[Congressional Record Volume 149, Number 5 (Monday, January 13, 2003)]
[Senate]
[Pages S220-S222]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                      REORGANIZATION OF THE SENATE

  Mrs. HUTCHISON. Mr. President, I am very pleased to see the person 
presiding in the chair and welcome him to the Senate.
  I am looking at an empty Chamber except for Senator Harkin, who is 
just leaving. It is incredible to understand that the Senate was sworn 
in on January 7, and yet today we sit in the Chamber having transacted 
no business except for the extension of unemployment benefits which was 
done by unanimous consent because it didn't have to go through a 
committee.
  Why, one may ask, would something only be able to pass that didn't 
have to go through committee? Well, the answer is, because we don't 
have any committees. The Senate has not been able to reorganize since 
January 7 because we cannot get an agreement. We have not been able to 
organize our committees because the Democrats have been unwilling to 
come to an agreement that would be a fair allocation of resources and 
that would allow us to go forward.
  A lot of people in the country don't realize that the Senate is in an 
absolute stalemate because we do not have Republican chairmen, even 
though the Republicans control the Senate. There are eight new Members 
of the Senate, and none of them have been appointed to a committee--not 
one--because we don't have an organization resolution.
  I do not think that is what the people of America said last November 
when they went to the polls. They voted on Senators, and they voted to 
give Republicans a 51-to-49 vote count in the Senate.
  Any person who follows this would imagine that everyone would 
understand that there has been a change of control, and they would have 
expected us to be up and open for business, with committees meeting and 
doing the business of the people. That is what was said by the people 
who went to the polls in November and made their decisions on who would 
represent them in the Senate.
  I am very pleased that our new Members have been sworn in. It is 
little enough to ask, I would say. But to think that they have not been 
able to even go to a committee meeting yet is unconscionable. A lot of 
people have not realized that this is going on because we have tried to 
negotiate in good faith, and Senator Frist is doing that as we speak. 
Hopefully Senator Daschle is doing the same.
  I don't think we can wait another week before we start confirming 
some of these judges who have been sitting unconfirmed since May of 
2001 or even unable to have their nominations acted on.
  We were ready to hit the ground running. The Judiciary Committee 
chairman wanted to start the process so the President would have his 
constitutional right to appoint and have confirmed or turned down his 
nominees to the Federal bench. He has had neither. We were ready to go. 
What has happened? The Judiciary Committee cannot meet because Senator 
Hatch has not been installed as chairman because we don't have an 
organization resolution.
  We had hoped to pass the appropriations bills that had been lingering 
since last Congress. We had only passed the Defense and military 
construction appropriations so all of the other Departments of 
Government have not yet been funded except in a continuing resolution, 
an omnibus bill that just says we will go on with 2002 levels of 
spending, but we don't have any allocations because the Appropriations 
Committee has not been able to meet. The appointments have not even 
been formalized yet.

  I do not think that is what the people of America expected when they 
voted last November to put a Republican majority in the Senate. They 
expected us to start appropriations bills. They expected us to confirm 
the judges that had been sitting in the pipeline since 2001.
  The President of the United States has a constitutional 
responsibility to appoint judges, and he has the constitutional right 
to have those judges acted on by the Senate. Yet we have people whose 
lives have been disrupted because they have been appointed to the 
Federal bench, sitting there for 1 year, 2 years with their lives 
interrupted. They are unable to have Senate confirmation or turndown.
  The Senate has the absolute right to make the decision, but it has 
the responsibility to go forward and let these people know if the 
President is going to get his appointment through or if these people 
can go on with their lives.
  I hope the President gets all of his appointments. He has been very 
careful in making his appointments. But all of them have a right to 
action, and the President, most of all, has a right for the Senate to 
take the very serious responsibility of confirming nominees.
  We have appropriations bills. We have Departments of Government that 
have no specific authorizations because we have only acted in a general 
way, saying whatever you had in 2002, you may keep until we can 
exercise our responsibility to pass the appropriations bills, which we 
have not done since the end of the fiscal year October 1, 2002. These 
agencies deserve to know what Congress intends for them to do this year 
and how much money they have to spend.
  This is not the way to run the Government. It is not responsible for 
us to

