[Congressional Record Volume 153, Number 108 (Monday, July 9, 2007)]
[Senate]
[Pages S8764-S8766]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                             EARMARK REFORM

  Mr. DeMINT. Mr. President, I rise today to speak about the Senate 
earmark transparency rules that have not been implemented after so many 
months. As my colleagues know, we passed two new Senate rules back in 
January that would shine some light on the earmarking process. It would 
require us to be open and honest about how we spend American tax 
dollars.
  Unfortunately, these Senate rules, which have nothing to do with the 
House of Representatives, have been held hostage so they can be gutted 
in secret when no one is looking. That is right; there are some in this 
Chamber who don't want to disclose their earmarks, don't want to 
certify in writing that they will not benefit financially from their 
earmarks. There are some who want to be able to continue the practice 
of adding secret earmarks to our bills in closed-door conference 
committees.
  The earmark disclosure rule was originally offered this year as an 
amendment to S. 1, the lobbying and ethics reform bill. I offered this 
amendment because the disclosure requirements the majority leader 
included in his ethics reform bill only covered 5 percent of earmarks 
that we pass every year. I believed then, as I do now, that disclosure 
of only 5 percent of our earmarks is not reform and represents business 
as usual.
  As my colleagues know, the leadership on the other side of the aisle 
originally opposed my amendment and actually tried to kill it. They 
said it was too broad and that the language, which came directly from 
Speaker Pelosi in the House, was rushed and therefore flawed.
  The majority leader said on January 11:

       . . . the distinguished Senator from South Carolina has 
     said this is exactly like the House provision. I say to my 
     friend that is one of the problems I have with it because I, 
     frankly, do not think they spent the time we have on this.

  The same day Senator Durbin said:

       But the DeMint language is actually unworkable because it 
     is so broad. . . . Frankly, it would make this a very 
     burdensome responsibility.

  Fortunately, the Senate refused to table the amendment and the 
Democratic leadership was forced to support full earmark disclosure. To 
save face, the other side came with a slightly modified version that 
they said was better than the House language because it required 48 
hours of notice on the Internet of all earmarks. We all agreed to this 
language and passed the Durbin Amendment 98 to 0.
  The Democratic leadership immediately changed their tune once the 
bill was passed. The majority leader said on January 16:

       In effect, we have combined the best ideas from both sides 
     of the aisle, Democrat and Republican, to establish the 
     strongest possible disclosure rules in this regard.

  Senator Durbin said:

       I am pleased with this bipartisan solution. . . . I believe 
     it reflects the intent of all on both sides of the aisle to 
     make sure there is more disclosure.

  Later in the debate, the Senate unanimously accepted an amendment 
prohibiting the practice of what we call airdropping earmarks in 
conference; that is, adding earmarks that were not included in either 
the House or the Senate versions of the bill. Again, we all agreed to 
this language and accepted it unanimously.
  Unfortunately, that is when the public eye turned away from this 
issue and when the bipartisan support for earmark reform ended.
  I came to this floor on Thursday, March 29--70 days after we passed 
the Senate earmark transparency rules--and asked for consent to enact 
them. But a Senator on the other side objected. The reason for his 
objection, according to several news reports, was that the other side 
of the aisle was caught off guard and was not properly notified.
  Well, that sounded somewhat plausible, so I came back to this floor 
on Tuesday, April 17--89 days after we passed the Senate earmark 
transparency rules which, again, have yet to be enacted. A Senator on 
the other side still objected. But this time it was Senator Durbin who 
objected--the very Senator who worked with me to author the new earmark 
disclosure rule. He objected to his own amendment being enacted. He 
said he did so because he didn't believe we should enact ethics reform 
in a piecemeal way.
  But then the majority immediately announced it would self-enforce 
some of the new earmark transparency rules in a piecemeal way. They 
said they would allow each committee to decide if and how to disclose 
their earmarks.
  The Congressional Research Service recently provided me with a review 
of all earmark rules being used in the Senate committees. The analysis 
shows that the rules have not been applied in many committees, and even 
those that have been created informally cannot be enforced on the 
Senate floor. According to CRS, only 4 out of 18 committees have even 
created an informal rule.

  This shows what we all know to be true: The rules are being 
implemented in a piecemeal way, which is exactly what the other side 
said they wanted to avoid. It is clear we need a formal rule in place 
that applies to all committees. That is what we voted for at the 
beginning of the year when we wanted to show Americans we were going to 
address the culture of corruption in Washington, and that is what we 
need to do now.
  I came down to this floor shortly before the July 4 recess to talk 
with the majority leader about these earmark rules. He wanted to go to 
conference with the House bill, S. 1, the ethics and lobbying reform 
bill, and I wanted to get his personal assurances that these earmark 
rules would not be watered down or eliminated behind closed doors. 
Unfortunately, the majority leader told me he could not give me those 
assurances, which was a clear sign that the folks working on this bill 
had plans to weaken the earmark transparency rules we adopted in 
January.
  I tried again to get consent to enact these rules on Thursday, June 
28, 161 days after they had passed, and again the other side objected. 
The reason this time, which was a complete departure from what they 
said before, was that the other side planned to work with the House to 
change the rules and that it was unreasonable for me to demand that 
they be protected.
  The majority leader said:

       There will be some things that will wind up being a Senate 
     rule. Some things will wind up being a House rule. That is 
     part of what the conference is going to work out. No one is 
     trying to detract from anything that the distinguished 
     Senator from South Carolina wants. But just because you want 
     something doesn't mean that you are necessarily going to get 
     it.

