[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 137 (Saturday, September 28, 1996)]
[Senate]
[Pages S11620-S11622]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
GOVERNMENT TODAY
Mr. SPECTER. I note no other Senators on the floor, Madam President,
on this unusual Saturday session. There are a number of subjects I will
address this morning, so I have asked for that period of time.
Madam President, at the outset, I want to express my concern,
reservations, and perhaps objection to the process which is now
underway to have an omnibus appropriations bill to fund the Federal
Government into the next fiscal period starting Tuesday, October 1,
which is being added to a conference report on the Defense
appropriations bill.
I am concerned about that because it is an extraordinary procedure,
probably never before undertaken in the Senate--at least I have not
talked to anyone who knows that it has been undertaken. It totally
undercuts the traditional procedures of the U.S. Government under our
constitutional mandate on separation of powers. In effect, it
drastically alters the rules of the U.S. Senate through what is
essentially a procedural device to present to the Senate a conference
report where there is a single vote without the opportunity of the
Senate to make any amendment.
Now, traditionally and under our rules, a Senator may offer an
amendment to any bill at any time with unlimited debate unless cloture
is invoked. The Constitution and the rules of the Senate have given
that extraordinary power to each Senator in order to slow down the
legislative process. When the Constitution was adopted, the Senate was
supposed to be the saucer which cooled the tea, the hot tea, as it came
from the House of Representatives. Senators were really in a sense
ambassadors from each of the sovereign States to the Congress of the
United States, where we express the views of a sovereign.
That really is not true anymore, as the authority of the central
Government has pretty much taken over and relatively little is left of
the 10th amendment on reserving rights to the States. All that is
coming back a little with the Supreme Court decision in Lopez, which
gives more rights to the States. That is a complicated subject, but
while the Federal Government has taken on more and more power, at least
the Senate has been a bastion where we could take some time and debate
issues. That will be totally gone as we work through the balance of the
appropriations process and have only one vote on the conference report.
I think that is a real danger to our system.
In a sense, we have only ourselves to blame. As appropriations bills
have come to the floor of the U.S. Senate, while Senators have acted
within the technical rules, the spirit of the process has, in my
judgment, been abused. We have had the Interior appropriations bill,
for example, on the floor of the Senate, when we should take up very
important matters concerning the national parks and other matters
related to forests and the environment. But, instead of dealing with
the Interior appropriations bill, Senators have insisted on offering
amendments on other subjects, many of them legislative authorizations
outside the purview of the appropriations process, with an enormous
amount of political gamesmanship and one-upmanship and a real effort to
outbid or embarrass the other political party. It is done on both
sides. I do not say this in the context of criticizing the other party.
The subcommittee which I chair on Labor, Health and Human Services,
and Education never even had its bill come to the Senate floor because
it was anticipated that it would be very contentious and that many
diverse amendments would be offered. At least it has been my hope and
the hope of Senator Harkin, the ranking Democrat, that we would have a
chance to bring the bill to the floor. Instead, the bidding war on
education started on the Interior appropriations bill. That is why the
Interior appropriations bill was pulled down.
Last year's budget, which we should have finished on September 30,
1995, was not finished until late April 1996. On that bill earlier this
year, Senator Harkin and I came forward with a bipartisan approach to
add $2.7 billion so we could have adequate funding on Education and on
Health and Human Services and on Labor, where a big issue was worker
safety.
We have found within the appropriations process itself, that the
subcommittee chair and the ranking members have been able to work on a
harmonious basis and really get the job done in the kind of
collegiality and a relationship that develops when you work with an
individual and move ahead. Just as the distinguished Senator from
Nebraska, Senator Bob Kerrey, and I have done on the Intelligence
Committee, where I serve as chair and Senator Kerrey serves as vice
chair. We have had very contentious issues which have potential
partisan overtones, some fierce matters there that we have kept under
wraps.