[[Page S221]]

be talking to an empty Chamber since January 7 when the people have 
spoken and we are here to do business.
  I do hope we will come to an agreement. It should be very simple. The 
elections were held. The majority has been elected. It is time to let 
the majority take control of the Senate, organize the Senate, have the 
committees appointed, and start to do business. I hope we will go 
forward and do that.
  Mr. REID. Will the Senator yield for a question?
  Mrs. HUTCHISON. Mr. President, I am happy to yield for a question.
  Mr. REID. I was in my office and I listened to the distinguished 
Senator from Texas, the senior Senator from Texas. I agree with the 
Senator. I agree with what she said.
  From our perspective, we realize we have lost the majority. It has 
gone from 51 Democrats to 51 Republicans and 49 Democrats. Last year at 
this time there were 49 Republicans.
  But our suggestion is that the exact same organizational status that 
was in existence for the 51-49 Democratic majority should be in effect 
for the 51-49 Republican majority. That is what this is all about. We 
believe we should be working under the same organizational standards 
set when the majority was held by the Democrats. You would have the 
same staffing that we had as Democrats, the same funding that we had as 
Democrats, with the exception that both sides would have cost-of living 
increases given to them automatically.
  I hope common sense and fairness will prevail and, in short, that we 
will have the same organizational standards as existed last time, 
except you would have what we had and we would have what you had.
  Mrs. HUTCHISON. Mr. President, I appreciate so much the distinguished 
deputy leader of the Democrats coming down because there are a lot of 
different precedents in the Senate for all the years that the Senate 
has been in session. Last session was quite unusual in that we had a 
50-50 Senate when we first came into office.
  We made an agreement at that time that was based on 50-50, and the 
agreement was that it would stay in place regardless of what happened 
during that time.
  We can argue about what the funding ratio is of committees, but I 
don't think that should hold us up from doing the business of the 
people.
  The committee allocations have been determined by agreement. The 
numbers that serve on the committee have been set. So the committee 
appointments could be made, and we could open for business. What we are 
losing this week is the nomination hearing for the Secretary of 
Homeland Defense, because the Democratic chairman would not yield to 
the Republican chairman to chair such a hearing.
  Now, Mr. President, there should not be a Democratic chairman in this 
Senate. The Republicans have control of the Senate. That is a fact. So 
I ask the distinguished deputy leader if we can open for business, hold 
hearings, appoint the committee so the Democrats and Republicans would 
have their committee assignments and be able to begin the work and let 
the negotiations go on for what the money allocation is for the 
committees. Let us do the business of Government and worry about 
whether we have 60 percent of the money for the majority or 50 percent 
of the money for the majority, or 55, or 57, or whatever it is. We 
don't have to decide that to do the business of Government.
  Mr. McCONNELL. Will the Senator yield?
  Mrs. HUTCHISON. I am happy to yield to the deputy leader on the 
Republican side.
  Mr. McCONNELL. I wonder if my friend from Texas knew what our friends 
and colleagues on the other side of the aisle had in mind had they 
still been in the majority this year. I will read this to the Senator.
  Mrs. HUTCHISON. I would not know that, so I am happy for the Senator 
to do that.
  Mr. McCONNELL. There was an article on October 31 of 2002, and I will 
quote a couple of them:

       Neither side particularly liked the resolutions that were 
     struck, after two intense negotiations, over how to organize 
     the Senate and its committees in the 107th Congress, 
     establishing new rules and giving equal space and funding to 
     the minority and majority parties.

  Skipping over:

       A senior Democratic aide said that was an ``extraordinary 
     circumstance''--

  We will agree that the Senate ending up 50/50 was unusual. It hasn't 
happened since the 1880s.

     --that forced them to continue under an even funding deal for 
     committees.
       ``If we pick up a seat or two, I think it's without a doubt 
     we'd go back to the two-thirds/one-third,'' the aide said, 
     using the in-house phrase to describe normal funding levels 
     that gave the majority up to 67 percent of committee money.