  Senator Schumer echoed their desire to change the rules by saying:

        . . . maybe there are things that other people might add; 
     maybe there will be the kinds of legislative tradeoffs that 
     will make a stronger ethics bill. We all have no way of 
     knowing . . . To get 90 percent or 95 percent of what is a 
     good package, most people would say yes.

  And Senator Durbin sought to belittle my effort to protect the 
earmark rules, saying:

       It would seem that the Senator from South Carolina is 
     carping on a trifle here.

  And I was carping on his bill. There are three words to describe what 
is going on here, Mr. President: business as usual. This is one of the 
worst flip-flop reversals I have ever seen. Even the Senator from 
Illinois, the very person who had previously praised the new rules, 
minimized their importance and supported efforts to change them.
  I realize the other side never liked these rules to begin with. After 
all, they did try to kill them. But I thought they had come around and 
were now supportive. I thought we agreed that earmark transparency was 
a reasonable step to begin changing the way we spend American tax 
dollars and to end business as usual. It now appears I was mistaken.
  Mr. President, 172 days have now gone by since we passed the Senate 
earmark transparency rules, and yet a few in the Chamber still refuse 
to enact them. Instead, these objections offer more excuses--excuses 
that keep changing as time passes.
  First they said the rules were too broad and the House wrote them 
incorrectly. Then, after the Senate leadership revised the rules to 
their liking,

[[Page S8765]]

