Video: Ahead of Healthcare Procedural Vote, Hatch Urges Colleagues to Allow Floor Debate
“If you support the larger effort to repeal and replace Obamacare, you should at the very least want to have a debate on this bill. Under the rules we’ll have an open amendment process, members will get a chance to have their preferences known and to have the Senate vote on them. Taking that opportunity is the very least we can do.”
Washington, D.C.—Tomorrow the Senate will hold a procedural vote on whether or not to begin floor debate on repealing and replacing Obamacare. The Senate will not be voting on passage for a specific bill, but will be opening debate in which the Senate will consider and vote on a number of healthcare proposals in a thorough debate and amendment process. Among those proposals that will be the 2015 “clean repeal” bill, which Hatch wrote with the Senate Finance Committee, and an updated version of the Better Care Restoration Act, which was discussed last week (and has since been updated).
A number of Republican Senators have previously announced opposition to even beginning debate on their bills, and Senator Hatch addressed that issue in brief remarks on the Senate floor. Senator Hatch’s remarks on the floor echoed those by Vice President Mike Pence, who told KUTV last week, “We’re calling on every member of the Senate in both political parties to start the process, to begin the debate, to begin the work to give the American people a fresh start to repeal and replace Obamacare.”
“If you support the larger effort to repeal and replace Obamacare, you should at the very least want to have a debate on this bill. Under the rules we’ll have an open amendment process, members will get a chance to have their preferences known and to have the Senate vote on them. Taking that opportunity is the very least we can do.”
The Senator’s full remarks:
The next vote on this legislation will presumably be whether to let the Senate proceed to the bill. Regardless of your position on this particular draft, if you support the larger effort to repeal and replace Obamacare, you should, at the very least, want to have a debate on this bill.
Under the rules, we’ll have an open amendment process. Members will get a chance to make their preferences known and to have the Senate vote on them. Taking that opportunity is the very least we can do.
Keep in mind, Mr. President, virtually every Republican in this body has supported the effort to repeal and replace Obamacare more or less since the day it was signed into law. We’ve all made promises to our constituents along those lines. This legislation, while far from perfect, would fulfill the vast majority of those promises.
If we pass up this opportunity, we’re looking at further collapse of health insurance markets, which means dramatically higher premiums and even fewer healthcare options for our constituents. And, make no mistake, Mr. President, while some are talking about a bipartisan solution to prop up markets in the event this bill fails, there is no magic elixir or silver bullet that will make that an easy proposition.
But, one thing I’ve learned in my 40 years in the Senate is that, people who demand purity and perfection when it comes to legislation usually end up disappointed and rarely accomplish anything productive. That’s particularly true when we’re talking about complex policy matters.
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Hatch Honors Pioneer Day in Speech on the Senate Floor
Washington, D.C.—Today, Senator Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), the senior Republican in the United States Senate, paid special tribute to Pioneer Day in a speech on the Senate floor. Senator Hatch had initially planned to celebrate Pioneer Day in Utah but was forced to stay in Washington due to Senate votes on healthcare.
Mme. President, July 24 marks a significant milestone in the history of my home state of Utah. On this day, 170 years ago, Brigham Young and the Mormon pioneers first entered the Salt Lake Valley. Facing violence and discrimination at every turn, Utah’s early settlers crossed the nation in search of a land where they could practice their religion free from prejudice and abuse. In the cradle of the Rocky Mountains, they found a home.
Each year, we remember the sacrifice of these courageous men and women and the miraculous events that led to the founding of our state by observing Pioneer Day. This special holiday is a celebration of the pioneer spirit—that unique mix of industry, ingenuity, and innovation that transformed an arid desert plain into one of the most prosperous states in the nation.
Mme. President, Pioneer Day is a perennial reminder of how a people—left to their own devices and empowered to follow their dreams—can accomplish incredible things. It’s a testament to what Westerners can achieve when the government steps out of the way and allows the human spirit to flourish.
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Hatch Blasts Democrat Obstruction on Critical Nominees
Washington, D.C.— Senator Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, the senior member and former Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, spoke on the Senate floor today about the Democrats’ unprecedented obstruction of administrative nominees, which has left key departments without the senior leadership needed to guide our country.