We are still working on that, as a matter of fact, in the closing
days of the Congress. We have done that because of our concern, shared
by the Intelligence Committee members generally and by the
distinguished presiding officer, who is a member, because of our view
that a bipartisan and nonpartisan approach to intelligence matters and
comprehending foreign affairs is very important for the welfare of the
country. And as I say, the subcommittee chairs have done that. Senator
Hatfield made a report yesterday to the Republican caucus identifying
quite a number of chairmen and ranking members who have been able to
work it out on a harmonious basis, which is the essence of compromise
in a democracy, to get it done. But when the matters come to the floor,
and 100 Senators are present, the temptation has been, so far,
irresistible to add so many items to the appropriations bills that
bills have had to be pulled down.
The Appropriations Committee has become even more powerful. There are
always comments about the ``powerful Appropriations Committee.'' It has
become even more powerful because, at
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present, its bills are the only bills that have to be passed. And so
many of the matters--not all, but so many--on authorization come to the
Appropriations Committee. We are wrestling, right now, with many
requests from Senators to have authorizations done on the
appropriations bill for Labor, Health, Human Services, and Education.
Other bills don't have to be passed, but the spending bills have to be
passed, or else the Government comes to a halt. So the Appropriations
Committee has the bills that are the last vehicle.
Now we see a total subversion of the process, when we have so many
appropriations matters coming up in this one omnibus measure and it
isn't even brought to the floor in the traditional way so that
amendments may be offered. It will come over as part of a conference
report, which will not allow any Senator to do anything except have one
vote, ``yes'' or ``no,'' on that report. That is a subversion of our
process.
It is my hope, Madam President, that next year we will finally get
some rules changes, so that on appropriations matters we have only
germane matters related to the bill. We would still leave ample
Senators' rights, in a variety of ways, but not, for example to bring
to the Interior appropriations bill an education issue. Education is a
very popular matter, a very important political matter, and Members of
both parties seem to want to gain a political advantage in outspending
the other party on education. Well, Senator Harkin and I were able to
accomplish that in April with the amendment we offered on a bipartisan
basis, which got 86 votes. That is a lot of votes around this place.
That is the way we should have handled it this year, instead of the
bidding war, which required the Interior bill to be taken down. That is
only one illustration as to how extraneous matters have really led us
to a position where the conclusion, far and wide, is that we have to go
to this single omnibus bill, now tacked on to a conference report.
Many people have asked me when the Senate is going to adjourn. My
standard answer has always been that the Senate will adjourn when the
last Senator stops talking. And that is a very questionable and
indecisive matter. That draws a smile from the Presiding Officer. When
will the Congress go out of session? Who knows? A couple of the
barometers are, when the time is up, or exhaustion totally sets in. The
time is up on September 30, Monday, at midnight.
So we now have a schedule, with this extraordinary process, to finish
up our work in advance of that date. Frequently, exhaustion and time
run out at about the same time. The negotiators in the appropriations
process worked through until 4 a.m. yesterday morning, and I believe
until about 7 a.m. this morning--not exactly conditions to have the
optimum deliberative process on what we were accomplishing. But it is
illustrative of the fact that the only time when these matters are
settled is when exhaustion sets in or the time has run out. This year,
there is one other ingredient, and that is leaving Washington to
campaign. When the self-interest for reelection appears, it is a pretty
substantial motivating factor for Members of Congress. Members are no
different than anybody else in the motivation to keep their jobs. When
that sets in, there is an additional ingredient--and that is certainly
present at this time--when Members up for election want to go home to
campaign to keep their seats.
Madam President, on another aspect of the same issue, we have seen in
this legislation a process which I believe is a perversion of the
constitutional mandate of separation of powers which makes the Congress
of the United States responsible for legislation. The President of the
United States, after Congress acts, is responsible for signing or
vetoing a bill. And then if it is vetoed, the Congress of the United
States can override, in the legislative process, with a two-thirds
vote.
