Cspan washington journal, live beginning at 7 00 a. M. Eastern thursday morning. Join the discussion. Next on cspan2, a hearing discussing ways to improve the procedures for the consideration of executive and judicial nominees. This hearing is a little more than one hour. This hearing will come to order. Today the committee will receive testimony on Senate Resolution 355. Improving procedures for consideration of nominations in the u. S. Senate. I want to thank senator langford who is here with us today at the table for agreeing to appear before us today to discuss the merits of his resolution. In 2010, this committee undertook a comprehensive examination of the filibuster in the United States senate. That examination was conducted in response to an ongoing debate about invoking the Nuclear Option. While no action was taken immediately following the conclusion of the committees work the senate did take steps in early 2013 to modify some of the roles and procedures for considering bills, conference reports and certain nominations during the congress. Later that same year, the senate took a more drastic step and invoked the Nuclear Option for certain nominations. Invoking the Nuclear Option affected a permanent change as my colleagues well now. At the other changes which improve the efficiency of the Senate Operations were temporary and expired at the end of the 113th congress. Today, we will revisit one aspect of those temporary changes. Limiting the post culture debate time for certain nominations. And, consider whether to restore it permanently as provided in senator langfords resolution. Like the change enacted in 2013, this resolution proposes to reduce the current window for post closure nominations for eight or two hours depending on the type of nominee. This resolution also preserves the full amount, the full amount of debate time on nominations to the highest levels of the executive branch, the Circuit Courts and the Supreme Court, just like its predecessor. In short, this resolution is designed to return the senate to a time when it effectively and efficiently fulfilled its constitutional duty that are necessary to the daytoday function of our government. The debate time provided by this resolution will once again allow the senate to deliberate, to debate, and to vote on nominees in a timely way. It was evidenced in the 113th congress, this change does not inhibit members from debating or deliberating on the qualifications of nominees. It merely shortens what is currently an unreasonably long process. Admittedly, i did not support this change in the 113th congress. I was concerned then that once the senate altered the rules, there would be no turning back. I worried that the changes proposed at the time would limit each senators voice and power, traits i believe weve always tried to protect in this great liberty institution. When i witness something different, nominees, whether i supported or opposed them were debated and voted on in a timely, practical manner. More importantly, the senate no longer wasted countless hours waiting not to hear about certain nominees, not to debate their attributes or deficiencies, not to discuss whether they were fit or unfit for the job, just waiting for 30 hours of debate time to expire. In 2013, the senate was able to swiftly carry out its constitutional duties and we witnessed a timely filling of judicial and executive branch vacancies. Reducing the debate time allowed the senate to stop waiting and start acting. Thats exactly what i believe we need today. The American People are frustrated with washington gridlock. They believe we cannot get even the simplest things done. We need to fix this, we need to restore the process of what once was and i believe this is an opportunity to do this. I look forward to testimony today and the debate that follows. In support of this resolution. Thank you very much mr. Chairman and thank you to all the members that are here and thank you too senator langford for appearing before him. I want to thank him for making the senate work better and two of my colleagues who are here and that is senator udall who is a member of this committee and has long worked on this issue as well as senator merkley who is a visiting member today and thank him for his work. The three of us, along with a few other people, senator shaheen and a few others have worked on this issue the last time we saw some changes, and in fact, when i first got to the senate, our first bill that we introduce, our new class back in 2006 was devoted to something related to this which was Ethics Reform which made some significant changes to lobbying rules as well as other roles and we went on to support, in 2010 and into the secret holds and obviously this committee and members of its committee are now looking at changes to the Sexual Harassment policies that are in place in the senate and just recently with the germans help passed a law, a rule change that requires mandatory Sexual Harassment training. There has been work year after year on these issues, and i think thank senator langford for bringing this to our attention. As you will see from my remarks, i just feel that this is not the right moment to make these changes to the rule. I will explain. Many people refer to the senate as the worlds greatest deliberative body because the senate is an institution which is designed for the careful consideration and debate of proposed laws and nominations. How we deliberate, as i mentioned is governed by senate rule, and only once in the history of the culture process has the senate voted to permanently reduce the time we have two debate and issue. That happened back, im looking at senator alexander who is an expert on that, that happened back in 1986 when we went from 100 hours of post culture debate time to the current