The presiding officer any senator wishing to change their vote . If not, the yeas are 75. The nays are 22. The nomination is confirmed. The clerk will report the next nomination. The clerk nomination, department of labor, Eugene Scalia of virginia to be secretary. The presiding officer the question is on the nomination. Is there a sufficient second . There appears to be. The clerk will call the roll. Vote vote the presiding officer are there any senators in the chamber wishing to vote or change their vote . If no, the yeas are 53, the nays are 44. The nomination is confirmed. Under the previous order, the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table and the president be immediately notified of the senates actions. Mr. Mcconnell mr. President . The presiding officer the majority leader. Mr. Mcconnell i have three requests for committees to meet during todays session of the senate and they havate approval of the majority and minority leaders. The presiding officer duly noted. Mr. Mcconnell i move to proceed to legislative session. The presiding officer question is on the motion. All those in favor, say aye. Those opposed, say no. The ayes appear to have it. The ayes do have it. The motion is agreed to. Mr. Mcconnell i move to proceed to executive session to consider calendar number 422. The presiding officer question is on the motion. All in favor say aye. Opposed, no. The ayes appear to have it, the ayes do have it. The motion is agreed to. The clerk will report the nomination. The clerk nomination, department of defense, Barbara Mcconnell barrett of arizona to be secretary of the air force. Mr. Mcconnell i send a cloture motion to the desk. The presiding officer the clerk will report the motion. The clerk cloture motion we, the undersigned senators, in accordance with the provisions of rule 22 of the standing rules of the senate, do hereby move to bring to a close debate on the nomination of Barbara Mcconnell barrett of arizona to be secretary of the air force, signed by 17 senators as follows mr. Mcconnell i ask consent the reading of the names be waived. The presiding officer without objection. Mr. Mcconnell i move to proceed to legislative session. The presiding officer question is on the motion. All those in favor, say aye. Those opposed, say no. The ayes appear to have it. The ayes do have it. The motion is agreed to. Mr. Mcconnell i move to proceed to executive session to consider calendar number 359. The presiding officer question is on the motion. All those in favor, say aye. Those opposed, say no. The ayes appear to have it. The ayes do have it. The motion is agreed to. The clerk will report the nomination. The clerk nomination, the judiciary, Frank William volck of West Virginia to be United States district judge for. Mr. Mcconnell i send a cloture motion to the desk. The presiding officer the clerk will report the motion. The clerk cloture motion we, the undersigned senators, in accordance with the provisions of rule 22 of the standing rules of the senate, do hereby move to bring to a close debate on the nomination of Frank William volck of West Virginia to be United States district judge for the Southern District of West Virginia, signed by 17 senators as follows mr. Mcconnell i ask consent the reading of the names waived. Officer without objection. Mr. Mcconnell i move to proceed to legislative session. The presiding officer question is on the motion. All those in favor, say aye. Those opposed, say no. The ayes appear to have it. The ayes do have it. The motion is agreed to. Mr. Mcconnell i move to proceed to executive session to consider calendar number 363. The presiding officer question is on the motion. All those in favor, say aye. Those opposed, say no. The ayes appear to have it. The ayes do have it. The motion is agreed to. The clerk will report the nomination. The clerk nomination, the judiciary, charles r. Eskridge of texas to be judge. Mr. Mcconnell i i send a cloture motion to the desk. The presiding officer the clerk will report the motion. The clerk cloture motion we, the undersigned senators, in accordance with the provisions of rule 22 of the standing rules of the senate, do hereby move to bring to a close debate on the nomination of charles r. S. Ridge of texas to be a United States district judge for the Southern District of texas signed by 17 senators as follow mr. Mcconnell i ask consent the reading of the names you can waive the. The presiding officer without objection. Mr. Mcconnell i move to proceed to legislative session. The presiding officer question is on the motion. All those in favor, say aye. Those opposed, say no. The ayes appear to have it. The ayes do have it. The motion is agreed to. Mr. Mcconnell i move to proceed to executive session to consider calendar number 328. The presiding officer the question is on the motion. All those in favor, say aye. Those opposed, say no. The ayes appear to have it. The ayes do have it. The motion is agreed to. The clerk will report the nomination. The clerk nomination, the judiciary, David John Novak of virginia to be United States district judge for the Eastern District of virginia. Mr. Mcconnell i send a cloture motion to the desk. The presiding officer the clerk will report the motion. The clerk cloture motion we, the undersigned senators, in accordance with the provisions of rule 22 of the standing rules of the senate, do hereby move to bring to a close debate on the nomination of David John Novak of virginia to be United States district judge for the Eastern District of virginia, signed by 17 senators as follows mr. Mcconnell i ask unanimous consent that the reading of the names be waived. The presiding officer without objection. Mr. Mcconnell i move to proceed to legislative session. The presiding officer question is on the motion. All those in favor, say aye. Those opposed, say no. The ayes appear to have it. The ayes do have it. The motion is agreed to. Mr. Mcconnell i move