Floor Statements

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 President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. President, we recently received some terribly bad news. Michael Beaver, the Assistant Parliamentarian of the Senate, passed away unexpectedly last week. His death at the young age of 39 is shocking in its suddenness and tragic for the family, friends, and coworkers he left behind.

Michael was incredibly bright, unfailingly honest, had a quick wit and a dry sense of humor. I know that as an Assistant Parliamentarian he was a member of a small but crucial team of behind-the-scenes staffers without whom the Senate couldn't function.

Our thoughts are with his family today, especially his wife, Gilda, and his two young boys, who will remember him as a loving and devoted father. In the words of Scripture, ``Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.''

Mr. President, on another matter, as the Senate returns to work after the recess, we are scheduled to process six circuit court judges over the next few weeks. Some of these judges are noncontroversial and have received support from their home State Democratic Senators, and we will work with the majority to confirm them. But Michael Brennan, second in line this week, will receive a cloture vote on the floor of the Senate even though one of his home State Senators, Ms. Baldwin, has not returned a blue slip for his nomination.

When hearing the facts, they are appalling--not just his ideology, although Mr. Brennan is a very conservative nominee who failed to earn the recommendation of a functioning bipartisan commission that was set up by both Senator Baldwin, a Democrat, and Senator Johnson, a Republican, to recommend Federal judicial nominees. That is how people want us to do things, in a bipartisan way. I was able to work out judge nominations in a bipartisan way in the Senate when we had a Republican President, a Republican Governor, but that was overrun. This is now the second time that Chairman Grassley has ignored the blue-slip tradition in this Congress, but the part that really burns me and I think many others who are fair-minded in the Senate and this country is the fact that the seat that Mr. Brennan would fill on the Seventh Circuit was held open for 6 years--6 years--via blue slips. Senator Johnson did not turn in a blue slip, and the seat stayed vacant.

Now that we have a Republican President, Senator Baldwin's blue slip is being ignored. What a double standard; what hypocrisy. When people ask whether we are being obstructionist, let the shoe fit as to what happened to this seat on the Seventh Circuit. It was historic obstruction, yet Senator Leahy faithfully observed the blue-slip tradition and kept the circuit seat vacant for 6 years.

Listen to this. During those 6 years, none other than Mr. Brennan himself, the nominee, wrote an op-ed defending Senator Johnson's right to refuse to return a blue slip to the Seventh Circuit vacancy. Of course, irony of ironies, it is now Mr. Brennan who is up for confirmation over the objection of one of his home State Senators. Where is the defense of senatorial courtesy today?

Making matters worse is the fact that the far right is pushing very conservative nominees, way out of the mainstream, and the pressure on my friend--and he is my friend, the Republican leader--to ignore all of the traditions, the blue slip above all, and create this double standard is really galling.

On Wednesday of this week, the Judiciary Committee will hold a hearing on Ryan Bounds. He is also a nominee for a circuit court, this one the Ninth Circuit in Oregon. He has not received a blue slip from either Senator Wyden or Senator Merkley. This will be the first time the Judiciary Chairman has allowed a nominee who lacks the support of both home State Senators to proceed, and it will be the third time this Congress that Chairman Grassley--who showed himself to be a statesman when he moved the bipartisan bill on the special counsel last week, but in this case, there is no statesmanship showing--has ignored the century-old blue-slip tradition.

When Democrats held the majority, we respected the blue-slip tradition, not because it was some esoteric custom but because blue slips are a way to force consultation and consensus on judicial nominees. You don't get many nominees with a blue slip, far right or far left. Those judges tend to want to make the law, not interpret it. We want all our nominees, whether they are nominated by a Republican or Democratic President, to be qualified and to have demonstrated excellence in their careers. Blue slips were a way to encourage the Senate to come together around qualified nominees. I assume that is why 41 Republican Senators a few years back, in 2009, wrote to President Obama to say that ``we, as a Conference, expect [senatorial courtesy to the blue slip tradition] to be observed, even-handedly and regardless of party affiliation.''

