Floor Statements

I now move to proceed to legislative session.

Mr. President, there is a cloture motion at the desk.

I ask unanimous consent that the mandatory quorum under rule XXII be waived.

I now move to proceed to legislative session.

There is a cloture motion at the desk.

I ask unanimous consent that the mandatory quorum under rule XXII be waived.

I now move to proceed to legislative session.

There is a cloture motion at the desk.

I ask unanimous consent that the mandatory quorum under rule XXII be waived.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Rules Committee be discharged from further consideration of S. Res. 577 and the Senate proceed to its immediate consideration.

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

I ask unanimous consent that when the Senate completes its business today, it adjourn until 9:30 a.m. on Wednesday, November 19, 2014; that following the prayer and pledge, the morning hour be deemed expired, the Journal of proceedings be approved to date, and the time for the two leaders be reserved for their use later in the day; that following any leader remarks, the Senate be in a period of morning business, with Senators permitted to speak therein for up to 10 minutes each; and that the time from 1 p.m. to 2 p.m. be controlled by the Republicans and the time from 2 p.m. to 3 p.m. be controlled by the majority.

If there is no further business to come before the Senate, I ask unanimous consent that it adjourn under the previous order.

Following my remarks and those of the Republican leader, the Senate will be in morning business until 5:30 p.m., with Senators permitted to speak for up to 10 minutes each.

At 5:30 p.m. the Senate will proceed to four rollcall votes in relation to the child care and development block grant bill and the Abrams, Cohen, and Ross nominations.

Mr. President, in that great play ``Fiddler on the Roof,'' Tevye says, among other things, and I quote: Good news will stay, and bad news will refuse to leave.

In Washington we all too often focus on the bad news that lingers instead of highlighting the many good things that are being accomplished. ObamaCare is a perfect example. The Affordable Care Act is working. Americans who have enrolled in health plans through the Affordable Care Act are happy with their coverage.

There was a very good article in newspapers all over the country today, including in the Washington Post, which I saw. In this article there is a citation of a recent Gallup survey of Americans who have coverage through ObamaCare, and the findings are very positive--and that is a gross understatement. Seventy-four percent of ObamaCare enrollees rate their coverage as good or excellent. Seventy-five percent say they are satisfied with the cost of their plans. I will repeat that. Seventy-four percent of ObamaCare enrollees rate their coverage as good or excellent, and 75 percent say they are satisfied with the cost of their plans. That is good news to me.

The Affordable Care Act is working for the American people. It is providing quality, affordable health care to families all across our country.

The Senate has a lot of work to do before the 113th Congress comes to a close. There are a few important priorities in this work period. We have to pass an extension of tax credits for American families and businesses. We have to pass the Defense authorization bill, and the President pro tempore of the Senate is concerned about extending the FISA legislation, the American freedom act. It is so important that we do these things, but also we have to fund our government. That has to be done very soon because early next month the funding expires. We have many nominations that have not been completed. Almost 200 have been held up by my Republican colleagues. John Kerry, the Secretary of State, called me and said he himself had almost 100--well, that is exaggerating a little. He had 60-some; I don't remember the exact number.

We must keep our government funded. I have been having productive bipartisan conversations with Speaker Boehner, the Republican leader, and Appropriations chair Senator Mikulski. It is clear to me that Republican leaders want to work together to keep the government funded. We have heard there are going to be no government shutdowns from the leaders, but Members of their caucuses are really saying some very scary things.

So the question is whether the Republican leaders will be able to stand up to the radical forces within their own party. It is more than just one or two people; it is a large number of Members of the Republican caucus in the Senate and, of course, the Republican caucus in the House. Can these Republican leaders stand up to these people who are intent on holding our government hostage? There has been a lot of talk the past 3 or 4 days: So we have a government shutdown; so what?

It has become increasingly clear these last few days that a number of Republicans are looking for an example to use to get their ideas--that are somewhat bizarre in the minds of most people--they are using a number of different things as an excuse: Executive action; the President is not doing enough on making sure the Iranians are held down tightly; and on and on with everything they have as an excuse to derail bipartisan legislation to fund the government.

Sadly, though, we have seen this before. The government has been shut down. The government's debt has been defaulted upon. So how is it possible that there is even talk of not funding our government again by anybody? But that is what they are doing.

Just 2 weeks ago the American people sent us a very strong message: Work together. In the press conferences that followed this month's midterm elections, Republicans were saying all the right things about compromise and bipartisanship. Yet, instead of looking for common ground and working to compromise, some of these Republicans are more interested in threats and ultimatums. Why? Because these radical Republicans object to President Obama using his constitutionally established authority to do what President Ronald Reagan and both George Bushes have done--fix as much of the system as he can to protect families suffering under the broken immigration system. Going back to Dwight D. Eisenhower, every President since then has used Executive authority to fix America's immigration system--every President, Republicans and Democrats. For the Republicans to take issue with President Obama for doing the same thing is hypocritical. Why didn't they complain when the two Bush Presidents did things administratively? Why?

