'The Second Point I'll Make Is Somewhat Personal': Ted Cruz, Dick Durbin Squabble Angrily In Hearing

well i appreciate the the sentiments of comedy and bipartisanship in the bipartisan lunch but i want to take a minute and reflect on an aspect of how this committee is proceeding that has not reflected that spirit the chairman is aware of my concerns and the concerns of a number of members of this committee that the way the judiciary committee has proceeded in the year 2021 has broken with past practice and broken with past norms on this committee and has done so in a way that has been partisan and has undermined the important role of the senate judiciary committee as you know back in march when vanita gupta was before this committee chairman durbin chose to break rule 4 of the committee which states that it takes a majority vote including one vote from a member of the minority in order to bring debate to a close that had no precedent in the history of this committee we then saw yet a second opportunity concerning toby heightens a nominated to be a judge in the fourth circuit court of appeals where the total questioning for that lifetime nominate nomination to the court of appeals was 18 minutes even though my staff and the staff of another senator have both conveyed to the to the chairman that we were on route to the committee for the hearing the chairman gavel down that hearing after just 18 minutes of questions and then sadly we saw this pattern continue again just recently just last week just last week the committee held a hearing for elizabeth preloger the nominee to be solicitor general of the united states solicitor general is one of the most important positions in any administration solicitor general is often referred to as the 10th justice and yet the hearing this committee held for the nominee for solicitor general allowed precisely 20 minutes of questioning after the debacle of the nominee for the judge for the fourth circuit chairman durbin told this committee that he intended to conduct things differently to to actually have some acknowledgement of comedy 20 minutes for a solicitor general nominee and i would note that hearing was held not only at the same time as multiple other hearings of committees and every member on this committee serves on multiple other committees and so you have to be in multiple committee hearings at the same time that committee hearing was also at the exact same time as a floor vote so i had fully intended to come and question the nominee for solicitor general there were serious questions about the conduct of the department of justice and ongoing litigation that that nominee is responsible for and yet 20 minutes and my staff conveyed to the chairman staff that i was on the floor voting and intended to come back and raise questions but before i could physically get back here the chairman gaveled it down and to put it in perspective because i'm getting eye rolling from the chairman right now this is wildly out of step with the precedent of this committee and i'll give an example in 2001 ted olson was the nominee to be solicitor general of the united states ted olson the questioning for ted olson lasted three hours and 37 minutes at the time senator schumer and senator durbin both questioned for 15 minutes each senator leahy questioned for nearly 20 minutes and here's what chairman durbin said at the time after three hours and 37 minutes i want to quote chairman durbin i do sincerely regret regret that we have two nominees today because 15 minutes is not enough for post of this importance to be considered in tandem chairman durbin was right 20 years ago and this is now a pattern three times in a row of running roughshod over the rights of this committee to question nominees and listen i recognize there's a democratic majority the barest majority humanly possible but there is one but the conduct of chairman durbin is wildly out of step with the conduct of chairman leahy before him with conduct of chairman graham before him with the conduct of chairman grassley before him and there will come a time particularly for the new members on this committee who have not yet had the opportunity to serve in the minority on this committee there will come a time when the gavel is on on the other hand and so the fact that a democratic chairman can ramrod through partisan proceedings 20 minutes objectively is grossly inadequate for a nominee for solicitor general and this committee has always had vigorous disagreements when it comes to questions of policy and law but we have not seen chairman playing games to protect partisan nominees and i think that does real damage to the ability of this committee to function effectively the chair would respond it is not within my power to determine how many senators attend this hearing and the length of their questioning that is up to the individual senators to make the decision if it's an important witness they have ample opportunity to come and ask questions and even ask for a second round if it's appropriate i can't control that and i'm not going to set a timer and say well it'll be one hour for this witness and two hours for the next the second point i want to make is somewhat personal but i want to make it clear to every member of the committee you raised this point once before that you were quote on your way and i closed down a hearing i went up to you and right in that corner and stood and said i'm sorry i didn't realize that it'll never happen again now let me tell you what happened if you had i know you had staff present let me tell you what happened when i heard in this last hearing that you might be coming senator cotton finished questioning and when he finished questioning i was told you were quote on your way and then i turned to your staffer and i don't want to cause any problems there and said where is he she said i don't know but i think he's on his way we waited and waited and still didn't hear and at that point i said to senator cotton what do you think i should do at this point on the record he said i don't want to comment on that i really tried my best to give you an opportunity but i think it is unreasonable for any member to say that the senate judiciary committee and staff should wait indefinitely on the possibility that a member returns when i left and went down the hallway you weren't you're not on your way at least not at that point i'm going to do my best to leave the meetings of this committee open so that members have an opportunity and i will any good faith effort to get here i'm going to try to honor but you have to at least honor the members of the committee and staff by telling us where you are and when you're coming here indefinitely waiting for the possibility is not fair to the rest of the committee so chairman durbin if i might respond to that certainly i'll respond in two ways number one with the with the nominee to the fourth circuit when i arrived senator hawley also informed your staff that he was coming both of us were in the elevators rushing to get here when we got here there were not one there were two democratic senators sitting in the annie room neither of whom had questioned but we're happily sitting in the annie room and in fact we're laughing it has the appearance of simply game playing that the senators absented themselves to end the hearing as it concerns the solicitor general nominee wait a minute the solicitor general nominee you can respond when i'm done two members leaving the floor does not mean the committee is out of business it's my decision with this gavel as to when it's out of business my point is that the democrats were in the annie room they did not ask questions and their absence is what gave the chairman the excuse to gavel down is well there's no one here to ask questions because the democrats were not were right outside the door but secondly the solicitor general nominee was the second panel of the day no senator can anticipate when the first panel is going to be over so it's impossible to plan i want to be there at x time because the chairman scheduled the solicitor general as the second panel of the day and when the chairman has great umbrage how could i know where you were well it wasn't complicated there's buzzing on the clock i was standing on the floor of the senate casting a vote and i had to physically come from the floor of the senate to here i asked your staff to tell me how long you would be in and they said i was coming from a vote she said she didn't know and i i i don't want to push her under the bus 20 minutes is effectively unreal it is unfair for you to nominate expect this committee to just stand in a bands and wait for the possibility of your return chairman durbin amazingly every other committee chairman actually manages to have hearings where where nominees have appropriate time for questioning it is only the judiciary committee that i have seen this kind of gamesmanship and it is only in the last nine months eight years on this committee neither chairman leahy nor the republican chairman played these kinds of games it has only been during chairman durbin's tenure that that has happened on this committee and by the way if you want to go back to past nominees for solicitor general you you can see there's consistently over an hour for the hearing for for no francisco an hour and 56 minutes for don virelli an hour and 34 minutes from for elena kagan there is a long history of this committee questioning nominees for the solicitor general position and and i understand chairman durbin that that democrats want to protect democratic nominees but but giving short shrift to the senate's responsibility to advise and consent is is undermining the ability of this committee to do its job particularly when the chairman knows fully well on a day that there are votes and multiple committee hearings that that it takes time for members to physically get here and i and that is true of every member here which is why other committee chairman managed to hold hearings open for sufficient time to actually question nominees it is not unreasonable for members to notify the committee if they are on their way and i will do my best to accommodate republicans and democrats in that circumstance i always have and i always will without the meetings turned

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Keywords: Sen. Ted Cruz, Sen. Dick Durbin, Senate

Id: OTIPfFpQzMA

Length: 11min 20sec (680 seconds)

Published: Thu Sep 23 2021