releases: https://www.barrasso.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/news-releases?ContentRecord_id=E9423183-BEFB-42FF-96A3-774D7DFA5761
Data license: MIT · Data source: dwillis/congress-press
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| https://www.barrasso.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/news-releases?ContentRecord_id=E9423183-BEFB-42FF-96A3-774D7DFA5761 | Barrasso: Senate Must Change the Rules for Confirming Nominees | 2017-10-31 | 2017 | 2017-10 | Republican | House | WY | John Barrasso | B001261 | www.barrasso.senate.gov | legacy | WASHINGTON, D.C.— Today at a Senate press conference, U.S. Senator John Barrasso (R-WY), chairman of the Senate Republican Policy Committee, delivered the following remarks on the need to speed up the confirmation process for nominees after needless delays by Democrats. According to Barrasso, if Senate Democrats won’t respect the standard that was set in the previous Congress – when Democrats were in charge – then it’s time to vote to force that change. Excerpts of Senator Barrasso’s remarks: “The Democrats continue to try to obstruct President Trump in getting his team in place. “By this date in the Obama administration, they had twice as many nominees confirmed as we have by this date now in the Trump administration. “This is a process that is designed by the Democrats to delay the president from getting his team in place to the point that 47 times, we’ve had to file cloture on nominees – which of course burns significant amounts of time on the floor of the United States Senate. “In comparison, when you look at the number of times cloture had to be filed up to this date in the administrations of both President George Herbert Walker Bush and George W. Bush, as well as Bill Clinton and Barack Obama – it was a total of six cloture votes compared to 47 for President Trump. “This is an intentional delay. “To give you an example: Last week on the Senate floor, there was a judge who was nominated. The Democrats wanted all of this time to be spent, and in fact only 20 minutes was actually used of all of those hours that couldn’t be used for anything else. “Only 20 minutes was spent talking about that judge, all by the Republicans, all very positive. And then when the vote was finally done on the floor of the United States Senate, 28 Democrats in favor of that judge. “That tells you this is a mainstream nominee with bipartisan support. It is just delaying on the part of the Democrats to slow the process. “I believe it is time to change the rules of the Senate, to change the rules so that President Trump can get his team in place. “There are two different ways to do it. “One is to go back to what we had in 2013 – in the 113th Congress – which was a bipartisan agreement that lowered the number of hours after cloture: certain judges to two hours; members of the administration to eight hours; for Supreme Court and Cabinet members, 30 hours. “That was bipartisan. “It is time to do that again. “It is time to take the vote – either to back what we did in a bipartisan way in the 113th Congress or to go to what we need now because it’s time to vote either for the nominees or for a rules change.” ### | 1 | 2026-03-30T12:14:52Z | 2026-03-30T12:14:52Z |