rule of 30 hours. The resolution we are considering today asked us to make another change. Following years of failing to get nominees confirmed, the senate voted 78 16 to temporarily change the rules on debate time in 2013. It is important to note that back in 2013 the circumstances were very different than they are today. Nominations required a 60 vote threshold back then, the process for judicial nominees was respected, and a thorough process to select qualified judicial nominees was in place. Despite all of this, important federal positions remained unfilled even though qualified nominees were waiting to be confirmed. To address this issue back then, a bipartisan super majority of the senate supported a temporary change to the rule. So where are we today . First, the reality is that nominees are getting confirmed. On thursday, just this past thursday, leader mcconnell highlighted the fact that senator, Senate Republicans are closing in on the record for the most Circuit Court appointments in the president s first year in office. Mr. Chairman, without objection, i asked that the press release provided by senator mcconnells office on december 14 of 2017 be entered into the hearing record. Without objection. It reads judicial appointments are the sleeper story that matters. Circuit courts, a dozen trump appointees in its first year in the white house. President trump has in fact successfully appointed 12 Circuit Court judges, more than any other president in the first year of office since the federal Appellate Courts were established 126 years ago. In addition to my service on this committee, i also serve on the to just. Reporter committee which i have seen the process and pace at which these nominees are being processed. President trump have 19 judges confirmed in the first year of his presidency compared to just 13 for president obama in the same time period. In the jud Judiciary Committee we have reported 44 judicial nominees to the senate floor already this year, but in president obamas first year in office, we reported only 23 nominees out of committee. The Committee Also reported just 32 nominees in the first year of president bushs term and 28 and the first year of president clintons compared to the 44 weve seen this year. Its also instructive to look at the end of president obamas term in just 22 judicial nominees were confirmed in his last two years in office. That is the fewest in a Congress Since harry truman was president. When you look at the facts, it is clear that as my republican colleagues have acknowledged, the Current Congress is on track for a recordbreaking year of advancing judicial nominees and it is unnecessary at this moment to change the rules of the senate. As ive told senator langford, this is something we could consider before a new president comes into office, but now when nominees are moving through the process with many in a purely partisan manner, it would only add to the atmosphere. The danger involved in reducing the debate time was highlighted by louisiana and republican senator during a Judiciary Committee hearing. Many have seen the video asking a nominee to the District Court judge basic legal questions. Peterson was unable to answer any of them. Yesterday, mr. Peterson withdrew his nomination. Last week, the administration also withdrew the nominations of jeff and bret at chairman grassleys urging. They are just three of the 18 nominees that have been withdrawn this year end those nominees were withdrawn after the committee process. These nominees and others demonstrate the importance of careful consideration of nominees for executive branch positions and Lifetime Appointments to the bench. I will also note that the American Bar Association has now rated four of the 56 judicial nominees put forward by the Trump Administration as not qualified including two who received that rating unanimously. That is fairly unprecedented given the fact that before this year they had only issued that rating twice since 1989 and we have seen two more of these ratings this year are ready. The American People deserve qualified judges who will interpret the law fairly and the best way to get judges who are fair and impartial is to have a solid evaluation and confirmation process and where the executive branch is collaborating with the senate and we have ample time to review and debate these nominees. At a time when we have seen unprecedented challenges to the judiciary and rule of law, we need a procrit checks to ensure the selection of qualified nominees to both the executive and Judicial Branch now more than ever. Before we turn to senator langford, i would like to note that im glad were having a hearing in this committee. I hope it will have more next year and i also appreciate senator langfords work with me on the state election infrastructure issue. That is something thats exciting developments and will be a great topic for hearing. Just that i put in that plug. With that, thank you very much mr. Chairman. German langford, your written testimony will be made part of the record. You may proceed as you wish. Thank you. Friends and colleagues, i anticipate this to be a dialogu dialogue. I dont think a single one of us thanks that things are going swimmingly. We are not engaging on the issues. We do consume a tremendous amount of time, not in 30 hours of debate but in 30 hours of silence on the senate floor when occasionally someone steps up and speaks on something unrelated to the 30 hours of debate on the floor flat nominee. This is not so much a debate about if only we had 30 hours of debate we would have so many facts out on so many individuals because we are really not debating the individuals. The work is done in the committees. The work is done in the backandforth with the ministration. Thats where it really occurs. The