Unanimous Consent Request--Executive Calendar

Floor Speech

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Mr. WHITEHOUSE. First of all, I thank the Senator for her continuing efforts on this point. I had the privilege of joining her on the first day in moving some of these unanimous consents. She brought up 73, I think, in 1 day, to tee up all these names under the Senate rules that require that once a unanimous consent has been proposed, the identity of the Senator with the hold has to be divulged in 6 legislative days.

As I understand it, the 6 legislative days run today.

Mrs. McCASKILL. Correct.

Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Therefore, tomorrow is the day when one of three things has to take place. We can come to the floor and clear these folks by unanimous consent because there will no longer be a secret hold is option 1. Option 2 is a Senator would have stood up, filed the papers that the rules of the Senate require and admit to the secret hold, making this process transparent and open. The third is they will have done what Senator McCaskill and I have both called the switcheroo, and they will have gone quietly to some other Senator and said: I only have 4 days left; I don't want to hold it till 6. If you pick up my hold now for me, then you are after the unanimous consent request, and we think we can dodge the rules this way.

Is it the understanding of the Senator from Missouri that those are the three options we will discover tomorrow as to all of these 80 nominees, which category they are in?

Mrs. McCASKILL. I believe under the law, those are the only three options available: to either withdraw the hold and let the nomination go forward or claim the hold and publicly identify yourself or evade the law.

Mr. WHITEHOUSE. With respect to the observation that the distinguished Senator from Arizona made that they had just, after this process, allowed four U.S. attorneys to be cleared, in the light of the fact that at this time in the Bush administration there were eight Bush administration officials who were the subject of Democratic holds, but it is more than 80 Obama officials who are now still the subject of almost exclusively Republican holds, notwithstanding what is clear under the pressure of this initiative, we are actually down from over 100, but we are still holding at over 80 officials who are tangled up in secret holds.

Is it a fair statement of mine to put, ``Gosh, we released four'' into the context of, ``Yeah, but we are holding 84''? That is the way the ratio works right now; does it not?

Mrs. McCASKILL. To be fair, I know we had 84 pending at the first of the week. I think our raising a ruckus is beginning to have a little bit of an impact because the iceberg moved slightly this week. We may have confirmed 14 this week of the 74, I believe, that I moved by unanimous consent last week.

Keep in mind, all 74 I moved last week had been unanimously reported out of committee, with no opposition from the Republican Party in committee. None.

Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Indeed, votes in favor by the Republicans on the committee.

Mrs. McCASKILL. Exactly. In fact, many of them were voice-voted. We even checked to make sure no one said nay at the committee level. These were unanimously agreed to out of committee. There were 74 last week. I made the requests last Tuesday on the 74. The Senator from Rhode Island made a few requests on some that were not in that group that had been unanimously agreed to. I believe this week some of the group--maybe some of the Senator's, maybe some of the ones on which I made unanimous consent requests. I know we had 14 that moved. I think we are around 70 total right now. But of those, 60 of them are in this unanimous-consent category and ones we have no idea who is holding them.

Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Of those, if I may ask another question, who have been cleared, some have been allowed to come forward for votes on the Senate floor. The last was Judge Chin who had been held for a considerable period of time. We actually, if I recall correctly, had to file cloture and take more time. There is a process built around cloture so it burns up Senate floor time. We were forced to do that.

When the nomination was finally voted on in the Senate, is my recollection correct that he cleared the Senate 98 to 0?

Mrs. McCASKILL. He was held for a long time. And, yes, the Senator is correct, we had to go through all the procedural hoops that take time. Time is money when you are working for the taxpayers. Every hour we spend on something is an hour we cannot spend on something else. Everyone--all the good people who are working in this room, in the cloakrooms, and in all the offices--is paid by the taxpayers. We took time to go through cloture. Then there was not one ``no'' vote. If that is not a great example of obstructionism for the sake of obstructing, I cannot think of a better one--forcing the Senate to take days to confirm unanimously a nominee after they have held for a long period of time.

Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Just by a process of elimination, unless one of the two absent Senators was the one who had the hold, whoever was holding Judge Chin actually ended up voting for him after months and months of having delayed the nomination.

Mrs. McCASKILL. I don't know about the Senator from Rhode Island, but I would love to know how many people secretly hold a nominee and end up voting yes. Nine times out of ten--I should not say that. I don't know. It is secret. I have to believe that most times people secretly hold a nominee because they want something from an agency. In fact, I had a Member actually acknowledge to me: I don't care what happens to that nominee, but I need something from this agency. It is a leverage: I am going to hold your nominee hostage until this agency gives me what I want.

I think we remember, there was an instance that came out in public that some people were being held for projects in their State.

Mr. WHITEHOUSE. That is the right of the Senator to do, so long as they do it publicly.

Mrs. McCASKILL. Right.

Mr. WHITEHOUSE. They can still do that even after the secret holds.

Mrs. McCASKILL. Absolutely. If someone is trying to leverage--I do not agree with it, but that is their right as a Senator--if they want to leverage a project in their State by saying to the administration: I won't let you have any nominees to go to work in that agency until that agency gives me what I want--that is their right. People should know about it. I don't think it would be very popular. People might have a problem with that. That is the beauty of the secret hold. They never have to tell that they are leveraging a nominee to get something they want out of an agency. That is why we need to end the secret hold. Simple.

Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Madam President, if I may conclude, I thank the Senator for indulging me in these questions and allowing me to ask them and for her energetic and principled leadership on this issue.

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