Bill Nelson: “yesterday it live the nomination and confirmation process as envisioned by our Constitution with regard to two nominees.…”

“yesterday it live the nomination and confirmation process as envisioned by our Constitution with regard to two nominees. The Constitution, of course, provides that it is a two-step process: the President nominates and the Senate then confirms or rejects. In this case, there was quite a contrast between the two nominees. In one of my committees, the Foreign Relations Committee, we have a highly contentious, highly divisive debate raging over the nominee of the President, Mr. John Bolton, to be the Permanent Representative of the United States to the United Nations. It is a very significant post representing the wishes of the American people, of the U.S. Government, to the world body, the United Nations. While at the same time those confirmation hearings were occurring in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, another one of my committees, the Commerce Committee, was considering the nomination of Dr. Michael Griffin to be administrator of NASA. Dr. Griffin's nomination is quite a contrast to Mr. Bolton's nomination, for it is embraced almost unanimously in a bipartisan way. The extraordinary support is shown even to the point that the chair of the Science and Space Subcommittee, Senator Hutchison of Texas, and I, the ranking member of that subcommittee, both requested that the chairman of the full committee, Senator Stevens, accelerate the confirmation process. So that Dr.…”