Ben Cardin actually said...

"I wholeheartedly endorse his nomination and recommend to the Committee that we move quickly on his confirmation."

"I really wanted to be here to see whether we had to hold Congressman Hoyer in contempt of the Senate."

"the merit principles, which basically say we should hire people who can do the job because they have the skills to do the job and we evaluate them by how well they do that job and nothing else."

"the Federal Government does have to treat like employees similarly."