[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

[[Page S11621]]

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

[[Page S11622]]

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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