Leader frist threaten to this kind of event. At the end, who has prevailed combine the compromise was reached. The agreement was we would not filibuster federal judges unless federal extraordinary circumstances existed. That is the way that was settled. With regard to the nominations now, news of extraordinary circumstances. We should not go quietly when the president makes a recess appointment. We object to these people being confined after the court held it it was illegal. They should not have done that. It was never close to being a legitimate recess appointment. I am worried about this. We have come to get the to work this out. With regard to the traditional that center mcconnell talked about, you do not move a nomination until questions are answer relative to the appointment. Nominations just do not go smoothly and get voted the next week. There are a lot of bases with that. The question was, this was raised at the beginning of the year. These issues were discussed hands and an agreement was reached. As part of the agreement, senator reid said he would not use the Nuclear Option if the republicans agree to certain things others ran on the agreement and an agreement was reached now they say the agreement does not work. It was agreed to. Senator reid is now changing that agreement, changing the commitment he made in the exchange for getting concessions from this side. This was an negotiated agreement of great intensity. Senator merkley was involved in the discussion of it. An agreement was reached. The essence of it was concessions were made by the republicans and the democratic leader accepted those concessions and said he would not use the Nuclear Option. Now he is threatening to use the Nuclear Option. Lets get this nomination. This is a man to be director of alcohol, tobacco, and firearms, a highly Important Agency i was a United States attorney for 12 years you have to deal with the fbi on a regular basis. There are good relationships and you try not to be critical of one another. This is what the former special agent in charge of the fbi wrote about mr. Jones. As a retired fbi senior executive, i am one of the few voices able to publicly express our complete discontent with mr. Jones. Mr. Jones ineffective leadership without fear of retaliation and reputation from him. He is no longer in office. He does not have any fear. As telling the truth. He goes on to say that he felt morally compelled to make the committee, that is the u. S. Senate Judiciary Committee aware of mr. Jones atrocious professional reputation in the Minnesota Twins cities area. This is the guy they want to promote to hand alcohol, tobacco, and firearms. And effective leadership, his lack of concern about matters and issues brought to his attention by each of us. Each of us means the other federal agencies like the Drug Enforcement administration or the irs. Our common dissatisfaction with his poor leadership, bathetic interaction, and insufficient prosecution support was the theme of many discussions to remind bathetic interaction and insufficient prosecution support was the theme of many discussions during my tenure. He spoke to was with this respect. He goes on to note that after he became a United States attorney in minnesota they prosecuted significantly less cases of every type. 40 fewer defendants were charged in 2012 than the previous year. He would not prosecute the cases. A federal Investigator Agency was up in arms about it. This retired s. A. C. Tells the truth. President obama is determined to make him the head of the atf, involving leadership of fire arms and weapons charges all over america. We have already had the fast and furious scandal. Shouldnt the senate ask questions about this . Should we rubberstamp of this . They are rushing it through committee, trying to do it right now. Move him on, get him confirmed. Anybody who stands in the way, tough luck. He gets to decide who gets confirmed. He gets to decide what the rules are in the United States senate. In the last part of president bushs term, they blocked the ambassador to the united nations. He was about one full filibuster. By the democratic members of the senate. With i am saying is, the rules were not changed and then. The rules are not to be changed now. We have a conference coming up. Lets see if we cannot work through it. Lets see if we cannot work in a way that restores the senate. The senate is supposed to provide a cooling opportunity to slow down rush to judgment. Should the senate be compelled to confirm three members to lower official appointments in the federal government who were illegally appointed and continue to serve after they were so found jumble i do not think so. I do not think that dispute is such that would leave the majority leader to print or rules of the senate to override the rules of the senate through a procedure not proper and dangerous to get his way on this matter there are other things that could go wrong if this goes forward. My impression from talking to my colleagues is the there are deep feelings about it. People have had about enough of this. There are all kinds of abuses here about how we conduct our business. We are not going to keep accepting that. When you except that, the loyal opposition is eroded over a period of time. This ability to exercise a little power that it has the senate this weekend. The senators role as the body that slows down problems, that stands up to atf nominations, that stands up to a little appointments is eroded and we do not need to do that. I know there is on the feeling here to my colleague senator hatch. He has been through these for a long time and has been seen these disputes. I have seen a few in my 16 years. I have not been here as long as senator hatch. What i would just say it is, this situation does not justify the Nuclear Option. It is a dangerous game and it can be addictive. Every time he is confronted with someone legitimately using the rules of the senate to raise questions about the agenda, they are overruled and the rule is changed so that the majority leader can