, they have records of minority voting that are superior to jurisdictions that are not covered by section 5. How our colleagues across the aisle can somehow condemn Senator Sessions for the Supreme Court's decision in the Shelby County case, when he voted for the reauthorization of the entire Voting Rights Act, section 2 and section 5, strikes me as extremely misleading and unfortunate, but it does seem to characterize the nature of the debate about this nominee. During his confirmation hearing, I said: Well, those who don't know Senator Sessions are interested to learn his record and his resume, but those of us who worked with him--we don't need to read his resume. We don't need to hear a recitation of his record. We know the man. We know what is in his heart. And he is a thoroughly decent and honorable Member of the Senate, and he will do an outstanding job, I believe, restoring the reputation of the Department of Justice, as one dedicated to the rule of law above all else. There is always a risk--and this happens in Democratic administrations, as well as Republican administrations--when the Attorney General feels like they are an arm of the White House. That is not the job of the Attorney General. The President has a lawyer, White House Counsel. The Attorney General is supposed to have some measure of independence even though he or she is appointed by the President and serves at the President's pleasure. That is why we ask questions of people, like Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates: Can you tell the President no? Well, she said she could. And then ultimately, unfortunately, in the case of the Executive order that was issued by President Trump later on, said--even though this order was vetted by the Office of Legal Counsel and determined that this was a legal Executive order both in content and in form, she said: I still disagree with the President's Executive order, and I am going to order the Justice Department lawyers not to defend it. Well, that is the kind of politics that we need none of in the Department of Justice. We have plenty of politicians in this country. We have plenty of politicians in the Congress and in the White House. We don't need another politician as Attorney General. In fact, we need a nonpolitician, an apolitician, somebody who believes that their allegiance to the rule of law, irrespective of who is involved, whether it is the President of the United States or the least among us--that is what the rule of law is all about. And that is one reason why I feel so strongly that Senator Sessions will be an outstanding Attorney General, because I believe he will restore the Department of Justice to an institution that believes in and enforces the rule of law above politics, and that is a fundamentally important thing to do. We know Senator Sessions, as I said earlier, brings a lifetime of relevant experience to this job: former Federal prosecutor, former U.S. attorney for the Department of Justice. He said those were some of the best years of his life. I once had a colleague who now serves on the Fifth Circuit. When he became a U.S. district judge in San Antonio, he was recalling his days as U.S. attorney. He said--I still remember this after all these many years--he said he never had a prouder moment in his life than when he appeared in court and he said: ``I am here and I am ready on behalf of the United States of America.'' Senator Sessions is here, and he is ready to serve the American people as Attorney General. And we know from his service at the Department of Justice, as attorney general of Alabama, and now for the past 20 years in the Senate, that he is devoted to the rule of law and keeping our country safe. So it has really been sad to see interest groups vilifying him over and over again or people mischaracterizing him, as they have on his voting rights record, things that he is not responsible for after voting to reauthorize the Voting Rights Act in 2006. He didn't decide the Shelby County case. This is a man we have worked with for--some for 20 years, people who have been here that long with him, and we know Jeff Sessions to be a man who has dedicated his life to public service. Our colleagues across the aisle have offered him an occasional compliment, like the Democratic leader, who once called him straightforward and fair. The assistant Democratic leader called him a man of his word. But now the decision to drag out Cabinet nominations as long as possible and to waste valuable time that could be used on other bipartisan legislation--we know our Democratic colleagues have chosen to slow-walk the process, and I think it is a shame, particularly in the case of somebody whom we all know so well and who is dedicated to the Department of Justice and the restoration of the rule of law. Several of us have talked from time to time about how the holding up of these nominees is unprecedented. At this point in President Obama's term, 21 Cabinet members were confirmed. Senator Sessions, when we vote on his nomination tonight, will be No. 8--21 to 8. You have to go back to George Washington to find a slower confirmation timeline for a new administration. There is no good excuse for it, particularly in light of the fact that now, under the Reid precedent, our colleagues across the aisle know that all of these nominees, particularly in the case of Senator Sessions, will be confirmed. So holding up the nomination just for delay alone makes no sense at all. Well, some have said holding up Senator Sessions' nomination is somehow similar to the confirmation process for Loretta Lynch, but that really rings hollow on examination. Let me remind them what happened when Loretta Lynch was nominated as Attorney General. At the time, our Democratic friends were filibustering a bipartisan bill that later passed 99 to 0. They were filibustering a bipartisan anti-trafficking bill for no good reason. That is my view; they may think they had a good reason. I think actually what it had to do with was the Hyde amendment and the longstanding limitation on the use of taxpayer funds for abortion that had gone back to roughly 1976. They wanted to eliminate that restriction in this anti-trafficking bill, so they refused to consider that legislation, which many of them had cosponsored, to help thousands of victims of sexual exploitation, slavery, and human trafficking find a path to healing and restoration. So the majority leader, in an action that I completely endorsed, simply said that as soon as they dropped the filibuster, we would move on with the Loretta Lynch nomination. They did finally, and we processed her nomination. So in no way were those two situations similar. Today, our colleagues across the aisle want to keep a new President from surrounding himself with the men and women he has selected to help run the country. I think if there is one thing that should give people more confidence in the new administration, it is the quality of the men and women he has chosen for his Cabinet, and I would add Vice President Pence, somebody we know here, having served 12 years in the House of Representatives. So the delay is really for no good reason at all and will have no achievable results. They are not going to be able to block the nomination but, rather, just try to score political points. And preventing an exemplary nominee from filling an important national security position I believe makes our country less safe. I will give our colleagues across the aisle some credit for allowing the confirmation of Secretary of Defense James Mattis and Gen. John Kelly at the Department of Homeland Security and finally, after a long weekend, Mike Pompeo as Director of the CIA. Those are essential components of the President's national security Cabinet, but it also includes the Attorney General of the United States, someone whose nomination has been delayed until we vote on him tonight. After 9/11, the Attorney General became more than just a law enforcement officer; he became a counterterrorism official as well, integrally tied, with supervision of the FBI, to our efforts to protect the American people from terrorists who would kill us or our allies. So there is really no good excuse for delaying the confirmation of Senator Sessions, and I am confident that tonight we will finally do what we should have done at least 3 weeks ago--confirm Senator Sessions as the next Attorney General of the United States. And I believe it is past time that we do so. Madam President, I yield the floor.

