[Congressional Record Volume 146, Number 62 (Thursday, May 18, 2000)]
[Senate]
[Pages S4172-S4177]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




       FOREIGN OPERATIONS, EXPORT FINANCING AND RELATED PROGRAMS 
         APPROPRIATIONS ACT, 2001--MOTION TO PROCEED--Continued

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Wisconsin.
  Mr. FEINGOLD. Mr. President, I rise to speak with regard to the 
MOTION TO PROCEED and share my concerns that we should not be moving to 
an ``S'' numbered appropriations bill at this time. In fact, it is a 
practice simply we should not be involved in at all. For this reason I 
rise to speak for a bit about care for the Senate in general.
  The Senate is a special place. It is a place steeped in history. 
Around this chamber stand the desks of Daniel Webster and Robert 
LaFollette, of Robert Taft and Richard Russell, of Everett Dirksen and 
Hubert Humphrey. The drawers of these desks still bear their names, 
etched in the wood. The polished mahogany still reflects their memory. 
Their voices still echo from these marble walls.
  I am honored to have been able to serve with some of the Senate's 
living legends. It is with pride that I will tell my grandchildren that 
I worked with the likes of Ted Kennedy, Bob Dole, and Robert Byrd. No 
honest history of the Senate will omit their names.
  It is in a modest attempt to follow in the tradition of remarks by 
Senator Byrd that I rise today. All Senators are aware of Senator 
Byrd's encyclopedic four-volume treatise on the Senate. And none can 
forget the series of addresses that Senator Byrd gave on the history of 
the Roman Senate, which have been reprinted in another volume. His 
discussions of the special nature of the Senate inspire us all to hold 
this institution more dearly.
  The Senate is an almost sacred place, consecrated by the will of the 
people, hallowed by the expression of the people in free elections. In 
this room, our 50 separate States each find expression. Every region of 
our vast continental nation here finds voice.
  In a country as large and as diverse as ours, disputes will naturally 
arise. The Senate, almost like a court of law, provides a means for our 
society to resolve those disputes in peace. Courts allow private 
parties to resolve their disputes without resort to fist fights. And 
the Senate allows significant sections of our society to resolve their 
disputes without resort to the battlefield or the street.
  For the Senate, as for a court of law, to work this magic, it must do 
justice. As with a court, as Gordon Hewart, the Lord Chief Justice of 
Great Britain, wrote, it is:

       Of fundamental importance that justice should not only be 
     done, but should manifestly and undoubtedly be seen to be 
     done.

  For the Senate, as for a court of law, to advance the perception of 
justice and the fair resolution of disputes, it must air disagreements 
fully. It must give opposing parties their day. It must allow all to 
approach on an equal footing and make their case.
  Justice is not cursory. Justice is not offhand. Doing justice can 
take time. That is how the Founders wanted this great system to work.
  In the debates of the Constitutional Convention, James Madison said 
of the Senate:

       In order to judge of the form to be given to this 
     institution, it will be proper to take a view of the ends to 
     be served by it. These were first to protect the people 
     against their rulers: secondly to protect the people against 
     the transient impressions into which they themselves might be 
     led.

  Madison warned that the people's representatives might be ``liable to 
err also, from fickleness and passion.'' Madison's answer was that 
Senators, because of their ``limited number, and firmness[,] might 
seasonably interpose against impetuous counsels.'' He thus called the 
Senate: ``A necessary fence against this danger.''
  Time and again, in the history of our country, the Senate has served 
as that ``necessary fence.'' And the firm pillars and posts supporting 
that fence have been the Senate Rules. The Senate Rules have helped the 
Senate to do justice. It is because of the Senate Rules that the 
British Prime Minister William Gladstone is said to have called the 
Senate:

       That remarkable body, the most remarkable of all the 
     inventions of modern politics.

  The Senate Rules make it one of the few places in government where 
disagreements can be fully aired. The Senate Rules give opposing 
parties their day. And the Senate Rules allow every Senator to make his 
or her case.
  As Senator Dole said in his speech in the Leader's Lecture Series 
March 28:

       We all continue to learn that this institution can only 
     survive if it operates by rules.

  The two fundamental pillars of those rules are the right to debate 
and the right to amend. It is these rights that distinguish the Senate 
from the House of Representatives and from other parliaments. It is 
these rights of Senators that allow the Senate as a body to preserve 
the rights of minorities.
  Rule XIX of the Standing Rules of the Senate provides that ``the 
Presiding Officer shall recognize the Senator who shall first address 
him.''

