National Women's History Museum Act of 2011

Mr. President, I rise today to support the Presidential Appointment Efficiency and Streamlining Act of 2011, as well as the Senate resolution to create an expedited confirmation process for some part-time boards and commissions.

I want to commend Senators Schumer and Alexander for their work on this issue and to express my appreciation for all the members of the nomination reform working group--Senators Reid, McConnell, and Lieberman. I was pleased to be a part of what has truly been a bipartisan effort.

The Constitution, in the Appointments Clause, makes the appointment of senior Federal executive officers a joint responsibility of the President and the Senate. The President determines who, in his view, is the best qualified to serve in the most senior and critical positions across the executive branch of our Government. It also requires that we, the Senate, exercise our independent judgment and experience to determine if nominees have the necessary qualifications and character to serve our Nation in these important positions of public trust.

The confirmation process must be thorough enough for the Senate to fulfill its Constitutional duty, but it should not be so onerous as to deter qualified people from public service.

National security reasons also compel attention to this problem. The National Journal has noted that ``[p]eriods of political transition are, by their very nature, chaotic'' and that ``terrorists strike when they believe governments will be caught off guard.''

Both the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center and the attacks on September 11th, 2001, occurred within eight months of a change in presidential administrations. And in March 2004, just three days before Spain's national elections, al Qaeda-linked terrorists bombed Madrid commuter trains.

The 9/11 Commission found that ``[a]t the sub-cabinet level, there were significant delays in the confirmation of key officials, particularly at the Department of Defense,'' in 2001. It was not until six months after President Bush took office that he had his national security team in place.

Countless studies have been written and many experts have opined on how to improve the nomination and confirmation process--from the Brownlow Commission in 1937 to the 9/11 Commission in 2004.

This is also an issue that the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs has been working to address for a long time. For example, in 2001, when Senator Fred Thompson chaired the Committee, we held two hearings focusing on the state of the Presidential appointment process. As a result of these hearings, the Committee reported out legislation to address concerns that were raised. A few of the provisions of this bill would later be included in the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004.

But more work remains to be done. On March 2nd of this year, the Committee held another hearing to review the nomination process. The witnesses echoed the concerns that have been raised over the years by the many commissions and that still remain unaddressed.

Based upon our review, there are a few areas in particular where improvements should be made. The first is to reduce the sheer number of positions subject to Senate confirmation.

In this regard, the National Commission on the Public Service, commonly known as the Volcker Commission, gathered some very illuminating statistics. When President Kennedy came to office, he had 286 positions to fill with the titles of Secretary, Deputy Secretary, Under Secretary, Assistant Secretary, and Administrator. By the end of the Clinton Administration, there were 914 positions with these titles.

Today, according to the Congressional Research Service, CRS, there are more than 1,200 positions appointed by the President that require the advice and consent of the Senate.

The large number of positions requiring confirmation leads to long delays in selecting, vetting, and nominating these appointees. Consequently, administrations can go for months without key officials in many agencies. And when political appointees are finally in place, their median tenure is only about two and a half years.

A second area ripe for reform is to develop a consistent, common form for the nominees to complete in order to streamline the process, save time, and increase accuracy. This also would reduce the cost and burden on nominees.

The White House, Office of Government Ethics, and the Senate need to work together to reconcile the various questions that are asked of nominees. Currently, nominees will often find themselves repeating variations of, or even the exact same, response over and over.

In this regard, I believe Clay Johnson, the former head of Presidential Personnel from 2001 to 2003, made an excellent point. He noted that there is a thick file in the White House ``with every possible piece of relevant information on that person and yet none of that is made available to the Senate.''

A consistent, common form, which a nominee can respond to online, would help to facilitate the flow of information so the Senate can begin its review of the nomination earlier.

Finally, the executive branch also needs to review its own role and responsibilities in the process.

Specifically, the White House should review its background investigation requirements. The extent of the investigation should be tailored to the position. A person nominated to a non-national security-related position should not have to undergo the same detailed FBI background investigation as a nominee to a national security- related position, such as the Secretary of Homeland Security. In addition, the process should make some allowance for people who already have undergone the FBI full-field investigation for a different Senate- confirmed position. Reform of this process would help speed up the review of nominees and aid in the task of recruiting talented people for public service.