Mr. CORNYN

Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate be in a period of morning business, with Senators permitted to speak therein for up to 10 minutes each.

Mr. CORNYN

Mr. CORNYN. The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator from Arizona (Mr. Flake), the Senator from Alaska (Ms. Murkowski), the Senator from Nebraska (Mr. Sasse), and the Senator from Pennsylvania (Mr. Toomey).

Mr. CORNYN

Mr. CORNYN. The following Senator is necessarily absent: The Senator from Alabama (Mr. Sessions).

Mr. CORNYN

Mr. CORNYN. The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator from Texas (Mr. Cruz) and the Senator from Alabama (Mr. Sessions).

Mr. CORNYN

Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that following the prayer, the Senator from Nevada be recognized for such time as he shall consume, and then I be recognized.

Mr. CORNYN

Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, I sat here and listened with interest to the majority leader's comments about this strategy of obstruction and slow walking the President's Cabinet. I share his frustration. More than that, on behalf of the people we were sent here to represent--the American people--I regret that petty politics has gotten in the way of the ability of our colleagues across the aisle to get over the fact that the election didn't turn out quite the way they hoped and to get back to work on behalf of the American people. This week we will continue to grind our way through consideration of President Trump's nominees, despite the best efforts of our friends across the aisle to obstruct and to slow walk. Because of their insistence on taking advantage of every possible procedural delay, they have tried to grind the Senate to a near halt, but we have overcome that obstruction. We came together early Friday morning and voted to move forward with the President's nominee for Education Secretary-- about 6:30 in the morning. It was a little earlier than we usually convene, but I am glad we were able to get it done. I am confident that we will get Mrs. DeVos confirmed soon. Then, thanks to former Democratic leader Harry Reid, the Democrats know they cannot block these nominees from taking office. Because of the so- called nuclear option, they reduced the voting threshold from 60 to 51, meaning that, with 52 Republicans and, hopefully, with a little help from some of our friends across the aisle, every single one of President Trump's Cabinet nominees will be confirmed. We can take that to the bank. All they can do, which is all they have done up to this point, is to slow the process down for no reason other than the fact that they can. Again, thanks to Senator Reid, all of the President's nominees will be confirmed. This type of behavior is really pretty juvenile, if you ask me, and it can't actually accomplish anything. It is a strategy in search of a goal. They don't have any particular goal in mind, because at the end of the day, the President will get the Cabinet that he has nominated and deserves. After the vote tomorrow on Mrs. DeVos for Cabinet Secretary of Education, we will vote to confirm Senator Sessions, our longstanding colleague, as Attorney General. In addition to him and the Education Secretary, we have the Secretary of Health and Human Services and the Secretary of Treasury, too. These, of course, are key positions in the new administration. Now, 18 days after President Trump's inauguration, he still doesn't have the help he needs in these critical posts. I believe this kind of mindless obstruction is actually irresponsible, if not downright dangerous. I know our Democratic colleagues said they confirmed General Mattis, the Secretary of Defense, and later on the Director of the CIA and, yes, they finally confirmed the Secretary of State. But the Attorney General is part of the national security Cabinet. They run a lot of the counterterrorism efforts for the Department of Justice. This is not only irresponsible, but this is, I believe, dangerous. It should also be an embarrassment. The American people expect their Senators and Congress to do our jobs and fulfill the duties to those who we represent. If our Democratic colleagues don't want to support one of the very well-qualified nominees of the President, that is fine. That is their right, but don't slow walk and slow down the institution of the Senate just to score some political points or to feed some of the irrational rage that you see depicted in some quarters. Dragging this out doesn't do any good. It won't change the outcome, and it ill serves the American people. Let's get these nominations done so they can be sworn in and begin their service to this new administration and, more importantly, to the American people. In addition to our work on nominations, last week the Senate started to consider a number of measures to block a host of regulations put in place by the Obama administration during the last 6 months that President Obama was in office. Under President Obama, our country witnessed a volcanic profusion of rules and regulations that empowered unelected bureaucrats and shut out the voices of the elected representatives of the people. The result? Job creators have less freedom to operate and innovate and are instead suffocated by more and more redtape and compliance costs. That translates into a slower growing economy, which means less jobs and which means the American people are the ones who get hurt, directly as a result of this profusion of redtape and regulation. According to recent reports, the 600-plus