[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 116 (Thursday, August 1, 1996)]
[Senate]
[Pages S9416-S9418]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                  UNANIMOUS-CONSENT REQUEST--H.R. 3666

  Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate now 
turn to the consideration of the HUD-VA appropriations bill, H.R. 3666.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
  Mr. WELLSTONE. Reserving the right to object, and the majority leader 
has been working in very good faith. I appreciate it.
  I just let my colleagues know that this is not my first choice, but 
month after month after month I have been very patient. The last 
several weeks I have been very patient. I think the majority leader 
would be the first person to say I have worked through the process.
  We have a very gifted judge, Hennepin County Judge Ann Montgomery. I 
thought there was a clear agreement that she would be cleared last 
night. That did not happen. It is not my choice that somebody objected. 
I have heard no substantive reasons given to that objection, and that 
is why I object to moving forward.
  I am going to fight very hard for Ann Montgomery because she is an 
immensely talented, gifted judge, with broad support in Minnesota, 
broad support in the legal community. What has been going on here is 
just or fair to her. That is why I object.
  Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, if I could respond, first, let me announce 
that was the last vote tonight. There will be no further votes tonight. 
We will begin tomorrow morning at 10:30 on Friday morning.
  I think all the Members know I have been trying to work through these 
judges. We have, I think, cleared 16 judges from across the country. 
Some of them had some problems. We were able to look into those 
problems, and

[[Page S9417]]

Senators have spent time working through those lists. That is how we 
have been able to move 16 of them. We are working on another one right 
now. I think maybe it will be cleared.
  Let me emphasize this: Judges quite often are somewhat controversial. 
Senators have different views on that. Senators have a right to express 
themselves on it. The time may come when we will have to move some of 
these judges. My approach is always to see what the problems are and 
see if we can work through them. We will keep working on this one. I am 
hoping maybe tomorrow we can satisfy concerns.
  Sometimes what happens with these, it is not just the judge, but it 
gets involved with other issues, other legislative issues, and you have 
to deal with those problems before you can deal with the next problem.
  We worked on that. I think we made real progress. The Senate, I 
think, would have to acknowledge that I have worked steadily at it. I 
think we have approved an average of at least one a day for the last 3 
weeks.
  Mr. NICKLES. Will the Senator yield?
  Mr. LOTT. I am happy to yield to the Senator.
  Mr. NICKLES. I have been here a little while, and I cannot remember 
anybody objecting to moving to an appropriations bill because they did 
not get a judge confirmed.
  I will give one example. I remember we had a judge in Oklahoma that I 
was trying to get confirmed in 1992 and the Democrats were in control 
of the Senate. George Mitchell was the majority leader. I kept trying 
to get the judge moved, the nomination moved. The nominee was Frank 
Keating. There was no opponent, but we kept having a hold. To make the 
story short, we never could get his nomination placed before the 
Senate. He would have been an outstanding judge. There was kind of a 
roving hold on it, primarily inspired by my good friend and colleague 
from Ohio, Senator Metzenbaum, who is no longer with us.
  The point being, we had an outstanding person, but we did not hold up 
any appropriations bill. We did fuss about it, and we groaned about it, 
and maybe griped about it, but I want to thank Senator Metzenbaum for 
putting a hold on Frank Keating because he is now the Governor of 
Oklahoma.

  Judges have been held for different reasons, maybe good reasons, 
maybe bad reasons, but a lot of times it happens. However, I am not 
familiar with the holding of major pieces of legislation, particularly 
appropriations bills, hostage. I hope we are able to work through this 
and do our bills. We know we have to do the appropriations bills, and I 
am hopeful we will be able to move forward.
  I congratulate the majority leader and the minority leader. I think 
this week has been a very constructive week. The welfare bill that just 
passed is certainly historic, and the legislation that we will have 
before the Senate tomorrow dealing with health care, dealing with small 
business tax relief, is also very important. I hope we will be able to 
complete that as well.
  Mr. LOTT. I yield to the distinguished chairman of the HUD, VA 
Appropriations Subcommittee, if he would like to make a comment.
  Mr. BOND. Mr. President, I appreciate very much the efforts of the 
majority leader. I assure you that the ranking member, Senator 
Mikulski, and I have worked long and hard with many Members to 
accommodate the interests Members have. We were prepared to negotiate 
time agreements so we could move this expeditiously.
  The matters involved in this bill include the funding for the 
Veterans Administration, the funding for the Housing and Urban 
Development, funding for EPA--there seems to be a great deal of concern 
about drinking water facilities; those funds are appropriated in this 
bill--Environmental Protection Agency, NASA, National Science 
Foundation. It had been our hope that by working with and being 
responsive to the concerns of Members on both sides of the aisle, with 
respect to what is, frankly, a very complicated bill, that we could 
wrap this up so we would not have to impinge upon any Saturday or 
Sunday activities that our colleagues may have.
  Mr. President, that is why I am deeply disappointed. The ranking 
member and I have been ready since last Wednesday to go forward on this 
bill. It is a complicated bill. I had hoped we would be able to go 
tonight. I am very disappointed, personally, and for the agencies and 
the people working with us.
  Let me say at this point that we have worked together prior to the 
bill coming to the floor. The ranking member and I have agreed that we 
can accept a significant number of amendments that have been presented 
to our staff. If there are other amendments, we ask Senators to bring 
them to us or to our staffs tonight so we may determine if we can 
accept them or work with the Members to gain accommodation on them.
  I have approved, as has my colleague, a number of colloquies that 
will be ready to go if we are able to move to this bill tomorrow. I 
think there are perhaps three or four issues which would require a 
vote, and we would like to work with the leadership and get short-time 
agreements on these votes, reserving everybody the right to submit 
additional comments for the Record so we can handle this in an 
expeditious manner. We understand how controversial the issues can be. 
We think we can deal with it in a timely fashion.
  I ask that people who do have amendments, questions, colloquies, 
please contact us tonight and perhaps we can move expeditiously 
tomorrow.