Let me read that again. This is what Senator McConnell and Senator Grassley signed: ``[W]e, as a Conference, expect [senatorial courtesy to the blue slip tradition] to be observed, even-handedly and regardless of party affiliation.''

Majority Leader McConnell and Chairman Grassley both signed that letter. Today they are singing a different tune. So while we want to work with our Republican colleagues to confirm nominees expeditiously, we are very disappointed in the way they have trampled the blue-slip tradition.

When my colleagues come to me and say: What about comity and what about working together? It goes both ways. It goes both ways. This is appalling. It is unfair, it is wrong, and it is another degradation of how the Senate has always functioned.

Mr. President, on the subject of healthcare, last week, insurance companies in the State of Virginia announced that health insurance premiums would be much higher this coming year. More than 100,000 Virginians who rely on these plans are staring at a proposed 2019 premium that will be 15 percent or 27 percent or 64 percent higher, depending on which insurer they use. In filing their rates, the health insurers are pointing to the

actions of the Trump administration and congressional Republicans as major reasons for the premium increases. The Trump administration and our Republican friends in Congress are the reason these premiums are going up, according to insurers. They suggest that is one of the reasons.

Remember, President Trump canceled payments for the cost-sharing program, which reduces premiums and out-of-pocket expenses for low- income Americans. Republicans in Congress repealed the healthcare coverage requirement, which the CBO itself predicted would raise premiums by 10 percent more each year than they would otherwise be and result in millions more people without insurance.

Sometimes our Republican colleagues make a mistake and speak the truth and admit that they are to blame in good part for these premium increases. Former HHS Secretary Tom Price said he ``believes that [repealing the individual mandate] actually will harm the pool in the exchange market, and consequently, that drives up the cost for other folks.''

This is not Chuck Schumer, a Democrat; this is the Republican former Congressman, the Republican-appointed HHS Secretary saying that Republican acts are causing premiums to go up.

The sabotage doesn't end there. As we speak, the Trump administration is finalizing a rule that would expand the availability of junk insurance plans that would force higher premiums on people with preexisting conditions, impose an ``age tax'' on older Americans, and once again could subject Americans to the devastating effects of medical bankruptcy.

Make no mistake, all of this sabotage by Republicans has consequences. TrumpCare is already heralding double-digit premium increases in States across the country. The rates in Virginia are bad, and the rates in Maryland may be worse. Maryland insurance companies are announcing 2019 rates today, and one PPO plan is asking for a 91- percent increase--91 percent.

For the sake of a political vendetta--again, the hard right: Repeal ObamaCare; show it doesn't work--Republicans are taking it out on millions of American families by making the rates higher to prove a political point so that Donald Trump can do a few more tweets. It is not going to stick. It is not going to work. The American people know who is in charge. The Republicans have the Presidency, the House, and the Senate. The buck stops there when the rates go up.

President Trump and Republicans promised Americans a better, cheaper healthcare system. Remember, President Trump said that he is going to ``take care of everybody''--those are his words--and deliver ``healthcare that is far less expensive and far better.'' President Trump simply has not delivered. President Trump talked and talked and talked about making healthcare better and cheaper as he ran and while he has been President, but in every respect he has failed to deliver. In every respect he has made the problem worse.

Simply put, President Trump has dropped the ball on healthcare, and the public knows it.

Mr. President, finally, a word on the Republican tax bill. From the very beginning of our debate on taxes, Republicans insisted that their bill was about helping the American worker, even though the GOP tax bill directs 83 percent of its benefits to the top 1 percent. President Trump and the Republicans said it would be ``a middle class miracle.''

Their theory was to give the big corporations and the wealthy a massive tax cut, and the benefits would trickle down to everyone else, even though that theory has been debunked over and over and over again. Still, President Trump repeatedly promised that workers would see a raise of $4,000 or more as a result of the Republican tax bill.

