testimony on senate resolution 355, improving procedures for consideration of nominations in the u.s. senate. i want to thank senator lankford who's here with us at the table for agreeing to appear before us today to discuss the merits of his resolution. in 2010 this committee undertook a comprehensive examination of the filibuster in the united states senate. that examination was conducted in response to an ongoing debate about invoking the nuclear option. and while in action was taken immediately following the conclusion of the committee's work, the senate did take steps in early 2013 to modify some of the rules and procedures more considering bills -- for considering bills, conference reports and certain nominations during that congress. later that same year the senate took a more drastic step and invoked the nuclear option for certain nominations. invoking the nuclear option affected a permanent change, as my colleagues well know. but the other changes which improve the efficiency of the senate's operations were temporary and expired at the end of the 113th congress. today we will revisit one aspect of those temporary changes, limiting the post-cloture debate time for certain nominations and consider whether to restore it permanently as provided for in senator lankford's resolution. like the change enacted in 2013, this resolution proposes to reduce the current 30-hour window for post-cloture consideration of certain nominations to 8 or 2 hours depending on the type of nominee. this resolution also preserves the full amount, the lankford resolution, the full amount of post-cloture debate time on nominations to the highest levels of the executive branch, the circuit courts and the supreme court just like its predecessor. in short, this resolution is designed to return the senate to a time when it effectively and efficiently fulfilled its constitutional duty to confirm appointments that are necessary to the day-to-day functioning of our government. the post-cloture debate time provided by this resolutioning will once again allow the senate to deliberate, to debate and to vote on nominees in a timely way. and as was evidence evidenced ie 113th congress, this change does not inhibit members from debating or deliberating on the qualifications of nominees, it merely shortens what is currently an unreasonably long process. admittedly, i did not support this change in the 113th congress. i was concerned then that once the senate altered the rules, there would be no turning back. i worried that the changes proposed at the time would with limit each senator's voice and power. traits i believe we've always tried to protect in this great deliberative institution. but i witnessed something different. nominees, whether i supported or opposed them, were debated and voted on in a timely, practical manner. more importantly, the senate no longer wasted countless hours waiting -- not to hear from colleagues about the virtues or vices of certain nominees, not to debate their attributes or deficiencies, not to discuss whether they were fit or unfit in the job -- just waiting for 30 hours of post-cloture debate time to expire. in 2013 the senate was swiftly able to carry out its duties, and we witnessed a timely filling of executive branch vacancies. reducing debate time in 2013 allowed the senate to stop waiting and start acting. that's exactly what i believe we need today. the american people are frustrated with washington gridlock. they believe that we cannot get even the simplest of things done. we need to fix this, we need to restore the process to what it once was, and i believe this is an opportunity to do this. i look forward to testimony today and the debate that follows in support of this resolution. senator klobuchar. >> thank you very much, mr. chairman, and thank you to all the members that are here, and thank you to senator lankford for appearing before us. and i want to thank him for his heartfelt desire to make the senate work better and also two of my colleagues that are here, and that is senator udall who's a member of this committee and has long worked on this issue as well as senator merkley who's a visiting member today and thank him for his work. and the three of us, along with a few other people -- senator shaheen and others -- have worked on this issue the last time that we saw some changes. and, in fact, when i first got to the senate, our first bill that we introduced, our new class back in 2006, was devoted to something related to this which was ethics reform which made some significant changes to lobbying rules as well as gift rules and other things. and then we went on to support in 2010 an end to the secret hold. and, obviously, this committee and members of this committee are now looking at changes to the sexual harassment policies that are in place in the senate. and just recently with the chairman's help, passed a haw -- a rule change that requires mandatory sexual harassment training. so there has been work year after year on these issues, and i thank senator lankford for bringing this to our attention. as you'll see from my remarks, i just feel that this is not the right moment to make these changes to the rule, and i will explain. many people refer to the senate as the world's greatest deliberative body because the senate is an institution which is designed for the careful consideration and debate of proposed laws and nominations. how we deliberate, as i mentioned, is governed by senate rules. and only once in the history of the cloture process has the senate voted to permanently reduce the time we have to debate an issue. that happened back -- i'm looking at senator alexander who is an expert on this -- that happened back in 1986 when we went from 100 hours of post-cloture debate time to the current rule of 30 hours. the resolution we are considering today asks us the make a second permanent change. as senator lankford notes in his written testimony, following years of failing to get nominees confirmed, the senate voted 78-16 to temporarily change the rules on post-cloture debate time in 2013. but it is important to note that back in 2013 the circumstances were very different than they are today. nominations required a 60-vote threshold back then, the blue slip process for judicial nominees was respected, and a thorough process to select qualified judicial nominees was in place. despite all of this, important federal positions remained unfilled even though qualified nominees were waiting to be confirmed. to address this issue back then, a bipartisan supermajority of the senate supported a temporary change to the rules. so where are we today? well, first the reality is that nominees are getting confirmed. on thursday, just this last thursday, leader mcconnell highlights the fact that, i quote, senate republicans are closing in on the record for the most circuit court appointments in a president's first year in office. mr. chairman, without objecting -- objection, i ask that the press release provided by senator mcconnell's office on december 14th of 2017 be entered into the hearing record. >> without objection. >> the title reads -- thank you. the title reads judicial appointments are the sleeper story that matters. circuit courts, a dozen trump appointees in his first year in the white house. president trump has, in fact, successfully appointed 12 circuit court judges, more than any other president in the first year of office since the federal appellate courts were established 126 years ago. in addition to my service on this committee, i also serve on the judiciary committee which i have seen firsthand the process and pace at which these nominees are being processed. president trump will have 19 judges confirmed in the first year of his presidency compared to just 13 for president obama in the same time period. and in the judiciary committee, we have reported 44 judicial nominees to the senate floor already this year. but in president obama's first year in office, we reported only 23 nominees out of committee. the committee also reported just 32 nominees in the first year of president bush's term and 28 in the first year of president clinton's compared to the 44 we've seen this year. it's also instructive to look at the end of president obama's term when just 22 judicial nominees were confirmed in his last two years in office. that's fewest in a congress since harry truman was president. when you look at the facts, it is clear that -- as my republican colleagues have acknowledged -- the current congress is on track for a record-breaking year of advancing judicial nominees, and it is unnecessary at this moment to change the rules of the senate. as i've told senator lankford this is something we could consider perhaps before a new president comes into office. but now when nominees are moving through the process with many in a purely partisan manner, this change would only add to the partisan atmosphere. the danger involved in reducing the debate time to expedite the confirmation of nominees that we are considering was