Cloture Motion
Floor Speech
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Mr. LANKFORD. I would ask for Senator Schatz and I to speak for up to 10 minutes of time, equally divided.
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Mr. LANKFORD. Mr. President, the Senate is stuck. We have had an enormous number of nominations that have tried to be able to work through this body. Quite frankly, it is the same number that we have every time when it is the first term for a new President to be able to work its way through the body.
But this time is different. And it is not just accidentally different; it has been intentionally different.
I understand my Democratic colleagues have problems politically with President Trump. I get that. Respectfully, we have differences of opinion on that. But this time it has been different. Every single nominee has been blocked. Every single nominee has required a vote for a motion to proceed, 2 hours of debate, and another vote.
The current status where we are right now to just do the nominees who are backlogged, where we currently sit right now, will take about 900 hours of floor time to be able to just do those. That doesn't include the ones who are coming next for the next nominations. We are stuck.
If every single one of them requires this kind of time, the Senate is no longer functioning. So what we had proposed was a pretty straightforward proposal; that is, that we actually can move nominees in small batches--let's say 15--once they come out of committee. So they have had vetting in committee; they had had a hearing in committee; they have passed out of committee; they are now coming to the floor. In the past, those individuals were then passed by what is called en bloc or by voice vote or unanimous consent.
It is very common to be en bloc. In fact, during President Biden's time, there were 277 nominees who moved en bloc. Do you know why? Because Republicans allowed them to be able to move en bloc.
Do you know what is interesting? During President Trump's first term, more than 500 nominees moved en bloc. Do you know why? Because Democrats allowed them to move en bloc because this was normal to be able to do. But now we are in a new political age where nothing seems to be normal.
So we proposed a very simple thing; that this would be helpful to do in what is called a standing rule. It would take 60 votes to be able to move this, and we would have a standing rule to say here is how this could be done. Up to 15 out of a committee would come to the floor en bloc. We would have a single vote to be able to pass those 15, very similar to how it has been done in the past. It is just structured that way.
This was an idea that percolated around for a while and then began to grow. Then we had multiple of our Democratic Senators who came on board and said that that is a reasonable proposal. In fact, it is similar to something that we proposed a couple of years ago for several Members.
So after a while of discussion, more and more Democrats came on board. And now we have a supermajority of Members of this body right now to be able to vote on it today who are willing to say let's vote on it. We have a supermajority. We have plenty of folks who are willing to be able to step up and say that is a reasonable thing to be able to do. The problem is, it takes consent to actually bring it to the floor. It is just a simple issue of do we have the ability to be able to vote on this today? If we don't, we are stuck.
Now, it only takes 60. We definitely have 60 votes in this body today to be able to pass it. What we don't have is consent to be able to actually bring it.
We have been asked: Well, what if we just did it next week? The challenge is this body has just broken down trust. So we are not confident there is not going to be a next week and a next week and a next week. In the meantime, we are still not moving nominees. We are still stuck.
So we have asked a very simple thing: Let's move this idea today, where we know we have 60 of our colleagues ready to be able to pass it today, in regular order in the process. We are just asking one thing; that is, consent to be able to do it.
I am planning to bring that request for consent in just a moment, but I would like to be able to yield time to my colleague Senator Schatz from Hawaii to be able to speak on this same issue because he has also worked very hard on rules and trying to be able to make this Senate work.
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Mr. LANKFORD. Mr. President, I want to bring a unanimous consent request, but I would say I represent--every single Republican is in agreement to this. Every single Republican was ready today to be able to move on what was an agreed-upon bipartisan agreement--not by all; understanding that. But, again, we have a supermajority of Members of this body that are being blocked by a small group of the minority party saying they don't want to allow consent to vote on it--just to vote on it. So we are stuck.
Res. 384, which is at the desk. I further ask that there be up to 30 minutes of debate on the resolution, equally divided between the two leaders or their designees; further, that following the use or yielding back of that time, the Senate vote on an amendment from Senator Merkley, if offered, and following disposition of the Merkley amendment, the Senate vote on the resolution, as amended, if amended, with no further intervening action or debate, with 60 affirmative votes required for adoption of the resolution.
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