regulations issued by the Obama White House came with a $700 billion pricetag for our economy. Our economy is not even growing at 2 percent. I think this overregulation is largely responsible because this profusion of regulations hit businesses both big--they can absorb some matter of the costs--but also small businesses, including local community banks that are going out of business on a daily basis because they simply can't afford to compete and to pay for the countless lawyers to comply with all of the redtape and the mindless regulation from the previous administration. It is not just financial services. It is health care, it is agriculture, and it is all sectors of the economy. I am grateful that President Trump has made it clear where he stands on all of this, and he has already issued guidance requiring the government to cut regulations should it want to add more: Cut two regulations for every one you want to add. With President Trump in the White House, Congress can reverse many of the Obama regulations. That gives the American people and our anemic economic growth some relief. Through the Congressional Review Act, Congress can review and ultimately block recent regulations handed down by the Federal Government. That is what we did last week, and that is what we are going to continue to do. We can roll back many of the Obama administration rules that are killing jobs and stifling economic growth. At the end of last week, we repealed the rule called the stream buffer rule, which actually didn't have anything to do with streams. It was a job-killing regulation that was more about stifling domestic energy production, and I am glad we did away with it. On Friday, Congress passed another resolution--one I was happy to cosponsor. That was aimed at chipping away the regulatory burdens for our community banks and other financial services organizations brought on by Dodd-Frank. I am all for transparency, but I am against laws that give advantages to foreign companies over our own. This Securities and Exchange Commission rule would have done that by forcing American companies to disclose confidential information that their foreign competitors can keep under wraps. It should go without saying that each of us want a level playing field for our businesses, which help to create jobs and grow the economy. That is why we blocked this rule. Of course, this and other resolutions are the first few steps in a broader strategy to kill overbearing regulations so that our innovators and our entrepreneurs aren't suffocated by unnecessary paperwork and bureaucracy. That is part of what the American people sent us here to do. Certainly, the verdict they rendered on November 8 is that they did not want a continuation of the status quo under the previous administration. They wanted change. It is integral to restoring our economy--the kind of change we are bringing about to restoring our economy and helping it grow for everyone. I look forward to working with the White House and with our colleagues as we continue to find new ways to build up the American economy. Mr. President, if I can just close on one last topic. I see some colleagues here wishing to speak. Tomorrow we will vote on the nomination of Betsy Devos to the Department of Education. The Federal Government, through the Department of Education, funds about 10 percent of public education, because most of that comes from our States; that is, the funding and the regulation of education from kindergarten through the 12th grade. What this fight over this well-qualified nominee is all about is power--as so many of these fights in Washington, DC, are about--and the desire to keep power over public education in all of our States and all across the country right here inside the beltway. I believe President Trump chose wisely, not because he chose another education bureaucrat who knows all the acronyms and knows the arcanum known to people who have been brought up within that establishment. Instead, he chose an outsider, someone much like himself but someone more interested in results, rather than paying homage to and feeding the education establishment here in Washington, DC, and retaining the power over the important decisions that should be handed back down to the States, down to teachers, parents, and students, as they choose how best to get to accomplish our universal goal of making sure every child has a good education. This fight isn't about the quality of education in our country. This fight, for those who are opposing Mrs. DeVos, is largely about whether we should retain power here in Washington, DC, so that Washington can continue to dictate to the States, parents, and teachers what policies they need to apply in our K-12 education system or whether we are going to return that power back where it should be--back into the hands of parents, teachers, and local school districts. That is what this fight is all about. That is why I am glad that tomorrow we will confirm Betsy DeVos as Secretary of Education. Listen to what the American people told us on November 8 when they said they didn't want to maintain the status quo because the status quo is not working for them, it is not working for our economy, and, certainly, it is not working for our children, each of whom deserves a good education. Yes, Mrs. DeVos will shake things up a little bit but, more importantly, she is going to be part of this effort to return power to parents and teachers and to our local school districts. That is what this vote will be about tomorrow. I yield the floor.