also highlighted by louisiana republican senator kennedy last week during a judiciary committee hearing. i was at that hearing. many people have seen the video of senator kennedy asking matthew peterson, a nominee to be a district court judge, basic legal questions. peterson was unable to answer any of them. yesterday mr. peterson withdrew his nomination. last week the administration also withdrew the nominations of jess mattier and is jeff of tally, just 3 of the 18 nominees that have been withdrawn this year, and those nominees were withdrawn after the committee process. these nominees and others demonstrate the importance of careful consideration of nominees for executive branch positions and lifetime appointments to the bench. i'll also note that the american bar association has now rated four of the 56 judicial nominees put forward by trump administration as not qualified including two who received that rating unanimously. that is fairly uns precedented given the fact -- unprecedented given the fact before year the aba had only issued that rating twice since 1989, and we have seen two more of these ratings this year already. the american people deserve qualified judges who will interpret the law fairly, and the best way to get judges who are fair and impartial is to have a solid evaluation and confirmation process and where the executive branch is collaborating with the senate and we have ample time to review and debate these nominees. at a time when we have seen unprecedented challenges to the judiciary and to the rule of law, we need appropriate checks to insure the selection of qualified nominees to both the executive and judicial branch now more than ever. before we turn to senator lankford, i would like to note that i'm glad we are having a hearing in this committee. i hope we will have more, mr. chairman, next year. and i also appreciate senator lankford's work on, with me on the sate election infrastructure issue, something that's exciting developments there and will be a great topic for a hearing. just thought i'd put in that plug. with that, thank you very much, mr. chairman. >> senator lankford, your written testimony will be made part of the hearing record, as you know. you proceed as you wish. >> thank you, mr. chairman, ranking member. friends and colleagues, i anticipate this to be a dialogue. i don't think a single one of us thinks that things are going swimmingly. we're not engaging on the issues. we do consume a tremendous amount of time not in 30 hours of debate, but in 30 hours of silence on the senate floor with occasionally someone to step up and speak on something unrelated to the 30 hours of debate on the floor for that nominee. this is not so much a debate about be only we had 30 hours of debate, we would get so many facts out on so many individuals, because we're really not debating individuals. the work is done in the committees. the work is done in the back and forth with the administration. that's where it really occurs. the challenge is we have learned as a body that we are now either going to do nominees, or we're going to do legislation, but with we can't do both. because if the calendar is full for a week on three m nominations, you'll never get to any legislation. and we continue to have our constituents come to us and say when's the senate going to vote on things, and we can respond we are, on nominations, but we don't have time for nominations and legislation. this continues to accelerate. the issue that we're going to continue to face is the gridlock on capitol hill is spreading across the rest of washington. and the more that you have nominees that are not confirmed in every agency, all of us and our constituent services folks and legislative staff will tell us they're calling over to agencies, and the agencies are saying we can't give you an answer, there's not a senate-confirmed person there. as that spreads, it affects all of our constituent services, it affects every permit that we request can, it affects every pit of the process -- every bit of process that happens. the gridlock that's here is moving over there. that doesn't help us long term. i tried to be able to give just some basic examples of this and some history as we deal with post-cloture debate just on nominations. 12 cloture votes for nomination during that entire time period. then starting in 1993, the senate averaged around six cloture votes for nominations through 2004. in the 109th session, the average jumped to nine cloture or votes for nominations for a year. then from 2009-2012 it jumped again to 13 in a year. in 2013, the senate determined something had to be done about nominations, so in january 2013 the senate passed s. res. 15 to reduce post-cloture debate time from 30 hours to 8 hours and reduce that to 2 hours for district court nominees. under the standing order, the post-cloture debate for cabinet-level nominations all stayed at 30 hours. standing order in 2013 was an attempt to avoid the nuclear option. as we know well from history, nuclear option was still invoked in november of that same year. that original, that standing order, though, remained, and it functioned through the rest of 2014. and we saw the operation of it. now, in 2013 the senate considered it intolerable that the senate would have 13-15 cloture votes in a year on nominations. this year we've had 63 cloture votes on nominations. that's not comparable to where we were, it's an acceleration. i would say to this body we all know the direction of this body. we have 63 cloture votes on nominations now for this president. when the presidential party changes, there'll be a future deming contact president, republicans will say they did 63 to us, we'll do 120 to them. and the next time it'll be 240 to them. as we have watched over the last 20 years slowly go up year by year, i don't know how that turns around until this body determines that's going to turn around. enough is enough. the rules of the senate are not something that we can just complain about and do nothing about. the senators control the rules of the senate. and at some point we have to determine this is getting out of hand. we have to be able to solve it. now, i was not here in 2013 when the nuclear option was invoked, but i've heard the stories of the frustration that was rising. and as my democratic colleagues believe that republicans were pushing it too far, and so they determined something has to be done to get this set. i would just say i have the sense that we're in a very similar position. that this can be pushed too far, and at some point republicans respond, something has to be done. for the sake of the future -- not just this administration, but for the sake of the future -- we have to determine how we're going to do this and be able to put in place in a way that actually works. senator merkley's my next door neighbor. i was probably in the senate, i don't know, three weeks, and he reached out to me and said can we sit and talk about rules. i've heard you mention some things about rules. i sat in his office, we shared a commonality on a lot of ez these issues and the sense that we have to find a way to resolve these issues. not just talk about them, but figure out how it's going to work. senator merkley had a proposal to take all nominations to two hours period except for supreme court nominations. this is not a lot of debate that happens on floor anymore. most of it happens in committee. and now with 51 votes for all nominees, the outcome is most often certain. so it's really determined before we ever get there. the issue is are we going to do legislation and nominations, or are we only going to do nominations. as i mentioned in my written testimony, the roosevelt term of the first 100 days, that can never be a marker again. because from here on out, every president in their first 100 days won't even get their cabinet in place. they won't be able to move legislation because they won't be able to get personnel, because it'll be tit for tat from here on out. losing that time period is a great loss to the american people and is unexplainable to those of us in the senate. my proposal's simple: let's take the rule that was done during that time period in 2013 with wide bipartisan support, and let's make it permanent and say this is how we're going to continue to function from here on out. i would very much appreciate the conversation on it. if there's a better idea to do it, i'm willing to be able to take it on and to be able to say what can we do to fix this. but the best idea that i had was to take one that was already done and already agreed on and say let's make it permanent and go from here on out. mr. chairman, i'd be glad to entertain questions. >> thank you. senator lankford, the senate has confirmed approximately 260, it's my understanding, of the president's civilian executive branch nominees. on average it has taken the senate 71 days to confirm these officials. you've probably got better data than i have. how do these figures compare with what the senate has done in past