I would like to ask most Americans if they have gotten the $4,000 raise as the White House promised because, according to the April jobs report, hourly earnings have not increased significantly and are actually up just 2.6 percent over the past 12 months. Last month, average hourly earnings increased by just 4 cents--hardly $4,000. No matter how you look at it, the Republican tax bill has failed to deliver anywhere close to the wage growth that was promised.

The harsh fact is that corporations aren't using the bulk of their tax savings to boost worker pay or provide additional benefits or hire more workers or buy more equipment. They are using the predominance of tax savings on something called stock buybacks. The CEO says: Let's buy back the stock. His shares go up. The shareholders' shares go up. The American worker is left holding the bag.

According to a recent analysis by JUST Capital, only 6 percent of the capital allocated by companies on the tax bill savings has gone to employees, while nearly 60 percent--10 times as much--has gone to shareholders. More than $390 billion has been authorized this year on corporate buybacks, something we used to prohibit or make very difficult, while only $6.7 billion has been spent on one-time bonuses and wage hikes.

There is another Republican truth teller who is now getting pommeled a little, but I respect him--Senator Marco Rubio. Here is what he had to say last week:

There is still a lot of thinking on the right that if big

corporations are happy, they're going to take the money

they're saving and reinvest it in American workers. In fact--

These are his words. They sound like mine.

In fact they bought back shares, a few gave out bonuses;

there's no evidence whatsoever that the money's been

massively poured back into the American worker.

Let me repeat that. This is Marco Rubio, a Republican from Florida, who said: ``[T]here's no evidence whatsoever that the money's been massively poured back into the American worker.''

I couldn't have said it better myself. President Trump and the Republicans promised a middle-class miracle, with tremendous raises for workers, but they once again haven't delivered. Instead, the American people have been saddled with higher deficits and a larger debt, while corporations reward wealthy executives and shareholders. Even Republican Senators are starting to admit it.

So I have heard some commentators say: Well, maybe the public says that we don't like the President's tweeting, we don't like that he changes his story, we don't like prevaricating, but at least he is delivering.

Not with the tax bill, where so much of the wealth is going to the top; not on healthcare, where premiums are going up. The American people will have the right to protest come November, which I believe they will.

I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Madam President, I watched the President on TV this morning, and like most Americans, so many Americans, I was aghast. The President seems to live in an alternative reality. He says things that are patently false, and he thinks that just by saying them, they become true. With the number of 180-degree turns--direct contradictions to what he has said before--the name-calling, and blaming, if you watched the President this morning and the way he acted, it was so unbecoming of a President, unbecoming of a democracy.

We believe in truth. People may have different value systems, but to just make up things as he goes along and to, without blinking an eye, contradict things that he said that were exactly the opposite a few hours, a few days, a few weeks ago is not who any President of any party of any ideology should be.

What the President said this morning was embarrassing to America, to democracy, and to any American who prizes truth.

One of the things the President said this morning was that he has decided not to be involved in the Russia probe but may change his mind. That is why it is so good this morning that the Judiciary Committee is marking up bipartisan legislation that will protect Special Counsel Mueller from political interference.

From the very beginning, Special Counsel Mueller's investigation has been about following the facts of how a foreign, hostile power interfered with our free and fair elections--the wellspring of our democracy. That investigation must be allowed to proceed safely from the President's heavy hand. The President can't make this go away by name-calling. He can't dispute facts. He can't dispute the fact that Russia's interfering in our election is very dangerous and must be investigated no matter where it leads.

It is so abundantly clear from the President's remarks this morning and from so many other things he has said that he has little regard for the rule of law. He seems to have this view that the purpose of the Justice Department is to protect his interests and persecute his enemies. That is not a democracy. The purpose of the Justice Department is to defend the rule of law, and no man or woman is above the law. It is not, simply, to go after his friends. He is angry when the Justice Department does something he doesn't like even though it is following the law. Again, that is not the hallmark of our democracy.

