To provide for an exception to a limitation against appointment of persons as Secretary of Defense within seven years of relief from active duty as a regular commissioned officer of the Armed Forces.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, first of all, I want to thank the chairman, and I want to thank the members of the Armed Services Committee. I think we had a very excellent debate on this issue yesterday in committee. A lot of very well thought-out opinions on both sides were expressed in a respectful way.

I also want to thank the chairman because the second that it was said that General Mattis was going to be the President-elect's selection for Secretary of Defense, he joined me in saying that we wanted General Mattis to appear before our committee to answer our questions. This is something that has only happened twice, and the first time in 67 years; and our committee members wanted the opportunity to do our job as the House Armed Services Committee and hear from the nominee about how he felt about the civilian control of the military, which is the reason that this law was put in place back in 1947. So I thank the chairman for that. Unfortunately, it didn't happen.

The one thing I would correct, we do have to pass this piece of legislation in order for General Mattis to become the Secretary of Defense. We do not have to do it now. I will explain more on how we can do that in just a second. But the problem of where we are at right now because of the actions of the transition team, we basically, certainly on the House Armed Services Committee and, to some extent, in the full House, are being treated as irrelevant.

It was mentioned during our committee that General Mattis received an 81-17 vote on this legislation in the Senate. That is true, it was bipartisan. He appeared before the Senate Armed Services Committee. The Senate Armed Services Committee was given the respect to do their job, and they heard him, and they asked him questions. It didn't take very long. He was done by 12:30, and they voted. That didn't happen for us.

Really, it is sort of a two-step process in which the legislative branch--in this case, the House--was basically ignored and treated as irrelevant. First was in the continuing resolution that we passed to keep the government open where, with guidance from the transition team, they insisted on very specific language in the CR to set it up so that General Mattis could be confirmed, and that was stuck into the CR. Now, we, on the Democratic side objected to a couple of things in that at the time, but those objections were ignored, and it was put in, and we were not prepared to shut down the government over this issue since it was put into the CR.

The chairman has mentioned one of the problems with it, and the biggest one, and that is in the past, in the case of General Marshall, they exempted him from this provision that retired officers are subject to the UCMJ. They did not exempt General Mattis. When we are talking about civilian control of the military, if you have a retired military officer who is still subject to military law, that, without question, blurs the line between his being a military officer and his being a civilian. It is something we easily could have fixed. But the way they wrote it into the CR there was no way for us to do that.

Then, second, and more--I can't think of the right word--second and worse, let's just put it that way, as we said, we agreed. We were going to have General Mattis come and talk to us. Both the chairman and I spoke to General Mattis on the phone. He was very anxious to come testify. In fact, 3 days ago, we noticed in our committee that we were going to have a public hearing with General Mattis before us answering our questions and addressing whatever concerns we might have. Then, the next day, 24 hours before he was supposed to appear, the transition team--and as I was led to believe, it was some low-level person on the transition team--said: Nah, we are not going to let him come.

Reporters have asked me many times: Why did the transition team do that? The best answer to that question is because they could, because they just really didn't feel like it. Some people have said: Well, it would be a lot of effort, a lot of work.

Like I said, General Mattis testified before the Senate committee. Most of us watched it on television. He was done at 12:30. We were scheduled to have him at 2:30. He could have had a nice lunch, walked over to the House, sat down for an hour, and the House Armed Services Committee could have been permitted to do its job.

The reason this is important--and I have heard for 8 years endless complaints from the Republican side of the aisle about how President Obama has ignored the legislative branch, how executive authority is making irrelevant the people's House, and how wrong that was. On a number of occasions I've actually agreed with them. I think that has happened.

But here we are before this President is even in office, at the very first opportunity, he is choosing to completely ignore us for no reason. You cannot tell me that General Mattis couldn't handle an hour- and-a-half's worth of questioning in the House Armed Services Committee. He has done it before countless times.