administrations? you alluded to that already. >> it's the same advance you would consider. it took about 50 days during the obama administration, 30 or 40 days during the bush and clinton administrations. so we're watching that slowly inch up as well. >> you've also alluded to the impact on the executive branch, whether it's democrat or republican. do you know which departments have been hit the hardest by the current confirmation slowdown and what are some of the real world implications of these vacancies. and how would your proposal alleviate some of the staffing? >> hardest hit right now would be state department and dod. state department has 20, 22 that are currently pending or waiting. of course, they have a very large group. dod has about 15, i believe, somewhere through there. the real world implications are the things that all of us have seen from our con stuff went services. i can just give you one example. we had wildfires that were moving through western oklahoma and through southern kris, literally larger than the state of rhode island that was burning. farm services needed a confirmed individual to be able to get some answers back on that. we didn't have a confirmed individual, so our farmers and ranchers had to wait for weeks until there was a confirmed individual to be able to answer the question to be able to start the process. so those farmers and ranchers were literally living off of hay that was being donated from other places because they couldn't get disaster relief aid. i mean, there's a lot of examples of that. >> senator, you've alluded to wasting time on a lot of finish i'm just letting the clock run, but no debate, anything. cloture's become, i understand, and been here like all of you a routine part of the process. even for nominees that enjoy broad bipartisan support, the confirmation of david nye, some of you might recall, to be a district court judge is a flairing example of this. glaring example of this. his nomination was subject to the cloture process and extended post-cloture debate even though he was ultimately confirmed by a vote of 100-0. what would the -- what would be the reason to force debate on a nominee that enjoys this type of support? in other words, it looks like it'd be common sense the move these people. either party, you know? >> the joy of the senate is the minority can always express their displeasure in a multitude of different ways. and even for an individual that you demand 30 hours of post-cloture debate, then everyone votes on them 100-0 would be a complete anomaly to 25 years ago's senate. that was never done. in fact, there were no cloture votes request, and there had been the ability to be able to do that since 1949. there were none until 1968, and that's one democrats and republicans agreed on together to be able to stop one of lbj's supreme court nomination changes as he wanted to move someone different into leadership. there was an agreement to try to shut that down. so this was unheard of. nominations movie unanimous consent. that's how they moved. and if there was a major problem, then you had a big issue or find a way to resolve it. this has now become standard practice. that's why i say the rule has been there. the practice, though, has changed. now our rules have to catch up to our practice or nothing's ever going to change on this. >> senator lankford, your resolution would restore one of the post-cloture process changes in the senate from the 1 andth congress. -- 113th congress. i believe that change struck the appropriate balance between preserving time for debate without needlessly delaying the inevitable confirmation of nominees. in your view, is there any reason the senate should not restore this process change? we call it the reid rule. >> no, i think we should do it. and it's not just for this congress. i know there'll be debate, but it'll be for the next one and the next one and the next one. if we don't establish a principle to be able to get out there, i can assure you after the next election when a democratic president is elected, democrats will come to the president and say now is the time to vote for it. and republicans will say, no, not now. now it's the next election we'll do it. at some point we just have to determine for the future this has to be resolved, otherwise it never gets done. >> senator klobuchar. >> thank you very much, mr. chairman. i appreciate that last thought, and i hope that could happen. but our issue is right now that we're in this reality -- >> right. >> -- and the reality is that the majority leader has just put out a press release talking about how they've gotten a record, the administration's got a record number of judges through. we've had a number of judges withdraw because they were clearly unqualified, and we've had a republican senator cross-examine a judge who was clearly unqualified. and whereas you've noted at this partisan time. and so if we were to move forward on this, with this proposal which would meet the 60-vote threshold, i believe, because of the fact that it's viewed as partisan as opposed to a bipartisan effort that maybe could have been worked up in a different way. and so the other thing that i think we haven't talked about and i didn't mention in my opening is that we have invoked cloture for 64 nominees, and for 54 of hem we used eight -- of them we used eight or fewer hours of post-cloture debate. so i just think that we should realize that some of the issue with these positions not being filled -- which i hope you'll acknowledge, senator lankford -- is that people weren't being nominated on the executive branch side particularly in places like the state department and that when you look at the real facts here for 54 of the 64, it was eight or fewer hours, and i wonder if you'd respond -- >> certainly, i'd be glad to. even 54 would be, that's a larger number of requests even more a cloture vote than the last four congresses combined. not years, past four congresses combined. so to even request a cloture vote, this was done by unanimous consent to know this is going to move, so why slow down process and demand additional hours for post-cloture. even that shows the radical change that has really occurred in the shift in time. and as far as the nominees that are the three nominees are several that the administration brought up, went through the committee process and were set aside, that happened even before they got to the floor, and i think that will continue to happen, and i would assume it'll happen regardless who the president is. they're going to put some people up that aren't going to perform well that senators from both parties should say our advice and consent is to say no and do that in the committee process. i don't know any of those that were addressed once they got to the floor. once they get to the floor, there may be 30 hours of debate, 8 hours or 2 hours, but most of time as i can recall, once they got to the floor, it was done. catching them happened in the committee process. >> i just think back to some of the efforts that were made earlier, especially the one -- i know senator collins was involved in trying to -- and i'm not remembering the democrat, but to try to limit the number of people who were confirmable, right, by the senate and made some changes so that it would take effect into the next administration regardless of who president was. and to me, those efforts were bipartisan. and i know you've been talking to our -- >> i would have no issue with that. >> okay. you compare your resolution, last question here, to one passed in 2013. and as we discussed, that was temporary, and it was at a time when we had a 60-vote threshold. and as i see senator leahy here from a judiciary committee standpoint most significantly, that was at a time when the blue slip process still applied for circuit court nominees, and that has now been changed for circuit court but not for district or u.s. attorney. and so to me, it seems like there was other protections in place at that time. and while i would agree with you that time is not our favorite protection, that's why i've worked with senator merkley and udall in the past, as you see these protections that we've had in the past going away, it makes you not want to make these changes right now, and that's what i'd like you to discuss that, acknowledge why we would want to move on this now if you're on our side of the aisle. >> i'd be glad to. the only portion of the 2013 proposal is a sunset that has experienced a change at all. i literally took the exact same language as 2013, removed the sunset and said this becomes permanent. my request is to make it a permanent standing order without any sunset date on it. that's the requested, and that's why i said let's take the exact language. i do understand it's changed from 60 votes to 50 votes. that was done in a nontraditional way. i understand the world changed, but the world radically changed in november 2013 regardless of what we're doing with this. so that protection lost -- that is, the issue about the 60 