[[Page S4173]]

Precedent, of course, gives priority of recognition to the Leaders. 
Once the Presiding Officer has recognized a Senator, Senate rule XXII 
allows that Senator to speak for as long as humanly possible, unless 60 
Senators vote to cut off debate. As my Colleagues well know, the mere 
threat of extended debate--called a ``hold''--can detain legislation.
  As well, the Senate Rules give Senators the right to offer 
amendments. The Senate Rules do not require Senators to go hat-in-hand 
to a leadership-dominated Rules Committee to ask permission to offer an 
amendment, as Members of Congress must do in the House of 
Representatives. This ability to bring up a subject with which the 
majority does not want to deal provides a check and balance on the 
agenda-setting power that is vested in the majority leader.
  These powers to debate and amend make every single Senator a force to 
be reckoned with. Every Senator--whether a member of the majority or 
the minority--can be a player. And Leadership cannot neglect or exclude 
any single Senator without substantial risk. As a result, Senators do 
well never to burn bridges with any other Senator. Because any one 
Senator can disrupt the Senate, every Senator has good reason to show 
comity for every other Senator.
  These rules honor the sentiments of committed minorities. They give 
dedicated groups of Senators substantial power. And they give any group 
of 41 Senators the absolute right to kill a bill.
  The Senate Rules thereby force consensus. When these rules are 
honored, no major change in our government's laws may come about 
without the concurrence of a three-fifths majority. When these rules 
are honored, policy changes are likely to be more moderate and more 
incremental.
  As Nobel Prize-winning economist James Buchanan has argued, societal 
efficiency may be served by a Congress that has a hard time enacting 
laws. Under such circumstances, laws change less often--less frequently 
disrupting peoples' lives, less often intruding into them. If you agree 
with Thoreau that the best government is that which governs least, then 
the most efficient government for society is the one with the most 
checks and balances.
  Unfortunately, the Senate is not honoring its rules. The Senate is 
breaching its longstanding traditions of comity and respect for the 
minority. Too often, in the name of expediency, today's Senate is 
cutting corners on the Senate rules. When we give in to expediency it 
can be disappointing. When we indulge in expediency in this, the place 
where deliberation is most sacred, it can be deplorable.
  Although some of the trends of which I speak have, of course, their 
roots in past Senates and other majorities, the Senate's current 
majority has brought the level of honor for the Senate's unique ideals 
to a new low.
  The current majority has diminished the Senate by abusing and 
overusing cloture. The application of the rules of cloture have changed 
dramatically since President Woodrow Wilson, infuriated by an 11-
Senator filibuster that blocked the rearming of merchant ships during 
World War I, complained of ``[a] little group of willful men, 
representing no opinion but their own,'' who he said ``have rendered 
the great government of the United States helpless and contemptible.''
  Cloture used to be a rarity. The Senate conducted only 45 rollcall 
votes on cloture in the entire half century from 1919 to 1969.
  In 1975, the Senate changed the filibuster rule, reducing the two-
thirds vote requirement to a vote of 60 Senators, although one still 
needs two-thirds to cut off debate on changes to Senate rules. With 
that change in the rules, the leadership began invoking cloture more 
frequently.
  As the chart behind me shows, the process of invoking cloture has now 
reached what I call a fevered pitch. The Senate conducted 99 rollcall 
votes on cloture in the 1970s. It conducted 138 in the entire decade of 
the 1980s, and it conducted fully 234 in the 1990s.
  As this next chart shows, the number of cloture votes has increased 
in every year of the current majority, nearly doubling, from roughly 20 
in 1995 to nearly 40 in 1999.
