June 12, 2019 - Issue: Vol. 165, No. 98 — Daily Edition116th Congress (2019 - 2020) - 1st Session

[Pages S3335-S3336]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                    Nominations and Border Security

  Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, to borrow from Yogi Berra, it is deja vu 
all over again in the Senate this week. Once again, the Senate is 
taking up a lot of judicial nominations, and, once again, we will spend 
a lot of time considering noncontroversial nominees.
  Now my colleagues across the aisle have started to complain about the 
Senate's focus on nominations. I am pretty frustrated myself, not 
because we are considering these nominees--it is our constitutional 
duty, after all--but because we are being forced to spend so much time 
on their nominations, but that is what my Democratic colleagues have 
obliged us to do.
  Back in the day, most of the judicial nominees we are considering 
would have been confirmed without the time-consuming cloture vote 
process. By this point in President Obama's first term, Republicans had 
required cloture votes on just three of President Obama's judicial 
nominees--three, Mr. President.
  Contrast that with today. As of June 5, Democrats have required 
cloture votes on 76 of President Trump's judicial nominees--76 to 3. 
Now, of course, some might leap to the conclusion that this is not 
obstruction for obstruction's sake. They might assume that President 
Trump has been nominating unqualified or deeply controversial 
candidates for judicial office, and the Democrats have no alternative 
but to obstruct and delay the nominations--except that is not the case 
because Democrats have repeatedly made it clear that they have no 
problem with many of the President's nominations by turning around and 
voting for the same people they have obstructed.
  That is right. Again and again, Democrats have voted in favor of the 
very same nominees they have delayed. Take Monday and Tuesday's 
confirmation votes on two nominees for district judge. Democrats forced 
cloture votes on both nominees. Yet when it came time to confirm them, 
Democrats turned around and supported the nominations. One nominee 
received the support of 24 Democrats, including the Democratic whip, 
while the other nominee was confirmed with the support of 39 Democrats, 
almost the entire Democratic caucus.
  Democrats aren't obstructing because they oppose all or even most of 
President Trump's nominees; they are obstructing because they still 
can't get over the 2016 election. It has been 2\1/2\ years since the 
last Presidential election--2\1/2\ years. We are closer to the next 
Presidential election than to the last. Yet Democrats still can't let 
the 2016 election go.
  I realize their preferred candidate did not win, and I realize they 
are not fans of President Trump, but Democrats act like they are the 
only people who have ever lost an election, like they are the first to 
have to deal with a candidate they don't like.
  To my Democratic colleagues across the aisle, I would like to say: 
Welcome to life in our democracy. Welcome to life in a free country. 
While it is never fun, sometimes your candidate is going to lose. That 
is what happens when you have free elections.
  I am not suggesting that Democrats should start rubberstamping every 
item on the President's agenda. They have serious philosophical 
disagreements with the President's policies, and it is right that they 
should air them, but to reflexively oppose everything the President 
says or does simply because he is the President is deeply 
irresponsible. There are serious consequences to pointlessly delaying 
nominees, such as backlogs in our court system or a government that 
isn't functioning the way it should because of vacancies in leadership 
positions.
  There are even more serious and immediate consequences to obstructing 
other measures. Right now, Democrats are holding up desperately needed 
funding for the serious humanitarian and security crisis at our 
southern border simply because it is the President making the funding 
request. The security of our country and the well-being of tens of 
thousands of immigrants are at stake, and Democrats are refusing to 
address the situation because they don't like the President.
  In the first 8 months of this fiscal year, nearly 411,000 
unaccompanied children and families have crossed our southern border, 
more than in any previous full year. Resources are stretched to the 
breaking point. Shelters are overloaded, and providing adequate medical 
care is becoming more and more difficult. Federal agencies are simply 
running out of money. Money appropriated for the care of unaccompanied 
children could run out by the end of this month. That means caregivers 
for these children would have to work without pay, and private 
organizations with Federal grants to care for these children would go 
without their funding.
  Democrats like to style themselves as the party of openness and 
compassion, and yet they are willing to ignore a humanitarian crisis of 
massive proportions out of political spite--not to mention the serious 
security issue.
  The Department of Homeland Security is being forced to divert 
resources to deal with the humanitarian crisis pulling more than 700 
Customs and Border Protection Officers from legal points of entry to 
assist with the surge of migrants.
  I don't think there is a Member in this body who wouldn't agree on 
the importance of fully staffing our ports and cargo processing so we 
don't create new vulnerabilities, but Customs and Border Protection is 
left with little choice.
  After 2\1/2\ years of unprecedented partisanship and obstruction from 
Democrats, I would like to think that the Democrats would finally turn 
their focus to the business of government. Unfortunately, I think it is 
more likely that their obstruction will continue and that we will see a 
lot more pointless delays when it comes to nominees

[[Page S3336]]

and more difficulty getting Democrats to work with us on legislation.
  I do hope--I do hope Democrats can hold their relentless obstruction 
long enough to provide humanitarian relief along our southern border 
and to address the increasingly precarious security situation. It 
doesn't seem like too much to ask.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Lankford). The Senator from Rhode Island.
  Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Mr. President, I came here to make my climate 
remarks, but I can't resist the opportunity--both as a Senator who 
actually gets quite a lot of bipartisan legislation passed with my 
Republican friends but also somebody who sits on the Judiciary 
Committee--to point out that there actually are quite a few firsts 
happening that I think help explain why the floor has become a 
battleground for so many of these nominees.
  One first has been that this is the first time, I think, in anybody 
in the Senate's lifetime experience in which the blue slip is not 
honored for circuit court judges, in which a judge on the circuit court 
of appeals associated with the Presiding Officer's State of Oklahoma or 
my State of Rhode Island--we get rolled. We do not have the ability to 
approve or disapprove those judges. That is a long tradition of the 
Senate summarily thrown out.
  This is the first time, I think in the history of the United States, 
in which the selection of judges is being done by a private group 
funded with anonymous money. That is a very bizarre way to go about 
picking judges. That is the way it is taking place right now. In fact, 
the gentleman named Leonard Leo from the Federalist Society who is 
doing the picking was admitted by Trump's legal counsel to have been 
insourced for the selection process. That is a first. We never had a 
private organization pick our Federal judges funded with anonymous 
money.
  Finally, there are some qualified appointees to the bench. I voted 
for a considerable number, when I thought they were qualified. The 
problem is, when the unqualified ones come through, they get stuffed 
through just like anyone else. It is a rarity when we get somebody so 
flagrantly unqualified as the lawyer who did not know what a motion in 
limine was--a standard motion before any trial in a Federal court--had 
no idea what it was. It was actually a Republican Senator who was able 
to determine that and asked further questions because, frankly, it is 
pretty astounding to want to be a trial judge and not know what that 
is. So there have been some firsts, and if we could go back to where we 
were beforehand, I think we would see a smoother process.