-9999

Floor Speech

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Mr. President, I am here on the floor to ask for some courtesy for a pair of nominees. These are nominees to the Court of Federal Claims, which is the court to which citizens can come with claims against the Federal Government.

In the Court of Federal Claims, the Federal Government is the defendant, and these two individuals are in an enormous traffic jam that our colleagues have created for nominees. At the moment, I am told we have 159 nominees, out of committee, on the Executive Calendar, backed up on the Senate floor--159.

I am on the Judiciary Committee. These two are judges. They are for the Court of Federal Claims. This is not a partisan thing; this is about letting the Court of Federal Claims do its work.

Both of them are extremely well qualified; neither is partisan. Both were voice voted out of the Judiciary Committee, and I would hope, just as a matter of courtesy and common decency, we could agree tonight to move them forward.

Now, one of them is named Armando Bonilla. He served as the counsel to the Marshals Service. He served as counsel to the Deputy Attorney General.

He served, actually, as Associate Deputy Attorney General. In the Department of Justice it is not an easy thing to move up from being counsel to the Marshals Service to being counsel to the DAG, to being Associate DAG. So that is a pretty impressive record.

Before that, as a trial attorney, he had served in the Public Integrity Section of the Department, in the asset forfeiture and money laundering section, bringing those cases, and in the civil side in the Commercial Litigation Division.

So he has the trial qualifications you would want. He has the experience from the government side that you would want. He got a voice vote out of committee. And if that is not enough, he is a graduate from West Virginia University.

So he is, I think, a very well-rounded individual who would serve well in the Court of Federal Claims.

Also, I will be asking to confirm Carolyn Lerner, who brings her own superb qualifications to this position as well. She is, right now, the chief circuit mediator for the Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit. So she deals with litigation conflicts all the time. She obviously is viewed with considerable regard by the court who made her their chief circuit mediator.

She served for many years in private practice. So she would be very familiar with the private practice of individuals who come before the Court of Federal Claims. Again, private person versus Federal Government is what that court's business is. And she even taught law.

So Carolyn Lerner and Armando Bonilla are both very well qualified, and both came out of the Judiciary Committee with voice votes, which means they both had bipartisan support, and this is an important court to proceed with.

Now, what has happened here and the reason we are now up to 159 backed-up nominees for executive and judicial positions is that our colleagues on the other side are insisting on cloture for essentially almost every individual who comes through, and that eats up time on the Senate floor and slows things down and creates a traffic jam. It is like you are driving on Highway 95 and you pull into the middle lane and drive 25 miles an hour. You are going to jam up traffic behind you. And that is what our friends are doing. They are jamming up traffic.

I think there are certain Members of the other party who would like to see the Biden administration not be able to get his team in place just for partisan reasons.

So when Donald Trump came in, in his first year, he was obviously not popular with us on our side, and he had some pretty appalling appointments. But even in that very hostile environment, the Republican leader only had to file cloture for 65 appointees--65 in that first year. In President Biden's year, we are already at 127. So the cloture rate has doubled from even that very difficult, challenging year when Trump first came in.

And I see my friend from Alaska here. So I will just review the bidding. We have 159 nominees backed up on the Senate floor who are all out of committee, all ready for votes, many of whom are coming out of committee by voice votes with big bipartisan majorities. Two of them are the individuals whom I am going to be asking unanimous consent to confirm tonight, Armando Bonilla and Carolyn Lerner.

My friend from Alaska served in the Department of Justice. So he knows that it ain't nothing to be counsel to the Marshals Service and then counsel for the DAG and then Associate DAG. That is a really impressive climb through the top ranks of the Department--and to have served as a trial attorney in the Public Integrity Section and in the asset forfeiture and money laundering section and in the civil side in complex commercial litigation. That is a very impressive resume.

That is ditto for Ms. Lerner, who has been chosen to be the chief circuit mediator for the DC Circuit Court of Appeals. That is a pretty impressive credential all on its own.

So what I would like to do in order to get these two through the traffic jam and on to the Court of Federal Claims, where their presence is needed, is to ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to executive session to consider their nominations, which are Executive Calendar Nos. 489 and 490; and, further, that the nominations be confirmed, that the motions 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 nominations; that any related statements be printed in the Record; that the President be immediately notified of the Senate's action; and that the Senate then resume legislative session.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. WHITEHOUSE. In the spirit of ``what goes around comes around,'' let me just say that the First Circuit is a good deal smaller than the Ninth Circuit. My State of Rhode Island is in the First Circuit. We didn't have many vacancies during the Trump administration on the First Circuit, and the only one we had was not filled.

But I am not aware of any Member on our side being offered to meet with any Trump judicial nominee at the Circuit Court level. And indeed--indeed--those of us who are on the Judiciary Committee didn't even get our 5 or 7 minutes of time in the hearing with Trump Circuit Court nominees because the Trump administration worked out some kind of a deal that their nominees could be put on the same panel--something that had only been done before with the agreement of both parties.

So they would bring in their Circuit Court nominees, and you still got your 5 minutes or your 7 minutes. But now there are two or three on the panel. You get like 1 minute each.

So I just have to say that I like my friend from Alaska and we do work well together. But when I couldn't get 5 or 7 minutes in the committee in the hearing with a Circuit Court nominee, it is hard for me to feel a great sense of outrage that somebody not on the committee doesn't get a special private meeting with judges. We never got special private meetings with judges. We didn't even get our time with the judges in the hearing because they sandwiched a bunch of them on the same panel in our same 5 to 7 minutes.

So what I would like to do is to propose, since the objection has been made to confirming them tonight, that at least we might consider moving through the cloture step so that a vote can be scheduled and everybody can have their vote one way or the other.

So my first unanimous consent request would have confirmed them, and a call could have gone out to them and to their families tonight saying: The holds are off. Your life is back in order. You can go to the job you have been nominated for.

And all would have been well.

There has been an objection to that. So what I would like to do is simply ask that they be allowed to tee up for a vote when scheduled, without having to pursue the cloture path.

489 and 490; and that there be 10 minutes of debate, equally divided in the usual form, on the nominations, en bloc; 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 if the nominations are confirmed, the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table with no intervening action or debate; that no further motions be in order regarding the nominations; and that the President be immediately notified of the Senate's action.

Again, this would not confirm them tonight. Their families will not get this call. But they are freed from our little Executive Calendar traffic jam. But it would at least put them on a pathway toward confirmation.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Mr. President, I think we have concluded this matter for the evening, and I am sorry that it has ended this way because Mr. Bonilla and Ms. Lerner are essentially collateral damage in a fight that does not involve the Court of Federal Claims at all. This involves a dispute between the Senator from Alaska and the White House, whom I do not direct and whom I do not speak for.

Instead of keeping it within the confines of the Ninth Circuit, it has now spilled over to the Court of Federal Claims, and these two completely unrelated individuals are continuing to have their lives interfered with by being kept in the traffic jam for a principle that, in my view, was never followed in the previous administration. I mean, for Pete's sake, if they were not going to even let us have our official time with a circuit court judge, the idea that we were going to get private meetings is, I think, imaginative in the extreme.

I just regret that it has come to this pass. I regret that we are at 159 obstructed nominees backed up. I regret that we have been forced to file cloture twice as much as that first group of Trump's nominees, in his first year--and there were some real beauties there, I have got to tell you.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source