I am so proud of our Judiciary Committee and Chairman Grassley in their rising to the occasion--proposing and hopefully passing legislation that says we will protect the rule of law and that we will protect our democracy by not allowing the President to fire the special counsel at will because he simply doesn't like the results he comes up with.

Again, the Judiciary Committee, this morning, makes us proud. It rises to the occasion to tell the President that he cannot tamper with the very wellsprings of our democracy and that he will pay a bipartisan price if he does.

I particularly praise Chairman Grassley. We have worked together on many things, and we have had our differences on many things, but this morning he is rising to the occasion. History regards such moments very favorably. I hope we will get a large vote this morning.

Madam President, while we are speaking about bipartisanship, there is another bit of good news. There are two shoots of bipartisanship springing up today--the Judiciary Committee's action on preventing the President from firing Mueller and an agreement between Senator Shelby, Leader McConnell, and me to try to begin moving appropriations bills the way we used to--in a bipartisan way.

We had a very good meeting yesterday in which we laid out the parameters of how to do this. We talked about not letting extraneous amendments disrupt the process. We talked about doing our job the way it used to be done--doing all of the appropriations bills this year and doing them in a bipartisan way, having the chairs and ranking members of the subcommittees work together to craft a bill that both sides can be happy with even though neither side will be happy with everything in it.

I hope that it moves forward. I pledge to the Members of this body and to the American people that I am committed to making that process move forward in a fair, bipartisan way and to trying to restore some of the semblance of bipartisanship that we used to have in this place and bring it back to actual action and reality, not just verbiage.

Madam President, we just received word that the President's nominee to be the next Secretary of the VA has withdrawn his nomination. The allegations swirling around the nomination of Dr. Jackson were troubling and raised lots of questions, but the real blame here falls on the administration for once again being sloppy and careless in the vetting process. Dr. Jackson didn't go through a careful vetting. Some of these things might have been discovered beforehand, and he wouldn't have had to go through the process he went through.

The Veterans' Affairs Committee did the right thing. They didn't seek to go after Jackson; people came to them. When people come to them-- particularly military folks--with serious and troubling allegations, they have an obligation to investigate. I salute Chairman Isakson and Ranking Member Tester for pursuing those allegations.

Dr. Jackson went through a maelstrom, and he should tell his patient, I guess, the President, that he, the President, caused this problem by not properly vetting, by making these decisions on the fly, by making sure they don't count.

Our obligation above all is not to any one individual but to the millions of veterans in America. They deserve a department that treats them well. They deserve the best healthcare, and we need someone to run the VA who is up to the job.

I hope the President learns his lesson. I hope the next nominee is thoroughly vetted before he or she is sent to the Congress. Most of all, I hope our veterans can get the kind of leader they deserve.

Madam President, finally, on another matter--healthcare--next week, health insurance companies will begin to announce their initial proposed rates for 2019 in each State across the country. When they do, every American should remember that President Trump and congressional Republicans have spent the last 1\1/2\ years trying to sabotage our healthcare system in a way that would increase costs and decrease access to quality healthcare.

It is true that last summer the Senate Republican effort to repeal our current healthcare system and gut Medicaid--an effort that would have left tens of millions uninsured and raised costs on millions more--ended, thankfully for the American people, in failure.

Despite that legislative failure, President Trump, his administration, and congressional Republicans have

committed several other acts of sabotage--raising premiums and hurting healthcare--all, it seems to me, for a political vendetta.

For a long time, the President refused to guarantee that the administration will honor the cost-sharing program, which reduces premiums and out-of-pocket expenses for low-income Americans. He eventually canceled payments for that program, causing major uncertainty and confusion in the markets.

Then, Republicans repealed the healthcare coverage requirement as a part of their tax bill and put nothing in its place. The CBO projects that repealing the coverage requirement could cause rates to increase by as much as 10 percent and result in millions more people without insurance. So if you can't get insurance, Mr. or Mrs. American, or if your premiums are going up, you know who caused it--the President and congressional Republicans by sabotaging the law that a majority of Americans want to see stay on the books.