  My question to the Senator from Texas is this: I wonder what has 
changed between then and now. It appears that what our good friends and 
colleagues on the other side of the aisle had in mind, had they 
continued to be up 51-49, was to go back to the traditional split of 
two-thirds/one-third. There must have been some intervening thinking, I 
ask my friend from Texas, some new development here.
  Mrs. HUTCHISON. I wonder if the Senator from Kentucky might have been 
referring to the election held in November just after that statement 
you have just read was made.
  Mr. McCONNELL. It is pretty clear, as the Senator from Texas pointed 
out, the American people are not in doubt as to who took control of the 
Senate. What is also not in doubt was that the previous Congress was an 
extraordinary circumstance, very unusual circumstance, in which we 
found ourselves in a 50/50 tie at the beginning of that Congress--and 
we are now at the beginning of a new Congress--and we produced a 
resolution that dealt not just with appointing of the committees but 
also funding and space. That was unusual. It had not been done before 
in a floor resolution, as the Senator from Texas pointed out. We 
switched in the middle because one Senator decided to go to the other 
side. It was not because the voters had voted out a Republican Senate, 
but a Senator decided to go over. In order to minimize the disruptions 
to staff who could have been laid off in the middle of a Congress after 
making plans and having families rely on employment at least for a 2-
year period of time, to minimize the disruption, since we were in the 
middle of a Congress, we decided to leave it that way. I say my friend 
from Texas is absolutely on the mark.

  There is no precedent for what is being suggested would be 
appropriate by the other side. It is clearly inconsistent with what 
they had in mind had they been up by a seat or two.
  Mr. REID. Will the Senator allow me to answer the question she asked?
  Mrs. HUTCHISON. I am happy to.
  Mr. REID. I say through the Chair to the distinguished Senator from 
Texas, in response to my friend from Kentucky, that Roll Call is not 
Senate precedent. Roll Call is a fine newspaper that we have here on 
Capitol Hill, but you always have to question when someone is quoting a 
``senior Democratic aide.'' Even if, in fact, that person were speaking 
with some authority--which that person, of course, was not--if you 
listen to what the person said, it said if we Democrats pick up a seat 
or two--in fact, if that happened, it would not have been 49-51, it 
would have been 47-53. With that, I think there might have been an 
opportunity to look at how the distribution should take place. But the 
fact is the American people understand that common sense still is part 
of what we need to deal with here in Washington, and that is that last 
year the Republicans were in the minority with 49 Senators. We are now 
in the minority with 49 Senators. Why don't we keep the same deal we 
had last year? That is what Senator Daschle, the Democratic leader, is 
pushing. That is what we Democrats want because it is fair.
  I appreciate very much the Senator yielding and being as courteous as 
she always is.
  Mrs. HUTCHISON. Mr. President, I will end by saying I really hope we 
can put aside the 57 percent, or the 60 percent, even though I think 
there is certainly the argument for precedent whenever there has been a 
clear majority at the beginning of a term to have a two-thirds/one-
third split. In fact, I was told that in the really old days, the 
majority got 100 percent of the allocation of committee funds, and it 
was only to give the minority some ability to hire staff that it went 
from 100 percent to two-thirds/one-third. That has been the precedent 
ever since when there has been a clear majority at the beginning of a 
Congress.

[[Page S222]]

  I think it is also a fact when the change was made, it was then said 
there would be a hold-harmless from the change in staff allocations so 
that we actually added budget to allow all the staff to stay on from 
both parties. So I think now that we are at the beginning of a 
Congress, you can argue we have to have certain levels of funding on 
the majority side for the administrative functions of a committee. You 
have to put out the notices, you have to pay for certain witnesses to 
come to your committee, you have to do the printing of the bills and 
the printing of the statements. There are administrative costs.
  So I think the majority has to have some lead to be able to function 
as a committee. I think that also is the precedent for the Senate. I do 
think we will be talking about this to determine what is fair. But even 
if you said there is a disagreement between two-thirds/one-third and 
50/50, and maybe you go to 60/40, or maybe you don't, nevertheless, 
there is nothing that would not allow us in the next 30 minutes to have 
a unanimous consent resolution that would say the committees will be 
formed, the appointments will be made, they will be able to function, 
and we will fund them at a certain level until we have a final 
agreement.
  The key is the people of America deserve the business of our country 
to go forward. We can offer them the excuse that we cannot decide 
between two-thirds/one-third and 50-50 and, therefore, we are holding 
everything up, but I do not think that excuse holds water.

