Floor Statements

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

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the mandatory quorum call be waived.

Mr. President, this week the Senate will continue to promptly and reasonably consider a number of well-qualified nominees for important positions.

Several weeks ago we put an end to 2 years of unprecedented, systematic partisan obstruction that had kept abundantly qualified nominees on the sidelines for no substantive reason. The Senate took a modest but important step to turn back toward the institutional traditions that had shaped our work in nominations throughout our history. We put in place a reform to speed up the postcloture floor time that we spend debating on lower level nominations--or, in many cases, I should say, supposedly debating them.

Since then we have been able to fill several important posts in the executive branch, along with seats on the bench, at a more reasonable pace. In many cases, these unobjectionable candidates have received the overwhelming support they deserve--90 to 8, 90 to 8, 95 to 3.

Over the next few days, four more will receive consideration on the floor. We will begin by processing the first of two more well-qualified nominees to our Nation's district courts, such as Michael J. Truncale, of Texas, to serve as U.S. district judge for the Eastern District of Texas.

Mr. Truncale is a graduate of Lamar University, the University of North Texas, and the Southern Methodist University School of Law. Over more than three decades of private practice, he has amassed a distinguished record in both litigation and appellate law. In addition, Mr. Truncale has served on the board of regents for the Texas State University System and the Texas Prepaid Higher Education Tuition Board in the Texas Comptroller's Office.

His nomination has earned a well-qualified rating from the ABA and has twice been favorably reported by our colleagues on the Judiciary Committee. So I hope each of our colleagues will join me and add Mr. Truncale's nomination to the growing list of uncontroversial nominees passed in an orderly, bipartisan fashion.

Following consideration of the Truncale nomination, we will vote on Kenneth Lee's nomination to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals and Wendy Vitter's nomination to serve as U.S. District Judge for the Eastern District of Louisiana.

Then we will consider the nomination of Brian Bulatao, of Texas, to serve as Under Secretary of State for Management. This is, effectively, the COO job at the Department of State, responsible for such critical things as embassy security. His nomination was first submitted to the Senate in June of 2018, nearly a year ago.

Following those four individuals, the Senate will also consider this week the nomination of Jeffrey Rosen to serve as our next Deputy Attorney General. Mr. Rosen is a graduate of Northwestern University and Harvard Law School. He built a strong record in private practice as a litigator before entering public service in 2003. Prior to his current position, he has served as the Deputy Secretary at the Department of Transportation and at the Office of Management and Budget and as an adjunct professor at the Georgetown University Law Center.

The American people deserve that their Department of Justice be fully staffed, fully operational, and fully committed to upholding our Nation's laws. So I hope that each of my colleagues reviews this impressive nominee and then votes to confirm him this week.

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

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that all postcloture time on the Truncale nomination expire at 10:45 a.m., Tuesday, May 14. I further ask unanimous consent that, if confirmed, the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table and the President be immediately notified of the Senate's action.

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

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the consideration of S. Res. 202, submitted earlier today.

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

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the consideration of S. Res. 203, submitted earlier today.

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

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of S. 1436, submitted earlier today.

I further ask unanimous consent that the bill be considered read a third time and passed and that the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table with no intervening action or debate.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that when the Senate completes its business today, it adjourn until 10 a.m., Tuesday, May 14; further, that following the prayer and pledge, the morning hour be deemed expired, the Journal of proceedings be approved to date, the time for the two leaders be reserved for their use later in the day, morning business be closed, and that the Senate proceed to executive session and resume consideration of the Truncale nomination; finally, that the Senate recess from 12:30 p.m. until 2:15 p.m. to allow for the weekly conference meetings.

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

Mr. President, the Senate has continued to make significant progress in the personnel business. After 2 years of systematic heel-dragging from our friends across the aisle, even on the least controversial nominations, the modest reform the Senate adopted last month is helping us to get back on track.

Another slate of capable nominees is now on its way to work for the American people. They are precisely the same sort of unobjectionable sub-Cabinet nominees who, until very recently, would have been subjected to 30 hours of debate. They would have tied up the floor for days before being confirmed anyway. They are perfect examples of why the Senate returned to our longstanding norms of processing lower level nominations. Now the American people are getting the government they elected at a more reasonable pace.