So what we can do and what I think we should do, what I think we should

have done at the time when the transition team called up and said that, is we should have said: Okay. We appreciate your opinion, but you need us to pass this law in order for General Mattis to be Secretary of Defense. We have been told that he is going to appear before our committee. We have told our members of the committee and everybody else that he is going to appear; and until he does, we are not going to pass that law.

Now, I am of the opinion that if we had said that, if we had shown some backbone and stood up for what is our right as the legislative body, that all of a sudden General Mattis would have been available and we could have avoided all of this.

Even today, I submit that if we defeat this bill on the floor, we couldn't get him in by January 20. I grant you that. But we are back January 23 and 24. We were scheduled to be here January 25. I gather that got canceled because the Republican retreat is going to be a bit longer than expected.

But we could certainly take that day back. We could wait 3 or 4 days, which I don't think would be the end of the world, and assert our authority as the legislative branch. Because, let me tell you something, if we set this precedent now, if you think President Obama exercised executive authority in a highhanded way, ignoring the legislative branch, there is every indication that President-elect Trump is going to have an even greater approach in that direction. So if we don't stand up for ourselves now, we are going to be rolled over countlessly.

We all want to support General Mattis. We want that bipartisan vote. The way to get that bipartisan vote is to do what we said we were going to do, have him come before the Armed Services Committee and simply address the issue we want to raise. That is why I would ask this body to reject this motion now, so that we can actually have the Armed Services Committee do its job.

Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. McEachin).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from California (Mrs. Davis).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentlewoman from Nevada (Ms. Rosen).

I yield the gentlewoman an additional 30 seconds.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

This is not a vote against General Mattis. I think I made that very, very clear. I think it is very important that

the House have the opportunity to hear from him, as we said we were going to do.

Now, yes, he has appeared before the Senate. But, as all of us on the Armed Services Committee know, after the transition is over and the new Secretary of Defense is in place, one of the first things they do is come up and report the budget to us. The Secretary of Defense and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staffs will come up. They go to the Senate, too.

Are we just going to say we can watch the television? Why does he need to go to both places? Why would we bother to have him come all the way over to the House and have our members have the opportunity to ask him questions? I don't want to set that precedent.

So, as passionate as the previous speaker was, please understand--and I have expressed this directly to General Mattis--this is not a vote against General Mattis. In fact, I have said: if we have the opportunity to do our job as the House Armed Services Committee, if we simply do not roll over for the transition team, we would be more than happy to support General Mattis in a bipartisan way. We have plenty of time to do this right, instead of doing it in the rushed way that disregards the power and importance of the House Armed Services Committee.

Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 30 seconds.

I have an enormous amount of respect for the gentleman from California. I have enjoyed traveling with him to Afghanistan and elsewhere.

I think what he said in the first part of his remarks was, basically, the Trump administration is going to ignore us, and we just need to get used it. That is not my interpretation of our jobs. I think we were elected as well, particularly on the Armed Services Committee, and, in our elections, we even got more votes than our opponents. That is how we were able to get here.

So I don't think we should simply roll over for the Trump administration because that is the way he is likely to behave.

Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from California (Mr. Khanna), a new member of the Armed Services Committee.

Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I would just point out that, because of the way this law is written, General Mattis actually will not be going back to civilian life after he leaves. He is still subject to the UCMJ and, therefore, is still, in some ways, a military officer while he will be the ``civilian head'' of the Defense Department.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentlewoman from Texas (Ms. Jackson Lee).

Mr. Speaker, I continue to reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 30 seconds just to say, not to be a stickler for detail, but we are actually not giving a waiver here. We are changing the law, and that is what makes this appointment different. When you confirm someone to the Cabinet, the gentleman is absolutely right, the Senate, that is their authority. It is in the Constitution. We don't get involved in that. But when you are changing a law, the House has a say in that. It is the Senate and the House.

This debate actually makes me even more strongly opposed to this bill as I continue to hear about: We just don't matter. The Senate has got it. Trump has got it. What do we need to do?