  Even by 1984, a select committee on procedure chaired by then-Senator 
Dan Quayle concluded: ``Cloture is not only invoked too often, it is 
invoked too soon.'' Senator Quayle's criticism is all the more true 
today. In the Congress when Senator Quayle made his remark, the 98th 
Congress, there had by this time been 10 rollcall votes on cloture 
motions. In the comparable time period in this 106th Congress, we have 
held more than four times as many--43 rollcall votes on cloture. Add to 
that another 11 cloture motions that were withdrawn, vitiated, or 
otherwise disposed of without a vote.
  As Senator Quayle noted, the problem with cloture is not just how 
often, but when. The form of a motion to invoke cloture reads: ``We the 
undersigned Senators, in accordance with the provisions of rule XXII of 
the Standing Rules of the Senate, hereby move to bring to a close the 
debate'' upon the bill.
  But on bill after bill, from tax cuts to trade bills to 
constitutional amendments, the majority no longer tolerates even a 
day's worth of debate before moving ``to bring to a close the debate'' 
upon the bill. Indeed, filing cloture without any debate has now become 
the norm. We proceed to the bill and the cloture motion is filed in the 
time that it takes the majority leader to draw one breath and make the 
request.
  As an example, I have a chart that shows the entire verbatim 
transcript of the debate on the motion to proceed to S. 2285, the gas 
tax bill, prior to the filing of cloture. The ``debate''--if you would 
call it that--was the 11 words the majority leader uttered to make the 
motion to proceed. In the same breath, the cloture motion was upon us.
  The practice of filing cloture without any debate at all has made a 
mockery of the motion.
  Beyond limiting debate, the majority is also using the blunt 
instrument of cloture to bludgeon the minority into forgoing its right 
to offer amendments. All too often, the majority leader now makes a 
take-it-or-leave-it offer to the minority leader: Either muzzle your 
right to amendment or we will paint you as obstructionist. Either clear 
your amendments with us in advance, or have no amendments at all.
  I am afraid too often, the minority's leadership can get caught up in 
the business of helping the majority make the trains run on time, in a 
sense, playing the role of Alec Guinness's Colonel Nicholson in ``The 
Bridge on the River Kwai,'' building bridges that should not be built.
  This is not how the Senate was meant to act.
  Recall that the Senate has often addressed a number of amendments on 
a single piece of legislation. The Senate conducted 121 rollcall votes 
on amendments to the Civil Rights Act of 1964. It conducted 127 
rollcall votes on the Natural Gas Policy Act in 1977. Now the idea that 
a bill might elicit more than ten amendments appears to be anathema to 
the majority.
  The current majority has also diminished the Senate by changing the 
rule that limits what can be incorporated into a conference report. 
Late in 1996, to secure last-minute passage of a version of the Federal 
Aviation Authorization Act that included a special provision for the 
Federal Express Corporation, the Senate voted 56-39 to overturn the 
Chair and nullify the rule. At the time, Senator Specter called the 
change ``a very, very serious perversion of Senate procedures.''
  As conference reports are privileged, Senators cannot engage in 
extended debate to block getting to them. As well, conference reports 
are not open to amendment. And after the 1996 precedent, Senators have 
no recourse if a conference committee exceeds the scope of what the 
Senate committed to it.
  The majority in a conference committee need not work with the 
minority, and the majority often does not. Conference committees 
usually work in secret. Senate rules require no open meetings. House 
practice has generally required one such meeting, but that tends to be 
a photo opportunity. Thereafter, Senators' signatures on the conference 
report constitute their votes, and nothing further need be done in 
public.
  Last July, the Democratic leader offered an amendment to restore the 
rule with regard to conference reports, but the majority would not 
allow it. The

