[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 145 (Friday, October 7, 1994)]
[Senate]
[Page S]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[Congressional Record: October 7, 1994]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]

 
                          LEGISLATIVE SESSION

  Mr. MITCHELL. Mr. President, I move that the Senate return to 
legislative session.
  The motion was agreed to.
  Mr. MITCHELL. Mr. President and Members of the Senate, we are 
attempting to bring this session of the Senate to a conclusion but for 
the matter of the GATT implementing legislation, which we will take up 
on November 30 and December 1. There are a number of nominations 
remaining on the Executive Calendar on which we hope to complete 
action, and there are a number of other matters on which we hope to 
complete action by unanimous consent.
  The four matters which remain at this time known to me to be in 
dispute are those on which we have just filed cloture motions. The 
first deals with the California Desert Protection Act, and the other 
three deal with Air Force nominations. I am advised that the Senator 
from Wyoming opposes the California Desert Protection Act and notified 
us of the necessity to file cloture on that.
  I note the presence of the Senator in the Chamber. We have discussed 
this privately prior to this time. Under the Senate's rules, the vote 
on the cloture motion would ripen on the second day of session 
following the day on which the motion is filed.
  It has been my hope that the Senate could complete this session 
today, and I inquire of the Senator from Wyoming whether he would be 
willing to permit a vote on that cloture motion, assuming all other 
Senators agreed, since it would take unanimous consent today so that we 
would not have to keep the Senate in session over that period.
  I have indicated to the Senator it is my intention that the Senate 
will remain in session for so long as is necessary to deal with the 
subject, and we have discussed it as I noted previously privately. I 
wanted to take this opportunity to make my inquiry of the Senator.
  Mr. WALLOP. I would say to the majority leader that this is clearly 
not the way I had anticipated closing my, nor his, Senate career. I 
cannot deliver to the Senator an answer on that question at this time 
and do not consider it out of the question, but it is clearly not part 
of my current plans. Should it be, I would be only too delighted to 
notify the majority leader of that.
  Mr. MITCHELL. I thank my colleague.
  Mr. President, I earlier noted the presence in the Chamber of the 
distinguished Senator from Iowa, who we were advised would require the 
filing of cloture motions on the nominations, and I would like to 
direct a similar inquiry to the Senator from Iowa.
  The rules would apply with equal force to the three cloture motions 
on the nominations. If the Senator from Wyoming were later willing to 
agree to permit a vote on the cloture motion on the California Desert 
Protection Act, I inquire through the Chair of the Senator from Iowa 
whether he would then be willing to permit cloture votes to occur on 
the nominations at that time as opposed to waiting for the full time to 
expire.
  Mr. GRASSLEY. I cannot answer the Senator's question, but if I could 
comment further. I would like to say that just as a matter of record, I 
had been prepared to debate the Bolton nomination since last year. I 
have been prepared to debate the Barry nomination since very early this 
year. And I have been prepared to debate the Glosson promotion since 
April. So I very much regret that these are being brought up at such a 
late moment.
  But to speak directly to what the floor leader, the majority leader, 
has asked me, I have a lot of material I wish to discuss on this. I 
would not pretend--it would be dishonest for me to say to the Senator 
that I know it is going to take all the time between now and 12:01 on 
Sunday morning to do it, and I would be happy to have a dialog with the 
Senator at a future time if it could be done sooner. But I would only 
want to do that after the things I have been waiting to say for well 
over a year on some of these nominations are stated.
  Mr. MITCHELL. I thank my colleague. As he knows, I do not know the 
details of these nominations, nor of the reasons for the Senator's 
objections, but I will be pleased to do all I can to ensure that the 
Senator has full opportunity to say whatever he wants about these or 
any other matters.
  Mr. GRASSLEY. Will the Senator yield for just a second----
  Mr. MITCHELL. Sure.
  Mr. GRASSLEY. On the point that the Senator made about which he did 
not know the details?
  I do not expect the Senator to listen to my extensive remarks, but 
just for a short version of it. If I could just say that in the case of 
Colonel Bolton, it deals with his being a program manager and involves 
the mismanagement of the advanced cruise missile program. In the case 
of General Barry, it deals with his being involved with the 
mismanagement of the C-17. In the case of General Glosson, it involves 
his influencing the promotion process within the Department of Defense.
  In each of these instances, in each of these instances, these people 
have been disciplined one way or another, are moved from one position 
to another or been reprimanded one way or another well in advance of 
their names coming to the Senate.