It also is the White House's responsibility to ensure that the Office of Presidential Personnel has the appropriate staffing level to meet the demands of a new administration.

As Mr. Johnson noted at our March 2nd hearing, ``[a] new administration has never had the capacity in the first six months to nominate persons for more than 250 cabinet and subcabinet positions, let alone 400 positions, which government reform individuals and groups suggest a new administration should be able to do.''

If these areas can be reformed, substantial time will be saved, and key leadership posts at our federal agencies will not be vacant for nearly as long.

Now, during this mid-term period, two years away from a Presidential election, we have the opportunity to streamline the executive branch nominations process. This can help ensure that the next presidential transition will be as smooth as possible, thwarting the terrorists' belief that they will be able to ``catch us off guard.''

The Schumer-Alexander bill and Senate Resolution go a long way to addressing the concerns that I have highlighted.

The bill will make more than 200 positions direct Presidential Appointments that would no longer require Senate confirmation. Many of these positions have little or no policy role, such as the Assistant Secretary for Legislative Affairs at the Department of Commerce, or are internal management or administrative positions, such as chief financial officers or assistant secretaries for public affairs.

By not requiring Senate confirmation, it will allow these positions be filled at a much faster pace and free up Senate resources to focus on more significant nominees.

The Senate resolution proposes that more than 240 positions on part- time boards or commissions go through a new ``expedited'' confirmation process. These positions will still require the nominee to respond to all committee questionnaires and still provide for the opportunity for closer scrutiny of the nominee, if warranted.

This retains the authority of the Senate over these positions, but streamlines the process, lessening the burden on the Senate for routine, non-controversial nominations and providing for a faster road to confirmation as well.

While we must deliver on our duty to provide advice and consent, reforms are needed to improve the effective operation of government. We all want the most qualified people to serve the President and the Nation. We should, therefore, ensure that the process is not unnecessarily burdensome and that key leadership posts do not go unfilled for long stretches of time. Most of all, we need to reform the process so that good people, whose talents and energy we need, do not become so discouraged that they give up their goal of serving the public.

I am pleased to join Senators Schumer and Alexander as a cosponsor of this legislation and the Senate resolution, both of which will help us attract well-qualified people to public service.

Mr. President, I rise to introduce the National Women's History Museum Act of 2011, a bill that would clear the way to locate a long-overdue historical and educational resource in our nation's capital city. I appreciate the co-sponsorship today from 16 of my colleagues: Senators Mikulski, Boxer, Hutchison, Murray, Snowe, Landrieu, Stabenow, Cantwell, Murkowski, Shaheen, Gillibrand, Lieberman, Akaka, Pryor, Merkley, and Begich.

American women have made invaluable contributions to our country in such diverse fields as government, business, medicine, law, literature, sports, entertainment, the arts, and the military. A museum recognizing the contributions of American women is long overdue.

A Presidential commission on commemorating women in American history concluded that, ``Efforts to implement an appropriate celebration of women's history in the next millennium should include the designation of a focal point for women's history in our Nation's capital.''

That report was issued in 1999. Over a decade later, although Congress has made commendable provisions for the National Museum for African American History and Culture, the National Law Enforcement Museum, and the National Museum of the American Indian, there is still no institution in the capital region dedicated to women's roles in our country's history.

It is important to note that taxpayers will not shoulder the funding of this project. The proposed legislation calls for no new federal program and no new claims on the budget. The bill would simply direct the General Services Administration to negotiate and enter into an occupancy agreement with the National Women's History Museum, Inc. to establish a museum on a tract of land near the Smithsonian Museums located at 12th Street, SW., and Independence Avenue, SW.

In fact, the Museum would be putting dollars in the federal government's pocket in order to occupy this space because the transaction would be at a fair-market value for the land. This bill would be a win-win for the taxpayers and the Museum.

The National Women's History Museum is a non-profit, non-partisan, educational institution based in the District of Columbia. Its mission is to research and present the historic contributions that women have made to all aspects of human endeavor, and to present the contributions that women have made to the nation in their various roles in family, the economy, and society.

