On the recordMay 18, 2022
Mr. President, in late 2016, soon after the Presidential election of that year, there was a significant portion of the political left that began referring to itself as ``the resistance.'' Apparently, these people were bent on fighting whatever the new President might try to do, only because of who the new President was. There were signs in yards. There were people who painted their garage door with ``the resistance'' on the garage door. They weren't arguing against specific policies; they weren't making a rational effort to win support for their side; they were just trying to throw sand in the gears of the executive branch and interfere with how the government serves the people. One Senator on the floor of the Senate said: ``The resistance starts here.'' Now, they did it while trying to cloak themselves in maybe the compelling language of ``the resistance,''as if in their minds they were starring in the World War II movie ``Casablanca,'' where the resistance was the heroes as they were all over World War II. The damage ``the resistance'' was willing to do to the executive branch of our government was bad enough. On the floor of the Senate, at virtually every nominee the President nominated, the minority insisted on 30 hours of debate. We finally had to change that rule to 2 hours of debate, which those in the majority now know is a big enough challenge without 30 hours of debate. And I think the average time used was closer to 20 minutes, during that 30 hours, than 30 hours.…





