The u. S. Senate. I want to thank senator lankford who is here with us 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 rules and procedures considering bills, conference reports and certain nominations during that 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 know, but the other changes which improved the efficiency of the senates operations were temporary and expired the at end of the 1 13th congress. Today well resist it one aspect of the temporary changes, limiting the postcloture debate time for certain nomination, and consider whether to restore it permanently as provided for in senator lankfords resolution. Like the change enacted in 2013, this resolution proposes to reduce the current 30hour window for postcloture consideration of certain nominations to eight or two hours, depending on the type of nominee. This resolution also preserves the full amount, the raping ford resolution lankford resolution full amount on postcloture detime for highest levels of executive branch, the Circuit Courts, 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 to confirm appointments that are necessary to the daytoday function of our government. The postcloture 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. And was evidenced in the 113th congress, this change does not inhibit members from debating or deliberating on the qualifications of nominees. It merely shorten what is is currently an unreasonably long process. Admittedly i did not support this change in the 113th congress. I was concerned then, 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, tastes i believe we have always tried to protect in that great deliberative institution but i witnessed 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 from colleagues about the virtues or vices of 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 postcloture debate time tokes fire. In 2013 senate was able to swiftly carry out it is constitutional duties and which witnessed a timely filling of judicial and executive branch vacancies. Reducing the postcloture debate since, debate time 2013 allowed the senate to stop waiting and start acting. That is exactly what i believe we need today. The American People are frustrated with washington gridlock. They believe that we can not even get the simplest of things done of the we need to fix this. We need to restore the process to what it 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. Senator klobuchar. Thank you very much, mr. Chairman, and thank you to all the members that are here and thank you to senator lankford for appearing before us and i want to thank his heartfelt desire to make the senate work better and two of my colleagues that are here, senator udall, who is 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. And the three of us along with a few other people, senator shaheen and others worked on the issue the last time we saw some changes. In fact when i first got to the senate, our first bill that we introduced, 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 gift rules and other things. Then we went on to support in 2010 and in to the secret hold. Obviously this committee, members of this committee, are now looking at changes to the sexual harrassment policies in place in the senate and just recently with the chairmans help passed a law, a rule change that requires mandatory sexual harrassment training. So there has been work year after year on these issues, and i thank senator lankford 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 referred 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 rules, and only once in the history of the cloture process has the senate voted permanently to reduce the time we have to debate an issue. That happened back, looking at senator alexander, who is an expert on this, that happened back in 1986 when we went from 100 hours of postcloture debate time to the current rule of 30 hours. The resolution we are considering today asks us to make a second permanent change. As senator lankford notes in his written testimony following years of failing to get nominees confirmed, the senate voted 7816 to temporarily change the rules on postcloture debate time in 2013. It is important to note back in 2013 the circumstances are very different than they are today. Nominations required a a 60 vote threshold back then. The blue slip process for judicial nominees was respected and 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 it issue back then a bipartisan supermajority of the Senate Support ad temporary change to the rule. So where are we today . Well, first the reality is that nominees are getting confirmed. On thursday, just this last thursday, leader mcconnell highlighted the fact that, i quote, Senate Republicans are closing in on the record for the most Circuit Court appointments in in a president s first year in office. Mr. Chairman, without objection i ask that the press release provided by senator mcconnells office on december 14th of 2017 be entered into the hearing record. Without objection. The title reads, thank you. The title, reads judicial appointments are the sleeper story that matters. Circuit court, a dozen trump appointees in his 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 pad digs to who i serve on this committee, i also serve on the Judiciary Committee where ive seen firsthand the process and pace which these nominees are being processed. President trump will 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 Judiciary Committee, we have reported 44 judicial nominees to the senate floor already this year. 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 in 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, when just 22 judicial nominees were confirmed in his last two years in office. Thats 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. It is unnecessary at this moment to change the rules of the senate. As i have told senator lankford this is something we could consider perhaps before a new president comes into office but now, when nominees are moving through the process with many in a purely partisan manner, this change would only add to the partisan atmosphere. The danger involved in redoings the debate time to expedite the confirmation of nominees that we are considering was also highlighted by Louisiana Republican senator kennedy last week during a Judiciary Committee hearing. I was at that hearing. Many people have seen the video of senator kennedy asking matthew petersen, a nominee to be a 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 mat tear and bret cali at chairman grassleys urging. They are three of 18 nominees this year. 