This museum would help ensure that future generations understand what we owe to the many generations of American women who have helped build, sustain, and advance our society. They deserve a building to present the stories of pioneering women like abolitionist Harriet Tubman, founder of the Girl Scouts Juliette Gordon Low, Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, and astronaut Sally Ride.

That women's roll of honor would also include a legendary predecessor in the Senate seat I now hold: the late Senator Margaret Chase Smith, the first woman nominated for President of the United States by a major political party, and the first woman elected to both houses of Congress. Senator Smith began representing Maine in the U.S. House of Representatives in 1940, won election to the Senate in 1948, and enjoyed bipartisan respect over her long career for her independence, integrity, wisdom, and courage. She remains my role model and, through the example of her public service, an exemplar of the virtues that would be honored in the National Women's History Museum.

Again, I thank my colleagues for their past support of this effort, and urge them to renew that support for this bill.

Mr. President, today I rise to introduce legislation of great importance to my state, the Native Hawaiian Government Reorganization Act of 2011. This bill would ensure parity in federal policy as it relates to the Native Hawaiian people. It would put them on equal footing with American Indians and Alaska Natives. I have sponsored this common-sense legislation since the 106th Congress.

Last December, I spoke here on the Senate floor to reaffirm my commitment to enact this legislation. I made it clear then to my colleagues and my constituents that I would be reintroducing this legislation in the 112th Congress. I am moving forward with the legislation that was reported out of the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs in the 111th Congress.

Throughout my Senate career, I have been a member of the Committee on Indian Affairs. I have worked diligently with my colleagues on the Committee to champion legislation to improve conditions for our Native communities across the United States. At the beginning of the 112th Congress, I became the Chairman of this Committee. I look forward to working on the many pressing issues for American Indians, Alaska Natives, and Native Hawaiians. Reconciliation between the United States and the Native Hawaiian people will be a top priority.

In 1993, I sponsored a measure commonly known as the Apology Resolution. This resolution was signed into law by President Bill Clinton. It outlined the history--prior to--and following the overthrow of the Kingdom of Hawaii, including the involvement in the overthrow by agents of the United States. In the resolution, the United States apologized for its involvement--and acknowledged the ramifications of the overthrow. It committed to support reconciliation efforts between the United States and the Native Hawaiian people.

However, additional Congressional action is needed.

My legislation allows us to take the necessary next step in the reconciliation process. The bill does three things. First, it authorizes an office in the Department of the Interior to serve as a liaison between Native Hawaiians and the United States. Second, it forms an interagency task force chaired by the Departments of Justice and Interior, and composed of officials from federal agencies that administer programs and services impacting Native Hawaiians. Third, it authorizes a process for the reorganization of the Native Hawaiian government for the purposes of a federally-recognized government-to- government relationship. Once the Native Hawaiian government is recognized, an inclusive democratic negotiations process representing both Native Hawaiians and non-Native Hawaiians would be established. There are many checks and balances in this process. Any agreements reached would still require the legislative approval of the State and Federal governments.

Opponents have spread misinformation about the bill. Let me be clear on some things that this bill does not do. My bill will not allow for gaming. It does not allow for Hawaii to secede from the United States. It does not allow for private land to be taken. It does not create a reservation in Hawaii.

What this bill does do is allow the people of Hawaii to come together and address issues arising from the overthrow of the Kingdom of Hawaii more than 118 years ago.

It is time to move forward with this legislation. To date, there have been a total of 12 Congressional hearings, including 5 joint hearings in Hawaii held by the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs and the House Natural Resources Committee. Our colleagues in the House have passed versions of this bill three times. We, however, have never had the opportunity to openly debate this bill on its merits in the Senate. We have a strong bill that is supported by Native communities across the United States, by the State of Hawaii, and by the Obama Administration.

Last week, I met with officials and community leaders in the state of Hawaii to share my intention to reintroduce this legislation. I received widespread support. This support was not surprising. A poll conducted by the Honolulu Advertiser in May of last year reported that 66 percent of the people of Hawaii support Federal recognition for Native Hawaiians. And 82 percent of Native Hawaiians polled support Federal recognition.