Making things worse, earlier this week, the comment period ended for a proposed Trump administration rule that is perhaps the most radical sabotage of our healthcare system yet--a rule that would expand the availability of junk insurance plans. These junk insurance plans would force higher premiums on people with preexisting conditions, impose an age tax on older Americans, and once again could subject Americans to the devastating effects of medical bankruptcy, which too many people go through now. Many plans might not cover essential services, such as prescription drugs, maternity care, and mental health services.

Each of these actions taken by President Trump and Republicans in Congress will raise costs and reduce access. We are truly living under TrumpCare today, with no effort by the President or congressional Republicans to make it better.

Unfortunately, starting next week, the American people could well see the devastating consequences of 1\1/2\ years of healthcare sabotage reflected in the 2019 rates.

The majority, I think.

Thank you. I appreciate very much the remarks of my friend from Kansas. I hope these sprouts of bipartisanship can grow into mighty oaks.

I yield the floor.

Madam President, before I begin, I want to welcome the President of France, Emmanuel Macron, who just finished his address before a joint meeting of Congress. His words were timely, particularly his admonition to reject false idols of our time: isolationism, cynicism. He argued that if we were to advance principles upon which both our Nations were founded--as he would say, ``liberte, egalite, and fraternite''--he would say it better than I, of course--and secure the prosperity and security of our peoples in the future, we must seek further cooperation with our allies and engagement with the world. I hope everyone at both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue takes President Macron's words to heart.

Madam President, the Senate is considering the nomination of Mike Pompeo to be the next Secretary of State. I must admit that even after his confirmation to the directorship of the CIA, I remained concerned about Mr. Pompeo when he was in the Congress. I talked to him directly. I told him how deeply disappointed I was in how he handled the Benghazi hearings, how partisan they were. I told him some of his comments about minority groups--Muslims in particular--were way over the top. Over the course of his tenure at Langley, I met with him several times after that first meeting where I had given him my views on some of the things I disagreed with in what he did.

I have to say, those meetings were good meetings. He was very candid with me. He is obviously very smart. He is obviously well informed about foreign policy--far more well informed than Secretary Tillerson was when he came to visit me before his nomination hearing. In particular, what gave me some good feeling was that Mr. Pompeo was particularly strong on Russia sanctions, even showing some separation from the President as we met. I began to think Mr. Pompeo was better than my first impression, which has been guided particularly by his very poor performance in the Benghazi hearings. Then, he was nominated for Secretary of State. That is a whole different ball game. Anyone nominated for such a critical security position deserves the most careful and thoughtful scrutiny.

With that in mind, I met with Mr. Pompeo privately, where I interviewed him on foreign policy. Frankly, on many issues, our views were not the same. He was far more hawkish than I prefer our diplomat to be. Frankly, my views were probably, on this issue, a little closer to the President's, who remembered, as I do, that in Iraq, we spent over $1 trillion and lost close to 5,000 of our bravest young men and women, and Iraq doesn't seem much better off today than it was then.

My view was that he was too quick to recommend strong military action when diplomacy might do. At the same time, I believe the President should get to pick his team. President Trump wanted a more hawkish Secretary of State--it would be concerning to me, but it is his decision--and Mr. Pompeo answered my questions with the same candor and forthrightness as in our previous meetings.

I thought I would wait for his hearing--because speaking in public is different than speaking privately to a Member of the Senate--before making the decision. At Mr. Pompeo's hearing, I became very disappointed. First, the President has shown in word and deed that he often directs foreign policy by impulse--erratically, inconsistently. The fact that we are contending with several hotspots in the world-- North Korea, Iran, Syria, Yemen, Venezuela, and Russia--means we need someone in the State Department who not only prizes the value of diplomacy but is willing to check the President's worst instincts. Unfortunately, Mr. Pompeo's testimony--and, of course, public testimony is the real test--did little to convince me that he would be a strong tempering influence on an often erratic President. He didn't convince me that he would be the kind of Secretary who most of us believe Secretary Mattis is, who is able, successfully, to check the President when the President may go off base. Even more disappointing was Mr. Pompeo's tepid responses to questions about his commitment to bedrock principles such as rule of law.