to proceed to executive session to consider calendar 348. The presiding officer question is on the motion. All those in favor, say aye. Those opposed, say no. The ayes appear to have it. The ayes do have it. The motion is agreed to. The clerk will report the nomination. The clerk nomination, the judiciary. Rachel p. Kovner of new york to be judge for the Eastern District of new york. Mr. Mcconnell i send a cloture motion to the desk. The presiding officer the clerk will report the motion. The clerk cloture motion we, the undersigned senators, in accordance with the provisions of rule 22 of the standing rules of the senate, do hereby move to bring to a close debate on the nomination of rachel p. Kover of new york to be district judge for the Eastern District of new york. Mr. Mcconnell i ask the reading of the names be waived. The presiding officer without objection. Mr. Mcconnell i ask consent the mandatory quorum calls for the cloture motions be waived. The presiding officer without objection. mr. Lankford mr. President. The presiding officer the senator from oklahoma. Mr. Lankford the permanent subcommittee for investigation just finished a Major Research project. I happen to sit on the committee, led by rob portman, who has done a phenomenal job trying to pull all the information together to try to study government shutdowns. Government shutdowns are not new to us. We hear about them a lot lately, but in the last 40 years weve had 21 government shutdowns. 21. Weve seen this issue over and over again, that when we get to a point of contention and argument we end up shutting the government down to be able to resolve it, so the point of discussion is not just here in d. C. , its all over the country. The question is, how does that really affect the country and how does that affect the United States government . The basic study that p. S. I. Did to be able to go back and look at this was they found that the federal workforce in the last shutdown lost 57,000 years of productivity. If you spread out all the federal workers that were furloughed, the time they were furloughed and the time that was lost. The total economy lost about 11 billion in productivity during that time period. And the federal taxpayer lost right at 4 billion in lost money. Thats just gone. The cost of shutting the government down, the cost of reopening, the cost of pay during the furlough time periods when there werent actually people there, 4 billion lost to the taxpayer. But yet well probably have another one at some point and probably have another one. And it seems they just keep coming. 21 of these in the last 40 years. Theres a group of us that have continued to be able to push this. Rob portman has done it for years. Several oration of us several others have tried to figure out how do we resolve the issue of government shutdowns. Maggie hassan, she and i started a year ago talking through how to start a bipartisan solution to ending government shutdowns, and we have a very unique proposal to be able to go with this. Its its a proposal thats not trying to be novel or cute. Its trying to be able to solve the problem. Our issue is we have very serious differences when we get to budget areas. Its a trillion dollars in total spending that were talking about when we do the 12 appropriation bills. Its no small amount of argument. But we should be able to resolve these things in a way that actually works and is effective. So heres our basic idea. The process works, supposedly, where you do a budget that determines an overarching number that everyone agrees to. This is called the topline number. Then you take that topline number and the house and the senate and their appropriations committees, it gets broken up into 12 smaller bills. Those are called the appropriation bills. Those 12 bills all have to be passed by the house and by the senate. Then they have to conference them together and get that finished by the end of the fiscal year. It sounds like a good theory. That was the plan at least that was made in 1974 when this was designed, but that plan that i just laid out has only worked four times since 1974. So if you think every year the budget process didnt work again, you are correct. It didnt work again. Its only worked four times since 1974. So what Maggie Hassan and i would like to insert into this process is the ability to be able to have serious, hard debate on difficult Financial Issues where we have disagreements but contain the fight to washington, d. C. To do two things make sure we get to the appropriation process and its done well and to hold the federal workers and federal families and the rest of the country harmless as we argue through this. So here is the simple idea. If we get to the end of the fiscal year, if we do not have any one of those 12 appropriation bills done and we should have all 12 of them done, but even if one is undone, when we get to the end of the fiscal year, there is a continuation of spending exactly as it was the year before. It just continues to run the same as it was before so that federal agencies, federal workers would continue to operate as they normally do. But because there is not an appropriation bill done for the next year, while federal workers are being held harmless and agencies are being held harmless, members of congress and our staff and the office of management and budget of the Whitehouse White house would lose all travel ability. We would have no official travel ability at all. Couldnt go home and see our families, couldnt travel on codels, couldnt do other responsibilities. We are here in washington. And we have session in the house and the senate every day of the week, weekends, weekdays included. Literally it is the equivalent of when my brother and i would get into an argument when we were kids which clearly didnt happen often but when it did happen, my mom would say to my brother and i the two of yall go into your rooms, work this out. When you do