We have a responsibility as the House, and when you are changing a law, it has to go through the Senate and the House.

Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of the time.

I thank the folks for the debate. I think it has been very good, as it was in committee. But it is disturbing to hear this described as politics, or we feel slighted and we should rise above that. This isn't what this is about. It is about our exercising our constitutional authority as Members of the House and our constitutional authority as members of the Armed Services Committee. It is about us being relevant in the process and doing our jobs, as I said in the opening.

Again, there is every opportunity to confirm and then also pass this change in the law that is necessary to make General Mattis the next Secretary of Defense. We can simply insist with the transition team that he appear before our committee. As I have pointed out, if we had done that in the first place, we could have met the January 20 deadline; and even now we could still do it by January 23 or 24. I don't think a few days would make that big a difference compared to the institution of the House actually mattering.

Now, I will say that, as I listened to the debate today, I become even a little bit more disturbed, as we have heard some of the reasoning behind supporting this change in the law to allow General Mattis to become the Secretary of Defense. As was said, basically, the Trump administration is going to do this kind of thing quite frequently, as one Member of the opposite party said, so we should just get used to it.

I really do think that makes it all the more important at this point, at this moment, that we assert our authority. Again, we can do that and have a bipartisan vote and approve General Mattis. We just have to insist upon it instead of rolling over and accepting what the transition team has said. That was my original argument. I will not belabor it or restate it. I think it is compelling. I think we should stand up for our rights here in the House and on the Armed Services Committee.

The final thing I will say is, while I have an enormous amount of respect for General Mattis--and like many who have spoken, I have not served in the armed services, I didn't work with him there, but I certainly have worked with him on the committee--I will point out that General Mattis is not God. As we listen to the people talk here about how we absolutely have to have somebody from the warrior class lead us in the military, that we have to have him in there in order to protect us from this dangerous world, that sort of language kind of makes me a little nervous.

That is the point of civilian control of the military. We do not want to be run by the warrior class alone. Now, absolutely we have many Members on both sides of the aisle who have served in the military, and I think that is terrific. That perspective is enormously important. It is not the only perspective that is important to running a representative democracy. We have heard comparisons to the Roman Empire. Again, another analogy that is somewhat troubling. That is not what we want. But more than anything, what we don't want is we don't want a president who thinks that he can roll over the House Armed Services Committee and the entire House any time he feels like it, frankly, as in this case, for no reason.

General Mattis, as everyone has admitted, was perfectly prepared to testify, perfectly prepared to come before us, and they simply decided not to send him. I don't think it was mere pettiness or anything like that. I have watched the way President-elect Trump conducts himself, and he is, shall we say, aggressive. I think they wanted to make it clear that they are going to be running things and that we better get the heck out of the way.

Well, that is not what I was elected to do as a member of the House Armed Services Committee or a Member of the House. We are not here simply to get out of the way of President Obama or President-elect Trump. We are here to stand up for the people who elected us and for the country and to do our jobs. In this case, for no good reason, we were denied the ability to do that.

So, again, I will urge Members to vote down this bill today so that we can assert our authority, hear from General Mattis, get him approved, go forward, but do it in a way that shows that the House of Representatives and the House Armed Services Committee actually matter. We cannot set the precedent that the President of the United States can simply ignore us on a whim.

So I would urge us to vote ``no'' on this matter.

I, again, thank the chairman for his leadership on this. We have worked very closely on this issue, amongst many others. To echo the comments of the freshman colleague from California, this is a very bipartisan committee. It will continue to be. We have done a bill for 55 straight years, and I am hoping we will make it 56 this year. I look forward to working with Chairman Thornberry, all of the members of the committee, and all of the Members of the House to achieve that goal.

Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. Speaker, pursuant to House Resolution 48, I call up the bill (S. 84) to provide for an exception to a limitation against appointment of persons as Secretary of Defense within seven years of relief from active duty as a regular commissioned officer of the Armed Forces and ask for its immediate consideration in the House.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks and insert extraneous material on S. 84.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, let me get right to the heart of the matter. We have to pass this legislation in order for James N. Mattis to be able to serve as Secretary of Defense. I know of no one more respected and more admired in the field of national security today than General Mattis. It is true that this is an extraordinary thing we are doing to pass a new law to provide a onetime exception to an underlying law so that a particular individual can serve. The last time we did this was 67 years ago.

Our predecessors then faced challenging times and believed it was appropriate to go through extraordinary lengths to allow an exceptional individual, George C. Marshall, to serve as Secretary of Defense. History reveals that it was fortuitous that they chose to do so.

We face challenging times today. We live in an increasingly dangerous world, and we confront it with a military that has been significantly damaged by budget cuts and other actions. I believe it is appropriate-- in fact, I believe it is necessary--for us to rise to meet the challenges of our time as our predecessors did in theirs and allow an exceptional leader to once again serve our country.

Now, there are legitimate complaints about the wording of the resolution, about various procedural flaws, and about not exempting General Mattis from the UCMJ. In that regard, let me correct something I said before the Rules Committee last night. A retired officer can be held accountable for acts after they retire, although never has that happened to someone in civilian office. But there are legitimate complaints about the President-elect's transition team refusing to allow General Mattis to come to a hearing and testify before the House even though he was very eager to do so himself.

I share all of those concerns. I think it was a mistake and shortsighted to deny the House the opportunity to question General Mattis on the issues related to this legislative exception. I think it was an opportunity to facilitate giving him a large, bipartisan vote out of this House which reflects the overwhelming bipartisan support that he has in this House.

But getting back to the bottom line, even with those concerns, we have a responsibility to the men and women who serve, and I think we have a responsibility for the safety and security of every American to see that there is a fully functional Secretary of Defense on day one of the new administration. The only way we can do that is to pass this legislation today.

Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. Wilson).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Turner).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Alabama (Mr. Rogers).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Wittman).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. Hunter).

Mr. Speaker, I yield the gentleman an additional 30 seconds.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Colorado (Mr. Coffman).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Missouri (Mrs. Hartzler).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Wenstrup).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Alabama (Mr. Byrne).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Oklahoma (Mr. Russell).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Mississippi (Mr. Kelly).

Mr. Speaker, I yield an additional 30 seconds to the gentleman.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Gallagher).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Nebraska (Mr. Bacon).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Banks).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Rothfus).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Florida (Mr. DeSantis).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Taylor).

Mr. Speaker, I would inform the gentleman that I have no additional requests for time, and I reserve the balance of my time in order to close.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of the time.

Mr. Speaker, I completely agree that this is a bipartisan committee. Here we have a large amount of agreement, but we have a difference of judgment on what is best for the country.

I would say to all Members: We are about to do our job, and that is vote up or down on legislation that would allow General Mattis to serve.

Now, we are not irrelevant, because if we don't vote for this legislation, he does not serve. That is what Members are elected to do: to vote. We are about to vote, and we have essentially two choices.

Mr. Speaker, as I made clear, I share many of the concerns about the process, about some of the decisions that the transition team made. There has been a lot of discussion about this setting a poor precedent; but, actually, there is only one precedent before us. That was 1950 with General Marshall. And General Marshall himself did not testify in front of the House or the Senate on the waiver legislation.

It was only after the waiver legislation was signed into law that General Marshall came to testify in front of the Senate for his confirmation hearing. But there is nothing that is different from what we are doing today from the only precedent that exists. So the notion that we are suddenly irrelevant, that we are harming the House, et cetera, I believe is mistaken.

I hope that we do not have a national security crisis on January 21 or 22, but the fact is, unless we pass this bill today, we are not able to have a Secretary of Defense on January 20. I think, given the state of the world and given a number of other factors, it is important that we do so.

Just two other brief points, Mr. Speaker.

