Majority Leader Schumer Floor Remarks On Continuing To Confirm President Biden’s Highly Qualified Nominees

Washington, D.C. –  Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) today spoke on the Senate floor regarding moving forward with confirming more of President Biden’s qualified nominees to the administration and the bench. Below are Senator Schumer’s remarks, which can also be viewed here:

Yesterday was a good day on the Senate floor: we held twelve roll call votes—yep, twelve roll call votes—on a number of President Biden’s nominees to his Administration and to the federal bench.

Half of these votes took place in the evening. I am glad we dispensed with them efficiently and without needless delay. I want to thank all my colleagues for their cooperation and flexibility as we moved through the large number of votes. We want to be able to keep doing this. We want to be able to work with similar speed the next time a large number of votes are lined up on the floor.

And maybe some of them, like last night, will go by voice. Some of these, there's no reason to have a vote on, except that a few—just a handful, not the vast majority of the other party—insist we have votes on all of them, which only lengthens the process, but doesn't deter us from moving forward on these nominees.

Of the 20 nominees I filed at the end of the last work period, we have confirmed or invoked cloture on all but three of them. Today, we expect to hold cloture votes on the other three.

Again, this is an unusually large number of roll call votes for nominees that typically pass with unanimous consent. Obstruction from a small group of Republicans, only a small group, not the majority, not close to the majority, has forced us to work through these individuals one by one—but last night, with cooperation of everybody, we were able to move quickly. 

So I thank you to my colleagues for their good work and cooperation.

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