work it out, you can come out. That would basically put washington, d. C. Inside the box. The rest of the country is not in it, but washington, d. C. Would have to stay here, we would have to work out our differences. When its worked out, then we pass appropriation bills. The other feature thats added into it is that we cant move on to other things. We couldnt get distracted and just say were not going to do appropriation bills and just stay here and do other things. We have to do appropriation bills during that time period. This simple idea, although for most people i have talked to have said that is too simple, that will never work. As i have talked to my colleagues in the house and the senate, just about all of them have cringed when i said we are going to be here weekdays, weekends, keep going on one topic until we finish that one topic. It is our constitutional responsibility to be able to take care of the american peoples tax dollars and to make sure its done correctly. We can move on to other things when we do our constitutional responsibility in that. Just about everyone i have talked to have said thats an idea that i could vote for, that i can support. I bring it up to this body to tell people were still negotiating the final language of this bill. If there is an idea that people have, that we say we have one thing to ask about it, bring it. If you have one thing to suggest to change it, bring it. In the next few weeks before we get to the november 21 deadline, which is the new deadline now for spending, before we get to that spot, i want this issue resolved. I want government shutdowns off the table. I never want to see on any of the news channels ever again the countdown clock to when the government shuts down. That hurts the american people, it hurts american companies, and it certainly hurts the federal families that go on furlough during that time period. Lets keep us in the ring boxing it out, and lets keep everyone else harmless as we go through the process. And id encourage my colleagues to bring their ideas, and lets get this resolved in the next few weeks. With that, i yield the floor. I notice the absence of a quorum. The presiding officer the clerk will call the roll. Quorum call quorum call s. Mr. Braun mr. President. The presiding officer the senator for indiana. Mr. Braun are we in a quorum call . The presiding officer we are. Mr. Braun can the quorum call be suspended . The presiding officer without objection. Mr. Braun on roll call vote 311, i voted aye. It was my intention to vote no. Therefore, i ask unanimous consent that i be permitted to change my vote since it will not affect the outcome. The presiding officer without objection. Mr. Braun thank you. The presiding officer the senator from ohio. Mr. Brown are we in a quorum call . The presiding officer we are not. Mr. Brown thank you, mr. President. Mr. President , this fall we celebrate the 25th anniversary of americorps. Since president kennedy challenged americans to serve our nation abroad in the peace corps in his Famous University of michigan speech, generations of americans have recognized that our greatest strength is is as a nation is our compassion. It wasnt until americorps was founded about 30 years later, in that we addressed the need for service here at home. When i think about the work that americorps members do, i think about the words of a speaker in a Martin Luther king breakfast in my home city of cleveland on a cold january morning when a speaker said your Life Expectancy is connected to your zip code. Think about that. Your Life Expectancy is expected to your zip code when you grew up in appalachia or ohio, inn, y like i did in mansfield or a small town, your zip code often determines whether you have access to Quality Health care or good education and the social support necessary to succeed, whether its city year, senior corps or vista, all parts of americorps, America Works to provide that and ensure so Many Americans regardless of their zip code have the opportunity not only to succeed but to thrive. Ive seen firsthand what a difference americorps makes in peoples lives. My two daughters had an amazing lifechanging experience teaching for a year through city year. We all benefit when we invest in organizations that serve communities that are too often left behind. And when these organizations are staffed by Young Americans who care about those they serve. In ohio, we have a city year in cleveland and columbus. I have met many of these city year volunteers and see the work that they do. Americorps in my state played a major difference in the summer feeding program, where literally tens and tens of thousands of children are able to eat well in the summer because of the work that americorps does. Since 1994, a million americans have served in communities across the country, serving tens of millions of americans. All their work will have a Lasting Impact on children and families. I cant wait to see what these good americorps members will do over the next quarter century. Mr. President , i ask that the following remarks be placed at a different place in the record. The presiding officer without objection. Mr. Brown i rise today not very happily, if i can say, my employee and my friend jenny dihue is leaving our office to take a really, really big job in the u. S. House of representatives. Especially at a challenging difficult time and she believe believe she will serve there. She is a middleclass kid who grew up in idaho. I have not hired a lot of people in my office from idaho but if the next person from idaho is this good that will be a great thing. She went on to become a leader in the United States senate. Shes a leader among communications directors. Shes a leader in my office. Shes a leader in this entire body. Shes left an indelible mark. Part of being a good leader is being a good mentor. She nurtures young talent. She brings out the best in the people she works with.