votes or 50 votes, i wasn't here at the time in the senate. but that was one of the long-term consequences regardless of what's done. you lose some of those protections in the process. so the time is there. the blue slip issue is, quite frankly, a great conversation piece. that is something that senator leahy has handled as chairman of the judiciary very different than most of his colleagues that were senate judiciary chairmen for the last 100 years. as you look at the last 100 years in the senate judiciary committee, most of them did not treat the blue slip the same way senator leahy didn't. senator kennedy didn't, senator biden didn't, senator grassley does not. that is a senate tradition to be able to establish whether this is consent that happens or it is a locked-in requirement that you have to be able to get that blue slip back and forth. so i look forward to the -- >> you can tell senator leahy wants to jump in at this moment. >> i'm eager to be able to have that conversation. i would say he handled that in a way that was consistent both with a republican and a democrat president. to his credit on that, exactly the same way on how the blue slip process would be handled, but was different than other predecessors on exactly the way they actually applied it as a senate tradition. >> senator blunt? >> thank you, chairman. the, you know, the elimination, obviously, of the 60-vote protection was done under -- except for the supreme court -- was done by a congress controlled by democrats. the blue slip, i think even senator hatch -- i'll be interested to hear what senator leahy has to say about this. the blue slip has not been at all consistent. but what has been most inconsistent was using the debate time as a clear delaying tactic. nobody is opposed to 30 hours of debate time if there was actually 30 hours of debate. senator, it's already been mentioned9ed the 100-0 vote after zero hours of no discussion at all. i know there was a 98-2 vote, and it was 20 minutes of debate for the nominee. certainly, we could eventually get these people confirmed be we don't do anything else. but it's clear that this is being used to slow down the other work of the senate and for no other purpose. you said, senator lankford, that there have been -- let me see if i've got this right. i think you said there'd been 63 cloture motions this year. i looked at this in october, and if i recall the mid october number right there'd been 47 this year. at the same time for president obama, there'd been three. for president bush there had been one. for president clinton there had been one. for president bush 43, there had been zero. so the previous four presidents there had been five cloture moments by that time in october, 47 this time. is there, is the debate more strenuous on these nominees this time, senator lankford? have you looked at the debate clock and how much is actual debate and how much is just time spent on other things? >> some rare expressions, obviously, with some very heated cabinet officials. this rule that i'm proposing, they would still be 30 hours for those individuals. for the other individuals the debate clock was rarely used. sometimes as you mentioned as sort of 20 minutes, and usually those were the two senators senm that state that were actually coming to speak well of the individual from their state and then otherwise the c-span cameras rolled with riveting silence during that time period. that is an issue for us. and a practical example of that is judge scott palk from my state. judge palk was one of those that required extended cloture time. scott palk had been nominated by president obama as a district court judge, was renominated by president trump as a district court judge, still required a cloture vote to be able to go through the process and extended debate. and i recall only senator inhofe and i actually spoke about him on the floor when the actual extended debate time was required. when he arrived at his desk, he was handed 125 backlog cases that hit his desk the same today that he got there. this has real world consequences, the more that this slows down the process. >> and as one of those consequences that we can't get to other work during this 47 or 63 times 30 hours that we've -- >> when you're at post-cloture, you can't bring up other things as this body knows extremely well. so we can either do nominations or legislation, but the senate cannot walk and chew gum at the same time. we can only do one thing at a time. so if we have extended debate and require post will post-clot, if that's the vehicle that will do it, that will permanently block legislation from being done because we have to do personnel as well as legislation. >> and the large percentage of this president's first year appointments, while we're not done with this yet, if you wanted to do this in a way that only dramatically affected the next president, the fist year of this presidency is gone. >> right. >> the next first year of a presidency is for whoever is the next president. you know, we could spend a lot of time, i guess, getting upset with each other about year, but we're about to get to the point where this will no longer have eaten up the first year of a presidency. by most standards, the most productive time in a presidency is the first year. so that iewn one with's gone. and it's gone with 63 times 30 hours of time spent on nominations that with a handful of exceptions there was no debate. so we ought to be talking about the first year of the next presidency, no matter who that is, or the next presidency no matter who that is. this is as good a time as any to do that. first year is gone. the nominations that come up in the last three years are not nearly as consequential or pressing. and so if you want to talk about what we're getting into for the next president, what we decide to do right now would have much more impact on the next president than this president who's already lost a year of legislative time because of the delay that's been used through these nominations. and i'd like to see us do this for the next president no matter who the next president is. of. >> senator king. >> senator lankford, i appreciate you coming here today and bringing this proposal forward and treating it as a dialogue because it's an important question. i just have a couple questions to understand the facts. my understanding is that this year when we've had all of these cloture motions, very rarely have we used all the time. most nominees have been 10 hours or less, isn't that the case? i think attorney general sessions and maybe mr. pruitt went over 20 hours. >> correct. it's usually a full legislative day. so while it may not have been 30 legislative hours, it was a full calendar day, and so that was a full day. so, for instance, a typical week on a lot of these you would do three nominations in a week, maybe four or five in a week. but then you don't get to any legislation because while you're post-cloture, you can't bring anything else up. >> but doesn't the -- if you're post-cloture, but the 30 hours aren't necessarily all used. is there another option of saying you can have 30 hours, but if there's no actual debate or discussion after a certain grace period, nobody comes to the floor, then you could reduce the time based upon no debate? >> so, sure. you could actually force the issue, and any majority leader could come to the floor and call for the vote. >> and that could be done under current rule. >> that actually dials up the volume even more. and i would assume it's one of the things the majority leader and minority leader can negotiate at any point i'm not going to do that or we are going to force people to actually be on the floor to be able to do it. but that is something the majority leader/minority leader could do, but that forcing mechanism could be done under any expression of that. and by the way, it is time equally divided. so let's say it's 30 hours, time equally divided, it's really 15 hours for the minority party, 15 for the majority, so if the majority party chooses not to exercise that, it's 15 hours, but that's still a calendar day. >> i it you would not be -- i take it you would not be receptive, or maybe you would. you're basically putting back into place what the chairman referred to as the reid rule. >> right. >> at the time that was accepted in 2013, there was a 60-vote requirement. would you accept to returning to that 60 vote requirement? >> i would not only in the sense that that seems to be a genie out of the bottle at this point. once you've crossed that threshold of saying 51 votes makes that decision, that you can shift back and forth, i don't know how you undo that. even if you undid it for this congress, there'd be every incentive just to be able to the flip it so that would turn on and off. >> one other parliamentary question, and you to mentioned this. part of your motivation here is to open up more time for the senate to do a variety of things. >> right. >> what about allowing other matters to come before the cutter