[[Page S4174]]

majority voted it down 51-47 in a nearly party-line vote.
  The current majority has also diminished the Senate by extending and 
contorting the congressional budget process far beyond any expectations 
that its drafters may have had.
  Once again, of course, the roots of the current abuse of the budget 
process lie in earlier Congresses. Participants in the Federal budget 
process initially underestimated the power of the budget process. They 
failed completely, however, to foresee the power of reconciliation 
bills.
  The Congressional Budget Act of 1974 originally provided for two 
budget resolutions: The first would advise, and the second, passed 
closer to the start of the fiscal year, would bind. The Budget Act 
provided that the second budget resolution could instruct committees of 
Congress to reconcile substantive laws passed within their jurisdiction 
over the summer to the new priorities of the second budget resolution.

  Of course, the reconciliation process has not turned out that 
modestly. Rather, in 1981, in an effort to expedite President Reagan's 
first budget, the budget resolution included instructions for years 
beyond the first fiscal year covered by the resolution, extending the 
reach of reconciliation bills to more permanent changes in law.
  Since then, reconciliation has become a regular feature of most 
budget resolutions. Since then, Congress has accomplished most 
significant deficit reduction through the reconciliation process.
  Because reconciliation bills limit debate, Senators cannot filibuster 
them. A simple majority can pass their policies. Because reconciliation 
limits amendments, Senators must stick to only the narrow subjects 
chosen by the majority in the committee process.
  The reconciliation process is so powerful that the Senate chose in 
the mid-1980s to adopt the Byrd Rule, named after Senator Robert Byrd, 
to limit reconciliation solely to deficit reduction.
  But the current majority dramatically extended reconciliation in 
1996. The new Republican Congress sought to move three reconciliation 
bills--on welfare, Medicare, and tax cuts. And in a marked departure 
from past practice, the budget that year devoted one of the three 
reconciliation bills--the one to cut taxes--solely to worsening the 
deficit, not cutting the deficit but making it worse.
  The Democratic leader formally challenged the procedure, but to no 
avail. Through a series of exchanges with the Presiding Officer, the 
Democratic leader demonstrated that the new reconciliation procedure 
has few limits. After the Democratic leader appealed the ruling of the 
Chair, the Senate sustained the procedure on a straight party-line 
vote.
  In the wake of that precedent, the majority party has repeatedly 
created reconciliation bills to worsen the deficit or spend the surplus 
by cutting taxes, and the same logic would allow fast-track 
reconciliation bills to increase spending. The majority has taken to 
using the reconciliation process to move its fiscal legislative agenda 
through the Senate with simple majority votes and few distractions. The 
result is plain to see: Congress passes extravagant tax bills that do 
not command a national consensus and that cannot become law.
  As well, in this most recently-adopted budget resolution, the 
majority has even chosen by majority vote to require 60 votes to offer 
sense-of-the-Senate amendments to future budget resolutions. Though by 
no means an earth-shaking change in and of itself, it shows yet another 
instance of how the majority abuses majority-vote vehicles to create 
yet another variance from the Standing Rules of the Senate. Once again, 
the current majority seeks to muzzle debate.
  The current majority has also diminished the Senate by bringing S.-
numbered appropriations bills to the floor.
  That is what is happening right now. That is what prompted, in part, 
these remarks. The majority wants to go to these S.-numbered 
appropriations bills. They want to do it on the foreign ops bill.
  The Senate just considered the military construction appropriations 
bill as a Senate-numbered bill, not--as is usually the case with 
appropriations bills--a House bill with Senate Committee-reported 
