Mr. Reid mr. President . The presiding officer the majority leader. Mr. Reid ask con scene the call of the quorum be terminated. The presiding officer without objection. Mr. Reid i ask unanimous consent the senate proceed for a period of morning business and senators allowed to speak up to 10 minutes each. The presiding officer without objection. Mr. Reid i now ask unanimous consent that at 5 00 p. M. Tomorrow friday, april 11, all postcloture time be yielded back and the senate proceed to vote with no intervening action or debate on calendar number 574. Further, that following disposition of that nomination, the senate proceed to vote on cloture on executive calendar number 613. If cloture is invoked all postcloture time be yielded and the senate proceed to vote on confirmation of the nomination, that if confirmed, the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid on the table with no intervening action or debate. No further motions be in order to the nominations that any statements related to the nominations be printed in the record, and president obama be immediately notified of the senates action and the senate then resume legislative session. The presiding officer without objection. Mr. Reid i now ask unanimous consent the senate proceed to executive session to consider calendars number 760 761 762 763, and 764 and all nominations on the secretarys desk in the coast guard. That the nominations be confirmed en bloc, the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid on the table with no intervening action or debate and no further motions be in order to any of the nominations and that the president be immediately notified of the senates expaks the senate then resume legislative session action and the senate then resume legislative session. The presiding officer without objection. Mr. Reid i ask consent that we proceed now to s. Res. 422. The presiding officer the clerk will report. The clerk Senate Resolution 422, to authorize written testimony document production and representation in Montana Fish Wildlife and Parks Foundation incorporated v. United states. The presiding officer is there objection to proceeding to the measure . Without objection. Mr. Reid i ask unanimous consent the resolution be agreed to the preamble be agreed to, the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid on the table with no intervening action or debate. The presiding officer without objection. Mr. Reid i ask unanimous consent the appointment at the desk appear separately in the record as if made by the chair. The presiding officer without objection. Mr. Reid i now ask unanimous consent that when the complete its Business Today it adjourn until 4 00 p. M. Tomorrow afternoon or evening. That following the prayer and pledge the morning hour be deemed expired the journal of proceedings be approved to date the time for the two leaders be reserved for their use later in the day. That following any leader remarks, the senate resume executive session to consider the frees land nomination post low freidland nomination postcloture with the time until 5 00 p. M. Equally divided and controlled between the two leaders their designees. The presiding officer without objection. Mr. Reid there will be up to three roll call votes tomorrow at 5 00. First vote will be on confirmation of Michelle Freidland to be United States circuit judge for the ninth circuit. The next vote will be a cloture vote on the nomination of david weil to be administrator of the wage and Hour Division of the department of labor department. And that the last vote will be on confirmation of the weil nomination. So, mr. President , if theres no further business to come before the senate, i ask that it adjourn under the previous order. The presiding officer the Senate Stands adjourned until 4 00 p. M mr. Leader. Mr. Reid were here this were here this afternoon because republicans are holding up confirmation of two important nominations. Earlier today, the senate voted to invoke cloture on Michelle Freidland, ninth Circuit Court of appeals. So the only question is, when will she be made a federal judge on the ninth circuit . There are some who say the 30 hours should run so they can speak for themselves on why they insist on doing so. Theres no question that its not to debate the nominations its just to do nothing stand around here and do nothing. Few, if any senators have come to the floor to express any reason to oppose this good woman woman. She was nominated nine months ago by president obama so its time to confirm this wellqualified nominee. Enough obstruction and stalling has taken place. She graduated second in her class at Stanford University law school. She clerked for Sandra Day Oconnor on the Supreme Court. Shes been a partner in a prominent California Law firm. Ninth circuit is the busiest circuit in the entire country. The Senate Confirmed 18 of president bushs Circuit Court nominees within a week of being reported out of committee. Now, this woman ive already indicated, that was 13 months ago. We have 30 other judicial nominees pending on the calendar calendar. We have 85 vacancies on the federal courts. Theres no reason to delay this nomination. Theres no reason to delay the nomination of david weil to lead the wage and hour combination at the department of labor. Division at the department of labor. He went to boston university, Harvard University researcher. So madam president its im sure a little difficult for people watching this to ngd to understand why the republicans demanding that we waste time because thats all it is. But i guess the American People have become accustomed to wasting time. Thats what theyve tried to do for five years. We have wasted because of stuff like this the staff has to be here weve wasted so much time that we could be working on important issues. The republicans come to the floor, we want amendments. Madam president , one reason we dont do that kind of stuff is because we spend so much time on this. Weve