As important and difficult as our foreign policy decisions are, the Nation is facing a great test. The President seems to tempt rule of law in America when it comes to the investigation of whether there was collusion between his administration, his campaign, and Russia. An investigation to look into this--to look into Russian interference in our elections and whether there was participation of the President or members of his campaign or administration--is vital to the bedrock of America. Even worse is if a President says: I can undo this investigation one way or another; I can thwart it.

He is already trying to intimidate it, but fortunately Mr. Mueller is not the type who is intimidated, and Mr. Rosenstein does not seem to be either. These questions were crucial. A key position like Secretary of State should be able to speak out on this kind of issue because America is recognized throughout the world as the country that most prizes rule of law. If our Secretary doesn't speak out strongly against this, it is not only bad for our country but not good for his ability to do his job around the world. Unfortunately, I was deeply disappointed.

Mr. Pompeo responded, when put to this question as to whether he would stand up to the President, whether he would resign or otherwise protest the President's actions that would undermine the rule of law-- his answers were weak. He did not say he would resign if the President fired Mueller or Rosenstein. To me, a Cabinet officer should do that. He did not even unequivocally state that he would publicly urge the President not to fire Mr. Mueller. That was not good enough, but I thought I again owed Mr. Pompeo a direct discussion because he is a talented man, and the President does deserve the benefit of the doubt.

So I called him into my office for one private meeting, one final meeting. I asked him pointedly whether he would be able to simply say publicly, before we voted on him, that the President shouldn't fire Special Counsel Mueller. I asked him what he would do if the President fired the special counsel or Mr. Rosenstein. His answers were extremely insufficient. I also asked him if he would be willing to recant or undo some of what he had said about Muslims, Indian Americans, LGBTQ Americans, and women's rights now that he was in line to be our Secretary of State and had to deal with countries that might be affected by his remarks. Again, he demurred. When he left that meeting, I emerged with a clear conscience in that a vote against Mr. Pompeo's nomination was the right thing to do.

I still believe a President deserves his team and that disagreements on policy alone are not sufficient reasons to reject a nomination, but I gave Mr. Pompeo the benefit of the doubt and three chances to answer the questions I thought were extremely important to assuage my broader concerns about his nomination. He did not answer those questions in any way that was satisfying. So, with a clear conscience, I will be voting against his nomination.

Let me be clear. This is not about politics. This is not about denying the

President his team just for the sake of it. It is about the role of Congress and, frankly, the Cabinet to provide a check on a President who might go off the rails and undo the respect for the rule of law, the tradition of the rule of law, that we have had in this country for so long.

It is my view that the next Secretary of State, in this unique moment of history, with a President who seems to behave erratically and with little regard, oftentimes, for our Nation's history, a President who tests our constitutional order, must be willing to put country first and stand up for our most sacred and fundamental, foundational values-- for the rule of law, for the idea that no person, not even the President, is above the rule of law.

Unfortunately, Mr. Pompeo, in these very difficult and troubled times, didn't meet that test as much as I wish he had. I don't doubt that the President could nominate someone with the right experience, the right values, and the right commitment to our core, national principles to earn my vote to be Secretary of State, but I do not believe Mr. Pompeo has those qualities so I will be voting no on his nomination.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, reserving the right to object, I certainly have a great deal of respect for my friends from Missouri and Oklahoma and their desire to increase transparency in government. I share that goal. But, respectfully, the legislation they are proposing, I believe, would undermine and potentially threaten important programs administered by the Federal Government.