My efforts have the support of the National Congress of American Indians, the Alaska Federation of Natives, and groups throughout the Native Hawaiian community including the Association of Hawaiian Civic Clubs, the Native Hawaiian Bar Association, the Council for Native Hawaiian Advancement, and two state agencies which represent the interests of the Native Hawaiian people, the Office of Hawaiian Affairs and the Department of Hawaiian Home Lands. I have also received support from national organizations such as the American Bar Association, and from President Obama, the Department of Justice, and the Department of Interior.

I encourage all of my colleagues to stand with me and support this legislation. I welcome any of my colleagues with concerns to speak with me so I can explain how important this bill is for the people of Hawaii. The people of Hawaii have waited for far too long. America has a history of righting past wrongs. The United States has federally recognized government-to-government relationships with 565 tribes across our country. It is time to extend this policy to the Native Hawaiians.

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

Mr. President, I rise today to introduce a technical amendment to the Act of June 18, 1934, the Indian Reorganization Act.

Trust land is essential to a tribe's ability to exercise their inherent sovereignty. It allows Tribal Nations to protect their historic, cultural and religious ties to the lands where their ancestors lived. Trust lands are also vital to tribal economic development and self-government as tribes provide a wide range of governmental services to their members including, running schools, community centers, health clinics, law enforcement and numerous other social and governmental services.

Federal Indian policy regarding tribal lands has not always been favorable to the Tribal governments and individuals. The General Allotment Act of 1887 led to land losses of more than 100 million acres of tribal homelands. Those land losses had a devastating effect on the tribal communities, institutions and economies that relied on their homelands. Seeking to address the consequences of that ill-advised policy, Congress enacted the Indian Reorganization Act in 1934.

This act was intended to reverse the prior federal policy of allotment. By passing the Indian Reorganization Act, Congress recognized that a land base was essential for the economic advancement and self-support of Indian communities. The IRA allowed tribes to restore their homelands and to rehabilitate their economies and communities. Restoration of land to tribal ownership was central to the overall purposes of the Indian Reorganization Act.

Unfortunately, a recent Supreme Court decision has brought uncertainty to 75 years interpretation regarding trust land acquisition under the Indian Reorganization Act. On February 24, 2009, the Supreme Court issued its decision in the Carcieri v. Salazar case. In that decision the Supreme Court held that the Secretary of the Interior exceeded his authority in taking land into trust for a tribe that was not under Federal jurisdiction at the time the Indian Reorganization Act was enacted in 1934. The Supreme Court decided that the act only applied to tribes who were ``under federal jurisdiction'' when it was passed in 1934.

The legislation I am introducing today is necessary to clarify the continuing authority of the Secretary of the Interior, under the Indian Reorganization Act of 1934, to take land into trust for all Indian tribes that are federally recognized on the date the land is placed into trust. The legislation also ratifies the prior trust acquisitions of the Secretary, who for the past 75 years has been exercising his authority to take lands into trust, as intended by the Indian Reorganization Act.

Inaction by Congress on the Carcieri decision will create two classes of tribes--those who are considered ``under federal jurisdiction'' and can have lands taken into trust and those who cannot. Creating two classes of tribes is unacceptable and runs counter to federal Indian policy, the Indian Reorganization Act, and subsequent Congressional Acts intended to ensure that all tribes are treated equally and have the same sovereign rights. The decision will also significantly impact planned development projects on Indian trust lands, such as housing, schools, community, and health centers, and result in a loss of jobs in an already challenging economic environment.

I want to thank Senators Conrad, Franken, Inouye, Johnson, Kerry, Tester and Udall for their support on this critical legislation. My cosponsors are well aware of the negative impact this decision has already had, and would continue to have on our Native American communities. Affected tribes deserve our timely consideration of this bill. I urge my colleagues to join me in supporting the passage of this legislation.

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

Mr. President, the Senator from New York and I are on the Senate floor today to introduce

legislation that will help make the Senate a more effective place to deal with the big issues facing our country, such as the debt, our national defense, and other issues.