amendments. And what does this do? It has a purpose. This posture 
deprives Senators of the ability to offer legislative amendments. It is 
yet another way to deny the duly elected Members of this body a chance 
to offer amendments--an absolutely basic right of every Senator.
  Not infrequently, the House chooses to attach legislation to an 
appropriations measure. In that case, if as is usually done, the Senate 
considers the House bill with Senate amendments, a Senator can also 
offer amendments with legislative language. If another Senator raises a 
point of order under rule XVI against legislating on the appropriation 
bill, the amendment's proponent can raise the defense of germaneness. 
The idea is that the House opened the door to legislation on this 
appropriations bill, and the Senate must be able to respond with 
germane amendments.

  If, on the other hand, as is being attempted here, the Senate takes 
up a Senate-numbered appropriations bill, as it did with the military 
construction bill, then there is no House bill to provide a basis for 
the defense of germaneness. Under this circumstance, if a Senator 
offers a legislative amendment and another Senator raises a point of 
order against legislating on an appropriation bill, then the Chair 
simply rules the amendment out of order and the amendment falls. The 
Senator does not have a chance, again, to offer an amendment.
  Through this device, the majority once again deprives the minority of 
opportunities to legislate. As well, the majority deprives the full 
Senate of its ability to respond to riders that the House attaches to 
appropriations bills. Once again, the majority has diminished the 
deliberation of the Senate.
  And now, we see the spectacle of the majority standing ready to shut 
down the Senate for over 4 hours, as they did, on Tuesday, just to 
prevent a sense-of-the-Senate vote on gun safety.
  And now, we see the majority leader appealing the ruling of the 
Chair, and by a majority vote, changing the Standing Rules of the 
Senate, so as to have the Presiding Officer rule out of order 
nongermane amendments to appropriations bills.
  This in itself was a remarkable thing. Rule XVI, which creates the 
prohibition against nongermane amendments, states in part:

       [A]ll questions of relevancy of amendments under this rule, 
     when raised, shall be submitted to the Senate and be decided 
     without debate.

  And as my colleagues know, it takes a two-thirds vote to invoke 
cloture on a change to the Senate rules. But by a party-line, majority 
vote Wednesday, the Senate just erased those words from the Standing 
Rules of the Senate. And why? For the same reason all these other 
things were done--all to make it more difficult for Senators to offer 
amendments on appropriations bills.
  What has become of our right to debate? What has become of our right 
to amend?
  The traditional Senate, I am afraid, is becoming a thing of the past. 
I have seen this change just from the time I got here in 1993 to now. 
Some may say, ``Good riddance.'' After all, as a Democratic Member of 
Congress once said, ``In the Senate, you can't go to the bathroom 
without 60 votes.''
  But the character of this Senate, I am afraid, has been unmistakably 
altered. The majority's actions are transforming the Senate into a much 
more majoritarian institution. And that is not how the founders wanted 
it.
  Recall that the Constitution itself manifests a belief in 
supermajorities. Supermajority requirements are evident in the veto 
power, in the ratification of treaties, in the constitutional amendment 
process, and in a number of other places.
  Recall, as well, that the founders who created this Senate also 
expressed a healthy distrust of simple majority rule.
  James Madison said that:

       [i]n Republics, the great danger is, that the majority may 
     not sufficiently respect the rights of the minority.

  In a letter to James Monroe, Madison also wrote:

       There is no maxim, in my opinion, which is more liable to 
     be misapplied, and which, therefore, more needs elucidation, 
     than the current one, that the interest of the majority is 
     the political standard of right and wrong.