advance his agenda. That is what the issue is about. I asked my democratic colleagues, lets slow down. Maybe this Conference Monday will help us reach an accord and avoid a dangerous history of the United States senate. Will my colleague yield for a question . I will yield. Thank you very much. I have in front of me the list of times the application of the rule was changed from the president precedent. It was done 10 times since 1985. I pointed out earlier as when not sure if he were on the floor the withseveral of these times this was done on the republican leadership. Seven times republicans came to the floor and said, we will change the occasion of a rule under redirection of the precedent, overruling the precedent. From the way you were speaking, it sounded like this conversation was a procedure that had never been done, but had been done several times since 1985 by my republican colleagues. I said it is a dangerous trend and it can be addictive. It can undermine the nature of the United States senate. I did not say it had never happened. To my knowledge, i would like the senator to list for me the number of times since 1985 the majority leader has done before the parliamentarian and the presiding officer and actually altered the rules by his eighth vote of the senate over ruling the chair by a vote of the senate over the chair. Multiple revisions have been ruled to violate the Conference Committee authority. The changing of the precedent was reversed. This happens again in september. Was there an vote on that . I am just curious. I know it had been done before. I recall the one over the federal judges and at the end, cooler heads prevailed in a compromise was reached and a significant rule of the senate was not altered. Some of these could be technical rulings of the chair that are not that significant. I am interested in seeing what others you might mention. If there was an actual vote of the body of the senate. I can assure my colleague that each and every one of these involved an actual vote and everyone of these 10 occasions did reverse its huge precedent. Will the senator offer that for the wreckage for the record . Without objection, that will be added to the record. I appreciate the senator sharing that. We will study those. It is absolutely a practice that can occur, but it is a dangerous practice. The senate is a place of a certain amount of collegiality and in certain amount of judgment and understanding and respect for the body. Sometimes you can carry out a procedure that may be dubious, but well within the realm of acceptable procedures. Sometimes you can feel and understand that that is a dangerous alteration of the precedents of the senate. We will hear more of the filibuster rules from the Heritage Foundation this morning. The parliamentarian and senator rand paul will talk about the use of a simple majority in the senate at 12 30 p. M. Eastern and cspan. Next week, harry reid will talk more about possible changes to a Senate Filibuster rule. Whites live coverage on monday at 10 30 a. M. Eastern at the center watch live coverage on monday at 2 30 a. M. Eastern. Senator reid said the actions step the senate will hold a recess appointments on a number of president obamas nominees next week. We will hear from senator reid on a possible filibuster changes. They spoke to reporters for 20 minutes. Ok. We had a good caucus. A couple of people do not like changing the rules. We have the votes to move forward on this. Our position is very clear. We want to break gridlock and make washington work for merrick, especially the middle class. We want to get things done and respond to the challenges faced by america, and the middle class. The first step is to stop blocking the president s nominees. All you had to do was be on the floor today and see the case for us. Those nominees took months, and months through tactics before we had a vote on somebody they agreed with. Three of the people that are my favorites on cloture on this, they do not like that law. They are not going to let him have his job. They say they will work out a compromise. What we will do is rely just lay that issue. But we will do is set up so we can be a funding agency. These people are tainted. There is not a single word in any record of any place that opposes any of the three nominees. Not a single word. My friend senator mcconnell says this is all big labor . Six percent of the private sector is represented by organized labor. You think that organized labor should care a little bit about having a secretary of labor, having someone who works at the casa politan causal politan hotel in las vegas, you think those janitors should have someone to represent them when they fire them, or there is a labor dispute . We are not interested in cutting a deal. The president deserves to have his team in place. There are no more objections to any of these nominees. All we need is six in the vote cloture. Let them vote against these people. Why should they hold them up procedurally . This is about having a presence. Having a team in place. In 3. 5 years, it may be president clinton, president biden, resident bush. Should they be will to have the team they want . That is all this is about. This is about making washington work even without the you can search, but walked on that tall. Mitch mcconnell think the status quo is terrific. It concentrates and in this chamber has gone on long enough. The question has been asked, lets get together for a joint caucus. Fine. I have no problem with that. We tried that. Im happy to do that. We are having a joint caucus with senator mccain talked about his experiences in vietnam. I am happy to do the joint caucus. The republicans in the senate have refused to acknowledge the obvious. Twice, the American People have elected barack obama president. It is been their decision to let him lead america. He has asked for the team to lead this country breather and denial of his victory and his mandate. Time and again, they tell him on the most critically important agencies they point to stop him from leading