post-cloture matters, a dual track? >> dual tracking is something that's been done by the senate by unanimous consent before. if you have a 2, 8 or 30, you wouldn't necessarily need that because you would have post-cloture. so you could do, for instance, a district court judge in the morning at 2 hours or one that is in the afternoon do one that's 8 hours and -- >> or 30 hours for the cabinet nominee, for example, if the 30 hours aren't being used. >> right. i would think that would be appropriate only in the sense if it's not being used, bring it to a vote. i would think those individuals you would use the majority of that 30 hours of time. that's a bigger issue. more people are going to be engaged. i have no issue with trying to make sure those get the maximum amount of time. but for the rest now that it's 51 for votes, most of the action on the floor is perfunctory or not used at all. >> as you noted, the senate has traditionally operated in a way that respects the rights of the minority, and it has that in its nature. the if we've gone from 60 to 51 and if we're shortening the time and if we're drifting away from the blue slip requirement, it seems to me we're moving rapidly toward a majority only. and one possibility would be to take your recommendation and say it will be in rules on january 1st of 2021. in other words, one of us know who the president's going to be, who the majority's going to be. and then we'll be able to consider it more in the abstract than in the present day political -- >> quite frankly, there were several budget proposals and such that i made a year ago to try to -- and this was one of them to say we should do this now before this election. i didn't have a lot of my democratic colleagues that wanted to engage at that point as well even when it was unknown who the next person would be. i think there's no easy moment to do it. if you set it in place at any moment, it will be a challenge because someone on either base is going to scream you're giving away your ability to force leverage. what i'm trying to do is to be able to get the senate back regardless of who's president, regardless who's in the majority or minority to be able to operate. and the nominating process starting with the nuclear option that happened in 2013, that november, and then again the nuclear option again being exercised on the supreme court, the nominations process has dramatically changed, and the rules haven't caught up to that operation. >> thank you. thank you, mr. chairman. >> senator alexander. >> thank you, mr. chairman. i'd like to continue the tone of the i do log between senator lank ford -- the dialogue between senator lankford and senator king. democratic senator robert c. byrd suddenly became the minority leader, and republican howard baker became the majority leader, and baker went to byrd and said is, bob, i'll never know the rules as well as you do, i'll make a deal with you. i won't surprise you if you don't surprise me. byrd said, let me think about it. [laughter] the next day byrd said, yes, and they managed the senate for four years together. i've heard senator leahy say it was one of the best, if not the best, functioning of the senate that he has seen. that's what we're talking about today, functioning as an institution making the senate work. we claim the senate's unique, but that's only if it works. senator lankerford's proposal -- lankford's proposal is modest because it would reinstate an order that we adopted for two years. his proposal's important because it would reinstate the practice of changing our rules according to the rules. hope the committee will unanimously recommend lankford's proposal to the full senate. i want to say three things about it. first, it's the same proposal that was adopted by 78-16 in january of 2013. it is true it took 60 votes then to end debate on a nomination, and later that year democrats used the nuclear option so that it only took a majority vote. but that was not really a change in practice. because throughout the senate's history, presidential nominees were almost always approved by a majority vote. cloture was never once used to block the nomination of a cabinet member, never once used to block the nomination of a federal district judge. the only time it was used with a supreme court justice was 1968 with justice or forties, as was mentioned, and never used until democrats blocked nominees of george w. bush in 2003. the point is the custom has always been that presidential nominations are decided by a majority vote. so by custom and by rule, his proposal is the same as the 2013 standing order. second, this is an opportunity to reinstate the practice of changing the rules of the senate according to the rules; that is, 67 votes to change a rule, 60 to pass a new standing order. each party has demonstrated that we know how to do it the wrong way. the problem with that, as senator levin once said, is that a senate in which the majority can change the rules anytime it wants is a senate without rules. continuing to ignore the rules will lead to ending the filibuster on legislation and destroying the uniqueness of the senate. and in senator byrd's last speech right here before this committee in 2010, he implored us, quote, never, ever, ever get rid of the filibuster. it is, he said, the guard january of minority rights and an essential engine for consensus. third, the senate needs a change in behavior more than a change in rules. we change thed the rules in 2012 and '13 to make it easier for president obama and his successors. i spent a lot of time on that, as did many others. we required 72 hours to review legislation, made 373 nominations privileged, eliminated confirmation of 163 major positions, eliminated the need to confirm 3,163 non-controversial positions. we did all that. we adopted several measures to speed up the motion to proceed and shorten post-cloture debate. still, the nuclear option has been used twice since then. and i would say that on november 21st when we used it, there were 20 judges and 56 executive nominations pending, only four more than 60 days, twice as many are pending today, 24 more than 60 days. so conditions are worse with today than when the democrats said we needed to use the nuclear option. the change in behavior we need boils down to one word; restraint. senators baker and byrd were successful because senators did not insist on using every right and progress ty. motions -- prerogative. motions to proceed and unanimous consent requests were routinely granted. senators didn't block other senators' amendments, they simply voted no. presidential nominations were almost never blocked by requiring a cloture vote. last summer a supreme court justice was asked how justices are able to get along when they have such different philosophies on such is controversial issues. -- on such controversial issues. the justice's reply was, quote: each of us tries to remember that the constitution and the institution are more important than our own opinion. unquote. senator lankford's proposal is an opportunity to demonstrate that united states senators can remember that the institution is more important than our own opinions. i hope we will unanimously recommend his proposal to the full senate. thank you. >> senator cortez masto. >> thank you, mr. chair. and, senator lankford, let me say thank you for bringing this forward. as a new member to the senate, i appreciate this discussion and look forward to further discussion. i'm not sure i'm completely behind the language that you have, but look forward to further discussion on the concept. and is let me just start with that. as a new member, you talked a little bit about justice scott palk and the fact that he had come before the senate before, so why wasn't it quicker. well, i wasn't here then, and i think for purposes of new senators, this is all new to us as well. ing i wouldn't like to see a quick process moving through particularly as an attorney who cares about judiciary and what happens on -- i'm not on the judiciary committee but would like the time to properly vet these individuals. is i think for purposes moving forward for new senators, we want to give them that authority as well, and just because they're not here to vote previously, that would be my concern. i'd be curious your thoughts on how we address that. >> sure. yeah, there are several things on that. they get vetted in the committee process, it's well known when they go on the calendar, staff has the ability to the pull and say these are potentials to be able to do the vetting and the process. if there is -- and, again, you go back through history on this, 25 years ago it was extremely rare even to have one cloture vote on a nominee. now we have 63, 64 just this year. so in the past, obviously, this was able to to be done, and 20, 25 years ago there were even more nominees on the calendar. that list has been shortened, thankfully, and needs to be shortened some more. so that's an opportunity. one thing i hadn't mentioned earlier as well that is part of the