  I share the leader's disappointment that we are not able to do this 
tonight. With cooperation in bringing the amendments to us tonight, 
perhaps we can deal with the issues in a timely fashion tomorrow.
  I thank the majority leader, and I thank the Chair.
  Mr. WELLSTONE. I will take just 1 minute. I know the minority leader 
wants to speak on this.
  Let me just say I heard the word ``controversial'' used. Judge Ann 
Montgomery has the support of both Senators from Minnesota. She has the 
broadest possible support in the legal community, the highest possible 
marks from the ABA. She is imminently qualified.
  I would be more than pleased for someone to move this. I do not ask 
for unanimous consent, although I think that is the best way to do it. 
I would be willing to debate this nominee with anybody.
  Just to be very clear, as far as the delay, I was not the one that 
put the hold on Judge Montgomery. I am not the one that has objected to 
moving forward. Other Senators have. I am just doing what any Senator 
would do from any State, which is that I am fighting hard for a woman 
who richly deserves to be Federal district judge. There is no reason in 
the world why anybody should be trying to stop this. This woman came 
out of committee back in March. She has been waiting and waiting and 
waiting, and I have patiently worked through the process.
  I am absolutely convinced the majority leader is working in good 
faith, and I look forward to working this out tomorrow. I apologize to 
my colleague from Missouri, who is a friend whom I respect. I am not 
the one that has delayed this.
  Mr. DASCHLE. Mr. President, we don't need to rehash all the history 
on this. I think it is fair to say that there has been a tremendous 
amount of cooperation this month. I pledged my efforts to the new 
majority leader when he became leader and indicated that I wanted to 
work with him. I think that fact has now been well-documented. The 
distinguished Senator from New Hampshire was in the chair last night, 
and I applaud him for his willingness to preside at late hours. As he 
was presiding last night, it seems to me that the cooperation stopped.
  Before last night, we had another indication of the degree to which 
we were going to work on both sides to move things along, with the 
clear understanding on both sides that we had to finish the executive 
calendar on judgeships this month. The distinguished majority leader 
said that he would try to help us get that done. I said I would try to 
work with you to accommodate all of the specific pieces of legislation 
that need to be addressed so long as we can continue to work in good 
faith toward those ends. Last night, it stopped.
  So, Mr. President, we have no choice but to continue to find a way 
with which to resolve this impasse. We need to finish the four circuit 
court judges,

[[Page S9418]]

plus the other district judges that remain on the executive calendar 
this week.
  The distinguished Senator from Oklahoma made a good point that there 
have been holds in the past on individual judges. I will not deny that. 
But I think it is important that we emphasize that, in 1992, under 
similar circumstances, the majority at that time, the Democratic 
majority, confirmed 66 district and circuit judges. On July 1 of this 
year, not one, zero judges had been confirmed. Now we have confirmed, I 
believe, 16. So we are making progress. But we can't be expected to 
allow the balance that we had agreed to to be disrupted. If we can 
continue to find ways to cooperate and work together, all of the pieces 
of legislation that the distinguished majority leader mentioned, I 
think, are possible. Realistically, I don't think we are going to be 
able to do the VA-HUD bill this week, but I do believe that all of the 
conference reports and things that the majority leader mentioned are 
things we ought to be able to work together to achieve before we 
recess. But we have to get those judges done, as we earlier agreed to 
do. If we can do the judges, we can do the legislation. That balance is 
something that I think we have made very clear from the beginning. I 
hope we can work together to make that happen.
  I yield the floor.

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