[[Page S4175]]


  In his first inaugural address, Thomas Jefferson said:
       Though the will of the majority is . . . to prevail, that 
     will, to be rightful, must be reasonable. . . . The Minority 
     possess their equal rights, which equal laws must protect, 
     and to violate which would be oppression.
  And John Adams wrote:

       That the desires of the majority of the people are often 
     for injustice and inhumanity against the minority, is 
     demonstrated by every page of the history of the whole world.

  More recently, Senator J. William Fulbright said:

       The greatest single virtue of a strong legislature is not 
     what it can do but what it can prevent.

  In 1984, retiring Congressman Barber Conable told Time Magazine: 
``Congress is `functioning the way the founding fathers intended--not 
very well.' He explain[ed], `They understood that if you move too 
quickly, our democracy will be less responsible to the majority. I 
don't think it's the function of Congress to function well. It should 
drag its heels on the way to decision.' ''
  And Senator Byrd, who has stood on both the giving and receiving end 
of many a filibuster, writes in his Senate history:

       The Senate is the only forum in the government where the 
     perfection of laws may be unhurried and where controversial 
     decisions may be hammered out on the anvil of lengthy debate. 
     The liberties of a free people will always be safe where a 
     forum exists in which open and unlimited debate is allowed.

  For all their inconvenience, the Senate traditions of deliberation 
and amendment serve our Nation. It is through those traditions that the 
Senate protects liberty. It is through those traditions that the Senate 
can effect justice.
  When we stand and look back at the Senate's glorious history, we can 
be forgiven when we do not measure up to the standards of our greatest 
predecessors. We cannot be forgiven--and we should not be forgiven--
when so often we do not even care to try.
  We can be forgiven if, after considering the traditions of the 
Senate's hallowed past, we choose to depart from those traditions. We 
can not be forgiven--and we should not be forgiven--if we depart from 
those traditions unaware or oblivious of what we leave behind.
  I invite my colleagues to look around this Senate Chamber, to read 
the inscriptions in the marble reliefs over the doors. To the east is 
written ``Patriotism.'' To the west is inscribed ``Courage.'' And to 
the south is carved ``Wisdom.''
  These are the icons under which we walk whenever we come into this 
Chamber and whenever we leave it. These walls do not speak of ``ease.'' 
The marble does not memorialize ``rapidity.'' These sculptures do not 
enshrine ``convenience.''
  This Senate advances the love of country that is patriotism when it 
struggles to deliver justice. The Senate serves the people not when it 
avoids difficult issues but when it acts with courage to address them 
fully. And it is only through the crucible of debate and amendment that 
this Senate can come, as come it must, to wisdom.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Enzi). The Chair recognizes the Senator 
from Minnesota.
  Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, first of all, let me thank my colleague 
and my neighbor from Wisconsin, Senator Feingold. I have a very strong 
feeling and belief that this speech, which has been given at 5 o'clock 
this Thursday afternoon, will end up being one of the more memorable 
speeches given on the floor of the Senate. I think the speech was 
eloquent and powerful. It went way beyond political party. I thank my 
colleague from Wisconsin.
  Mr. FEINGOLD. Mr. President, I thank my friend from Minnesota for his 
efforts on each and every issue I tried to raise to try to constantly 
point out that this place is supposed to be where we can deliberate and 
actually talk about these issues and offer amendments. He is probably 
the best example of a person who understands the need to do that.
  Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, I won't be--I can't be--as eloquent, 
but I actually thought I would come to the floor and try to basically 
speak to what I think are some important questions for the Senate.
  This is, in part, the discussion we had yesterday; and especially 
with the majority leader not on the floor, I will make sure that what I 
say, I say in such a way that if he wants to respond later, he can. In 
any case, I intend to say it at least in the best possible way I can.
  I know the majority leader today, in a couple of interviews--it has 
come my way from several journalists--has said that yesterday he sort 
of believed that I was responsible for this exchange that we had on the 
floor--in getting it started. I believe he also mentioned Senator 
Durbin.
  I want to say that, actually, if that is the case, I would be proud 
to accept the blame. I think it is a discussion we needed to have, 
albeit what I hope is that something positive will come out of it. That 
is to say--and this is what Senator Feingold was trying to say--I came 
here to do my very best to represent the people in Minnesota. I think 
when you are a Senator, and also when you pass amendments or bills, it 
can have implications for people all across the country.
  What I have always loved about the Senate in the time I have been 
here is that individual Senators can matter and can make a difference. 
We are really much more of an amendment body. I think the Senate is at 
its best when bills come to the floor and Senators bring amendments out 
and we start early in the morning and--we don't need to go until 
midnight; that is not good for families. But we can go until 7 or 8 
o'clock at night.
  We are about the work of democracy. That is what we are doing. We 
have votes up or down, and we are all held accountable; we are able to 
come out here and introduce amendments that speak to the concerns and 
circumstances, in our view, of the people we represent. That is why I 
came here.
  Yesterday, on the floor of the Senate, in response to some of what 
the majority leader said--I will make sure I do not make the response 
personal--I said I felt that we have had a pattern here--and Senator 
Feingold has spoken about this--over and over and over again where 
bills are considered and the majority leader and others make it clear 
that only certain amendments are acceptable--not very many--for debate. 
If there is no agreement on the minority side, then the majority leader 
files cloture and usually doesn't get it. The bill is pulled and no 
legislation is passed. This has been happening over and over and over 
again.
  From my point of view, a point of order challenge for the first time 
in 16 years, or thereabouts, which prevented Senators from introducing 
even sense-of-the-Senate resolutions to appropriations bills--the 
argument that was made was, well, hey, we have to do business and we 
have to get going. You know what. Every year we have appropriations 
bills--last year and the year before that and the year before that. 
Never before--at least in the last 16 or 17 years--has this been done.
  My view was that all of this added up to an effort to basically run 
the Senate like the House of Representatives. That is what I have said, 
and that is what I believe. I have said it many times. I think that is 
detrimental to the Senate. I think it takes away the vitality that we 
have and robs us of some of the capacity for debate, for deliberation, 
for honest differences of opinion, which need to be expressed out here 
on the floor of the Senate, and for individual Senators to be able to 
speak to their priorities.
  Now, some of my colleagues on the other side may want to talk about 
tax cuts or about this or that and the other. I may want to talk about 
the poverty of children and the need to have affordable child care and 
the need to make sure we have food and nutrition programs so children 
don't go hungry. We all have things about which we care the most. 
Nobody is better than anybody else. But do you know what. I want the 
right to be able to do that. What I was trying to say yesterday--and I 
will say it, given what the majority leader said to several 
journalists--was I actually didn't intend to be silenced.
  So I will continue to issue challenges and speak out. I think that 
Senator Daschle spoke probably for every single Democrat yesterday. I 
think it is going to be important for us to move forward, and I hope we 
will. Sometimes what happens on the floor of the Senate is that people 
speak with some indignation because that is what they