challenge of, well, we can't do it now because we're in the middle of a presidential time, republicans stepped across the aisle in 2013 and met with democrats and voted with 78 votes at the beginning of president obama's term to say we're going to change this and to not do extended debate for all of this. let's do 2, 8 and 30. republicans did cross the aisle and say we understand for a brand new president that's going to bring a lot-of new nominees. as a second term president, a lot of people leave after the first term, so that's a rush again of nominees. republicans said we're going to take heat from our own base, but the president should be able to get his nominees and work through the process. >> no, and i appreciate that, absolutely. are you saying also that -- i think one of the concerns that i saw coming through as a new member was there were a number put up at one time, four or five in a panel rushing those through. that would be another concern. are you saying that process would still occur? >> well, that would hopefully occur because there's 1200 to do. >> right. >> i think there'll still be quite a few, but anytime they move in a block, that's a unanimous consent agreement that everyone's staff and every member has the opportunity to see those individuals and say, yes, i can sign off on this, they'll move as a block. >> no, i appreciate that. in particular for me maybe not on those committees, i would want the time to be able to thoroughly vet those -- >> sure. >> -- for the purposes of the advice and consent that i'm required to do. >> [inaudible] >> so the next question i have, everything that we're talking about here today, we are talking about the delays particularly here in the senate. are you also considering the delays in the nominations from this administration? i haven't heard discussion on that. >> sure. >> and let me just say i know that traditionally in the past presidents have had more nominations at this point in time. my understanding, and this may be wrong, but president trump has been historically slow in submitting nominations to the senate. 250 out of 624 positions requiring senate confirmation are still without a nominee. >> right. >> and my understanding that's unique compared to other presidents at this point. >> i don't know if it's unique. it's unique in the last 20 years, certainly. i haven't gone back farther than that, but i would say president clinton, president bush, president bush, president obama all had more nominees that the white house had actually put out to congress by this point. by, at this point i would guess somewhere around 150 fewer than president obama at point, maybe more than that, that president trump has put out than president obama. but that's still -- even those he's put out, fewer have moved as well. so it's really a both and on this. white house owes us a lot more people to be able to put through the nomination process, but even if they got here, we're not moving them at the pace they actually need to be moved because typically they move in large blocks rather than one at a time with 8 or 30 hours required for it. and in the past, the senate looked at it and said as long as this person is competent, you may not philosophically agree with him, but they philosophically agree with the president, the president can pick his own staff. >> thank you. i know my time is running out. the only other concern is the vetting, my understanding this administration has not engaged in the proper vetting of these nominees, but i look forward to continued conversation with this along with the remarks of my colleagues on this subject as well. so thank you for bringing this forward. >> sure. yeah, advice and consent is our constitutional responsibility. >> senator udall. >> chairman shelby and thank you so much for this hearing and like to continue on the same tone, senator lankford, and very much appreciate your sincere interest in wanting to make the senate work better. i hope for both sides, the majority and the minority -- >> right. >> reforming the senate rules is something i've been talking about and working on since i joined the body in 2009. senators harkin, merkley and i along with other members have been introducing resolutions and having good bipartisan discussions for many years. in january 2011 we introduced a rules reform package. one provision in that package would have reduced the post-cloture time on nominations from 30 hours to 2 hours with supreme court nominees being the only exception. today's hearing indicates that my republican colleagues have -- >> if you're asking for a motion to take your amendment, i would second it. >> now -- i'm not. [laughter] i'm not. but now that the president is a republican and they are in the majority. but we proposed a package of reforms that benefited both the majority and the minority. today's proposal benefits only the majority. and the majority's looking to rush it through without expert testimony or bipartisan negotiation. there are other key differences between then and now. when we made our proposal to reduce post-cloture time the two hours, and these have been mentioned several times, you've heard them, you still needed 60 votes to invoke cloture which was a real restraint on everybody. blue slips were still honored for all judicial nominees, and the minority still had a voice in the confirmation process. that's the important part, and i think senator alexander talked about that in terms of restraint. that's no longer the case. a simple majority can ram through even the most unqualified nominees. today's hearing is about how to do it even faster. president trump will be the first president in history who is able to confirm all of his nominees with a simple majority, and his party controls the senate. so it's pretty shocking that the majority is complaining about obstruction. and let's be clear, one of the biggest problems with this administration's nominees is that they have proven through the senate's normal vetting process to be unqualified even to the majority. there's a huge difference between conservative and unqualified. we expect a republican president to appoint conservative nominees, but we don't expect unqualified nominees, and none of us should tolerate it. president trump is sending the senate judicial nominees who are rated unqualified by the american bar association, nominees who can't answer basic questions about the law, nominees to be trial judges who have never tried a case, nominees with serious conflicts of interest, nominees with no substantive experience in the position they've been appointed that they're being appointed to. in the campaign president trump said, and i quote -- and this was something i was really looking forward to -- i'm going to surround -- this is his quote -- i'm going to surround myself with only the best and most serious people. we want top of the line professionals, enquote. this is -- end quote. this is yet another statement by the president that has been proven false. my colleagues on the other side of the aisle seem willing to be abdi bait our advice and consent abilities and just act as a rubber stamp. senator lankford, your proposal should be considered but only if additional reforms are included as part of the good faith bipartisan negotiation to include the minority's voice in the confirmation process. for years senator merkley and i have advocated for what we call the talking filibuster. it would allow the minority to filibuster nominees and legislation but only with a significant effort and willingness to hold the floor and continue debate. and i think that's what you talked about. you wanted to see that vacant time be used or used on -- if it wasn't being used, used on something else. and if we're going to look at reforms, it shouldn't be in a hastily-scheduled hearing with only senator lankford as a witness during the last week of the session and when other major legislation is being considered. i do appreciate that the mark-up was postponed. i hope it is not rescheduled until we have had additional hearings, good faith negotiations with the minority and the ability to consider a variety of reforms from other senators as well. since the republicans took over, the rules committee has been essentially dormant. in nearly three years, they have had only one substantive hearing until today, and that was a confirmation hearing for the library of congress. when leader schumer chaired this committee, he took reform seriously. in 2010 we had six hearings on examining the filibuster over the course of five months we heard testimony from over 26 members, 18 members entered statements in the hearing record. we heard from legal experts and former parliamentarians. senator byrd provided his insights as has been talked about here. and is we used what we learned from those hearings to draft our reform package in january 2010. and 2011. if the majority is serious about rules reform, we need bipartisan support to get that support they will need to do it the right way. let's hold hearings next year