Mr. CORNYN

Mr. CORNYN. The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator from Texas (Mr. Cruz), the Senator from Georgia (Mr. Isakson), and the Senator from Alabama (Mr. Sessions).

Mr. CORNYN

Mr. CORNYN. The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator from Texas (Mr. Cruz), the Senator from Georgia (Mr. Isakson), and the Senator from Alabama (Mr. Sessions).

Mr. CORNYN

Mr. CORNYN. The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator from South Carolina (Mr. Graham) and the Senator from Alabama (Mr. Sessions).

Mr. CORNYN

Mr. CORNYN. The following Senator is necessarily absent: the Senator from Alabama (Mr. Sessions).

Mr. CORNYN

Mr. CORNYN. The following Senator is necessarily absent: the Senator from Alabama (Mr. Sessions).

Mr. CORNYN

Mr. CORNYN. The following Senator is necessarily absent: the Senator from Alabama (Mr. Sessions).

Mr. CORNYN

Mr. CORNYN. The following Senator is necessarily absent: the Senator from Alabama (Mr. Sessions).

Mr. CORNYN

Mr. CORNYN. The following Senator is necessarily absent: the Senator from Alabama (Mr. Sessions).

Mr. CORNYN. Madam President, yesterday the Senate took up legislation to block the stream buffer rule, which is a job-killing regulation from the Obama administration--something the Obama administration will be long remembered for--a regulatory overreach that strangled the growth of our economy and the jobs that come along with it. This is a prime example of a misnomer, though. It is not really about protecting streams, as it claims, but about killing the coal industry and energy production in our country. One of the things that have caused our economy to grow historically has been access to low-cost energy, but unfortunately this regulation has made that not possible in coal country, taking many jobs along with it and I think in part, at least, responsible for the vote President Trump got in many parts of the country that felt left behind by the economy and because of job-killing regulations like the stream buffer rule. Nomination of Neil Gorsuch Madam President, yesterday I had the chance to meet with Judge Gorsuch personally, the man President Trump nominated to serve on the U.S. Supreme Court. It is plain to me now why President Trump selected him to be the nominee for the seat vacated by the death of Justice Scalia. Judge Gorsuch's experience, intellect, and background make him uniquely qualified and qualify him as a mainstream nominee. That seems to be the nomenclature that has been embraced by our colleagues across the aisle. They said they hope President Trump nominates a mainstream nominee. Well, he did. But I fully expect our colleagues across the aisle to try to paint him as some sort of extremist, which they can't do based upon his distinguished record on the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals for the last 10 years as a Federal judge or his previous life. They are going to have to make things up in order to cause people to believe this nominee is not a mainstream nominee. I look forward to working with my colleagues on the Judiciary Committee to do our job of advice and consent and to see the nomination come to the floor, where I hope he will be confirmed. I trust he will be confirmed one way or the other. Unfortunately, Senate Democrats--particularly their leader, the Senator from New York--have already announced that they will fight tooth and nail against any nominee put forward by President Trump. Predictably, the minority leader has made clear that he will try to filibuster the President's choice. It has been ironic to watch him come here and extol the virtues of the 60-vote cloture requirement for confirming a Supreme Court Justice when he and the rest of his colleagues invoked the so- called nuclear option to change the Senate rules by breaking those rules and reducing the cloture requirement for lower Federal court judges and Cabinet members to 51. We see what happened as a result of that action. Now they find themselves on the receiving end of that 51-vote requirement caused by the nuclear option. So much for immediate gratification and not so much for taking the long view in terms of how the Senate ought to operate. This sort of resistance mentality that has grown up among our colleagues on the other side of the aisle ignores the fact that we had an election on November 8. The American people made their choice, and it is plain that our Democratic colleagues are simply not happy about the choice they made and are going to undermine and resist this President no matter what, particularly when it comes to staffing his Cabinet with the people he has chosen to serve the Nation as part of his administration. The American people also indicated they wanted us to move forward, away from the bickering, away from the gridlock, away from this mentality that we were here to serve someone else other than the American people. They want results, not politics as usual. I think that is the lesson we all should have learned from this last election. The sad reality is that it is increasingly clear to me