Reid: GOP filibusters of ambassadors is ‘outrageous’

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) said Thursday that Secretary of State John Kerry pleaded with him to get more than 50 State Department nominees confirmed.

“Secretary Kerry called me to lament what’s going on in the United States Senate about these nominations,” Reid said on the Senate floor Thursday. “We are being held up here from doing the country’s work as a result of this stalling, this obstruction, the constant filibusters we have here.”

{mosads}Reid said he was glad the Senate was scheduled to clear two more ambassadors later Thursday, but that it wasn’t enough.

Republicans have been stalling President Obama’s executive and judicial nominees especially since Senate Democrats used the “nuclear option” last year to unilaterally change the chamber’s filibuster rules so that a simple majority can advance most nominations.

“Who are the Republicans hurting? They’re not hurting me. Is this some payback for me? What about the president? He has a country to run, a world to take care of, and we’re being held up here,” Reid said. “The secretary of State is a very busy man. … He doesn’t have people to do this country’s work. 

“What they’re doing to these ambassadors is just outrageous.”

Reid said it was “fine” for Republicans to delay some of Obama’s nominees but that because there are so many global issues, ambassadorships shouldn’t be held up.