  And so the point that I would make to the Senator from Maine, our 
distinguished leader, is that should these people be promoted and have 
the ratification of their mismanagement or their wrongdoing, have the 
stamp of approval of the Senate on those nominations, I presume, 
knowing how the political process works here, they will get that stamp 
of approval. But I wish to make sure that my colleagues in this body 
know fully what is at stake and my understanding is that some people in 
this body, some of my colleagues, disagree with me.
  Mr. MITCHELL addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The majority leader.
  Mr. MITCHELL. I thank the Senator for his comments. I listened to 
them carefully. And, of course, they are very serious allegations, and 
I will inform myself, and I believe and hope all Senators will 
therefore fully inform themselves, on these matters before the votes 
are cast and will also listen carefully and with attention to the 
remarks of the Senator from Iowa as he addresses these subjects more 
fully prior to the time the Senate votes.
  Mr. BYRD. Mr. President, will the majority leader yield?
  Mr. MITCHELL. Yes.
  Mr. BYRD. Mr. President, I hope our friends will relent just a little 
bit because the way I hear this being played out, it means that the 
Senate will be in session on Sunday. It is my present inclination to 
vote against at least one of the nominations the Senator is talking 
about. But longer discussions concerning the nominations may not 
convince me any more than I might be convinced in 15 minutes or a half-
hour.
  I hope Senators will not prolong this situation so that we would have 
to be in on Sunday. There are some of us here who believe in trying to 
keep the Sabbath Day a little bit holy at least. We have other 
religious holidays around here. I have no objection to that. But there 
are some of us who feel Sundays ought to be a religious holiday. I hope 
our friends are not going to push us into Sunday and hold out that 
long. In my judgment, that is no way to pick up votes.
  I just plead with my friends on the other side. Why hold out until 
12:01 on Sunday morning? I am inclined to vote against cloture on some 
of these items, but not if we are going to do this. I can cast my vote 
right now on cloture. I can cast my vote right now on the nominations.
  I hope Senators will not push us into Sunday, for Heaven's sake. And 
I am a leader who has had the Senate in on Sunday. But in those days I 
did not give the Senate entire days off for religious holidays. Lately, 
we have put the Senate out of session for religious holidays for other 
faiths. So why not those of us who would like to have Sunday as our 
Sabbath? Why not let us have that day off?
  I hope our friends will not push the Senate like this. Let us have 
votes on cloture, and then vote up or down on nominations or on the 
California desert bill, or whatever.
  Please consider what I am saying. In the long run, I do not think you 
will gain anything for your cause by pushing us into the Sabbath. The 
Senate looks bad enough as it is, without being in session on the 
Sabbath. We ought to get out and go to church on Sunday.
  I thank the leader.
  Mr. EXON. Mr. President, will the leader yield for a question?
  Mr. MITCHELL. Yes, sir.
  Mr. EXON. Mr. President, on another subject, while we are 
interrupting the business of the Senate, I would certainly advise the 
Senate and the majority leader that there are several measures that are 
going to have to be addressed early on today rather than midnight 
tonight that I think have the support and have been cleared on both 
sides of the aisle. The presumption is that the House of 
Representatives, as they have done before, are likely to adjourn 
sometime this afternoon or this evening and go home. I hope that there 
are a few matters that have been cleared on both sides so we could 
interrupt the proceedings at an early hour this afternoon to send those 
back to see if they could be acted upon. If not, they are going to die 
here by inaction. I just bring that to the attention of the leader. He 
may know about it. But I think he--and certainly the staff--knows there 
are some measures that I think, although there may not be total 
agreement, we have to move on.
  Mr. MITCHELL. Mr. President, if I might respond, we are aware of it, 
and indeed a short time ago we requested that we be able to proceed 
with those. But we have been advised that they are not cleared by our 
colleagues. And, therefore, we have to wait until we get that 
clearance, which I hope will be coming soon.
  Mr. EXON. Thank you.
  Mr. MITCHELL. Mr. President, I yield the floor.
  Mr. BREAUX addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Louisiana.


                    Unanimous Consent to Change Vote

  Mr. BREAUX. Mr. President, I have a unanimous-consent request that 
has been cleared by the office of the distinguished Republican leader 
and the office of the distinguished majority leader; that on vote No. 
325, the motion to invoke cloture on the conference report on S. 349, 
the Lobbying Disclosure Act, that I could be recorded as having voted 
``no.'' The change would not affect the outcome of the vote.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection? Without objection, it is 
so ordered.
  Several Senators addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Iowa.
  Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, if I could continue where our 
distinguished leader left off, and also because of the statements made 
by the Senator from West Virginia--obviously his opinions are important 
and carry a lot of weight with me, and I give them due consideration--
but I do want to emphasize for every Member of this body that, once 
again, the nominations have been on the Hill, in the case of Colonel 
Bolton from last year; in the case of General Barry, late last year or 
early this year; in the case of General Glosson, late last year or 
early this year. I have been prepared to discuss the Bolton nomination 
since last year. I was prepared to discuss the Barry nomination last 
year. I was prepared to discuss the Glosson nomination earlier this 
year, in April.
  The distinguished majority leader has stated that we will stay in 
session until we get the California desert bill out of the way and 
until we get these three nominations out of the way. I guess I feel 
badly, as a sponsor of legislation with Senator Lieberman and myself, 
that somehow nominees from the Department of Defense--where there has 
been a tremendous mismanagement in the program, where people have 
already been disciplined for that mismanagement--that these nominations 
would have a higher priority than Congress being covered by the laws we 
have exempted ourselves from. That is the subject matter of the 
Lieberman-Grassley Congressional Accountability Act.
  The people at the grassroots of America very much understand that we 
have exempted ourselves from a lot of major pieces of legislation. We 
are employers here in the Senate. Each individual Senator is an 
employer of staff with the right to hire and fire. The Senate as an 
institution has staff. A lot of subdivisions of Congress, like the 
Library of Congress and the General Accounting Office and other 
subagencies like that, are under Congress. They have been exempted from 
some of these laws, with 40,000 employees not having the protection of 
the law. There are two sets of laws in this country. One set is for 
Capitol Hill, the enclave here, and the other set of laws is for the 
rest of the Nation. There is one set of laws for Pennsylvania Avenue 
and another set of laws for Main Street America.
  This is absolutely wrong. It comes up at every town meeting we have. 
A bill passed the House, 427 to 4, to end that last plantation 
mentality. It was brought up yesterday by the majority leader. There 
was an objection under a technicality that the report had not been 
filed on time. And so, now, it is not coming up.
  Yet, we are told that the California desert and General Glosson, 
General Barry, and Colonel Bolton--people who have been involved with 
mismanagement of programs or violations of rules on a promotion--are 
more important than to have Congress covered by the laws that cover the 
rest of the Nation, so that we have some appreciation of what the 
employers, particularly the small employers of America, go through. And 
they legitimately get very nervous that some bureaucrat might come into 
their place of business and, with the police power of the Federal 
Government, close them down. Those same people cannot come to our 
offices and close us down, because we are not covered by those laws.
  How do we have an appreciation of the impact of Government regulation 
on the small businesses of America if we exempt ourselves? But somehow 
we are not going to go home until we do these other matters. Yet, 
congressional coverage, high on the list of our constituents, is held 
in abeyance. It is not so important. It may not be important at all.
  We had a considerable debate last night on the unfunded liabilities 
bill that the Senator from Idaho, Mr. Kempthorne, has put forth. When 
we pass regulations around this town, pass laws putting 
responsibilities on local government that cost local government money, 
we do not give them money. How terrible of a situation is that, that we 
are going to say that Butler County, IA, or Des Moines, IA, has to do 
something the Federal Government says they must do, which costs a lot 
of taxpayer money for the taxpayers of those States in the counties and 
cities? It is very easy and very irresponsible to pass laws that are 
applicable to the rest of the Nation and put the burden on the 
taxpayers at the local and State level and not give them money to do 
it.
  So Senator Kempthorne has come up with the legislation--I suppose he 
would describe it differently but, from my standpoint, it makes us 
either have the guts to pay something, put our money where our mouth 
is, put our checkbooks where our actions are, put our performance 
commensurate with our rhetoric, and either put up or shut up when we 
pass some sort of law applying to the rest of the Nation; and if we are 
not going to fund it, it is not going to apply. And the League of 
Cities; the Organization of Mayors; the Governors Association; the 
National Counties Association; the State Legislature Association, all 
these national organizations are pushing that legislation.
  Yet, we are told that somehow the California desert and General 
Glosson and General Barry and Colonel Bolton, all people who have been 
involved in mismanagement of programs, and so cited by the General 
Accounting Office, or so cited by the inspector general, that these 
nominations are more important than the question of unfunded liability, 
or the question of the applicability of laws to the Congress of the 
United States so we have some appreciation of what other people are 
going through. I do not understand it.
