The Honorable Patrick Leahy

July 26, 2012

I hope that we can make progress today and will be allowed to report the nominees ready for our consideration on today019s agenda from our July 11 hearing so that the Senate will be able to consider them before the upcoming August recess. We also have two bipartisan bills, including Senator Klobuchar019s bill that is cosponsored by Senator Cornyn relating to missing children information.

I hope we will not waste each other019s time merely to hold over these measures until next week. If that is what others are planning, we could have had an agreement to treat these matters as held over and ready for action next week without having to ask Senators to come from other markups and hearings just to make a quorum to hold them over for another week. In addition, next week could be problematic if the Senate has floor votes on measures being considered before the August recess. But, as always, I will protect the rights of the minority under our rules.