This is the result of discussions we have had over the last several months with many Members of the Senate on both sides of the aisle. It began with some reforms in Senate rules, which included eliminating the so-called secret hold and doing other steps. It is the culmination of work by a number of Senators on both sides of the aisle--including Senator Lieberman; Senator Collins; the leaders, Senator Reid and Senator McConnell, when they were whips; Senator Schumer and I; and others. We had bipartisan breakfasts on these reforms a couple years ago, and it came down to the questions: How many confirmations should the Senate have? How many confirmations are enough confirmations? Is it in the public interest to allow a new President, whether Democratic or Republican, to staff the government promptly? And is it in the public interest to get rid of this syndrome that is established in Washington, which I call ``innocent until nominated,'' where we invite a distinguished person to come in and run that person through a gauntlet that makes him or her out to be a criminal for making some mistake in the process of being confirmed?

We have worked together, and we have come up with legislation that Senator Schumer is introducing on behalf of both of us--on behalf of the leaders, Senator Reid and Senator McConnell, and on behalf of Senator Lieberman and Senator Collins.

This legislation would answer the question, how many confirmations are enough confirmations, by reducing or streamlining the nomination process for about 450 nominees--out of a total of about 1,400 nominations. Over 1,000 Senate confirmed nominations will remain unchanged. Just to put that into perspective, that is still more confirmations than existed when President Clinton was President of the United States. It is almost four times as many confirmations as existed when President Kennedy was President of the United States. In other words, like many things in government, the number of confirmations has grown over time.

We have ended up confirming people we have no business confirming-- people who are public relations officers, people who are financial information people--and we have made it difficult for the government to be staffed.

Is it in our interest, and the citizens', to staff the government promptly? Yes, I think it is. We have created this phenomenon where Administrations are slow to get staffed up. For example, when President Obama came in, Secretary Geithner, the Treasury Secretary, was sitting over at Treasury almost home alone during the middle of the worst recession since the Great Depression. According to news accounts, he did not have much help. The key vacant positions in Treasury were Assistant Secretary for Tax Policy, the Deputy Assistant Secretary for Tax Policy, the Deputy Assistant Secretary for Tax Analysis, Deputy Assistant Secretary for Tax, Trade, and Tariff Policy, and a variety of others. That situation was not helping any of us. Whether we agreed with President Obama or Secretary Geithner or not, after an election a President should be able to promptly staff the government, and we in the Senate should have procedures to give us a chance to review those nominees and offer our advice and consent and confirm or reject those nominees in a reasonable period of time.

If we are spending our time dealing with junior officials or PR officers, we are spending less time dealing with the Assistant Secretary for Tax Policy, on whom we should be focusing a lot of time, and to whom we should be asking a lot of questions.

Then, there is this business of what I call ``innocent until nominated''--all of us know this exists. It really exists by sloppiness on our part, both in the legislative branch and the executive branch. If you are asked to serve in the Federal Government--and I know this because I was asked by the first President Bush--you fill out forms. Well, there are many forms. There are many forms in the executive branch. They have different definitions; for example, the definition of ``income.'' If you were to carelessly fill out the same definition of ``income'' on one form as another form, you might have been incorrect on one of the forms, and then someone might say you were telling a lie and were not fit to serve. That has been called by others, including me, as being ``innocent until nominated.''

I remember when Ron Kirk, the former mayor of Dallas, was nominated by President Obama to be the Trade Representative. There was some issue about whether he had properly reported a speech fee he gave to charity. What difference did it make in terms of his overall fitness to serve? It held him up. It embarrassed him. It was not relevant to the inquiry.

So the legislation we have will do the following: It proposes eliminating the need for Senate confirmation or streamlining over 450 positions. About 200 of these nominations will be eliminated as Senate confirmations. These are the ones the Senate does not need to spend time on. The other half will come directly to the desk. Then, unless an individual Senator says: Send it on to committee to go through the regular order, it will be expedited. That still leaves us with 1,000 Senate confirmations that we can have--1,000 hostages we can take. That is more hostages than we could take under Bill Clinton. That is almost four times as many hostages than the Senate could take under President Kennedy. That ought to be plenty of hostages for any Senator to make his or her point if that is what we seek to do.

Second, the legislation would set up a process whereby an executive branch working group would review the various forms that nominees are expected to fill out, and try to have a single smart form in the executive branch. The working group will consult with committees of Congress. It might make sense to see if we can do the same thing with our forms, and make it possible that we can get all the information we want without unnecessarily subjecting nominees to harassment or trickery just because they are not wise enough to fill out different forms with different definitions.

