John Thune

Mr. THUNE

Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, notwithstanding rule XXII, I ask unanimous consent that at 2:15 today, the Senate vote on confirmation of the Nesvik nomination and that following disposition of the nomination, the Senate vote on the motion to invoke cloture on the Rinaldi nomination.

Mr. THUNE

Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, I want to just congratulate Chair Collins, Vice Chair Murray, members of the Senate Appropriations Committee, and the committee sub chairs this evening--I know, at least on our side, Chair Boozman, Chair Hoeven, Chair Mullin--in getting a package of appropriations bills across the floor. It is a major accomplishment and something that I hope is a pattern for things to come. And so I would say thank you to all who worked so hard to get us to this point, including the many members of your staff who have worked night and day these last several weeks. And the committee continues to report out, with big bipartisan margins, appropriations bills, and I hope we can get some more of them on the floor soon. So, again, congrats to the members of the committee, and let's vote.

Mr. THUNE

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

Mr. THUNE

Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on the Judiciary be discharged from further consideration and the Senate now proceed to S. Res. 340.

Mr. THUNE. I ask unanimous consent that the resolution be agreed to, the preamble be agreed to, and that the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table with no intervening action or debate.

Mr. THUNE

Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the consideration of S. Res. 367, which is at the desk.

Mr. THUNE. I ask unanimous consent that the resolution be agreed to, the preamble be agreed to, and that the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table with no intervening action or debate.

Mr. THUNE

Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Veterans Affairs be discharged from further consideration of S. 1071 and the Senate proceed to its immediate consideration.

Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the bill be considered read a third time and passed and that the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table.

Mr. THUNE

Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on the Judiciary be discharged from further consideration of S. 1659 and the Senate proceed to its immediate consideration.

Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Coons amendment at the desk be considered and agreed to; that the bill, as amended, be considered read a third time and passed, and that the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table.

Mr. THUNE

Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that when the Senate completes its business today, it stand adjourned until 9:30 a.m. on Saturday, August 2; that following the prayer and pledge, the Journal of proceedings be approved to date, the morning hour be deemed expired, the time for the two leaders be reserved for their use later in the day, morning business be closed, and the Senate proceed to executive session and resume consideration of Executive Calendar No. 186, Andrew Puzder; further, notwithstanding rule XXII, at 10 a.m., the cloture motions filed on Thursday ripen and the Senate vote on the motion to invoke cloture on the Puzder nomination; finally, and if any nominations are confirmed during Saturday's session of the Senate, the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table and the President be immediately notified of the Senate's action.

Mr. THUNE

Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, if there is no further business to come before the Senate, I ask that it stand adjourned under the previous order.

Mr. THUNE

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

Mr. THUNE

Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, I understand there is a bill at the desk that is due for a second reading.

Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, in order to place the bill on the calendar under the provisions of rule XIV, I would object to further proceeding.