they support them. But now, after 6 months have passed, they are saying 
the rules need to be fixed again, and this time by the House. I am 
sorry, I realize this may seem like a joke, but I am not making it up.
  What we have here is obstruction, pure and simple. It has been 172 
days since we passed these earmark transparency rules, and the majority 
will still not allow them to be enacted. Several Senators on the other 
side are determined to block these rules and prevent them from ever 
being implemented. They have now publicly acknowledged that they intend 
to change the rules behind closed doors and, according to several media 
reports, the majority leader is even willing to cancel the entire 
August recess to force those of us who want earmark reform to 
capitulate. He wants us to stop fighting for the American taxpayers. 
That is not going to happen. So the quicker we end the obstruction of 
these earmark reform rules, the quicker we can get on to other 
business.
  I intend to fight for these rules even if it means staying here every 
day in August. In fact, that might mean the best outcome of all. We 
need to have a national dialog in this country about how Congress 
spends Americans' hard-earned tax dollars. I think it would be good for 
those in this Chamber to explain to the American people why they don't 
want to be transparent in how we spend their money. That is a 
discussion we need to have here.
  I am now going to seek consent one more time to enact these important 
disclosure rules. And I ask the majority, if they don't like the 
language they developed, then make suggestions of how they want to 
change it. But in the meantime, I think we should go to conference on 
this lobby and ethics reform bill.
  I ask unanimous consent that the Rules Committee be discharged from 
further consideration and the Senate now to proceed to S. Res. 123 and 
S. Res. 206, the earmark disclosure resolutions, all en bloc; that the 
resolutions be agreed to and the motions to reconsider be laid upon the 
table. I further ask that the Senate then proceed to the immediate 
consideration of H.R. 2316, the House-passed ethics and lobbying reform 
bill; that all after the enacting clause be stricken and the text of S. 
1, as passed by the Senate, be inserted in lieu thereof; that the bill 
be read a third time, passed, and the Senate insist on its amendment, 
request a conference with the House, and the Chair be authorized to 
appoint conferees at a ratio of 4 to 3.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Webb). Is there objection?
  The majority whip.
  Mr. DURBIN. I object.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Objection is heard.
  Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, I seek recognition.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The majority whip.
  Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, so we understand what happened, the Senate 
passed an ethics reform bill. It is a big bill. There are a lot of 
provisions in the bill that we felt were necessary because of some of 
the wrongdoing that occurred in Washington over the last several years. 
We went after the Jack Abramoff scandal. Remember that lobbyist? He is 
in prison. He had a pretty sweetheart arrangement here. He was sticking 
things in bills. It went on and on. I will not go into all the gruesome 
details, but we decided to break this kind of cozy relationship between 
lobbyists and some Members on Capitol Hill. And then we started to take 
a look at some of the other aspects of things that were troubling 
people.
  We went into the question of gifts, how much can a Senator receive.
  We went into the question of leaving the Senate and picking up a big-
paying job as a lobbyist, within a few months making a lot of money. 
That has happened too often. We said, let's slow down this revolving 
door.
  We went after the disclosure of private employment negotiations that 
Senators and Congressmen were entering into while they were still 
sitting in the House of Representatives and in the Senate.
  We expanded lobby disclosure requirements. We went to great lengths 
and said lobbyists have to tell us a lot more about what they are doing 
with their money and time.
  Then we went into prohibiting the old K Street Project. Unless you 
are a real insider on Capitol Hill, you may not remember that one, but 
they used to have--I am not kidding now--weekly meetings in the office 
of a U.S. Senator where the lobbyists would come in and tell them the 
amendments they wanted, and then the Senators would tell them what 
fundraisers were coming up. I don't know if there was any connection, 
but some people thought there was a connection. We put an end to that 
practice.
  Then we talked about Members who were convicted of certain crimes 
losing their pensions. Understandable, if you are guilty of felonious 
conduct relating to official duties, that might follow.
  Then we talked about the integrity of the process so Members couldn't 
dump little things in at the last minute in conference reports that 
hadn't been considered in the House and Senate.
  And, of course, we went to the question of earmarks. That was an 
important part of this bill, but it sure wasn't the only part. Listen 
to everything I read.
  So now we are trying to get this bill to conference. We want to take 
this bill to conference and work with the House and pass the most 
significant ethics reform bill in the history of Congress. It is long 
overdue. I think most Americans would say: Why haven't you done it 
already? I can tell you why for 12 days we haven't done it: Senator 
DeMint of South Carolina has objected. Senator DeMint, the man who took 
the floor and used my name a dozen times, as a great ethics reformer is 
the Senator who objects to going to conference to make these proposals 
which passed the Senate--similar measures passed the House--the law of 
the land. Why? Because he picked one paragraph out of the bill related 
to earmarks and he wants a guarantee that is going to come out of the 
conference without a change. I believe it probably will. Mr. President, 
do you know what the final vote was when it passed the Senate? It was 
98 to 0. It is a pretty good indication he is going to see either the 
exact language he proposed or something very close to it. But unless he 
gets a locked-down guarantee to get every word of that, he is going to 
stop all of these efforts at ethics reform. He is going to stop the 
efforts to put an end to the K Street Project, he is going to stop the 
efforts of more disclosure, he is going to stop the effort to eliminate 
outrageous gifts between Members of Congress and lobbyists, and he does 
this in the name of ethics. I don't follow this at all.
  For 12 days now, Senator DeMint has held up our effort to take the 
ethics bill to conference. For 12 days, he has come to the floor and 
has said it is because he really believes in ethics. It doesn't track. 
It doesn't follow. It doesn't wash in Illinois or in South Carolina. I 
wish he showed a little more humility in this process. That he is going 
to stop the whole ethical reform because of his section--he is worried 
about his section I don't think is right. I think he should trust in 
the substance of his earmark reform, trust in the fact that 98 Senators 
supported it, trust in the fact that in the end it was a bipartisan 
agreement. I offered an amendment on the Democratic side to his 
amendment on the Republican side. What I offered was an amendment 
calling for more disclosure. Put all the earmarks on the Internet so 
the whole world can see them. I think that is the way it should be.
  I chair a subcommittee of the Appropriations Committee. My staff has 
been working long and hard over the last several weeks to put a bill 
together. We were on the phone late last night putting all the 
finishing touches on it. It is going to be the most transparent 
appropriations bill covering these agencies in the history of the 
United States, and that is the way it should be. Every Member who has 
asked for anything in this bill, whether it is in bill language or 
committee report language, is going to be disclosed. Every Member has 
to stand by every request they make, and it is printed right there for 
the world to see. That is the way it ought to be. That isn't enough for 
the Senator from South Carolina. I am not sure what he wants beyond 
that. We are already putting into practice what the Senate has 
virtually accepted, with some slight modifications but nothing of 
substance. Yet he wants to stop the whole ethics process. I suppose 
that is

[[Page S8766]]

his idea of reform, to stop reform. But it is certainly not my idea of 
reform.
  Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the ethics bill that has 
passed the Senate and the House be sent to conference for 
consideration.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Nebraska.
  Mr. HAGEL. On behalf of the junior Senator from South Carolina, I 
object.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Objection is heard.
  Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, I acknowledge my colleague on the other 
side of the aisle is standing in for the Senator from South Carolina, 
but if we are ever going to get to ethics reform, we clearly have to 
move to conference, and conference is going to require agreement on 
both sides of the aisle and the understanding--incidentally, the 
Senator from South Carolina characterized the conference committee as 
the secret conference committee. He is caught up in the old way of 
doing things. The new way is that the doors will be open. He can come. 
In fact, I hope the Republican leader will appoint him as a member of 
the conference committee. Regardless, it is going to be open for him to 
come and at least observe, if not participate, in this process.
  It is a new day for the conference committees, and I certainly hope 
the Senator from South Carolina will reconsider, will stop his ethics 
filibuster, the DeMint ethics filibuster, which is now in its 12th day, 
and allow us to move to this ethics bill for its consideration.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor.

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