and develop a package of reforms we can all live with whether we are in the majority or the minority. that was always our test when we crafted our legislation. the resolution we're considering today fails to meet that test. rather than changing the rules in the middle of a congress, we should debate and vote on reform, on a reform package at the start of the 116th congress regardless of which party is in the majority. senator lankford, just one question here to you. do you support additional hearings and good faith bipartisan negotiations to develop a reform proposal that can gain the necessary bipartisan support to actually pass the senate in and i would be happy to hear any additional thoughts you have in response. >> sure. i would have -- with the chairman's indulgence, i would have no issue, obviously, with additional hearings and conversations. when the senate's actually meeting in a setting like this, when we're really talking about how do we solve things, we're at our best. we're at our worst when we say we're going to go talk on the floor, and no one's listening other than the c-span audience, and we're not talking to each other. if there's opportunities to sit down and work it out, we should certainly do that. this was no trick play on my part. i'm a new guy that's been here three years. i can see, obviously, what everyone else can see. it's not working, and it hasn't been. so what can with done to actually get us back to where we can have debate again. if all of our dialogue on the floor is simply about 30 hours of debate on a judicial nomination that's going to pass 89-11, then that's not really accomplishing the task that we need to do to be able to fill out that full legislative day. i remind this body that we had unlimited debate, and then it was limited to 100 hours later, and then it was limited to 30 hours, and the funny part to me is why. in 1986 they limited it from 100 hours to 30 hours because that's when the c-span cameras turned on, and the senators determined they didn't want the c-span cameras focused in on an empty chamber of 100 hours of post-cloture debate with no one actually on the floor. so they changed it to 30 hours because that's the maximum amount that had ever been used. they dropped it to 30 thinking we'll get the maximum amount there is. rarely any of it is used. so we still are in the same situation. if we're going to get back to operating, i would suggest we actually get back to operating and put our rules where our practice is. >> yeah. and what you've said in terms of identifying the tit for tat, i think, is very, very true. i've seen this over the years both in the house and in the senate. one side pushes the envelope on a particular rule or procedure, the next side comes back and says, you know, we have to slow it to them. we're now in the majority. i'm so thankful for your enthusiasm as you've been here for three years, you're still sticking with the idea of reform. a lot of senators just give up and say whatever the rules are the rules. so i appreciate enthusiasm and coming up with proposals, and i hope that we can work to do something that makes the senate work better and makes our government work better. and the ultimate result, obviously, is producing for the people -- >> and i hope we can. at the end of the day, if the pause on this is to say, well, let's wait three years and we'll see if a democratic president is elected and then move on and talk about changing the rules on that, i don't see any particular enthusiasm from republicans to say, you're right, that's the right moment after we've faced these cloture rules for four years to flip it and say we're not going to do it anymore. what i'm trying to look for what are the realistic moments that will actually fix this. there's lots of messaging things, how are we really going to fix this. >> one of the parts of in that when you say really fix it, when the rules changes as i've seen them happen in the middle of a congress and we talked about the nuclear -- >> yeah, like november of 2013, yeah. >> yeah, those kinds of -- yeah. those kinds of things cause a lot of bitterness, and that's why i think, you know, rather than waiting until the next president, a year from now we have the 116th congress coming in. we could work for a year, put our proposals out there, talk about them and come up with a package. senator merkley and i, in fact, have been talking about, you know, a year out trying to get out some proposals, see if we can pull together finish. >> and, senator jewish call the -- >> senator klobuchar or, you're back. >> i am. i've returned. senator lankford, i thought i'd let senator merkley, he's the only one here right now who hasn't asked questions or said anything. given your work on it, if you want to quickly comment before you leave for the vote. >> well, thank you very much, madam ranking -- >> you're welcome. >> -- officer. i appreciate the chance to sit in on the conversation. the first senate that i saw in operation was in 1976 when i was here dropping out of college for a year to spin and volunteer -- intern and volunteer for groups and watch how congress worked and had the chance to staff a tax reform bill in which there was never any suggestion of a supermajority need for any amendment or moving to the floor, final vote is. that was a very, very, very rare thing. and in the course of these decades, we've gone from being what was essentially virtually always a simple majority body to being a supermajority body. and in the course of that, we go from going the direction on almost all occasions that the majority thinks is right direction to going almost all occasions to which the minority thinks is the right direction. it's a very strange way and isn't serving us well and is resulting in a lot of paralysis. so i really appreciate you're helping to instigate a conversation. i do hope that this committee -- which, unfortunately, i don't serve on -- will decide to bring in the many experts who have watched the senate, understand what has worked, what has changed over time to have a real, intense dialogue about how we can possibly put together a set of proposals. the thing that senator udall and i have tried to do was to introduce, when we were in the minority, the same proposals we introduced when we were in the majority. and what we also tried to do was introduce a package that would have things that benefited both sides so that it wasn't partisan. and that helped make it easier to introduce it whether we were in the majority or the minority. i'm very concerned on the nominations side about the impact on the pipeline of qualified individuals who want to serve. knowing what they have to go through, when folks come to me and say should i consider applying for or taking a position in administration, i generally say is it one that requires senate confirmation? if they say yes, i say, well, you've got a lot to think about, because the confirmation process has been one where you might sit in limbo forever. and that seems particularly inappropriate to use advice and consent as a tool to essentially conduct partisan warfare on a president no matter who's in power and who's in the minority. so i think this is a really important conversation. i encourage the committee to continue it. i, when you came in, i held over two dozen meetings with republican colleagues trying to create some momentum behind consideration of a rules package. obviously, failed in that effort. but if we have energy from both sides of the aisle to engage in this, perhaps we can make this institution work a lot better. not just the nominating process, but also the process of debating bills, and thank you. >> thank you. i appreciate that. i want to make just one quick comment, and that is people really do lose track of not only when there's not a senate-confirmed individual, how hard that is on the agency, but on how hard that is on the individual. it is not uncommon for an individual to have to quit their job to be able to actually go through the senate confirmation process, and they're sitting without income, their family's exposed for months and months and months as partisan bickering goes back and forth. that is not helpful to those individuals, getting future individuals or to the agencies as a whole. >> thank you, senator lankford. some of that experience i've had has been also about they before they come up for a vote, as you know. it's not just the 30 hours. and that's been my experience with, like, an atf nominee who we finally got through or some of the judges. anyway, you are the only one who hasn't voted here, and senator shelby's coming back, and i know you've been willing to relinquish voting to stay, but there's no one left to ask you questions, i suppose you could leave -- >> i would love to go vote is. my state does expect me to vote. >> [inaudible] >> i would like to vote and come back, if y'all would like me to -- i'll be gone eight minutes. >> okay, we'll be temporarily adjourned then. okay. thank you. >> the committee will come to order. senator