{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["https://www.barrasso.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/news-releases?ContentRecord_id=BFEA37C9-39A8-4040-8063-C254DC6C45CB", "Barrasso: Time to Break Logjam on Nominations", "2017-10-25", "2017", "2017-10", "Republican", "House", "WY", "John Barrasso", "B001261", "www.barrasso.senate.gov", null, null, "legacy", "\u201cThe Democrats have blocked judges, they\u2019ve blocked Cabinet secretaries and other high-ranking officials. Many of these nominees even had Democrat support \u2013 and they\u2019re not controversial at all, but Democrats are doing everything they can to slow down the process.\u201dClick here to watch Sen. Barrasso\u2019s remarks.\r\nWASHINGTON, D.C.\u2014 Today, U.S. Senator John Barrasso (R-WY) delivered the following remarks on the Senate floor about how Democrats are needlessly delaying the confirmation votes for judges, Cabinet secretaries and other high-ranking officials.\r\nExcerpts of Senator Barrasso\u2019s remarks:\r\n\u201cPresident Trump has been in office now for more than nine months.\r\n\u201cFor the entire time, Senate Democrats have been trying to obstruct him from doing the very job that he was elected by the American people to do.\r\n\u201cThe president has laid out his agenda to create jobs, to grow the economy, and to help hard-working American taxpayers.\r\n\u201cYet, Democrats will do anything they can to stop the president from putting his team in place to accomplish these goals.\r\n\u201cThey\u2019ve tried to stop the president\u2019s legislative agenda because they know that his policies \u2013President Trump\u2019s policies \u2013will actually work.\r\n\u201cWhen Republican policies become law, Democrats know that people will see how successful these Republican policies are.\r\n\u201cI think Democrats are worried that they may never win another election again once we get these policies into place.\r\n\u201cThat\u2019s why we\u2019ve seen record amounts of delay and obstruction by the Democrats in the Senate.\r\n\u201cThey\u2019ve done it on legislation \u2013 and they\u2019ve even blocked the president from filling some of the most basic jobs within his administration.\r\n\u201cIt started on Day One.\r\n\u201cNormally on Inauguration Day, the president gets a substantial number of people confirmed to his Cabinet.\r\n\u201cThe idea is to let the president get his team in place, so that they can hit the ground running.\r\n\u201cPresident Obama had six on Inauguration Day. President Bush \u2013seven on Inauguration Day in terms of secretaries confirmed.\r\n\u201cAnd these confirmations were by voice vote.\r\n\u201cRepublicans in the Senate didn\u2019t do anything to try to block the Cabinet secretaries for President Obama.\r\n\u201cWe understood that it\u2019s best to give a new president a chance \u2013for all of us to work together when we can.\r\n\u201cGeorge W. Bush\u2014seven.\r\n\u201cThat\u2019s how it usually works.\r\n\u201cWell, not anymore. Not with this group of Democrats in the Senate.\r\n\u201cThey really were never interested in giving President Trump a chance.\r\n\u201cThey really don\u2019t seem to be interested in working together.\r\n\u201cLast January, President Trump got two people confirmed to his Cabinet on Inauguration Day.\r\n\u201cThe secretary of defense, and the secretary of homeland security \u2013 the only two jobs that Democrats allowed the president to fill.\r\n\u201cIn President Trump\u2019s first nine months in office, Democrats have continued to block the way.\r\n\u201cThey\u2019ve allowed just 185 of his nominees to take their jobs.\r\n\u201cThat\u2019s how ridiculous the Democrats have been in trying to keep President Trump from putting his team in place. By the same time this far into the administration, President Obama had 364 nominees in place.\r\n\u201cThe Democrats have blocked judges, they\u2019ve blocked Cabinet secretaries and other high-ranking officials.\r\n\u201cMany of these nominees even had Democrat support \u2013 and they\u2019re not controversial at all, but Democrats are doing everything they can to slow down the process.\r\n\u201cIn President Obama\u2019s time \u2013first nine months, he had 364.\r\n\u201cPresident Obama has gotten two for every one that President Trump has gotten confirmed.