that my Democratic colleagues didn't learn the right lesson last November and are trying to bring the Chamber to a standstill. Thanks to the nuclear option that then-Majority Leader Senator Reid championed and which all of our Democratic friends voted for, they are not going to be able to stop President Trump's nominees to the Cabinet because all it requires is 51 votes. Yes, they can slow it down, but they can't stop it. My question is, What purpose is to be served from keeping the President fully staffed with the Cabinet that he has chosen, knowing that you are ultimately going to lose the fight? Unfortunately, this is not about the Senate alone. This is about the American people. For 2 days in a row, Senate Democrats on the Finance Committee, which has been one of the most bipartisan committees in the U.S. Senate--our Democratic colleagues, each and every one of them, boycotted the meetings to consider President Trump's nominees. I sit on the Finance Committee. As I said, it has historically been a bipartisan committee, but our Democratic colleagues chose to relinquish their responsibility and ignore their duties to their constituents. Unfortunately, this type of behavior has become par for the course throughout the first days of President Trump's administration. We have seen other examples of slow-walking nominations, invoking every procedural rule that there is to deny unanimous consent--the sort of normal courtesies that go along with working in the Senate on technical or procedural matters. We have seen countless examples of their slowing down the nomination process intentionally, even for highly qualified candidates. On the Judiciary Committee, on which I also sit, there is another example with respect to the nomination for Attorney General of Senator Jeff Sessions, a well-respected colleague in this Chamber. I am glad we were finally able to move his nomination out of the committee yesterday. But the truth is that even though many Democrats on the committee had worked side by side with Senator Sessions and had cosponsored legislation with him, they themselves said what a good man he was. They voted against him after slowing down this obvious choice to lead the Justice Department. President Trump talks about draining the swamp in Washington, DC. The biggest swamp in Washington, DC, has been a Justice Department headed by Eric Holder and, sadly, by his successor Loretta Lynch. They have refused to enforce the rule of law and instead turned that into a political outpost for the Obama administration. Attorney General Jeff Sessions is going to change that. He is going to enforce the law, and he will respect the law no matter who wins and who loses because his duty is to the Constitution and laws of the United States and to enforce those laws as Attorney General and, yes, to defend those laws. Some of our Senate colleagues were shocked when Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates--although the Office of Legal Counsel said that the Executive order issued by the President was legal and proper in its form--wrote a letter saying she was instructing the line lawyers in the Justice Department not to defend it in court. President Trump fired her, and he should have. That is political grandstanding by somebody who should know better, considering her distinguished career at the Department of Justice for the last 30 years. I don't know who gave her the bad advice, but I am glad that President Trump decided to fire someone who basically defied their duties to the Department of Justice and to the U.S. Government and preferred to take the side of politics and misinformation. We know that the Senate is continuing with other nominations as well. I see this morning that the Environment and Public Works Committee finally voted out the nomination of the attorney general of Oklahoma, Scott Pruitt, for Director of the Environmental Protection Agency. Unfortunately, our Democratic colleagues' bad habits on the Finance Committee have spilled over to the Environment and Public Works Committee, and they chose to boycott that hearing as well. Notwithstanding that boycott, the majority of the committee did vote out the nomination, and we will take that up soon. This lack of cooperation is unprecedented. It really is unprecedented. At this point in 2009, President Obama had 11 of his Cabinet members confirmed by the Senate--11. Today we have only five confirmed, and many of those who have been confirmed were slow-walked by our Democratic colleagues for one lame excuse or another. This is not because President Trump's nominees aren't qualified; it is because our colleagues on the other side of the aisle are determined to undermine this new President and his administration, no matter what cost is paid by the country. After the election, President Obama, to his credit, talked about the importance of a peaceful transition of power from one administration to the next. Some of our colleagues who are now obstructing this President's Cabinet members have also paid lipservice to a peaceful transition of power. What we are seeing