  I will bet if you go out even in downtown Washington, DC, as urban as 
that is, they would not understand it, and for sure, if you went to the 
grassroots of America, they would not understand it, because there is 
no justification for it. Yet, that is the situation we are in.
  Do you think it is right for a general to unduly, or in any way, try 
to influence the promotion process within the Department of Defense? 
Why, that is such a serious challenge that our Armed Services Committee 
said in a report that we ought to make that a criminal offense. That 
legislation did not pass, but it is still contrary to the regulations 
of the department. We even had generals on the promotion board resign 
because of the undue influence. Yet, we are going to have debate on 
that subject at the last hour, when we could have had it last April.
  I think we ought to have certain priorities, and those priorities 
ought to be not to wait until the midnight hour to bring up something 
that could have been brought up last year, in the case of Colonel 
Bolton; last year, in the case of General Barry; earlier this year, in 
the case of General Glosson--and then, legitimately, Senators plead 
with us not to debate these issues here at the last minute. And it is 
perfectly legitimate to plead that we not be in session on Sunday when, 
as Senator Byrd said, ``We ought to be in church.''
  But it is not my side of the aisle that controls debate on these 
issues. It is the other side of the aisle. It is Senator Byrd's party 
that controls the agenda. There is nothing wrong with doing things more 
timely.
  We are going to adjourn pretty soon, in a few days, and we will go 
home and come back with a new Congress on January 3. We will swear 
everybody in. And then we are so doggone tired from having 3 months at 
home that we will have to take a couple weeks off and rest up.
  And then we will come back about January 20 or 25 to listen to the 
President's State of the Union message, and we will have one or two 
little minor items the first week in February, then we are going to be 
so tired that we are going to take the second week of February off. 
That ends on the President's holiday.
  And then, around February 20, we are going to get serious about doing 
business. And then we are going to have Mondays and Fridays off through 
the month of March and probably April, and then in May and June and 
July, you can start not counting on having Mondays and Fridays out of 
session, but you will have several of them off. And then, all of a 
sudden, we will have late nights in July to get ready for the August 
recess. And we come back in September and work late nights in September 
because we have to finish up our appropriations bills by the end of the 
fiscal year.
  So it seems to me like right now if you want to plan ahead the way to 
manage the business of the Senate, if you do not want to be in debating 
three generals who have already been reprimanded by their own superiors 
and debate whether or not they ought to have a promotion as a going 
away present, then we ought to be working harder during January, 
February, March, and April than what we generally do.
  Then there will not be any problem that I am faced with now of having 
someone like Senator Byrd mad at me for the rest of my tenure in the 
Senate because I want to fully debate something that I have been 
waiting to debate for 12 months in some instances and at least 6 months 
in another instance.
  Two years ago I think we adjourned on October 27. I think we are 
better off if we do adjourn and get out of here and go home. But the 
same leadership that kept us here until late October 2 years ago is now 
very anxious to get out of here very early now. I do not understand 
why, except just generally as a rule of thumb, the country is safer 
when we are not in session.
  I hope that the discussion that occurred here in the last 48 hours 
about getting things done and doing them timely and not inconveniencing 
the entire institution, including a lot of people, more than the 100 
Senators, will lead us to some thought about what we can do around here 
in the future to have better management of time so we do more in 
January, February, and March, and not have everything thrown into the 
last few days, particularly when the country is crying for us to do 
something about unfunded mandates, crying for us to do something about 
congressional accountability.
  It seems to me like when more of our country was agrarian and there 
was a certain period of time to plant and there was a certain period of 
time to harvest, probably our forefathers who were a little closer to 
the soil had a much better outlook on the timeliness to do things.
  The further you get away from the basics of nature, the more you get 
into a political environment that is separated from the realities of 
life, the more you become a society unto yourself as political leaders 
and public servants. The more you are losing touch with the grassroots, 
the more, it seems to me, these commonsense approaches to the running 
of an institution like this are left by the wayside.
  The extent to which we can get back to the realities of life and put 
some of those simple principles into the formation of public policy, 
and we put those principles into the actual mechanics of running a 
public institution, we would not have these situations, and we would 
have a situation in which things were done more timely, and we would 
not have to have these late weekend sessions and have tempers flair and 
have bitterness. It is a needless waste of energy. It is not something 
that we should have to have. It just does not need to be.
  I yield the floor.
  Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. GRAMM. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. GRAMM. Mr. President, I have several things I want to say today 
before we wrap up this session of Congress. So if I may, I will just 
tick them off in fairly rapid succession.

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