[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]

 
WOULD THOMAS JEFFERSON DISDAIN POLITICAL MOANING ABOUT UNLIMITED SENATE 
                                DEBATE?

  Mr. HELMS. Mr. President, a few days ago, I listened with fascination 
as the distinguished majority leader lectured the Senate on the evils 
of the filibuster, a word he uses with great frequency and with the 
most pejorative tone he can muster.
  There is a touch of the thespian in the able majority leader. There 
is at least a trace of showmanship in most political figures, and the 
majority leader obviously relishes keeping a straight face as he 
debunks the patron saint of his party, Thomas Jefferson, who was the 
first real advocate of unlimited debate in the Senate. And the news 
media, reacting in the style of Pavlov's dog, races to convey to the 
public the majority leader's references to the evil filibuster.
  We should all understand the majority leader's discomfort. He is 
upset. He is upset because no matter how often he talks about 
filibusters, the American people nonetheless instinctively understand 
why the majority leader is in such a snit these days. The Wall Street 
Journal pinned the tail on the donkey in an October 4 editorial headed, 
``Glorious Gridlock.'' The Wall Street Journal observed--

       The 103d Congress that began by boasting it would break 
     gridlock is coming to an end mired in it. The striking 
     political news is that voters seem more relieved than upset. 
     This year the voters are looking beyond the label offered by 
     politicians to inspect what's really being sold. From health 
     care to campaign finance, voters have turned out to be 
     discriminating when offered ``reform.'' Instead of blaming 
     Republicans for blocking bills, voters are holding the 
     Democratic majority responsible for offering misguided 
     change.

  And the editorial concluded:

       No doubt Senator Mitchell will shout gridlock during each 
     of these debates, but voters don't seem to be listening. Mr. 
     Mitchell's handpicked successor for Senator from Maine is 
     getting trounced in the polls. Two years of the Mitchell-
     Clinton administration have turned gridlock into a political 
     advantage.

  So, one must understand why the majority leader is upset. In fact 
things are so bad that one of our Democratic colleagues is now running 
a campaign commercial which proudly proclaims, ``A majority of the 
time, I voted with the Republican leader, Bob Dole.'' Another of our 
colleagues is running an ad which doesn't identify his party 
affiliation but highlights how many times he has voted against the 
Clinton-Mitchell program.
  But, Mr. President, my purpose is not to focus on the majority 
leader's political problems. What needs to be understood is the charges 
that the majority leader has constantly made that somehow extended 
debate in the Senate is beyond the pale and that something out of the 
ordinary is afoot as the Senate winds down the clock on the 103d 
Congress.
  As an aside, it should be noted that in the 102d Congress, this same 
majority leader singlehandedly stonewalled President Bush's capital 
gains tax cut and held up all Bush judicial nominations for months 
prior to the 1992 election. That, you see, was perfectly legitimate 
because it was the Mitchell ox that was doing the goring.
  It is a bit strange, when one pauses to think about it, that the 
distinguished majority leader has attended literally scores of 
Jefferson-Jackson political dinners in his career. At these Democratic 
Party events, the majority leader many times surely joined in paying 
homage to Thomas Jefferson and everything Mr. Jefferson stood for. The 
problem is if you look at the big government, big spending agenda of 
the majority leader's present-day party, you certainly will not much of 
anything which Thomas Jefferson would approve.
  Let us ponder for a moment, Senator Mitchell's frequent pejorative 
attacks on those of us to whom Thomas Jefferson is an historical hero. 
What did Mr. Jefferson think of unlimited debate in the Senate--which 
Senator Mitchell repeatedly condemns as filibustering.
  In his Manual of Parliamentary Practice for the Use of the United 
States Senate, Thomas Jefferson clearly warned those who, in the name 
of institutional reform, ending gridlock, or any other such 
contrivance, attack Senators who would openly and fairly use the Senate 
rules which govern debate in this body to check, or at least slow down, 
the raw power of the majority party and its leader. I am confident that 
if Mr. Jefferson were around today, he would disdain those who make 
such arguments. Consider this: Writing in 1801, twelve years after the 
convening of the First Congress, Mr. Jefferson said:

       * * * nothing tended to throw power into the hands of 
     administration and those who acted with a majority of the 
     House of Commons, than a neglect of, or departure from the 
     rules of proceeding: that these forms [rules], as instituted 
     by our ancestors, operated as a check and control on the 
     actions of the majority, and that they were in many 
     instances, a shelter and protection to the minority against 
     the attempts of power * * *
       * * * and whether these forms be in all cases the most 
     rational, or not, is really not of great importance.
       It is much more material that there should be a rule to go 
     by, than what the rule is; that there may be a uniformity of 
     proceeding in business, not subject to the caprice of the 
     Speaker, or captiousness of the members.

  Mr. President, what the majority leader really wants us to do is--
ignore Mr. Jefferson's warning and let the majority leader, and Mr. 
Kennedy, and other majority party Senators have their way. Every time a 
bloated spending bill is shot down the Republicans are chastised for 
not following as Mr. Jefferson put it, ``the caprice of the Speaker [in 
this case the majority leader] or the captiousness of the members.''
  For my part, being chastised by the distinguished majority leader is 
like being flogged with a wet noodle.
  But, in fact, as Mr. Jefferson went on to say, the rules of debate in 
the Senate are there to protect the American people from the wantonness 
of power of large and successful majorities.
  I do not make these observations lightly. There is no right so 
essential to maintaining our freedoms, nor is there a right so 
misunderstood, as the right of unlimited debate in the Senate of the 
United States. If and when the Senate Majority Leader, regardless of 
party, is allowed to acquire the powers possessed by the Speaker of the 
House of Representatives, the United States Senate will be reduced to 
nothing more than an appendage of the House, as the distinguished 
President pro tempore, Senator Robert C. Byrd, eloquently noted in his 
history of the U.S. Senate.
  Those like the majority leader who wail against gridlock are really 
implying that in a democracy the majority must always rule. And to that 
I must dissent with all my being. There was, it needs to be said, a man 
named Pontius Pilate who abdicated his responsibility to a mob.
  Our Founding Fathers did not carelessly or thoughtlessly design this 
system for the convenience of any President, or the whims of any 
majority leader. Mortals come and go. The system was designed to 
protect all Americans from the dangers of hurried, arbitrary, and ill-
considered legislation.
  If that doesn't suit the majority leader's wishes he may need to 
remind himself that the American people know what is afoot in the U.S. 
Senate and it appears fairly obvious that they may register their 
feelings on November 8.

                          ____________________