To be clear, the silly partisan games haven't all been cleared away from our work on nominations. For example, just yesterday, we confirmed Judge Joseph Bianco to serve on the Second Circuit by a relatively close vote of 54 to 42. Remember, for a judge, in the scope of Senate history, that counts as a close shave. So are we looking at a controversial person? Are we looking at an individual whom the Senators agonized over and painstakingly studied?

Judge Bianco brings a unanimous ``well-qualified'' rating from the ABA, and he has already served as a judge for 13 years in the Eastern District of New York. Oh, by the way, he was confirmed to that position by a voice vote. In fact, back then in 2005, one of Mr. Bianco's most vocal supporters in the Senate was none other than our friend the Democratic leader. Here is how he praised his New Yorker to the Judiciary Committee in 2005.

Senator Schumer said: ``I am proud to support someone as outstandingly qualified and well respected as Mr. Bianco.''

Well, that was then and this is now.

The nominee is the same. Actually, he is not quite the same because now he has been a very highly regarded district judge for 13 years, so this nominee is actually even better. Yet the occupant of the White House is different. In this political moment, as we know, my Democratic colleagues' commitment to the ``outrage industrial complex'' seems to crowd out reasonable judgment.

So now, this week, the Democratic leader lumped the same individual he used to champion into what he described as ``hard-right nominees.'' Then the Democratic leader and almost every other Member of his conference proceeded to vote against him. He voted against the same nominee he praised in such generous terms before.

I can only conclude that now the ``outrage industrial complex'' comes first, not the facts, not the nominee's qualifications. The ``outrage industrial complex'' comes first. The individual whom the Democratic leader used to champion and who passed by a voice vote in 2005 now receives this partisan treatment. What was once a routine matter for acclamation becomes a party-line vote just because this President is the one who nominated him.

Look, fortunately, at the end of the day, the outcome is the same. Judge Joseph Bianco, along with a slate of other well-qualified nominees, is now on the job, and the Republicans will

continue our work to give the people the government they chose, the government they deserve.

Mr. President, on another matter, as I mentioned, we are in the middle of a historic economic moment for the American people.

Last week, the nationwide unemployment rate fell to its lowest level since December of 1969. In just the year and a half since the Republicans passed comprehensive tax reform, 19 States have set new alltime lows in their unemployment rates, including in the Commonwealth of Kentucky.

If you compare today to November 2016, there are now nearly 70 percent more job openings in durable goods manufacturing and more than twice as many job openings in construction. We are talking about hundreds of thousands of new job openings in these sectors alone.

Overall, under the Republicans' policies of the last 2 years, for the first time in recorded history, the number of job openings across the country has surpassed the number of Americans who are looking for work. Think about that. There is more than one job opening for every American who wants a job.

So this economic moment, helped along by Republican policies, has placed American workers in much higher demand, and we know what happens when American workers are in high demand--they get paid more. Sure enough, from late 2017 to late 2018, wage growth for U.S. workers logged its fastest full-year growth rate in a decade.

What is more, the New York Times reported:

The recent gains are going to those who need it most. Over

the past year, low-wage workers have experienced the fastest

pay increases, a shift from earlier in the recovery, when

wage growth was concentrated at the top.

Of course, that phrase ``earlier in the recovery'' is code for during the Obama administration.

How often do we hear the left invoke the stale talking point that pro-growth policies only help wealthy people? Anyone who has cracked open a history book knows it is absurd to say that American free enterprise only helps wealthy people and that State-controlled socialism helps everyone else. Anyone who has picked up a newspaper in the last year and a half knows it as well.

Capitalism and free enterprise are the best tools humanity has ever discovered for lifting up the vulnerable and for empowering people. It was true in the 19th century; it was true in the 20th century; and it is still proving to be true in 2019.

It has been on the Republicans' watch that we have actually seen low- wage workers and nonmanagement workers receive the fastest wage growth. It has been on the Republicans' watch that the unemployment rate specifically for Americans without high school diplomas has fallen to its lowest rate since 1992. It has been on the Republicans' watch that newspapers have described ``a wave of disabled Americans'' who have been able to join or return to the workforce.

My Republican colleagues and I could not be more proud of the conditions our policies have helped to create for all kinds of American workers and their families, and we will continue to defend these gains, to put pro-growth, pro-opportunity reforms in place, and to stand up against the far-left grab bag of socialist ideas that would threaten America's progress.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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

Mr. President, I move to proceed to executive session to consider Calendar No. 25.

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

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