is a hostile transition of power--mindless obstruction, foot dragging, and delay for delay's sake. Let me remind them once again that the American people voted on November 8 and chose a President who has the authority to nominate the people he sees fit to serve on his Cabinet. We can't afford to let this administration operate with one hand tied behind its back for the foreseeable future. We need to do our job and provide the President and the country with the experts and advisers that the administration needs to keep our country safe and to keep government functioning for the people. I hope soon--I am not optimistic, but I hope that soon our Senate Democrats will start working with us and not against us and, more importantly, against the interests of the American people who sent them here. Tribute to Linda Bazaco Madam President, I want to spend a few minutes recognizing an extraordinary public servant on my staff who served in a unique capacity that many may not know exists. One of the most important things we get to do as Members of Congress is to act as the intermediary or intercessor between our constituents and a Federal Government that sometimes is not responsive, particularly in dealing with Federal agencies. For instance, when somebody isn't receiving their proper check from the Social Security Administration or is having trouble getting an appointment at a Veterans Administration clinic or is in need of assistance with foreign adoptions, where do they turn? They turn to people like Linda Bazaco, who heads my casework program in Dallas, TX, and is going to be retiring soon. I am proud to say that we do our very best to make sure that the 28 million people I have the privilege of representing get the very best help possible to help navigate the very real and very personal issues that involve the Federal bureaucracy. That way, my office--specifically my constituent services or what we call my casework team--can help ensure that no Texan who reaches out to us slips between the cracks. In some circles, apparently, we have a reputation for bragging in Texas, but I have to say my staff are some of the absolutely best in the field when it comes to getting responses for Texans from Federal agencies. I like to say that if it can be done, it will be done. In that way, we play an important role in holding the bureaucracy accountable and reminding the Federal Government who their customer really is. It is the taxpayers to whom they ought to be responsive. They shouldn't need to call their Senator or their Congressman or Congresswoman in order to get responses from the Federal Government, but, in fact, sometimes they do, and sometimes--well, it is our privilege to help. As I indicated, the person who has led this effort in my office for the last many years is Linda Bazaco, someone whom I came to know after she worked for my predecessor, Senator Phil Gramm. Linda fervently believes in the concept of government accountability and has developed a way to get the answers that Texans need and deserve. As I indicated, she started under my predecessor, Senator Phil Gramm, about 27 years ago. Today, Linda's system has become the gold standard for other elected officials to get results on behalf of their constituents and, in doing so, has impacted constituents' lives in profound ways: benefits, checks, expedited passports, medical care, or even the most basic--simply a return phone call from an agency. All the while, Linda has done this with enthusiasm and with an eye toward quality and getting results for the people of Texas. Linda, along with the team she has built, has pushed the government to be more accountable and responsive to the tens of thousands of Texans who have reached out to my office and, in most cases, will never know she was their secret weapon. Soon Linda will be taking on another challenge. After serving the 28 million people of Texas for nearly 27 years now, she will take up an even more important role; that is, a full-time grandmother extraordinaire. I couldn't be prouder of having someone of her caliber as a leader on my team, and I wish her and her husband Val and her three children and her five beautiful grandchildren the absolute best in the next chapter of their lives. On behalf of all the generations of Texans you have helped over the decades, the staff members you have led along the way, and at least two U.S. Senators, Linda, thank you for your service. Madam President, I yield the floor.

Mr. CORNYN

Mr. CORNYN. The following Senator is necessarily absent: the Senator from Alabama (Mr. Sessions).

Mr. CORNYN

Mr. CORNYN. The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator from Alabama (Mr. Sessions) and the Senator from North Carolina (Mr. Tillis).

Mr. CORNYN

Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. CORNYN

Mr. CORNYN. The following Senator is necessarily absent: the Senator from Alabama (Mr. Sessions).

Mr. CORNYN

Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. CORNYN

Mr. CORNYN. The following Senator is necessarily absent: the Senator from Alabama (Mr. Sessions).