this nation by stopping him from having the people he needs on his team in place. Richard cordray has been waiting for two years. For public us to get them this opportunity. While the not do it . Is there an allegation of incompetence, or corruption . Not at all. They do not like the agency. The Consumer Financial reduction agency. They refused to give them a chance to serve. That is their policy. They would rather see it disappear. The president was forced to reassess an appointment. Have a race and the questions about competency or corruption within . Not a wine. There are no questions about her competency. They are trying to stop the president from leading the nation. The gridlock asked to to an end. The gridlock has to come to an end. The norm says filibusters, 30 votes on the floor, people looking very closely at their Television Screens on cspan to see if theres any evidence of life life on the floor the United States senate. That is the norm in this institution. It is unacceptable. The American People expect us to step up and solve problems. They expect us to do without gridlock. This is the only we can move this forward. The numbers speak for themselves. Since 19492008, there were 20 filibusters of executive appointments. 59 years, 20 filibusters. Under president obama, in the last five years, thereve been 16. It has become the norm. Filibustering. As senator reed has said, the end of the day, they end up giving them overwhelming votes. Delay it, wait, stop. The American People do not want to stall. He won us to act. One is to solve the problems of the country on a bipartisan basis. We have got to break this jam. I want to thank my colleagues. The majority leader has Just Announced hes moving forward with a group of nominees to give the president bikini deserves to five for the middle class. Just about everyone in america believe that once you elect a president , he deserves his choices to run the executive branch. A new tactic has been introduced to try to paralyze the executive branch with a paralyzed the legislative branches is pretty denial of the government to function. They have chosen to agencies they particularly dislike. Those are the the nub of the problem. The nominees are more than qualified. Actually, there was bipartisan agreement on that point. You would have to be hard pressed to find a republican to call these nominees unqualified. Why not let them through . They are blocking these nominees because our colleagues want to paralyze these agencies. They just do not want them to function no matter who runs them. They hate these agencies more than they hate others. They do not like the agencies. They do not like with the agencies do. They block the nominees who will lead them. They say these people were illegally appointed reply to the president have to do recess appointments . If they went out loud a vote, we would not have recess appointment. As soon as the president submitted nominees in 2011, republicans responded they block every single nominee to that board no matter who it was. The board didnt have a quorum. He could not function. It is sort of like, alice in wonderland. They say theyre going to block the nominees. And they say they were illegally appointed. We cannot let these nominees go for. The president was forced to reset the points of sharon block because they so strongly object to the republicans existence. We know the story on the cftb. They refer to it, they wouldnt have the agency at all. They have refused to allow a vote on richard cordray, and let us know that they would not have allowed a vote on Elizabeth Lauren warren. Because they want the Consumer Financial protection board to disappear. Theyre willing to allow a vote now only after theyve taken all the teeth out of his agency. That is like saying to a baseball player we will let you step up to the plate, but you cannot have a bat. Dont hit the ball. Republicans do not have a single ax to grind with these nominees. It is similar with the atf agencies. Their tactic is simply to not allow the agency to have a leader. A because they do not like the leader. Because they do not want the agency to exist. It exists in law, and this is the tactic they have used. They do not have a single ax to grind with our nominees. They will not let them through because they object to the existence of the agencies and the board they lead, even though they have been created by law. When it comes to criticizing the personal traits and qualifications of individuals the president has put forward, all you hear is crickets. It is galling. These positions are going unfilled because simply they do not like the agency, and do not want it function. That is not right. That is not fair. We have obligation to stop it or it will only get worse. I think it is amazing that republicans who love to go on and on about streamlining government and about red tape are behind this unprecedented failure in making congress were for the people that elect them. It is a complete failure. Just listen to the numbers that senator durbin just talked about. With a nominees waiting on average for over two years 250 days. We have hundred 84 nominees that are pending have questionnaires. Talk about government inefficiency. Absolutely no business would tolerate this. Republicans ought to know that. Neither should we. The president deserves to have a qualified team. He needs his whole team, not half of it. That is not how this works. Elections have consequences. President s, republican or democrat, deserve to put in place a full team to work for the American People. We need to in this gridlock and become more responsive to the major problems that we face. At the end of the day, this isnt about and inside baseball argument that only affects the people in this town. This is about serving the American People. We are not doing that when we allow the republicans free range to block people whose job it is to protect our shrinking middle class and hazardous workplace conditions or unfair wages, or disappearing benefits, or his job it is to protect americans that are s