wasted thousands of hours during the five years and thats really unfortunate when theyve been so stalling so much. So i ask unanimous consent that the time until 4 00 today be equally divided and controlled in the usual form that at 4 00, that is really unfortunate when they have stolen so much. So we have until 4 00 oclock today to control the cloture and reform. And we have the further disposition of the nomination to vote in cloture number 613. In the Senate Proceeds to vote on the confirmation of the nomination. And if confirmed, the motion will be considered laid on the table for maximum debate and no for their motions being ordered been related to the original. Is there any objection . No. The senator from iowa. Hello come i would like to offer an alternative are you before i do that i would like to say to my colleagues in the United States senate that first of all there is controversy about this nomination. Lets make that clear. And the majority leader said that maybe people in the country dont understand what it going on. They understand what is going on and we are working under the rules that the majority changed by ignoring the rules of the United States senate in november. And so as the majority leader knows, we have not yielded back posts closer time on judicial nominations since the socalled Nuclear Option was triggered last november. And we have followed the rules of the United States senate. The regular order just exactly the way that the rules were changed in november. And therefore if i would ask if the consent could be modified so that the vote on confirmation work or at 5 30 p. M. , monday april 28 when we return from the april recess. This would allow a senate process the pending cloture nomination on the wage and hour nominees this afternoon and said that confirmation vote also for monday when we return on april 28. That is the alternative that i offer to the majority. Madam president , will the majority leader modify his request. I would like to reserve my right to object. Madam president this is not a dissertation on lott to. Because if it work were, why in the world would we want to waste 30 hours doing nothing. And that is what we are doing. And i know that my friend from i left has been on that Judicial Committee a long time and i shared all that he has done. But it is apparent that the only reason you started this right away. No other reason. I may have missed it in there couldve been someone come down and talk about what about mrs. And i mustve missed that and i have heard little if any opposition and possibly even nonand ive only heard obstruction or obstructions sake because this has been going on for five years. And it appears that they just say no and that is what they do. So madam president i object to the modification. Is there objection to the original. And president . Preserving the right to object, and i will object, just to remind everyone that nothing is being done, we have confirmed 233 judges only disapproved of two. So dont ever try to sell the American People on the idea that the senate is not doing its work on getting judges approved. I object. As i have indicated, this is a way of logic here. We have had a lot of judges approved after wasting hundreds of hours of time doing nothing and we have them unanimously led by our good friend, the senior senator from vermont. And republicans stall and delay and obstruct and then we have a building here that passes very easily. Their only purpose for the delay is for delays fake or they have obstructed this is they have extracted everything in the last five years. And i know people complain about this and that will change that was made. Where would we be in this country without having changed the . I have a letter today from the secretary of defense chuck hagel, outlining nine important people in the department of defense to be confirmed. And we have numerous ambassadors with important countries around the world and theyre not being confirmed because they are beings of. One is that you why couldnt we have these people go do their work . They have been nominated. Countries all over the world and ambassadors from the United States. We wouldnt be if we had not changed that rule . We are slogging through these roles in these nominations and its kind of slow because of the inordinate amount of time but the longer that my friend from iowa talks, maybe we should have changed the rules more than what we did so unless something changes with in a vote tomorrow at 5 00 oclock. President s next senator from kentucky. I think it is important of all of this in context and my good friend from the majority leader, he broke his word last year when he said that we had settled the issue of what the rules were going to be for the senate for this congress. He then took the senate rules setting a very unfortunate precedent and continues to abuse the senate rules by using this to prevent members of the senate from his party and from our party to offer alternatives. So despite this heavy handed behavior, he expects the minority to would expedite consideration in the matter that we are just discussing a lifetime appointment as senator grassley has pointed out. We are exercising our rights under the rules of the and i might say that many of these nominees wouldve been can confirmed last december had we not experience this event perpetrated by the majority any heavyhanded attempt to change the nature of the senate with a simple majority. It is unfortunate decision that those kinds of decisions have consequences and all we have done this exercise what senator grassley pointed out the right dissenters have under the rules of the senate. If the majority leader doesnt like it, i recommend that he changes into her and we dont have a rule problem but a behavior problem. And we have had a couple of examples of trying to edge back this year where we brought up the bill and amendments were actually processed from both sides. But it seems of late that we are back into