challenges, we have learned is a body that we are either going to do nominees or we are going to do legislation, but we cant do both. If the calendar is full for a week on three nominations, you will never get to any legislation. We continue to have our constituents come to us and say when is the senate going to vote on things we can respond we are on nominations. Its no we dont have time for nominations and legislation that this continues to accelerate. The issue that we are going to continue to face is the gridlock on capitol hill is spreading across the rest of washington. The more that you have nominees that are not confirmed in every agency, all of us and our Constituents Services and all of the legislative staff will tell us they are calling over to agencies and the agencies are saying we cant give you an answer, there is not a Senate Confirmed person there. As that spreads, it affects all of our Constituents Services. It affects every permit that we request, it affects every bit of the process that happens. The gridlock that is here is moving over there. That doesnt help us longterm. I tried to be able to give some basic examples of this and some history and as we deal with the debate just on nominations, starting in 1949 to 1992, there were 12 votes for nominations during that entire time period. Then starting in 1993, the senate averaged around six votes for nominations through 2004. In the 109th session, the average jumped 29 votes for nominations for a year. Then from 2009 2012, he jumped again to 13 in a year. In 2013, the beginning of president obama second term, the senate determined something had to be done about nominations. In january 2013, the Senate Passed by a vote of 78 16. Standing water, just for that session to reduce debate time for most executive branch nominees from 30 hours down to eight hours and reduce thats two hours for District Court nominees. UnderStanding Order, the Supreme Court justice cabinet nominations all stayed at 30 hours. Standing order in 2013 was an attempt to avoid the Nuclear Option. As we know now from history, that did not occur. It was still invoked of november of that same year. That Standing Order remained. It functioned through the rest of 2014. We saw the operation of it. Now, in 2013, the Senate Considered it intolerable that the senate would have 13 1 15 votes on nominations for this year we have had 63 votes on nominations. That is not comparable to where we were. It is an acceleration. I would say to this body, we all know the direction of this body. We have 63 votes on nominations for this president , when the president ial Party Changes there will be a future democratic president , republicans will say they did 63 to us and we will do 120 to them. The next time it will be that we do 240 to them as we have watched this over the past 20 years slowly go up yearbyyear. I dont know how that turns around until this body determines thats going to term around. Enough is enough. The rules of the senate are not something that we can just complain about and do nothing about. The senators control the rules to the senate and at some point we have to determine this is getting out of hand. We have to be about to solve it. Now, i was not here in 2013 when the Nuclear Option was invoked, but ive heard the stories and the frustration that was rising. As my democratic colleagues believe their republican colleagues are pushing it too far so they determined something has to be done to get this. I would just say, i have the sense that we are in a very similar position. This can be pushed too far and at some point republicans is respond that something has to be done. For the sake of the future, not just this administration, but for the sake of the future, we have to determine how we are going to do this and be able to put this in place in a way that actually works. Senator merkley is my nextdoor neighbor. I was probably in the senate three weeks and he reached out to me and said can we sit and talk about rules . After due mentioned some things about rules. I sat in his office, we shared a commonality on a lot of these issues. We also had a sense that we have to be able to find a way to actually resolve these issues, not just talk about them come about figure out how it will work long tim term. He had a proposal to take all nominations to two hours except for Supreme Court nominations. Theres not a lot of debate that happens on the floor. Most of it happens in committee. With 51 votes for all nominees, the outcome is most often certain. Its really determined before we ever get there. The issue is, are we going to do legislation and nominations or are we only going to do nominations. it will be titfortat from here on out. Losing that time is a great loss the American People and is unexplainable to those in the senate. Lets take the role that was done during that time. And make it permanent. I said this is how we will function from here on out. I very much appreciate conversation, if theres a better way id be willing to take on and say what can we do to fix it. The best idea i had was to take wanting agreed on and say lets make it permanent. I be glad to take questions. The senate has confirmed approximately 260 of the president S Executive Branch nominees. On average is taken the senate 71 days to confirm these officials, you probably have better data than i do. How do these compare what the senate has done in past . The took about 50 during the obama administration, 30 or 40 during the bush administration, were watching it slowly inch up as well. Divorce alluded to the impact on the executive branch. Do you know which departments have been hit the hardest by the current confirmation slowdown and what are some realworld implications of these vacancies . How is your proposal eliminate . Of the hardest hit right now s