\r\n\u201cToday, there are 81 of President Trump\u2019s nominees who have come through the committees and another some today.\r\n\u201cThat\u2019s 81 people nominated by the president for positions in the government that are just waiting right now on the Senate floor for a vote.\r\n\u201cThese are people who got through the nomination process in June, who are still waiting and being blocked by Democrats in the Senate.\r\n\u201cIt\u2019s outrageous.\r\n\u201cDo Democrats really think these aren\u2019t important jobs?\r\n\u201cI believe we should confirm as many of these as possible today.\r\n\u201cThere are 13 judges waiting for confirmation. Eight U.S. Attorneys waiting \u2013 including the U.S. Attorney for my home state of Wyoming. These are important jobs.\r\n\u201cAll of these people have followed the process, they\u2019ve done everything they\u2019ve been asked to do. They\u2019ve filled out the paperwork, the disclosures, gone through the committee.\r\n\u201cNow it\u2019s time for the Senate to get its work done. So I\u2019d say, let\u2019s do it today.\r\n\u201cInterestingly enough in August, Democrats finally allowed a significant number of people to be confirmed. More than 60 people were confirmed by voice vote on one day.\r\n\u201cThat\u2019s the kind of thing that used to be very routine in the Senate \u2013 letting a large number of non-controversial nominees to be approved all at once.\r\n\u201cIt is now time for us to do it again. It\u2019s time to clear the deck and let these people who\u2019ve been nominated, vetted, gone through the committees, been approved\u2014time to get them to work.\r\n\u201cWe need to move these nominations, because we\u2019ve got more nominations on the way.\r\n\u201cWe\u2019re going to have to deal with the nominations of two Cabinet secretaries that are currently vacant.\r\n\u201cPresident Trump has nominated to be Secretary of Homeland Security, Kirstjen Nielsen\r\n\u201cIt\u2019s an important job\u2013she is very well qualified for it.\r\n\u201cDo Democrats plan to obstruct this qualified woman from doing the important job for which she\u2019s been nominated by President Trump?\r\n\u201cThe president deserves to have his team in place.\r\n\u201cThe Senate has an obligation to get that work done.\r\n\u201cAnd the Department of Homeland Security deserves to have a secretary in place to keep us safe.\r\n\u201cThat\u2019s how it\u2019s worked in the past, and that\u2019s how it\u2019s should be working now.\r\n\u201cThese are people who manage major departments in government, and they manage many career workers.\r\n\u201cBecause we know that the Washington bureaucracy has grown tremendously over the years.\r\n\u201cIt\u2019s very difficult to eliminate people who aren\u2019t doing their jobs properly. We\u2019ve seen it in scandals over the years.\r\n\u201cRemember the Gold King Mine disaster?\r\n\u201cPresident Obama\u2019s EPA, the group that\u2019s supposed to protect the environment, actually dumped three million gallons of toxic wastewater into a river in Colorado.\r\n\u201cRemember the scandals involving bureaucrats at the Department of Veterans Affairs, and the IRS, and the General Services Administration during the Obama administration?\r\n\u201cWe need presidential appointees in place overseeing these federal workers to make sure that the government of the people is accountable to the American people.\r\n\u201cThis Senate needs to be involved in providing oversight through our power of advice and consent.\r\n\u201cThese are important jobs. We have qualified people ready to do their work.\r\n\u201cDemocrats have delayed for nine months.\r\n\u201cIt\u2019s time to break that logjam today.\u201d\r\n###", 1, "2026-03-30T12:14:52Z", "2026-03-30T12:14:52Z"]], "columns": ["url", "title", "date", "year", "month", "party", "chamber", "state", "member_name", "bioguide_id", "domain", "scraper", "source", "date_source", "text", "has_text", "collected_at", "updated_at"], "primary_keys": ["url"], "primary_key_values": ["https://www.barrasso.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/news-releases?ContentRecord_id=BFEA37C9-39A8-4040-8063-C254DC6C45CB"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 0.8137691766023636, "source": "dwillis/congress-press", "source_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press", "license": "MIT", "license_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press/blob/main/LICENSE"}