The press is reporting that the White House has indicated that President Obama will sign this legislation. I hope he does. That would ensure that General Mattis, if confirmed by the Senate on January 20, will go ahead and be sworn in and take office at that point.

There are, as I have said, many concerns about how this was handled-- the wording, et cetera. The bottom line, as some of my colleagues have mentioned, is that there are men and women who have volunteered to serve our Nation even at the risk of their own lives. There are Americans throughout the country who depend on those men and women to keep them safe and secure. All of them deserve to have a Secretary of Defense who is fully functional on day one of the administration. The only way that happens is to vote ``yes.'' I urge my colleagues to do so.

Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

I thank the gentleman specifically for a clarity on the status of General Mattis as the legislation is written.

I think it is important, Mr. Speaker, that all of us who stand make sure the American people know of our greatest respect and honor for General Mattis. His history of service to this Nation, his tactical expertise, and his ability to acknowledge the constitutional underpinnings of which this Nation is based is without question. But we have, as my colleagues have said on the other side of the aisle, a very serious moment in history.

In the public domain is a conspicuous intrusion of Russia and the election of 2016. There is also knowledge of other areas of which they have used the cyber system for cyber warfare.

The talent of military persons is welcome, but that is the strength of this Nation: that we don't yield and bend this little book called the Constitution, which has, as I indicated, its essence being that our Nation is governed by the civilian population under principles of democracy and equality, the recognition of the three branches of government, and the separation of our military and civilian operation.

This waiver is extraordinary. This waiver, I believe, undermines the very sense of the freedom of our military, its ability to counsel as a separate entity, and it undermines, again, the idea that in 1947 our Congress decided to acknowledge and only waived to General Marshall because of the potential concern and catastrophe of the Korean conflict, now Korean war. It has not been done since.

So I would ask my colleagues whether or not we are going to bend--not bend the arc toward justice and recognition of the Constitution, but bend at any moment of convenience. I do not believe that this is a time in history to bend for convenience.

I believe General Mattis would agree, with his very fine record, that civilian control of the government should be superior and raise the question himself, if asked, whether or not this waiver is for this time and for now and whether or not we are in such a moment of history that that waiver needs to be granted. My view is that it does not. My view is that we should, in essence, adhere to the regularness of constitutional premise and also to recognize the well-established separation of civilian and military.

At this time, I want to thank General Mattis for his service, and I would argue that this resolution should receive a ``no'' vote from our colleagues in the United States House of Representatives.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong opposition to S. 84, which provides an exception to a limitation against appointment of persons as Secretary of Defense within seven years of relief from active duty as a regular commissioned officer of the Armed Forces so that the President-Elect can nominate Gen. James Mattis to serve as the next Secretary of Defense.

Gen. Mattis retired from active duty in 2013, which under current law, makes him ineligible for appointment as Secretary of Defense.

Civilian control of the military has been a bedrock principle of our democracy since the founding of the Republic.

That principle has served the nation well and there is no reason to depart from from 66 years of precedent in strictly protecting the American principle of civilian control over the military.

Indeed, in the history of the Department of Defense, the only Defense Secretary ever given a waiver was then-Secretary of State, General George Marshall--who was provided an individual waiver in 1950 at the height of the Korean War in a stand-alone bill approved by the Congress.

It is not the service of the individual nominated or his or her fitness to serve that is in question, but the dangerous precedent that would be set by entrusting leadership of the Department of Defense to a retired military person whose active duty military experiences have not been moderated by the tempering effect of life in the civil sector.

I urge all Members to join me in voting against S. 84.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong support of S. 84.

Here is what I think this is about. We feel slighted. We in Congress feel slighted that the Trump administration did not deign to have General Mattis come and speak to us, the House, which is not required by any law, not required by any statute. We feel slighted.

I do feel the same way that the ranking member feels, in terms of how the administration is treating the House of Representatives and this body.

But it is times like this where we need to rise above the slights from the future Trump administration. I think there are going to be a few more. I think this future administration does not hold this body in the highest regard. That is going to become evident over the next 4 years.