[[Page S4176]]

feel, and they may feel very strongly. So the words are uttered in that 
way, and some of the discussion takes place that way. Do you know what? 
I think there comes a time when that is necessary.
  Frankly, I think it is important that the minority party makes sure 
we maintain our rights. It is important that the minority maintains its 
voice. It is important that Senators have opportunities to bring 
amendments out here and do their very best to legislate for people back 
home, to introduce amendments, have debate, to win or to lose, but to 
be at the work of democracy. I just think that the Senate doesn't do 
the work of democracy when we basically go through bills that are laid 
out, and then cloture is filed and the bills are pulled, and that is 
about it. And we really aren't about doing the work I think we ought to 
be doing. That is my own view.
  Again, in responding to some of what has been said today, listen, if 
the majority leader feels that I am the blame for getting this debate 
started yesterday, I am proud to accept that. I think we needed to have 
the debate. But the most important thing is that we all figure out a 
way we can move forward from it.
  I will tell you that I feel very strongly that we have to get back to 
some debate out here on the floor of the Senate. We have to get back to 
the deliberation.
  I would be interested in the Senator's response, frankly, if he can 
help me a moment.
  To me, the work of democracy is when Senators come out here with 
amendments. As I said earlier, we should start early in the morning, go 
to 8 or 9 at night, and have at it. We would have good deliberations 
and good debate, and we would vote amendments up or down. Senators 
would be able to raise the kinds of questions they want to raise and 
speak to the kinds of issues they think are so important to the people 
they represent; we are all accountable. But it is substantive. It is 
real. It is about issues, and nobody is gagged; nobody is blocked. That 
is the Senate and the vitality of the Senate.
  I wonder what my colleague thinks about that.
  Mr. FEINGOLD. Mr. President, I couldn't agree more.
  First, I thank the Senator from Minnesota for his discussion of the 
problems we are having in the Senate, and for that important statement. 
But I also certainly will not accept his apology for what he did 
yesterday, for what he did was right.
  Mr. WELLSTONE. I wasn't trying to apologize.
  Mr. FEINGOLD. I understand. What the Senator did was absolutely 
essential. We need to get out here and talk about what is happening.
  I remember when I first came here. The Senator from Minnesota was 
here several years before I was--I believe two. But I remember when we 
were in the majority, Senators on the other side were allowed to freely 
amend bills.
  I learned a great deal from my colleagues, the Senators on the other 
side. When they offered an amendment, I sometimes agreed with them. 
Usually I wouldn't. I learned a great deal about what they were 
thinking, and about what my constituents might think. I, in particular, 
give credit to the Senator from Texas, Senator Gramm. He is a superb 
Senator in terms of his ability. For us to be deprived because of this 
kind of a process of benefiting from the knowledge and thinking and 
sentiments of our colleagues on the other side is a terrible loss to 
the Senate. I have not been here that long, but I remember when it used 
to be different that it was better.
  Mr. WELLSTONE. I will ask my colleague another question. It is 
interesting that he mentioned Senator Gramm from Texas because I 
remember that several years ago, we were in the majority. We were in 
the office because I know it was July 21. It was my birthday, and we 
had the cake and candles. Somebody said: Senator Gramm is out there 
with an amendment on legal services that you don't agree with. You have 
to go out there and debate him.
  I didn't know he was going to bring that amendment up. I had to end 
the birthday party, get the notes, and run down here. There was a 2- or 
3-hour debate on it.
  But that is what I love about being a Senator. It is not a game. He 
was serious about what he was doing, and I was serious in opposition.
  Mr. FEINGOLD. Mr. President, I find it hard to believe in these few 
years that the nature of what we do out here has changed this much. I 
wonder if there is any way that the number of Senators on both sides of 
the aisle, who remember, who valued that, could sort of come together 
and talk about restoring this institution to what it was.
  Mr. WELLSTONE. I would like to ask the Senator from Wisconsin another 
question. This has not been brought up. I think the Senator gave a 
speech that, as I said, will be memorable for many years to come. This 
is a little bit away from the framework. The Senator can respond in any 
way, of course, that is appropriate from the Senator's point of view.
  One of the things that I think in part caused me to raise these 
questions with the majority leader yesterday was that I was little 
worried. Back home, people meet with you, and they believe because of 
the chance of meeting with you that something positive can happen, that 
it will make a difference in lives, that it will help them.
  I get worried that if you can't offer amendments and you are shut 
out, you are not able to respond to people.
  For example, take agriculture and dairy farmers in Wisconsin and in 
Minnesota, much less other farmers. For them, time is not mutual. They 
really believe when I meet with them that I can do something right now 
about the abysmally low prices, whether it is the livestock producers, 
or whether it is the corn growers. You meet with people. With what is 
going on in farm country with crops, people are in such pain. They 
still come out to meetings because they still believe you are their 
Senator, and by meeting with you and talking about what is happening to 
them, somehow since you are their Senator you can do something to help. 
But I can't do anything to help right now.
  Mr. FEINGOLD. Again, Mr. President, looking back over the last 
several years, I have worked a great deal on agriculture issues, as 
well, and I remember these kinds of meetings and being able to honestly 
say to a group of farmers I didn't know if we were going to be able to 
pass a bill. But I could say there was a decent chance to be able to 
bring it up on the floor, either as a bill or as an amendment. Maybe we 
would win; maybe we would lose.

  It is an odd feeling now to tell a bunch of farmers that we are not 
allowed to offer amendments anymore. They look at you as if you have 
lost your mind. But that is what we have to tell them. We aren't 
allowed anymore in the Senate to bring up ideas and have amendments and 
have bills because they have to be cleared with the majority leader. We 
have to show him the amendment first. If he doesn't like it, we can't 
offer it. I try to be candid with people. That is a candid comment. 
That is truly different from the way things were. And I have served 
both in the majority and in the minority in the short years that I have 
been here.
  Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, I wonder what the response of the 
Senator from Wisconsin would be. I even found myself saying to people--
I can think of different meetings, but I will stay with agriculture. I 
want to talk about some of the other issues where I literally sometimes 
slip into, if you will, I guess, what I call ``Washington language,'' 
and say to people I don't know if there will be a vehicle. People are 
thinking: Wait a minute; we are losing our farms.
  They do not know what you are talking about. They have no health care 
coverage, and can't there be more support for child care, teachers talk 
about what will make a difference in the schools--pick your issue. And 
you are at a meeting with people, you are moved by people, and you want 
to do something to help.
  Other Senators might have a very different viewpoint, in which case 
we can have the debate. I find myself saying I just hope there will be 
a vehicle. People do not know what you are talking about. What do you 
mean, there is no vehicle? Don't you have an opportunity as a Senator 
to try to legislate and to be out there representing people and 
fighting for people?
  That is what I am worried about. That is what yesterday was about.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Minnesota has the floor.