I think this is a substantial step forward. It may not sound like much to those watching the Senate, but let me just say that both of our leaders, Reid and McConnell, have said they tried this and could not get it done. Senator Lieberman and Senator Collins have tried, and they could not get it done. I worked with Senator Lieberman 2 years ago and we could not get it done.

What has happened this time is a result of the discussion we had earlier in the year about making the Senate a more effective place to work--with the full support of the leaders, Reid and McConnell; with the full support of Senator Lieberman and Senator Collins; and with the good work of Senator Schumer. We have come up with a consensus piece of legislation which has broad bipartisan support from both sides of the aisle, including chairmen and ranking members of the committees you would think might be the first ones to object. This legislation would still leave the Senate with the prerogatives it ought to have in terms of reviewing Presidential nominees and separates out those who take our time away from the more important things we ought to be doing.

I thank the Senator from New York for the way he has worked on this issue. He has been constructive and direct and helpful. I thank the leaders for their support. I hope the committees will rapidly consider the legislation Senator Schumer is introducing on our behalf, and I hope it will show we can take another small step in making the Senate a more effective place to work.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record a document entitled ``List of Presidential Appointments No Longer Requiring Senate Confirmation''--there are about 200 of those--and a document entitled ``Privileged Nominations.'' Those are the ones that will be expedited, unless a single Senator decides he or she wants to have this nominee sent to committee, and that is about another 240.

I thank the Presiding Officer, and I notice that the Senator from New York is also on the Senate floor. I thank him for his work on this issue.

Mr. President, first, I thank my colleague from Tennessee. He has been a great partner in this effort. In fact, I would say it was his impetus that brought us here. He had thought about this long and hard and worked on it previously. As usual, it has been a pleasure to work with Senator Alexander on the Rules Committee or anywhere else, and I thank him for spearheading this effort.

I also want to thank the two leaders, Senator Reid, of course, my friend--and I am so proud to work under his leadership--and Senator McConnell. I have to say this: Senator McConnell and I have our differences, but on all of these issues of moving the Senate forward he has been operating in good faith, and his support of this legislation has allowed us to get here.

Also, the committee chair, Senator Lieberman, as well as Ranking Member

Collins, have been equal partners in this legislation, and it will go through their committee.

Finally, I thank all the committee chairs. They have been very understanding of the need to do this. Obviously, committee chairs might say: I want to have before my committee every single person, but ultimately they have realized it slows down the Senate.

While we are introducing the legislation today, a number of committee chairs on our side--probably with the consent of their ranking members--have come to me and said there might be other positions they want to add to the list. That would be a good idea. We have tried to be careful. We do not want to step on any toes or prerogatives. In the past, when this legislation was attempted, people said: Well, just, I don't want this one; I don't want that one. So we were fairly minimal. It will have a real effect on the Senate. It is close to one-third of the appointments. But there may be different committees that say: I don't need to approve this. In my committee, the committee on which I am the chair, the committee on which I am the ranking member, we do not need to approve these five or six more. Add them to your list.

We would hope our committee chairs would do that before the bill is considered because it will be considered by Senator Lieberman's committee, and there they could make such additions.

So let me say this about the process: One of the most important duties of the Senate is the constitutional advice-and-consent power. We were careful to balance this interest with the importance of making the confirmation process more efficient--not only for the benefit of the Senate but as well for the benefit of the administration, its agencies, and, as Senator Alexander so aptly pointed out, for those individuals who are nominated as well.

The Senate was designed to be a thoughtful and deliberative body, but the confirmation process has often become dangerously close to being gridlocked. The American public is harmed when we are not able to get qualified people confirmed to positions in a timely manner. All of the positions covered in this proposal tend to be noncontroversial and more closely resemble appointments that are currently made without Senate approval.

This legislation consists of a stand-alone bill, the Presidential Appointment Efficiency and Streamlining Act, and a resolution. Senator Alexander touched on the stand-alone bill, which will eliminate from Senate confirmation over 200 executive nomination positions and nearly 3,000 additional officer corps positions. The resolution will create a standing order that will streamline approval of almost 250 part-time board members.

