Jeff Bingaman: “Mr. President, when I hear the debate here on the floor, it strikes me that anyone who is watching or listening to this…”

“Mr. President, when I hear the debate here on the floor, it strikes me that anyone who is watching or listening to this debate must think that we are talking past each other. It must appear that we do not seem to be able to engage on any one subject. One Senator comes to the floor and talks about voluntarism, the need to protect volunteers from liability; another Senator talks about Alexis Herman, the President's nominee for Secretary of Labor and the need to get that nomination confirmed. People cannot understand why we are not talking about the same thing. Let me just give my perspective of where we are. On the Democratic side, the position that many of us are taking is that we should not be going ahead with business as usual in the Senate on the last day of April unless we can get the majority to agree to allow a vote on the President's Cabinet nominee. We are getting fairly far into this year. The President, several months ago, nominated Alexis Herman to be the Secretary of Labor. In the Labor and Human Resources Committee we voted unanimously to recommend to the full Senate that she be confirmed for that position.”