alexander? >> thanks, senator shelby. i'm glad to have a chance to, to have a little more of a dialogue with senator lankford than i did before, and i want to thank senator shelby for having this hearing and the staff for working on it. you know, i mentioned the supreme court justice who i heard say that he gets along well with another member of the court who has completely different views because they try to remember that the institution is more important than our own opinion. this is the committee that really is the custodian of the senate as an institution, and i'm glad to see the hearing. i hope that the hearing leads to discussions. i was just having a little discussion with senator klobuchar. i mean, most of us want to be part of an institution that works. and we recognize once we're here for a while that the country, as fractured as it is, needs an institution that builds consensus, and that's what we're, that's -- when we're at our best, that's what we do, i think back on our health education and labor committee of fixing no child left behind, 21st century cures, the so-called alexander-murray small health care bill which we've worked out and hopefully the senate and house will pass. those are real triumphs because once they're passed into law, nobody's trying to repeal them because so many so many of us agreed. senator lankford, i read the conditions that existed on november 31, 2013, when senator reid and democrats used the so-called nuclear option. there were 20 judges, 56 executive nominations on the calendar. that's all there were. only four of the executive nominations had been there more than 60 days. maybe there's some sort of division between judges and executive nominations in terms of our ability to find a bipartisan solution here. your proposal doesn't affect circuit judges or supreme court justices -- >> that's correct. >> -- it only affects federal district judges. there are 19 judges on calendar today that senator mcconnell could bring up. that's about the same number there were when the democrats did the nuclear option, but there are 105 executive nominations. that's twice as many as there were when senator reid did the nuclear option in 2013. do you think it would help us come to some bipartisan rules change if we could agree to reduce the number of executive nominations on the calendar and continue to argue a little bit more about the judges? >> it would certainly help the dialogue. i am reminded of, in 2013 when the agreement was reached in that january time period to change to the 2, 8 and 30 rule, that senator reid and senator mcconnell had a colloquy back and forth on floor at that point to be able to explain what was happening. and at that time, senator reid ever -- emphasized though we're talking about times for cloture, cloture still should not be used, and his term was except in extraordinary circumstances. so in his statement, even the two-hour time period shouldn't be used except in extraordinary circumstances where there's no wide agreement. .. widely accepted or whether controversial cabinet official that we will still go through cloture. that doesn't help us to resolve it. my hope would be we could have a simple method that put out there whether you are a judicial for lower court or whether you're a nominee and get that established the still go back to the practice we had in the past that a president is not to be able to get his staff without clogging up the counter we can't do legislation at the same time. >> that's very helpful, and i would say to the chairman that any agreement at all that had some significance that could come of your proposal that were adopted in the regular order, that means in a bipartisan way with 60 votes, would be helpful. because at least it which show that we still know how to change rules the right weight instead of the wrong way. talking about muscle memory, that would at least be a small step in the right direction. and i suspect it would also encourage a a change in behavir if we did that. thank you very much for what you are accomplishing. >> if i can make one quick, as with the senator merkley mentioned earlier his desire to be able to seek maybe some things that might be beneficial to the minority as well as majority. this is a nonpartisan issue. there will be future democratic presidents like that will be current republican or future republican president. this is trying to establish a principle that regardless of who is in the white house they should be able to get their staff in place and do that expeditious way. >> i worry some about what will happen when you have a democratic president and republican senate, or a republican president and democratic senate, and centers have gotten into the mode of voting against presidential nominees so often in a partisan way that you could foresee a situation where, it wasn't just a slowdown of the people who they president needs to a point. he couldn't give people appointed just because people would be afraid to vote for the nominee of the president of an opposite party. that's completely different that it ought to be, completely different that it was when i came here not that many years ago. i mean, residential nominees were routinely brought to the floor, and we routinely voted for them, even if we might not have pointed to ourselves because we respected the fact that people that elected the president. he or she had a right to create a government. thank you very much, senator lankford. and thank you, mr. chairman. and thank you, senator klobuchar, to both of you for your time and focus on this. i hope something comes up. >> thank you, senator. your parents today, we've had at the beginning a pretty good debate and see what happens now. i agree with senator alexander and our leader and senator klobuchar. i wish we have been working together on about person agreement that would benefit that the democrats and republicans but then if the use senate and the american people. senators advise the hearing record will remain open for five business days so that they may submit any statements or questions for the record. thank you again, senator. >> thank you for doing this work. >> committee is adjourned. [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] >> coming up on c-span2 and education department summit on ways to improve elementary and secondary education with education secretary betsy devos. at four eastern the senate callison for a pro forma session. no legislation business is expected. live coverage on c-span2. in primetime tonight a look at president clinton's legacy. >> the second session of the 115th congress starts this week. the senate is back tomorrow with two new democratic lawmakers, alabama's doug jones and minnesota's tina smith. the house returns next week. some of the issues for congress, government funding, temporary spending ends january 19, and this year state of being addressed. the house because invited president trump to address a a joint session of congress january 30. you can watch the house live on c-span, and the senate live in c-span2. tonight on c-span a look at the fenced funding and readiness with military and elected officials and executives in the defense industry. they discuss the resources needed for current and future conflicts around the world. here's a preview. >> obviously going to thin ourselves against a nuclear north korea, and if, god for bid iran becomes a nuclear weapon state will defend ourselves against them, too. we are going to keep fighting terrorists, unfortunately, and we've got your asia traditionally congressman gallagher was saying have been areas we have not wanted to see dominated by another hostile power and will continue to do that i think. everyone's candidate for this, we will scale back our missions will be the middle east. god knows, i'd love for the region to return to the obscurity it so richly deserves, but that's just not going to happen. it's going to continue to impose itself on us. i think we're talking really bad risk and/or resources. when we talk about resources, i think everyone automatically goes to the issue of okay, this is the budget, the top one, how do we increase it. it is also intellectual resources. how do we think about fighting these potential conflicts of the future differently? >> you can watch the entire event on the reagan national defense forum in simi valley, california, tonight at 8 p.m. eastern on c-span. >> next, and education department summit on new strategies and tools for improving elementary and secondary education. we will hear from education secretary betsy devos who also talks with educators from across the country. >> good morning. i was told i would have to get anyone quite but you all got quite all by yourselves with no direction. appreciate that. my name is jason botel with the department of education. i want to welcome you and thank you very much for coming to the rethink k-12 education senator we appreciate your being here and looking for a great conversation. in

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