the old senate and we are just about scoring partisan points denying them the opportunity to offer amendments and i think most of our members on both sides of the aisle have involved having their Committee Work taken seriously in the opportunity to offer amendments to be taken seriously. This body operating the way it should under the majorities of both parties has been a more civil place in which the rights were respected. So the Ranking Member of the Judiciary Committee, the senator from iowa was we exercise our rights under the rules of the senate. Thank you spent the majority leader . Im a patient man. I try to be. For my friend to come here and have the audacity to talk about breaking my word the trouble with that statement is that we have the full senate see what happened. He said something, i said something to and we wont have all of these filibusters pursued. For the viewing audience we wasted so much time just trying to get on a bill to get on the bill, and they object hundreds of times and it takes two days to get on the bill. And then we are only on the bill and then we have to go through that process all over again and we have done that hundreds of times. There are more filibusters on president obamas judicial nominations than entire history. We have been in country for a long time. Roughly 240 years. As for that entire time there are more filibusters in five years than the entire history of the country. I had the good fortune of watching a play in new york and its a wonderful play about lbj. And that good man are in chinese majority leader for six years had overcome one filibuster. As majority leader in the senate because of this performance that we have over here i have had to overcome over 500 filibusters. This is for the country. It is not for me. We have tried this and everything we have tried to do. Everything. Now, we know it is Public Record now. Three days after obama was elected the first time a meeting was held here in washington. Karl rove called the meeting in the meeting was made and the decision is to make sure this man never gets reelected. To the credit of the republican leader he said our goal is to make sure that he is never reelected or well obama surprised everyone except for us and was overwhelmingly elected. And in that same meaning as they believe it stop them from being reelected is to object to everything and that is what we have done. And i have been hearing while. I know how people used to Work Together. But you cant Work Together if one side says no to everything. And we have been able because of the good fortune to piece together some work with the republicans. Its getting harder and harder to do but we have been able to get it done a few times rated somatic president , to waste this time of the American People and that is what it has done there are some objections and we need come to the floor and talk about what is wrong with this. As the battle goes on every year, whether harvard or elsewhere, they flip back and forth. Shes a very fine academic. Shes one of the finest justices weve had in the country and so what is wrong with her . What do we gain by holding this up . The country gains nothing. As i have indicated we have about 140 nominations that are being held up over here in my and my friend the republican leader said we will include this in december anyway. So please madam president , please, who in the world thinks there is a bit of credibility to that. So everyone, i am sorry. We can come h. We can come here and vote on this and all we need is a majority and thats the way it is. Im cesario for the inconvenience of everyone. But republicans know that for them it is pretty easy. They can just walk out of here and they dont have to be here. We do. Because it is our burden to run the country. They can walk away tickets and go home and we are not going to be able to do that. We are going to vote and approve these two people. We have the goods judge that we need to approve and someone from the department of labor. It has been vacant for long time. Im sorry for the inconvenience of members, but we have been elected as United States senators. On president . A senator from kentucky. Just a couple of brief observations are relevant to the point. We have approved more judges at this point than president bush have approved at the same time in his presidency. And the majority leader has a curious definition of filibuster. The reason the majority letters and translators have the is because as soon as we get on the bill there are no amendments allowed. Once you get past the motion to proceed i would say to the people who would be listening there is a twostep process. When once we get on the bill the majority leader has made it impossible for members of his party or our party to offer more amendments often than the last leaders combined. In other words he gets to decide whether anyones amendments are considered either on his site or our side. That is what has degraded the senate. That is what has turned it into looking more like the house and im told that the house has more votes than the than it does in the system majority leader used to say at the time but if you want to have a chance to go, come to the senate and that is what the senate is about. And so all it really requires to get the senate back to normal as for number of the senate has prior recognition and the right to that the agenda to open up the senate and let members of both parties offer an amendment. The price of being in the majority is enough to give them their votes and it is an unpleasant thing for us but that is the way the senate operates in the way that you move the bill to completion. I have thought and there were a couple of times this year and it looks like we would get back to normal, i hope that it is not too late for that. It would be in the best interest of the institution of the majority and the minority to restore the institution and the way it needs to operate. Better president . Die before . We