The idea of requiring the government to publish an inventory of Federal programs is not something I object to. As my friend from Missouri has stated, it is already required under the law, but it is such a cumbersome thing to do that for 7 years they have not published an inventory, not because it is lacking the provisions in the bill proposed by my colleagues but because it is virtually impossible to do in the way that you would do it in other far more different and simple things--in a factory that makes widgets.

This bill would go further and make it even more difficult to publish the inventory they already haven't been able to publish. Neither the Director of OMB under President Obama nor the Director under President Trump has complied with the existing law.

I further have serious objections with the reporting requirements. How can an agency, for instance--and this would happen on a thousand occasions under this law--quantify the number of individuals who benefit from the Community Development Block Grant Program? If one neighborhood is revitalized, maybe it benefits the neighboring neighborhoods. What if they put that number in, and the OMB Director says: Oh, no. That is all wrong. There is no way to do that.

How about this: Is there a threshold to the number of people that is too many to administer a program that helps disabled Americans get appropriate schooling or access to healthcare? These types of questions could fill volumes and volumes. There is no good answer to them, there is no clear answer to them, and this law will not make it any easier to discern which programs are working and which programs are not.

I have a great deal of worry, particularly, to be honest, with Director Mulvaney. If you saw the budgets that Director Mulvaney has submitted to this Congress--he has eliminated just about every potential program. He is a scourge. He was one of the 10 most conservative Members of the House when he was there. He eliminated programs necessary in my State to keep the Department of Defense going, to help our nuclear weapons stay strong. He zeroed them out; he didn't just cut them. Can you imagine if he got his hands on this? He would use this bill not for the purposes my colleagues intend but to basically hold back money, punish, and in other ways delay very necessary programs that 90 to 95 percent of this Congress agrees to. I am concerned that this legislation, left to the implementation and oversight of a man so hostile to government services up and down the line, whose budgets have been dramatically and repeatedly rejected by Democrats and Republicans alike in the House and the Senate, would be used for ill, not good. The potential downside to this legislation far exceeds the potential upside, dramatically.

I cannot in good conscience support a bill that would give Mr. Mulvaney more tools to slash Federal programs that almost every American would agree serve the public good.

In conclusion, I support the goal of this bill, which is to provide more transparency to taxpayers, but I believe it will not. It will confuse things, delay things, provide more layers of bureaucracy, not less, and can well be used by someone who believes in slashing programs of all kinds to delay them, fail to implement them, and not deliver the services that so many Americans need. I strongly object.

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

Madam President, the Rules Committee will mark up Senator Lankford's resolution tomorrow to change the rules on the consideration of nominees to benefit the Senate majority. Of course, the majority in the Senate can already approve of a nomination on a party-line vote for all nominees up to and including now the Supreme Court since Leader McConnell elected to change those rules last year.

Why the need for further erosions to minority rights in the Senate? The Republicans argue it is because they are facing ``historic'' obstruction of the President's nominees.

A few points on that: First and foremost, the truth is the Democrats have cooperated with the majority on noncontroversial nominees, like career ambassadorships and civil servants, for a long time now. Before each recess, there is a long list of names that is approved. Before the last recess, the Senate had confirmed nearly as many nominations in 2018 as President Obama had confirmed in the analogous year of 2010. Let me repeat that. Before the last recess, the Senate had confirmed almost the exact same number of nominees in 2018 as President Obama had confirmed in 2010, the second year of his Presidency.

So this idea that it is historic--bunk. You can tell it is bunk because at the same time our Republicans and even the President himself, on some days, complain about obstruction, on other days, the President and the Vice President are boasting about how many judges they have filled on the bench.

This morning, President Trump said:

We put [on] a tremendous amount of [Federal] district

[court] judges. We are setting records.

I say to my Republican friends and the President: You can't have it both ways--on the one hand, historic obstruction and, on the other, a record pace of confirmations that you brag to your base about. You can't have it both ways. It is hypocrisy.