  I believe we ought to move forward. Let our committees convene. Let's 
work this out. This is a body of 100 intelligent people. We can work it 
out if we agree that we are going to all sit down and negotiate in good 
faith, but I do not think we ought to hold up the business of the 
people of this country for another week or a week after that. We were 
sworn in on January 7. We have been unable to have a committee hearing 
to confirm the Secretary of Homeland Defense so he can start the 
planning for his agency to protect this country.
  We had to cancel a hearing for the Chairman of the Federal Reserve 
Board to speak to the Budget Committee because we cannot form our 
committees. That is not what the people of our country expect, it is 
not what they deserve, and I do hope we can, in a very short order--
tonight or early in the morning--have the cooperation of the Democrats 
to go forward and do the business of the country.
  Let our committees be appointed. Let our work begin. Let's have a 
hearing this week for the Secretary of Homeland Defense. Let's have the 
Federal Reserve Board Chairman come to the Senate and talk about the 
state of our economy. We need to hear from him. The least we can do is 
form our committees and allow the business to go forward. We can talk 
about 60-40 or 67-33 or 50-50 for the next month and not hold up the 
business of the people of our country.
  I urge my colleagues to work with us to do that. I thank the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Democratic whip.
  Mr. REID. Mr. President, I simply say in response to my friend from 
Texas that the hearing could have gone forward. There is no reason for 
the hearing not to go forward. Senator Lieberman, or someone else, 
would have conducted the hearing. No one I know opposes the proposed 
nominee for this new Cabinet office. It would have been a very quick 
hearing. It is not as if a hearing could not have gone forward. The 
majority chose not to go forward with the hearing. That is a choice 
they made, not a choice we made.
  I further say to the Senator from Texas, or those within the sound of 
my voice, once you turn over the chairmanship of these committees and 
have the committee people assigned to the committees, we simply lose 
any authority we had. Fairness dictates that if the Senate was divided 
last time 51-49 with the Democrats in the majority and it is divided 
51-49 with the Republicans in the majority, the committee structure 
should be the same. That is what we are saying it should be, and we are 
going to hang tight until it is that way. That is the way we think it 
should be.
  Other Congresses have joined together and worked out their 
differences. We have to do that. The only way we will do that is if we 
agree on 51-49 having the same value it did a few months ago.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The assistant majority leader.
  Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, as the Senator from Texas pointed out, 
except for the extraordinary circumstance in which the Senate found 
itself--50-50--for the first time since the 1880s, the issue of 
committee funding was not dealt with by the full Senate. The only issue 
that was dealt with by the full Senate was the appointment of the 
committees. For 1 week now, the Senate has been in the majority of the 
Republicans, and yet there is not a single Republican committee 
chairman. New Members of the Senate, such as the occupant of the Chair, 
do not yet have committee assignments. He has been a Senator, I say to 
the Senator from Minnesota, for almost a week now, and he is not yet on 
a committee.
  What the Senator from Texas has been saying--wholly aside from this 
debate over what the committee funding should be, which is typically 
not dealt with by the full Senate anyway--there is no rational basis, 
no equitable basis for not ratifying the results of the election last 
November by letting the new Members of the Senate and, for that matter, 
the old Members of the Senate who are going to new committees, have 
those committees ratified and the chairmen and ranking members 
selected. That is what I believe the Senator from Texas was saying.
  I do not have the exact facts in front of me, but I understand this 
is the latest, certainly in recent Congresses, after the beginning of a 
Congress that we have, in effect, ratified the results of the election.
  Last Tuesday, the Senator from Minnesota was sworn in. It has been 
almost a week; he is not on a committee yet. We do not have any 
committee chairmen. It is not enough to suggest that the minority ought 
to hold the hearings about which the Senator from Texas was talking. 
The minority does not hold hearings; the majority does. That is the 
tradition of the Senate. That tradition should be honored, and we 
should not delay passing the committee resolution pending the outcome 
of this ongoing discussion about what the committee funding ratio 
should be.
  I think the Senator from Texas makes a compelling and irrefutable 
point about the need to start doing the people's business. We did not 
pass 11 of the 13 appropriations bills last year. They have not been 
done yet. We cannot have a meeting of the Appropriations Committee to 
get started on trying to pass those 11 bills because we do not have a 
chairman. The committees have not been organized. Let's at least get 
that job done, as the Senator from Texas points out, and we can 
continue--I assume at the rate we are going indefinitely--to discuss 
what the appropriate funding ratios should be.
  We are holding up the people's business. We are not honoring the 
results of the election Tuesday, November 5. We need to get on with it, 
and tonight or tomorrow would be a good time. I yield the floor, and I 
suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. REID. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

                          ____________________