But this year, instead, we have had the executive branch as a prime
participant in the legislative process. We have had the President's
chief adviser, the very distinguished Chief of Staff, Leon Panetta,
sitting in on the appropriations negotiations, which I have been a
party to when they have affected the subcommittee jurisdiction that I
chair. Mr. Panetta is there as the President's representative, to say
whether or not what the legislators want will be acceptable to the
President. I say that is just wrong, plain wrong, constitutionally. The
President, the executive branch, ought not to be involved in the
legislative process. We legislators ought to hammer out our ideas and
our differences on the floor of this body and on the floor of the
House, and we ought to go to conference and resolve the issues, and
then we ought to present them to the President. At that point the
President should exercise his constitutional responsibilities, instead
of exercising our constitutional responsibilities earlier. There is a
very, very serious problem of separation of powers at issue here. Here
the powers are not separate; the powers are intermixed. That is not the
way it is required under the Constitution.
It makes me wonder about where the President is. You have a situation
where a deal was struck, apparently, in the early morning hours this
morning, about 7 a.m. It is obvious, on the timetable, that the
President could not have been informed of and given his approval to
that deal. The obvious fact is that the President has delegated his
authority to the Chief of Staff. You wonder, at least on appearances,
if the President ought to be informed, at least on the outlines, as to
what has been done, so that the President can exercise his authority
under the Constitution to give consent to what the legislature has
done. There is not even any respect for appearances here. The deal was
done, cut and dry. There is no way the President could have known what
was happening. That makes you wonder about delegation of authority.
The President really doesn't have the constitutional authority to
delegate his responsibility, just as I can't allow staff, or anybody
else, to come in here and vote for me. The President has the
responsibility to review what Congress has done and decide whether or
not that is acceptable to the President of the United States, who is
duly elected. But there, again, in the rush to exit, constitutional
mandates are blindly ignored.
I believe, Madam President, that this is a--it is hard to find the
proper word--dastardly, reprehensible, outrageous precedent to set as
we finish up our important responsibilities in Washington. Part of the
problem arises as so much of the work of the Congress is being
dominated by political considerations, or by those at the far ends of
the political spectrum, leaving very little of centrism in the work we
do.
It is very important that the Government of the United States, in my
opinion, be governed from the center. You see that in the public
reaction to what is going on. You see that in President Clinton, who is
trying to establish a centrist position, which has been successful
politically, because the people of the United States want to be
governed from the center. You see that with Senator Dole, in his
campaign for the Presidency, wanting to move to the center.
If I may make a personal reference, when I advanced my candidacy for
the Republican Presidential nomination, I was a centrist, and many
people have said to me recently, ``Arlen, Senator Dole is now adopting
many of the positions you articulated when you ran for the Republican
nomination.'' My immediate response has been that if Senator Dole had
articulated my position in his quest for the Republican nomination, he
wouldn't have been the Republican nominee. It is very much illustrative
of the campaign of Senator McGovern, whose candidacy was supported by
people at one end of the political spectrum. In short, we have seen the
primary process dominated by people from each end of the political
spectrum.
I do not say that in a critical way, notwithstanding the fact that my
efforts for the nomination met with so little success. I compliment the
people who participate in the primary process because it is a very
tough job to go out there in the winter snows of New Hampshire, to go
through the farmlands of Iowa, or to travel this country from one end
to the other.
Former President Nixon wrote to Senator Dole that you have to attract
the people at one end of the political spectrum to win the nomination,
and then you have to rush back to the center for the general election.
We are now going to see if that is possible in a political contest. But
just as we have
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seen the primary process dominated by people at each end of the
political spectrum, we have seen the work of the U.S. Senate also not
benefited from the center.
When I came to this body after the 1980 election, I frequently said
that out of 100 Senators, there were 40 on each side who took
ideological positions--maybe 35--leaving 20 or 30 of us in the center
to be the decisive voices. Now we find that number has been reduced
drastically. That is part of the reason we have had such contentious
debates in the Senate and why we have not been able to do our work in
the traditional legislative way. We could have produced a budget
differently than through this continuing resolution as part of a
conference report. I think we are all going to have to try harder to do
better next year.
We find with those who are departing from the Senate that we are
losing a tremendous number of centrists. That is going to mean a
heavier responsibility on those of us who are here next year to perhaps
put aside some of our ideological predilections or preferences, and try
to move to the center.
It is hard to calculate why we are having Senators leaving this
institution in unprecedented numbers, and maybe it is the
contentiousness in this body which has caused this to happen. We are
losing an extraordinary group of Senators.
