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Floor Speech

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Mr. MURPHY. Mr. President, if I could just briefly build on the remarks of Chairman Reed, never before has such a small number of Senators stood in the way of this large a number of nominees. The impact of this constant effort to hold up nominees to the State Department and the Department of Defense is to compromise the national security of this Nation; to try to rob from this administration, from this President, the ability to govern and to protect this Nation.

I would just remind my colleagues that what comes around goes around. I know right now some Republicans may delight in the President not having any personnel necessary to run Agencies because of this record number of holds that have been put on nominees by the Republican minority. But there will be a Republican President someday. There will be a Republican majority someday. And a handful of Democratic Senators will use the same tactics that are being used today to essentially rob from this administration its right to do the job it was elected to do by the American people, at great risk to American national security.

So my prerogative on this is that we should just change the rules and make it less easy for one Senator to hold up nominees who are supported by 90 to 95 percent of us and make it easier to proceed to a vote on nominees.

The Senator from Missouri wants to vote no on this nominee or others. That is his right, but we should come up with a process by which the entire administration is not ground to a halt by 1 or 2 of 100. We should just decide to do that because today this is hamstringing a Democratic President. But let me guarantee you, it will hamstring a Republican President someday as well.

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