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 also note the American Bar Association 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 the aba had only issued that rating twice since 1989. We have seen two more of these ratings this year already. The American People deserved qualified judges who will interpret the law fairly and the best way to get judges who are fair and impartial to have a solid evaluation and confirmation process and where the executive branch is collaborating with the senate. We have ample time to review and debate these nominees. At a time weve seen unprecedented challenges to the judiciary and to the rule of law, we need appropriate checks to insure the selection of qualified nominees to both the executive and Judicial Branch now more than ever. Before we turn to senator lankford i would like to note that im glad we are having a hearing in this committee. I hope we will have more, mr. Chairman, next year, and i also appreciate senator lankfords work on, with me on the state election infrastructure issue, something that is exciting developments there and will be a great topic for a hearing. Just thought i would put in that plug. With that thank you very much, mr. Chairman. Senator lankford, your written testimony will be made part of the hearing record as you know. You proceed as you wish. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Ranking member. Friends and colleagues, i anticipate this to be a dialogue. I dont think a single one of us thinks that things are going swimmingly. Were 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, with occasionally someone to step up and speak on something unrelated to the 30 hours of debate on the floor for that nominee. This is not so much a debate about if only we had 30 hours of debate, we would get so many facts out on some individual because were really not debating individual. The work is done in the committees. The work is done in the back and forth with the administration. That is where it really occurs. The challenge is, we have learned as a body that we are now either going to do nominees or were going to do legislation but we cant do both. Because if the calendar is full for a week on three nominations, you will never get to any legislation and 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 but we dont have time for nominations and legislation this continues to accelerate. The issue that were going to continue to face is the gridlock on capitol hill is spreading across the rest of washington. More that you have nominees that are not confirmed in every agency all of us in our constituent services folks and all of our legislative staff will tell us theyre calling over to agencies and agencies are saying, we cant give you an answer. There is not a senateconfirmed person there. As that spreads it affects all constituent services. It affects every permit we request. It affects every bit of process that happens. That gridlock here is moving over there. That doesnt help us long term. I tried to give some basic examples of this and history of it as we deal with the postcloture debate just on nominations. Starting in 1949, from 1949 to 1992 there were 12 cloture votes for nominations during that entire time period. Starting in 1993 the senate averaged around six cloture votes for nominations through 2004. In 109th session the average jumped to nine cloture votes for nominations for a year. From 2009 to 2012, it jumped again to 13 in a year. In 2013 the beginning of president obamas second term, the senate determined something had to be done about nominations. So in january 2013 the Senate Passed s. Res. 15 by vote of 7816, Standing Order just for that one session to reduce postcloture debate time for most executive branch nominees from 30 hours to eight hours. Reduced that two hours for District Court nominees. Under the Standing Order the postcloture debate for the Supreme Court justice cabinet level nominations all stayed at 30 hours. Standing order in 2013 was attempt to avoid the Nuclear Option. As we know from history, that did not occur. The Nuclear Option was still invoked november of that same year. That original, that Standing Order though remained, and 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 to 15 cloture votes in a year on nominations this year, weve had 63 cloture 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 cloture votes on nominations now for this president , when the president ial Party Changes there will be a future democratic president , republicans will say they did 63 to us, well do 120 to them. Then the next time it will be do 240 to them. As we watched this over the last 20 years, slowly go up year by year, i dont know how that turns around until this body determines thats going to turn 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 of the senate. And at some point we have to determine this is getting out of hand. We have to be able to solve it. Now i was not here in 2013 with the Nuclear Option was invoked but i have heard the stories of the frustration that was rising. My democratic colleagues believed that republicans were pushing it too far. So they determined something has to be done to get this set. I would just say, i have the sense that were in a very similar position. That this can be pushed too far and at some point republicans respond, 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 were going to do this and be able to put this in place in a way that actual works. Senator merkley is my next door neighbor. I was probably in the senate, three weeks and he reached out to me, said, can we sit and talk about rules any heard you mention some things about rules. I sat in his office. We shared a commonality on a lot of these issues, in the sense that we have to be able to find a way actually to resolve these issues, not just talk about him, but figure out how it will work long term. Senator merkley had a proposal to take all nominations to two hours period, except for Supreme Court nominations, to be able to advance to 30. Not a lot of debate happens on the floor anymore. Most of it happens in committee. With 51 votes for all nominees the outcome is most often certain. So it is really determined before we ever get there. The issue is, are we going to do legislation and nominations. Are we only going to do nominations . As i mentioned in my written testimony, the roosevelt term of the first 100 days, that can never be a marker again because from here on out, every president in the first 100 days wont even get their cabinet in place. They wont be able to move legislation because they wont be able to get personnel, because it will be titfortat from here on out. Losing that time period is a great loss to the American People and it is unexplainable to those of us in the senate. My approval is simple. Take the rule done during that time period in 2013 with wide bipartisan support. Make it permanent. Say this is how we will continue to function from here on out. Would i appreciate the conversation on it. If there is better idea to do it im willing to take it on and say what can we be able to do to fix this, the best idea i had take one already done and already agreed on and make it permanent and from here on out. Mr. Chairman i would be glad to entertain questions. How do these figures compare with what the senate has done in past administrations . You alluded to that already. Its the same you would con