First, in priority, is Senator Mark Hatfield, who has done such an
extraordinary job since being elected in 1966; with an extraordinary
conscience; taking stands which have pitted him really against the
entire body of his own political party and voting as he did on the
constitutional amendment for a balanced budget. I think he was the only
one out of 54 Republican Senators to vote against the amendment, and
although I didn't agree with him on the vote, I admired his courage. He
has been up all night working through as the chief negotiator, as the
center, on this continuing resolution.
We are losing Sam Nunn, who is without peer when it comes to matters
of military affairs. Like Mark Hatfield, Bill Cohen, Nancy Kassebaum,
and Alan Simpson, when Sam Nunn speaks--like E. F. Hutton--``everybody
listens.''
We do not have anybody who is irreplaceable, but we are going to see
what is going to happen on the Armed Services Committee, Madam
President, where you serve, as to what is going to be done without Sam
Nunn's voice--a big, big loss--and he is very much a centrist.
We are losing an extraordinary Senator--really, a great Senator in
every sense of the word--in Bill Cohen. For those of you who really
want to get to know Bill Cohen, you ought to get a volume of his
poetry. I have had a chance to hear his poetry publicly and quasi-
privately in our Intelligence Committee deliberations and hearings
which are not public--but with extraordinary depth, and he has also
made an extraordinary contribution as a centrist.
Senator Nancy Kassebaum is leaving. She had the extraordinary skill
to bring forward reform on health care that so many of us talked about
for so long with the Kassebaum bill, where finally we made some key
structural changes without the massive proposals advocated by the
administration depicted on the chart which my staff and I prepared, and
which Senator Dole used last week in an attempt to depict the
complicated bureaucracy the administration wanted to create. But when
the chips were down, with one of her last two legislative acts, Senator
Kassebaum led the way with health care reform.
We are losing another key centrist in Alan Simpson, who has been able
to bring so many people together with his wisdom and his sense of
balance, illustrated by a sense of humor, in the work that he has done
on the immigration bill, which is not yet completed. But he has been
just extraordinary. He held the fort on the Gallegly amendment, which
would have deprived education to children born of parents who are
illegal immigrants. While we ought to protect our borders and not have
illegal immigrants in the United States, we certainly ought not to
deprive children of their educational opportunities, which will just
haunt American society, where they will not be able to support
themselves in adulthood and where they will be delinquents and perhaps
criminals on the streets.
Madam President, may I inquire as to how much of the 20 minutes I
have left?
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator's time has expired.
Mr. SPECTER. I ask unanimous consent that I made proceed for an
additional 10 minutes. No Senator has come to the floor in the interim.
So I am not depriving any of my colleagues of an opportunity to speak.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. SPECTER. I thank the Chair.
Howell Heflin is leaving, and he is also a centrist. I worked with
Senator Heflin on the Judiciary Committee. He has made an extraordinary
contribution as we have worked through some of the toughest problems on
the nominating process--Judge Bork, Justice Thomas--the whole process.
Senator Bradley, perhaps not quite a centrist but not too far from
center, has made an extraordinary contribution as he has done so much
to awaken America to the problems of racism coming from a State with
big cities, an issue that I have worked closely with him on.
Senator Brown is a key loss--another centrist. I sat next to him on
the Judiciary Committee. He would whisper most of the questions which
have gotten me into so much trouble on the Judiciary Committee, also
with a great sense of humor.
And Senator Bennett Johnston, who has added so much in four terms;
Senator Pryor, who has added so much in three terms--both southerners,
but having a much broader focus than simply on the South.
Senator Exon who has contributed so much on Armed Services and as
ranking member of Budget.
And Senator Sheila Frahm, who is here for too short of a period of
time. Senator Frahm comes from western Kansas, almost on the Nebraska
border, on the northern Colorado border in the West.
As Senator Burns said a few moments ago, my home was originally in
Russell, KS, a hometown I share with Senator Dole.
While these outstanding men and women will be departing and many
friendships will be lost, or at least not as close, the real meaning
for the country is the issue of losing so many of this group which have
contributed so much to the center and, I think, to the importance of
governance in America.
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