We intend to move both of these pieces together in an effort to reform this process. Together, these two pieces will remove or streamline, as I mentioned, nearly one-third of currently confirmable Senate appointments.

The act will remove the need for confirmation for several categories of positions, including legislative and public affairs positions, chief financial officers, information technology administrators, internal management and administrative positions, and deputies or non-policy- related assistant secretaries who report to individuals who are Senate- confirmed. Removing these positions from Senate confirmation will allow a new administration to be set up with more efficiency and speed, thus making government work better for the people.

In addition, we have removed thousands of positions from the Public Health Service officers corps and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration officer corps in the process. They are noncontroversial, and their removal will help prevent the possibility of further gridlock.

This act will also create a working group--because this is a work in progress, and Senator Alexander has been working on it longer than I have or most of us in this body--that will provide recommendations on the process to further streamline the appointment and confirmation process. The group will make recommendations to the President and the Senate about streamlining the paperwork process for nominees by creating a single, searchable, electronic ``smart form'' and will also conduct a review of the current background investigation requirements.

Senators Lieberman and Collins held a hearing on the confirmations process last month in the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, which will have jurisdiction over this piece of the package. The hearing was extremely helpful to our working group efforts and further highlighted the fact that our system of dealing with executive nominations needs reform.

The resolution piece of the package will create a streamlined process for part-time positions on boards or commissions. A majority of these boards require political balance--a certain number of Democrats and a certain number of Republicans. We are doing this rather than eliminating Senate consideration in its entirety in order to ensure that these politically balanced boards remain bipartisan. This was actually a recommendation, I believe, by Senator McConnell, and I think it is an apt one.

The resolution creates a standing order that will provide for an expedited process for this class of ``privileged nominations'' by creating new pages on the Executive Calendar. When the Senate receives a nomination from the President, it will be placed on a new section on the Executive Calendar called ``Privileged Nomination--Information Requested'' while the nominee submits paperwork to the committee of jurisdiction. When the chair of that committee certifies that all committee questionnaires have been received from the nominee, the nomination will be placed on the ``Privileged Nomination--Information Received'' section of the Executive Calendar.

As Senator Alexander mentioned, after 10 session days, the nomination is placed on the full Executive Calendar and will await action by the full Senate, with the presumption that these positions will be passed by unanimous consent. So any single Senator can object, although we doubt in almost every case that any will.

From the beginning of the process until the expiration of 10 session days, any Member can request on his or her own behalf or on behalf of any identified Member that the nomination be referred to committee. We think that incorporating this safeguard is in line with our elimination of secret holds earlier this year.

The presumption for these part-time positions is, as I said, that they will be approved by unanimous consent and not be held up as part of other battles or leverage or whatever else.

This resolution would come before the Rules Committee, which Senator Alexander and I lead, and we hope to take action on it very soon. We are confident this package will eliminate many of the delays in the current confirmation process. These delays are very detrimental to the efficient operation of government and to the efforts to recruit the most qualified people to these Federal jobs.

The package we propose today is the first step in protecting the American people's interests in having a newly elected President move quickly and efficiently to set up a government.

Before I yield the floor, I note that the Senator from New Mexico, Mr. Udall, in his impetus to reform the Senate, can claim some credit for this move as well.

We are introducing this bipartisan legislation--Senator Alexander and myself, along with Senators Reid, McConnell, Collins, Lieberman, and I think about eight or nine other cosponsors as well--this afternoon.

Mr. President, I rise today in support of legislation offered by Senators Schumer and Alexander to streamline the nomination process so incoming Presidents can get their teams in place more quickly and put them to work doing the people's business.

On August 5, 1789, the Senate took up and confirmed 102 executive nominations that had been sent up by President Washington just 2 days earlier--rejecting only one nominee.

Our first President, in a letter to the Senate, complained about the one he didn't get. If the Senate ever doubted the fitness of one of his nominees it should--and I quote ``communicate that circumstance to me, and thereby avail yourselves of the information which led me to make them and which I would with pleasure lay before you.''

Modern Presidents of both parties would sigh over this bit of history because nowadays the process by which a person is selected, vetted, nominated, and then considered and confirmed by the Senate has become-- in the words of one scholar--``nasty and brutish, without being short.''

