Heidi Alexander: “the Senator from Oregon has talked about the number of nominations that couldn't be considered. I am sure the Senator…”

“the Senator from Oregon has talked about the number of nominations that couldn't be considered. I am sure the Senator from Oregon remembers that there cannot be a filibuster on a motion to proceed to a nomination. All the majority leader has to do is bring it up. You can't debate that. If he should bring up the motion to proceed to a nomination, and if a Senator over here or over there objected, then the motion can be put to a simple majority vote. When I was nominated by President George H.W. Bush to be Education Secretary, a secret hold was placed on my nomination. Senator Metzenbaum, as it turned out, had a hold on my nomination for 3 months when all it would have taken for me to be confirmed was for the majority leader to bring my name to the floor. Then if we had gotten 60 votes for it, we could have debated for 30 hours and had a final vote on my nomination. What would happen during the 30 hours? We don't have Senators going out to dinner except on the other side of the aisle. Because under the current rules, in those 30 hours, one Senator gets 7 hours to speak. We know a Senator can do that because a distinguished Senator from Vermont demonstrated very capably that he was capable of doing that not long ago. He did a great job. People all over the country saw it, wrote him, and he became a little bit of a celebrity for that day. Senators are still capable of that.”