Six months into the Trump administration, Senate Democrats have allowed confirmation of only 23 percent of the President’s nominations. Hatch, who has now participated in the administrative nomination process for seven different presidential administrations, decried Democrats for “turning the confirmation process inside out” to block or stall President Trump’s nominees for critical administrative positions.
No matter how my friends across the aisle want to spin it, no matter how they try to change the subject, the facts are the facts. While the Senate used time-consuming roll call votes to confirm less than 10 percent of the previous three president’s executive branch nominees, under President Trump, it is nearly 90 percent.
This is not how the confirmation process is supposed to work. The Constitution makes Senate confirmation a condition for presidential appointments, but this campaign of obstruction is exactly what Senate Democrats once condemned. Further poisoning and politicizing the confirmation process only damages the Senate, distorts the separation of powers, and undermines the ability of the President to do what he was elected to do.
The full speech, as prepared for delivery, is below:
President Ronald Reagan used to say that people are policy. Attacking a new President’s policies, therefore, often includes undermining his ability to appoint men and women to lead his administration.
The Constitution gives to the President the power to appoint executive branch officials. The Senate has the power of advice and consent as a check on that appointment power. In the early months of the Obama administration, Senate Democrats were clear about how we should carry out our role in the appointment process.
Less than two weeks after President Obama took office, the Judiciary Committee Chairman said he wished that the Senate could have put the new Justice Department leadership in place even more quickly. Just three months into President Obama’s first term, the Chairman argued that “at the beginning of a presidential term, it makes sense to have the President’s nominees in place earlier, rather than engage in needless delay.”
Well, actions speak much louder than words. With a Republican in the White House, Senate Democrats have turned our role of advice and consent into the most aggressive obstruction campaign in history.
Democrats complained about obstruction when, during the first six months of the Obama administration, the Senate confirmed 69 percent of his nominations. Today marks six months since President Trump took the oath of office and the Senate has been able to confirm only 23 percent of his nominations. I ask my Democratic colleagues: if 69 percent is too low, what do you call a confirmation pace that is two-thirds lower?
Democrats do not have the votes to defeat nominees outright. That’s why the centerpiece of their obstruction campaign is a strategy to make confirming President Trump’s nominees as difficult and time-consuming as possible. Here’s how they do it.
The Senate is designed for deliberation as well as for action. As a result, the Senate must end debate on a nomination before it can confirm that nomination. Doing so informally is fast; doing it formally is slow.
In the past, the majority and minority informally agreed on the necessity or length of any debate on a nomination, as well as when a confirmation vote would occur. The first step in the Democrats’ obstruction campaign, therefore, is to refuse any cooperation on scheduling debates and votes on nominations.
The only option is to use the formal process of ending debate by invoking cloture under Senate Rule 22. A motion to end debate is filed but the vote on that motion cannot occur for two calendar days. If cloture is invoked, there can then be up to 30 hours of debate before a confirmation vote can occur. The Democrats’ obstruction playbook calls for stretching this process out as long as possible. While informal cooperation can take a few hours, the formal cloture process can take up to several days.
The late Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan once said that you are entitled to your opinion, but not to your own set of facts. Let’s let the confirmation facts do the talking. President Trump and his three predecessors were each elected with the Senate controlled by his own political party.
At this point in the Clinton and George W. Bush administrations, the Senate had taken no cloture votes on nominations. We took just four nomination cloture votes at this point during the Obama administration. So far in the Trump administration, the Senate has taken 33 cloture votes on nominations. It’s not even close.
There is one very important difference between cloture votes taken at the beginning of the Clinton, Bush, and Obama administrations and those taken this year. In November 2013, Democrats effectively abolished nomination filibusters by lowering the votes necessary to end debate from a supermajority of 60 to a simple majority. It now takes no more votes to end debate than it does to confirm a nomination. In other words, the Senate did not take cloture votes during previous administrations, even though doing so could have prevented confirmation. Today, Democrats are forcing the Senate to take dozens of cloture votes even though doing so cannot prevent confirmation.
At least half of these useless cloture votes taken so far would have passed even under the higher 60-vote threshold. Earlier this week, 88 Senators, including 41 Democrats, voted to end debate on President Trump’s nominee to be Deputy Secretary of Defense. We’ve seen tallies of 67, 81, 89, and even 92 votes for ending debate.