One hundred days into President Obama's administration, only 14 percent of the Senate-confirmed positions in his administration had been filled. After 18 months, 25 percent of these positions were still vacant. This is not an aberration or anomaly. The timetables for putting in place a leadership team across the government has been pretty much the same each of the last three times there has been a change of occupant in the White House.

We have known about this problem a long time, but failed to act.

In 2001, the then Governmental Affairs Committee under former Chairman Fred Thompson, held hearings titled the State of the Presidential Appointment Process and recommended legislation, which did not pass.

In 2003, a bipartisan commission headed by Paul Volker recommended ways to speed up the nominations process. That got nowhere.

In 2004, the 9-11 Commission said the delays in getting a new government up and running actually pose a threat to our national security and in its report it also recommended ways to speed up the process.

Well after years of talk, it may be that we now finally have bipartisan support for change, although as the saying goes: ``It ain't over til it's over.''

In January, Majority Leader Reid and Minority Leader McConnell established a working group on executive nominations and appointed Senators Schumer and Alexander--chairman and ranking member, respectively, of the Rules Committee--to lead it.

Senator Collins and I--as chairman and ranking member of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee--have been part of this working group and the bill being introduced today has my full support.

In fact, we held a hearing earlier this month on the need for nomination reform and the numbers showed just how compelling the case for reform is.

A study by the Congressional Research Service says that delay occurs not so much at the Cabinet level positions. Presidents Reagan, George W. Bush, Clinton, and Obama all were able to get the vast majority of their nominees for Cabinet Secretaries in place on or shortly after Inauguration Day.

Where the delay is most pronounced, according to CRS, is in the sub- cabinet level positions. Under President Reagan, nominees averaged 114 days from the President's election to final confirmation. Under Clinton, George W. Bush, and Obama those numbers jumped to 185, 198, and 195 respectively.

Part of the problem is that the number of positions requiring confirmation has grown over time.

When President Reagan took office, he had 295 key policy positions requiring confirmation. By the time President Obama was inaugurated, that number had grown to 422 key positions, plus another nearly 800 lesser positions that also required Senate confirmation.

These numbers do not include foreign service officers, or public health officials who also require Senate confirmation.

The legislation Senators Schumer and Alexander are introducing recommends eliminating Senate confirmation for approximately 200 presidential appointments to positions in the Executive Branch, including for legislative and public affairs positions, chief information officers, and internal management positions at or below the Assistant Secretary level.

This will free the Senate to concentrate on the more important policy-making nominees.

The bill also calls for a working group to simplify, standardize and centralize the forms and documentation required by both the White House and Senate so a nominee isn't burdened with duplicative paperwork and information requests.

Senators Schumer and Alexander are also introducing a standing order this morning that would streamline the confirmation process for approximately 200 other Presidential appointments that receive Senate confirmation. Under the standing order, some nominees to part-time boards and commissions could have their nominations expedited by being held at the desk for a certain number of days and then placed directly onto the Executive Calendar rather than being referred to a Senate committee. I would also like to express my support for the standing order.

In the past, nominations reform legislation has stalled because of the perceived fears of some of our colleagues, particularly committee chairs and ranking members, that they would be giving up some of their jurisdiction and authority. But the simple truth is that some of these nominations shouldn't require Senate confirmation and, frankly, take up valuable time that should be used for more important work.

Nothing in the legislation we offer today will weaken in any way the Senate's important Constitutional role of ``advice and consent'' or our delicate system of checks and balances.

But if we don't fix what is broken in this system, I fear we risk discouraging some of our nation's most talented individuals from accepting nominations, thus leaving important positions unfilled.

If I may end with a little history, as Governeur Morris, one of the architects of the Constitution, said when speaking in favor of the ``advice and consent'' clause: ``As the President was to nominate, there would be responsibility. As the Senate was to concur, there would be security.''

Those founding principals will be unaffected by the kinds of modest changes this bill calls for, and I believe and hope we can get it done this year.

I call on my fellow chairmen, ranking members, and colleagues on both sides of the aisle to work with us on addressing this challenge so the next new administration, regardless of party, can recruit the best candidates and then put them to work quickly addressing the many challenges our Nation faces.