[[Page S4177]]

  Mr. WELLSTONE. I asked the Senator from Wisconsin whether or not he 
has been in a similar experience. I have the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Minnesota may accept 
questions when he has the floor.
  Mr. FEINGOLD. Mr. President, I wonder if the Senator from Minnesota 
would respond to a question.
  Mr. WELLSTONE. I would be pleased to.
  Mr. FEINGOLD. If he will yield for a question, I suggest to the 
Senator that if I tell a group of my constituents that I cannot find a 
vehicle, they would offer me a ride. They would say: Do your job; here 
is your ride. That is the problem.
  I ask the Senator if he would agree, if we are forced to talk to our 
constituents about the minutia of Senate procedure, and if that is the 
kind of conversation we have to have with our dairy farmers in 
Wisconsin instead of talking to them about what we should be talking 
about, the substance of the legislation--let us worry about the Senate 
procedure--then really the opponents of any kind of change have won 
because that is not something they should have to concern themselves 
with. It is very interesting; great. But that is not what dairy farmers 
in Wisconsin need. They have some great ideas about how to do things 
differently, and we should be able to come out here and have an 
amendment or a bill.

  In fact, I ask the Senator from Minnesota if he would agree with 
this. We are not used to getting a lot of votes sometimes. Sometimes we 
don't get many votes on our amendments. Sometimes there is a little 
laughter about how Wellstone and Feingold only got 10 or 12 votes. But 
at least we got a chance to get some votes.
  Mr. WELLSTONE. The Senator should speak for himself.
  Mr. FEINGOLD. That is right. I would ask the Senator how he would 
react to that.
  Mr. WELLSTONE. I would say to my colleague from Wisconsin that I have 
two answers. The first answer is part of what I have been trying to 
say, which is I am really in a debate with the majority leader. I think 
other Democrats are with me. I hope some Republicans are. It is not a 
debate for the sake of debate because what I worry about the most is to 
go back home all the time and to have people meet with you to talk 
about their lives and have the hope that you as a Senator can make a 
difference, and you can't make a difference. If there is this effort 
basically to silence you and if there is this effort basically to block 
amendments and block debate, Senator Feingold is right. Sometimes you 
win; sometimes you lose. But you have to have that opportunity to be 
out here advocating and legislating and fighting for people.
  That is important to me.
  Second, this didn't come up in yesterday's debate. I ask my colleague 
in the form of a question, part of what is going on I think is whether 
or not the Senate becomes just a nondecisionmaking body. Whether that 
is good or bad very much depends on one's view about government. If one 
thinks there is no positive role that government or public policy can 
play in the lives of people and in improving the lives of people, it 
would not bother Members that Senators cannot introduce amendments and 
that we don't debate these issues.
  I ask my colleague whether or not he thinks that is in part what is 
going on. If one believes there is nothing the government can or should 
do to respond to dairy farmers, family farmers, by way of making health 
care more affordable, or improving educational opportunities for 
children, then denying Senators the opportunity to debate and offer 
amendments and moving forward is not a problem. If one believes there 
is a role for government to be doing this, I think it is a problem.
  I ask my colleague whether he thinks there is a philosophical debate.
  Mr. FEINGOLD. Mr. President, I suggest that is one way that a person 
can come to the conclusion that the Senate should operate this way. 
However, there are others who would believe that government sometimes 
has to stop things that are bad that other levels of government or 
perhaps the other body would want done.
  I ask the Senator if he does not agree that the Senate has a role 
from another philosophical point of view; I think it is called the 
``saucer'' that Thomas Jefferson spoke of, the saucer that goes with 
the cup in order to cool the Senate.
  Whether this reflects a belief that government does not have a 
function, or whether it reflects a fundamental misunderstanding of what 
the Senate is supposed to be, I wonder if the Senator would react.
  Mr. WELLSTONE. I thank my colleague from Wisconsin. I am a political 
scientist and taught American politics classes, but I think the Senator 
from Wisconsin is my teacher.
  I talked about it from the point of view we ought to be about the 
business of legislating and deciding, not about the business of not 
deciding and not moving forward.
  I think what my colleague from Wisconsin is saying is, but also, 
Senator Wellstone, the other critical role of the Senate is by 
definition, two Senators from every State, regardless of population of 
State. It is not straight majority or majoritarian principles. The 
Senate is there to defend the rights of minorities, sometimes to 
represent unpopular causes, and sometimes to make sure that if there is 
a rush to pass a piece of legislation which has cataclysmic 
consequences in people's lives, such as the bankruptcy bill, there is 
an opportunity for Senator or Senators to say: Wait a minute; I insist 
this not move through. I will be out here fighting, even if it is an 
unpopular cause. I want the public and the country to know. Sometimes 
there is much to be said for deliberation. Sometimes there is much to 
be said for the Senate as a deliberative body, and therefore there is 
much to be said for a Senator's rights or a group of Senators' rights 
to represent this viewpoint.
  I thank my colleague from Wisconsin for his comments, and I yield the 
floor.
  Mr. FEINGOLD. Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Minnesota. This 
was a useful opportunity to discuss very serious problems in the 
Senate.

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