James Lankford: “the Senate is stuck. We have had an enormous number of nominations that have tried to be able to work through this body.…”

“the Senate is stuck. We have had an enormous number of nominations that have tried to be able to work through this body. Quite frankly, it is the same number that we have every time when it is the first term for a new President to be able to work its way through the body. But this time is different. And it is not just accidentally different; it has been intentionally different. I understand my Democratic colleagues have problems politically with President Trump. I get that. Respectfully, we have differences of opinion on that. But this time it has been different. Every single nominee has been blocked. Every single nominee has required a vote for a motion to proceed, 2 hours of debate, and another vote. The current status where we are right now to just do the nominees who are backlogged, where we currently sit right now, will take about 900 hours of floor time to be able to just do those. That doesn't include the ones who are coming next for the next nominations. We are stuck. If every single one of them requires this kind of time, the Senate is no longer functioning. So what we had proposed was a pretty straightforward proposal; that is, that we actually can move nominees in small batches--let's say 15--once they come out of committee.”