Meanwhile, these needless delays are creating critical gaps in the executive branch. A clear example is the nomination of Makan Delrahim to head the antitrust division at the Department of Justice. Antitrust enforcement is a critical element of national economic policy. It protects consumers and businesses alike, and without filling these important posts, uncertainty in the market reigns. This is a particular problem at a time of common and massive mergers and acquisitions. And yet, Mr. Delrahim, like dozens of others, has been caught in the maelstrom of delays.
Mr. Delrahim was reported out of the Judiciary Committee on a 19-1 vote. He is supremely qualified, and enjoys broad support throughout the Senate as whole. Yet his nomination—like so many others—languishes on the floor because of Democratic obstruction. Indeed, it has taken longer to get Mr. Delrahim confirmed than any antitrust division leader since the Carter administration. Mr. President, regarding the delay in Mr. Delrahim’s confirmation, I ask unanimous consent to enter two news articles into the Congressional Record.
Of course, Mr. Delrahim’s nomination is just one example among many. But this particular example serves an important case in point: Democrats are deliberately slow-walking dozens of confirmations in a cynical effort to stall the President’s agenda. And it probably won’t surprise anyone to hear that they’re not limiting their obstruction campaign to executive branch nominees.
In fact, looking at the judicial branch shows that this is part of a long-term obstruction strategy. In February 2001, just days after the previous Republican President took office, the Senate Democratic Leader said they would use “any means necessary” to obstruct the President’s nominees. A few months later, Democrats huddled in Florida to plot how, as the New York Times described it, to “change the ground rules” of the confirmation process.
And change the ground rules is exactly what they did. For two centuries, the confirmation ground rules called for reserving time-consuming roll call votes for controversial nominees so that Senators could record their opposition. Nominations with little or no opposition were confirmed more efficiently by voice vote or unanimous consent.
Democrats literally turned the confirmation process inside out. Before 2001, the Senate used a roll call vote to confirm just four percent of judicial nominees and only 20 percent of those roll call votes were on unopposed nominees. During the Bush administration, after Democrats changed the ground rules, the Senate confirmed more than 60 percent of judicial nominees by roll call vote and more than 85 percent of those roll call votes were on unopposed nominees.
Today, with a Republican President again in office, Democrats are still trying to change the confirmation ground rules. The confirmation last week of David Nye to be a U.S. District Judge is a prime example.
The vote to end debate on the Nye nomination was 97-0. In other words, every Senator—including every Democrat—voted to end debate. Most people of common sense would be asking why the cloture vote was held at all.
But Democrats did not stop there. Even after a unanimous cloture vote, they insisted on the full 30 hours of post-cloture debate time provided for under Senate rules. And, to top it off, the vote to confirm the nomination was 100-0.
I don’t want anyone to miss this. Democrats demanded a vote on ending a debate none of them wanted. And then they refused to end the debate that they had just voted to terminate. All of this on a nomination that every Democrat supported. Now that’s changing the confirmation ground rules.
Only four of the previous 275 cloture votes on nominations had been unanimous. In every previous case, whatever the reason for the cloture vote in the first place, the Senate proceeded promptly to a confirmation vote.
In 2010, for example, the Senate confirmed President Obama’s nomination of Barbara Keenan to the Fourth Circuit two hours after unanimously voting to end debate. In 2006, the Senate confirmed the nomination of Kent Jordan to the Third Circuit less than three hours after unanimously ending debate. And in 2002, the Senate confirmed by voice vote the nomination of Richard Carmona to be Surgeon General less than one hour after unanimously ending debate.
The Nye nomination was the first time that the Senate unanimously invoked cloture on a U.S. District Court nominee. This was the first time, following a unanimous vote to end debate on any nomination, that the minority refused to allow a prompt confirmation vote.
No matter how my friends across the aisle want to spin it, no matter how they try to change the subject, the facts are the facts. While the Senate used time-consuming roll call votes to confirm less than 10 percent of the previous three president’s executive branch nominees, under President Trump, it is nearly 90 percent.
Mr. President, this is not how the confirmation process is supposed to work. The Constitution makes Senate confirmation a condition for presidential appointments, but this campaign of obstruction is exactly what Senate Democrats once condemned. Further poisoning and politicizing the confirmation process only damages the Senate, distorts the separation of powers, and undermines the ability of the President to do what he was elected to do.