I hope Republicans in Congress will object to this brinkmanship. A scorched-earth policy is no way to go. Instead, responsible leaders in the Republican Party need to work with us to complete the business of funding our government regardless of when the President acts to keep families together.

I yield to the Senator from Vermont.

To the President pro tempore of the Senate, if the Speaker of the House of Representatives, John Boehner, brought up the bill that passed here in the Senate, it would pass overwhelmingly in the House. Virtually every Democrat would vote for it, and I suggest that probably half of the Republicans would vote for it. He won't allow a vote. What is this about? It is beyond my ability to comprehend how they are willing to do everything they can to stop this President from doing what Presidents have done since Dwight Eisenhower.

I would also say this: We have gotten some judges done. That is because we changed the rules to do the outlandish thing of having a majority of the Senate determine whether someone should be confirmed.

If we look at the Constitution of the United States, the people who drafted that Constitution were very smart. We know a number of them were geniuses. And they were very precise in what they wanted to have supermajority votes on. On judges they didn't want supermajority votes but a simple majority of this body, and that is what we did in changing the rules.

But I say to my friend, in spite of that, we have been able to get a lot of judges done, we are going to wind up--by the time the Judiciary Committee continues to do the good work they do, we will probably have over 20 judges who need to be approved this Congress. Postcloture, under the rules we have, there is only 1 hour of time that can be used, so we can get through the judges very quickly. For sub-Cabinet officers it takes 8 hours, and we are normally willing to yield back our time, so 4 hours on every one of those.

We have scores--we are approaching, counting judges and all of the nominations, well over 150 who have been held up, people who have been waiting and waiting. These are jobs that are needed in our country; these are not new positions we have created.

So I would hope we can get past the bitterness that has been created in this body and get the nominations done. There is no reason a judge- to-be should have to wait for all this time, as the Senator from Vermont has indicated, just to get a vote. Whatever he is doing now has been put on hold, and this is throughout the whole government.

So I would hope we can get a lot of these done. If not, we are going to have to spend a lot of time here because we cannot leave this Congress with all these things undone. I hope we can work together, as I have indicated.

Mr. President, I want to say one thing while my friend is on the floor.

When I came to the Senate, my friend from Vermont had already been here a dozen years. I remember--and I know he does--a man who had been the secretary for the majority and the secretary for the minority who controlled the staff of the Republicans. The Senator remembers Howard Greene--a guy who did not smoke a cigar, he just chewed on it all the time; he chewed on his cigar. That is when the rules were not nearly as strict as they are now about smoking.

Howard Greene was so nice to me as a new Senator. He had a lot of authority. For over three decades he was a recognizable person here on the Senate floor. In fact, specifically, for 28 years he held many positions, including as a doorkeeper, as a cloakroom assistant. He was, as I just indicated, both secretary for the minority and secretary for the majority.

Howard finished his distinguished career as the Sergeant at Arms. He retired in 1996.

I offer my condolences to Howard Greene's family and loved ones during this difficult time. Although it is of little consolation, I hope they know how grateful we are for Howard's many years of sacrifice to this body. He will be greatly missed, and he was very kind and thoughtful to me as a new Senator.

I say to my friend, you do remember Howard Greene?

I thank the Presiding Officer.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that notwithstanding rule XXII, following the cloture vote on Executive Calendar No. 858, the Senate consider Calendar Nos. 1050, 898, 961, and 533--these are career ambassadors, in case anyone wants to know--that there be 2 minutes of debate equally divided between the two leaders or their designees prior to each vote; that upon the use or yielding back of time the Senate proceed to vote without intervening action or debate on the nominations in the order listed; that any rollcall votes following the first in the series be 10 minutes in length; that if any nomination is confirmed, the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table with no intervening action or debate; that no further motions be in order to the nomination; that any statements related to the nomination be printed in the Record; and that the President be immediately notified of the Senate's action.

We expect these nominations to be approved by voice vote.

I yield back all time on this nomination.

Mr. President, I yield back all time on these nominations.

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

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

I ask unanimous consent that notwithstanding rule XXII, following the confirmation vote on Executive Calendar No. 858, the Senate consider Calendar Nos. 927, 954, 1047, 1048, and 1052; that there be two minutes for debate equally divided between the two leaders or their designees prior to each vote; that upon the use or yielding back of that time the Senate proceed to vote with no intervening action or debate on the nominations in the order listed; that any rollcall votes following the first in this series be 10 minutes in length; that if any nomination is confirmed, the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table with no intervening action or debate; that no further motions be in order to the nomination; that any statements related to the nomination be printed in the Record; that the President be immediately notified of the Senate's action, and the Senate then resume legislative session.

For the information of all Senators, we expect the nominations that I have listed here to be confirmed by voice vote tomorrow.