I think we are going to have to take things like that as a body and do what is best for this Nation. That is why they argue with the process and that the House was slighted by the future President. I understand it. I feel that as well. But it is time for us to say: hey, we need to be above that. This is about the future of our Nation, it is about our men and women who are serving in conflict right now, under fire, and they need General Mattis as their Secretary of Defense.

For those who assert that the Marshall prohibition, which bars, in the absence of a waiver, a general from becoming Secretary of Defense, a glance at the operational chain of command is in order.

Under the U.S. Constitution and statute, the command of the Armed Forces flows from the President to the Secretary of Defense to the combatant commanders around the world. The idea that a link in the chain of commanding operations--namely, the Secretary of Defense-- cannot be a military leader is nonsensical. General Mattis will bring insight to a job that no background in academia or business could ever provide.

Lastly, when I met General Mattis for the very first time, I was going to Iraq from Kuwait. We got ambushed by machine gun. I got shot in the arm. He drops into my Humvee. We pull out of the ambush area.

My convoy gets up to Dewaniya where Jim Mattis is. I had never met him. I had heard of him a little bit. I was a lieutenant in the Marine Corps. I didn't know much about much at that point. There is General Mattis in the operation center.

He turns to me and he says: Lieutenant Hunter, good to see you. I said: good to see you, sir. I was already sweating and shaking, speaking to a one-star general officer. For a lieutenant, that could be very trying.

He said: Did you kill him? I said: Kill who, sir? He said: the guys who ambushed you. I said: no, sir. We followed procedure and drove out of the ambush area. He said: next time, son, you need to kill them.

Hearts of every single man and woman in the U.S. Armed Forces will be filled with pride when John Mattis is sworn in as the next Secretary of Defense.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today on this piece of legislation before us that would provide a waiver for the appointment of Mr. Jim Mattis to serve as Secretary of Defense. I've listened to and respect much of the conversation here today from my colleagues on the other side of the aisle. However, much of it is repetitive from a process standpoint. Nothing I've heard so far says that the commander in chief will not be president of the United States, so the ultimate civilian leadership rests with the commander and chief. He then hires someone with the advice and consent of the Senate to be the Secretary of Defense. I don't know what's magic about the requirement to wait for seven years. I've heard nothing during this process conversation on the floor today that says anyone needs a seven year detox [detoxification] program to shed themselves of all the nasty vices you get while serving in the military. We've got a general officer sitting on the front row of the Armed Services Committee; we've got a colonel sitting on the second row of the Armed Services Committee to name just a few, and no one would remotely suggest that they are more loyal to the military than they are loyal to the constituents they represent back home. So, I ask, why is five years not an appropriate length of time for a detox program? Why is three years not appropriate? Clearly, no one is going to put a uniformed officer in the position of Secretary of Defense. So as we think about the appropriate amount of time for a nominee to Secretary of Defense to have been out of the military, I've not heard the psychology behind or scientific evidence to say seven years is somehow a magic length of time.

Mr. Mattis has been out of the military for four years and I'm quite comfortable saying that he is going to be more respectful of the civilian as he approaches the job than his previous service as a military man. The conversation and debate has been high-minded and respectful and I appreciate that, but this is going to be a party-line vote. And unfortunately, you are going to send the next Secretary of Defense into his role to lead every man and woman in uniform with a split vote between the majority and minority. That does not send a very good message. I can assure you those young sergeants and E-4s and E-3s out there that are going to be asked to follow the instruction of the civilian leadership will be much more impressed if it was a unanimous vote for Mr. Mattis. So however you couch your language, I'm voting for Mr. Mattis to be Secretary of Defense today. My vote on this bill will be for Mr. Mattis to be Secretary of Defense. The process discussed now by my colleagues, I understand. You can make those arguments and you have done that very well--and I respect that. But, for me and my vote, it will be for Mr. Mattis to be Secretary of Defense.