Senate Democrats Continue To Obstruct
‘This is not about changing an outcome; it’s about wasting time to make it more difficult for the president to make appointments. According to the non-partisan Partnership for Public Service, at about this point in President Obama’s Administration, he had 183 of his nominations confirmed. But while the current president has made 178 nominations, the Senate has confirmed only 46 of them.’
WASHINGTON, D.C. – U.S. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) made the following remarks on the Senate floor today regarding the continued obstruction by Senate Democrats:
“The current business before the Senate is the consideration of a noncontroversial nominee for U.S. District Judge in Idaho. How do we know he’s non-controversial? Well, the Judiciary Committee reported out his nomination by voice vote. And then every single Senate Democrat voted yesterday for cloture on his nomination, thereby agreeing that there is no need to continue debate on his non-controversial nomination.
“But if that’s the case, then why did our Democratic colleagues require this procedural hurdle to begin with? And if they agree that the Senate should bring debate on his nomination to a close, then why did they insist on dragging out the 30 hours of post-cloture debate time in order to debate a nomination that not a single Senate Democrat said needed to have more debate? The answer is that the unnecessary procedural vote yesterday served our colleagues’ apparent purpose of wasting more of the Senate’s time. I regret to say this has become a common practice for our friends across the aisle.
“At this point in President Obama’s presidency, we allowed more than 90 percent of his nominees to clear by simple voice vote — and we only asked for those procedural votes, known as cloture votes, 8 times. At the same point under President Trump, however, Democrats have only allowed voice votes 10 percent of the time — and they have forced those procedural hurdles 30 times. Often these needless delays have nothing to do with the nominee’s credentials nor whether or not Democrats even support that nominee — in many cases, in fact, they actually do support the nominee, like the one before us.
“As the Wall Street Journal observed yesterday:
“‘Democratic obstruction against nominees is nearly total, most notably including a demand for cloture filings for every nominee—no matter how minor the position. This means a two-day waiting period and then another 30 hours of debate.’
“This is not about changing an outcome; it’s about wasting time to make it more difficult for the president to make appointments. According to the non-partisan Partnership for Public Service, at about this point in President Obama’s Administration, he had 183 of his nominations confirmed. But while the current president has made 178 nominations, the Senate has confirmed only 46 of them.
“The Wall Street Journal editorial I mentioned goes on to note that the extent of this Democratic obstruction extends far beyond the cloture-vote issue. I’ve discussed this issue before, and I urge the minority to think critically about the consequences for the Senate and our country if they allow this near-total obstruction to continue.”
Related Issues: Senate Democrats, Nominations
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