A second point: The Republican majority has already taken brazen steps during this Congress to limit minority rights on nominations. I mentioned the leader breaking the rules on Supreme Court nominees. Let's not forget that he broke the rules after letting Merrick Garland sit there while not allowing a nomination. It takes a lot of gall to complain about obstruction when Leader McConnell opened the gates to obstruction--made obstruction his watchword--when he did what he did to Merrick Garland. He didn't stop. The Republicans have not stopped this year. The Republicans have engaged in hardball tactics at the district and circuit court levels.

Here is what happened. Take the Republican seat that is vacant on the Seventh Circuit. Because Senator Leahy--then-chairman--and, later, Senators Hatch and, I believe, Grassley honored the blue slip, a seat in the Seventh Circuit that belongs to Wisconsin was held open for 6 years by their refusing to approve two nominees by President Obama. Now the President has nominated a very conservative judge, Michael Brennan, who has failed to earn the recommendation of the bipartisan commission that is respected in Wisconsin and was set up by both Senators Baldwin and Johnson--one a Democrat, one a Republican--to recommend Federal nominees. Yet this administration has no known concern about the real qualifications of the judges as long as they meet the hard-right checklist.

Despite the fact that Senator Baldwin has not returned a blue slip for Mr. Brennan, Chairman Grassley has moved him out of committee anyway. This is the second time Chairman Grassley has ignored the blue slip tradition. The blue slip tradition was faithfully honored by Senator Leahy when he was chairman. Our Republican colleagues have used it to an extent that, certainly, would be ``historic'' obstruction. For 6 years, a seat was vacant on the circuit court, and it was not the only one that had had long-term vacancies. Now, all of a sudden, because the Democrats want to discuss this, mull this for a few days, Senator Lankford wants to change the rules. I know he only came to the Senate in 2014, but he ought to look a bit at the history before he gets into high dudgeon.

The issue of nominations has been fraught, and it is true there have been escalations on both sides. I am the first to say that. Despite the rhetoric from the majority party, the Democrats have worked in good faith this year to clear noncontroversial nominations expeditiously. When nominees require vetting, the Senate should have the tools to consider them thoroughly because, clearly, this administration is not taking the task of vetting seriously.

This is a final argument--and there are many good ones I would like to make. The Trump administration has done the worst job of vetting its nominees of any administration I can remember. It seems a slapdash process. It has had to withdraw the nominee for the Labor Department because he was not properly vetted; it has fired the Secretaries of HHS, State, and the VA; and it has faced a host of other controversies with staff and turnover. I dare say, if Mr. Pruitt had been properly vetted, he may not have been nominated given what we have found out.

Now we hear that the new nominee for the VA Secretary--the President's personal doctor--is on hold because of some troubling allegations. How did he get through the process with all of these allegations not even having been made public? My guess--there was not proper vetting. I was not there, but it is speculative that, maybe, one day, the President, who we know acts on

impulse, had this nominee in the room--his doctor--and he said: Hey, let's put you up without any vetting.

The President is putting forward nominees without appropriate vetting. It is our job to vet, and we will not be rushed through, particularly when this administration has had such a poor record of looking at the qualifications and the problems that each nominee has brought. More than ever, with this President, it is the Senate's job to advise and consent, not to be a rubberstamp. The rule change that is being proposed by Senator Lankford is totally unmerited, inadvisable, and lacks any knowledge of history of the Senate.

You know, we are trying to return to some comity here. The omnibus bill was very good work among Speaker Ryan, Leader McConnell, Leader Pelosi, and me. We are going to meet in a little while to talk about doing the appropriations process in regular order and going back to the days when we did that, which I know our majority leader sincerely wants to do, as do I, as does Senator Shelby, as does Senator Leahy. Something like this--so partisan, so unfair, and so unacknowledging of the history that has come before--doesn't help the sense of comity in the Senate.

I urge Republicans and Democrats alike on the Rules Committee to reject this terribly ill-advised proposal.

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