Mr. THUNE

Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, appropriations season is well underway. The Senate Appropriations Committee has, so far, passed six bipartisan appropriations bills, and the Republicans are ready to consider a package of appropriations bills and have a floor process, one that involves serious amendments from both sides of the aisle, amendments designed to improve the bills, not score political points or sink the bills with poison pill measures. And there have been some encouraging signs that some of my Democrat colleagues are ready to come to the table on this. And I hope that will prove to be true and we will be able to finish an appropriations package in the coming days and then work with the House in August to get the legislation ready to send to the President. We are going to have a lot more appropriations work to do in September, and I will continue to push for a regular order process with debate and amendment on the Senate floor, and, hopefully, my Democrat colleagues will support that effort. It is in the interest of both parties to have a regular-order, bipartisan process, and at least some Democrats have acknowledged as much. It would be nice to see that attitude prevail in the Democrat Party, generally. I will say, it was disturbing to see the Democrat leader threaten to shut down the government a few weeks ago, and I hope--I really hope-- the Democrats will not embrace that position. In addition to moving forward on an appropriations package, the other thing we need to get done in short order is a package of nominations. Now, while Senate Republicans have made excellent progress on confirming nominees, we could be a lot further along if Democrats hadn't, so far, decided to slow-walk every single civilian nomination from the President. I don't need to tell anyone here that it is usual for Presidents to get a percentage of their nominees confirmed quickly here in the Senate by either unanimous consent or voice vote. That has been the practice for decades. By this point in his Presidency, Joe Biden had had 121 civilian nominees confirmed, and 49 of them had been confirmed by voice vote or unanimous consent--49, or a full 40 percent. Do you want to know how many civilian nominees President Trump has had confirmed by unanimous consent or voice vote? None. Zero. Zero percent. Now, I think it is important. I have got a chart here just for purposes of informing people about what this looks like as I mentioned over the past several decades. If you start with President H. W. Bush, 41, 98 percent of his nominees to positions in the Federal Government were confirmed by either unanimous consent or voice vote. In other words, basically, the recognition was that these are people that need to be in these positions. There are important jobs that need to be filled in our government so people can carry out the responsibilities and duties on behalf of our country, and 98 percent of the nominees were confirmed either by unanimous consent or voice in his first term. So let's go back to a Democrat President, Bill Clinton. Same thing, 98 percent of President Bill Clinton's nominees were confirmed either by unanimous consent or by voice vote; in other words, both sides agreeing, in a bipartisan way, that it is important to have positions in our government filled. So that is Bill Clinton, Democrat President. Then we have George W. Bush, 43. Ninety percent of his nominees were confirmed either by voice or unanimous consent--90 percent. Then you get another Democrat President, Barack Obama, 90 percent of his nominees were confirmed either by voice or unanimous consent--90 percent, meaning that pretty much everybody here on both sides of the aisle recognized that there are important positions in our government that need to be filled, most of which, at least many of which--like they are today--are bipartisan when they come out of committee. Then we move into President Trump's first term. That number dropped down to 65. And then, of course, the Biden administration, Republicans also started to say: Well, if the Dems are going to do it, we will too. The number dropped down to 57. But it is still important to point out that even in the last Democrat Presidency with Joe Biden, 57 percent--57 percent--of his nominees to positions within the Federal Government were confirmed either by unanimous consent or voice vote here in the U.S. Senate. And then you look at the current President, President Trump, second term, zero. This isn't sustainable. We can't keep on this track. This has got to change, and it will change. Either Democrats are going to play ball or we are going to figure out a way to change it. We can't have a Federal Government--by the way, there are 1,100 executive branch nominations--which, in my view, is way too many to start with that have to come through the Senate for confirmation--1,100 of them. Many of whom, at this rate, aren't going to get their jobs before President Trump leaves office. You just can't do this. This isn't a sustainable practice. So something is going to give. The Democrats are going to start to play ball and do what every other Congress, Republican and Democrat, with every other President, Republican and Democrat, has done when it comes to allowing the President--who won an election fair and square and tens of millions of people voted for him--to be able to put his people into their respective offices so they can do the job for the American people and he can do the job the American people voted for him to do. So I am just going to say one more time: Zero. Zero. In as recently as the last Presidential administration, Democrat President Joe Biden, 57 percent were confirmed by unanimous consent. So let me just say there are important jobs in the government that are currently standing empty 8 months now into this President's term because Democrats have dragged out the confirmation process and denied President Trump the courtesy that Republicans and Democrats alike in the past have extended to previous Presidents. Now, I will say that I do think there are at least some of my colleagues, Democrats on the other side of the aisle, who would like to maintain the kind of courtesy on nominations that prevailed in the Senate before this year. And I am hoping, really hoping, that those more pragmatic Democrats will prevail and pave the way for us to work together for the next few days to approve a nominations package. We have a lot of bipartisan nominees who are available for consideration right now, and we should be able to quickly approve their nominations. And, again, I hope that my Democrat colleagues will come to the table. Otherwise, we are going to be spending a whole lot more time here on the Senate floor. I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. THUNE

Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, notwithstanding rule XXII, I ask unanimous consent that at 7 p.m. today, the Senate vote on confirmation of Executive Calendar No. 254, Andrea Lucas, and following disposition of the Lucas nomination, the Senate vote on the motions to invoke cloture on Executive Calendar Nos. 59, 118, 165, and mandatory quorum calls be waived; further, if cloture is invoked on the nominations individually, all postcloture time be expired and the Senate vote on confirmation of the nominations at a time to be determined by the majority leader in consultation with the Democrat leader no earlier than August 1; finally, if confirmed, the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table and the President be immediately notified of the Senate's action.

