[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 207 (Friday, December 22, 1995)]
[Senate]
[Page S19184]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                          WORKABLE GOVERNMENT

  Mr. BINGAMAN. Mr. President, we are now in the seventh day of the 
second Government shutdown of the year. This is the longest partial 
shutdown of our Government in the almost 207 years of our Nation's 
history.
  The commonly held view is that the shutdown results from differences 
in policy between the Republican-controlled Congress and the President. 
The Republicans want their economic projections used to calculate the 
deficit reduction needed to get to a balanced budget. The President 
wants to ensure that reasonable funding levels are maintained for 
Medicare, Medicaid, education, environmental enforcement, and so on.
  This commonly held view is wrong.
  In fact, this crisis in government is not caused by differences 
between the President and Congress on policy matters. It is caused by 
the new and radical view that Republican congressional leaders have 
taken about Congress' constitutional duties and prerogatives.
  For the first time in our Nation's history, the congressional the 
government and keep it closed in order to extort concessions from the 
President on policy issues. House Majority Leader Richard K. Armey, 
this week, announced that the House will not send President Clinton a 
bill reopening the full Government--even temporarily--until there is 
``a bill for him to sign'' that balances the budget in 7 years.
  This decision by Congress to shut down the Government until it gets 
its way is new. No previous Congress has interpreted the Constitution 
as granting it that right. In a recent interview with the Wall Street 
Journal, Mr. Gingrich referred to this newfound right as ``the key 
strategic decision made on election night a year ago.'' Mr. Gingrich 
stated;

       If you are going to operate with his [the President's] veto 
     being the ultimate trump, you have to operate within a very 
     narrow range of change. * * * You had to find a trump to 
     match his trump. And the right not to pass money bills is the 
     only trump that is equally strong.

  So, for the first time in our national life we have congressional 
leadership that believes it has the constitutional right to close the 
Government and keep it closed until Congress prevails. The immediate 
disagreement is about a whole tangle of budgetary issues, but if 
Congress has the right to close the Government in this disagreement, 
presumably it has that right whenever the President has the temerity to 
stand his ground on any issue. If the closing of Government is an 
inherent right of the Congress, then all powers of the President are 
necessarily subordinated.
  Those who wrote our Constitution never intended that the Congress 
have any such right as is now claimed. They set out a system of checks 
and balances among the branches of government and provided a method of 
resolving differences including a right of the President to veto 
legislation and the right of Congress to override that veto.
  But underlying all these checks and balances between the branches of 
government, those who wrote the Constitution assumed an obligation and 
desire on the part of all to maintain what Justice Jackson referred to 
as a ``workable government.'' (343 U.S. 579, 635 (1952)).

  When our Founders embarked upon the task of bringing to life the 
constitutional system devised in Philadelphia in 1787 and approved by 
the State ratifying conventions, it was the legislative branch of our 
new Government which they called on to commence proceedings under the 
Constitution.
  Pursuant to that call, the Congress met in New York in 1789, 
organized itself, and provided for the counting of the Presidential 
electoral votes and the inauguration of the President. The Congress 
then passed legislation to establish the great departments of the 
executive branch, to provide for the organization of the judicial 
branch, and to furnish appropriations to enable all the branches of our 
new National Government to perform their constitutional functions.
  It would be, Mr. President, frankly unimaginable to our Nation's 
Founders that our branch, the first branch of government, whose duty it 
was to bring to life the Framer's plan, would ever think that it was 
within its purview to disable that plan by refusing to perform the 
Congress' primary constitutional responsibilities.
  But the Republican leaders of Congress today are doing just that--
refusing to perform the Congress' primary constitutional 
responsibilities. They believe they have ``the right not to pass money 
bills'' and can use that so-called right as the ``ultimate trump,'' as 
Mr. Gingrich puts it, in their disagreements with the President.
  Mere policy differences, no matter how important, are not at the core 
of the present Government crisis. There have been many times in our 
history when policy differences between Congress and the President were 
great and were strongly held. The real cause of this crisis is the 
inflated and radical view taken by Republican congressional leaders 
concerning the rights of the Congress under the Constitution. What they 
claim as a right is instead an unprecedented abuse of power. Until a 
majority of each House of Congress recognizes this, the ``workable 
government'' which the Founding Fathers contemplated will remain at 
risk.
  Thank you Mr. President, and I yield the floor.
  Mrs. MURRAY addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Washington.
  Mrs. MURRAY. Thank you, Mr. President.

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