On the recordSeptember 20, 2023
2 hours ago, Senator Schumer announced that we will be voting on the Commandant of the Marine Corps, the Army Chief of Staff, and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. It is about time. I have called for individual votes on these nominees for almost 6 months. Instead of voting, Democrats have spent months complaining about having to vote. They want to use floor time for things like liberal judges, like the one we confirmed a couple of hours ago. Senator Schumer could have confirmed these nominees a long, long time ago. We have had more than 80 days off this year in the Senate, not including weekends. Yet Senator Schumer is outraged that we are voting on these nominations. As I have noted before, the current Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff was given a floor vote in 2018. The current nominee for that position, General Brown, was given a floor vote for his current position not long ago. Despite what Senator Reed and others have said, there is nothing wrong with a floor vote on these nominations. I ran for Senate so I could vote on behalf of the people of the State of Alabama. I didn't come up here just to outsource my job to the Pentagon or the White House. Yet that is exactly what Democrats want to do. That is the current position of Senate Democrats. The Constitution says we make the laws here in Congress, not in the Pentagon and not in the White House. So this is not about me. It is about the Senate and the Constitution.…