Mr. THUNE. I also ask unanimous consent that all votes after the first vote this evening be 10 minutes in length.

Mr. THUNE

Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, it has been a good discussion. I want to reiterate something that was said by the Senator from Kansas who chairs the relevant subcommittee and the chairman of the full committee, Senator Collins, when I say that the Senator from Maryland was offered an amendment to vote here on the floor of the U.S. Senate. That is--that is--the article I branch of the government working. You had a markup at the committee. The Senator offered his amendment. And, yes, there was a lot of swirl when that amendment was offered. But at the end of the day, the committee voted, and the committee defeated it. That is article I working. Now the Senator from Maryland wants to see article I work and have Congress be restored to its constitutional responsibility, the power of the purse. The way to do it is to let us get on these bills and debate them and vote on amendments. That is what we are talking about here. That is what we didn't do last year. He could have had a vote on the floor on the amendment last year, but, oh, that is right, we didn't do an appropriations bill last year. Actually, he is actually trying to restore regular order where people like the Senator from Maryland, who has an important role on the Senate Appropriations Committee, has an opportunity, in front of all U.S. Senators, to get a vote on his amendment. What he is insisting on is a guaranteed result. Well, that doesn't happen here. In the process, he is holding hostage 99 other Senators who want to proceed to this bill-- 99 other Senators--because many of them have an interest in this legislation. As was pointed out by Senator Moran, there are lots of things funded, programs that are important to Senators here on both sides of the aisle. We are trying to do something here this year that wasn't done at all last year. Despite the fact that the Appropriations Committee reported 11 of the 12 bills out of the committee last year, not a single one was brought to the floor for consideration. We are trying to do not one, not two, not three but four appropriations bills with an amendment process that enables Senators from all parts of the country to have an opportunity to shape the bill or, in their view, perhaps improve the bill to their liking. The Senator from Maryland has decided that he is going to stand in the way of that because he can't get a guaranteed result--something that nobody around here is guaranteed. That is why we have votes. And that is what I would love to get back to, is actually voting, actually putting bills on the floor, having an amendment process, and letting the Senate work its will. It doesn't look like we will be able to do that, at least not on that bill. The unfortunate outcome, as has been pointed out multiple times now, is that it probably ends up in some continuing resolution where all the work that was done by the Senator from Kansas, the Senator from Maryland, the Senator from Maine, the Senator from Washington, and others could very well go by the wayside and we end up funding the government at some CR level without all the input that all the members of the committee have had up to this point. I find that really unfortunate, but that is where we are. Just so everybody understands what happens next, if this consent agreement fails, we will have to strip out the Commerce-Justice-Science appropriations bill, which carries a lot of things that people have worked for some time on, and then we will see where it goes from there. But I can't predict the fate of that bill from this point forward. And, at least, what the Senator from Maryland gets, if we get on this package of bills, is a vote on his amendment by the U.S. Senate. He had a vote in committee. We have had process. We have more regular order ahead of us. He is going to hold 99 Senators hostage to try and get a guaranteed result on his amendment. It is not the way this place works. I hope that we can get back to where it works like it is supposed to--where bills come to the floor, we have an open amendment process, and we don't have individual Senators blocking the opportunity for every other Senator in this country to be heard from.

Mr. THUNE

Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, I move to proceed to legislative session.

Mr. THUNE

Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, I move to proceed to executive session to consider Calendar No. 186.

Mr. THUNE

Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, I send a cloture motion to the desk.

Mr. THUNE

Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, I move to proceed to legislative session.

Mr. THUNE

Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, I move to proceed to executive session to consider Calendar No. 100.