[Congressional Record Volume 153, Number 120 (Wednesday, July 25, 2007)]
[Senate]
[Pages S9862-S9863]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                         RECENT SENATE ACTIONS

  Mr. CORNYN. I thank the Chair.
  Mr. President, last week was not a great week in the U.S. Senate. We 
had an overnight session that was designed to highlight the efforts by 
the majority to pass a timetable for withdrawal in Iraq, regardless of 
the consequences of that timeline and that withdrawal.
  We then had another episode where I think both sides of the aisle 
were sort of forced to look in the abyss and to pull back because, as I 
am sure the Chair and other colleagues will recall, there was an 
amendment clearly offered to embarrass the President and this side of 
the aisle based upon the commutation of the sentence of Scooter 
Libby. There was an amendment offered highlighting the dozens of 
pardons issued by President Clinton. As you will recall, Mr. President, 
people paused at where we had gotten to in this debate--the acrimony 
and incriminations--and decided to figuratively lay our guns on the 
table and walk away.

  That vote on the Scooter Libby commutation was actually vitiated, 
something I have never seen happen before, but I guess anything can 
happen by unanimous consent in the Senate, and it did. And there was no 
vote on the amendment to deal with the Clinton pardons.
  I mention those because I think, unfortunately, the Senate has gotten 
to a bad place, not only in the eyes of the American people, where 16 
percent, according to the most recent poll I have seen, believe the 
Senate is doing a good job, but we have gotten to a bad place in terms 
of the hyperpartisan atmosphere and the point-scoring that seems to 
take precedence over all other matters. That is not the kind of Senate 
I ran to serve in, and I know that a number of colleagues feel exactly 
the same way.
  On Tuesday mornings, thanks to Senator Lamar Alexander of Tennessee 
and Senator Joe Lieberman of Connecticut, we have instituted a new 
breakfast meeting each week. It is a bipartisan meeting. This was the 
subject of some conversation--the amendments, the hyperpartisan 
atmosphere, and really the episodes I just mentioned that occurred last 
week.
  Again this morning, on Wednesday morning, one of the highlights of my 
week, I attended the Senate Prayer Breakfast. It is also bipartisan, 
obviously. This was brought up again, although I am not going to go 
into any detail since both of those meetings occur without any policy 
statements and, obviously, press is not invited; it is a private 
meeting where Senators can come together on a bipartisan basis, both at 
the Wednesday breakfast and the Tuesday breakfast, and talk about 
issues we care about, trying to do things for the American people, in 
the case of a prayer breakfast to share stories and get to know each 
other a little bit better.
  I will say that there is some recognition that the Senate has too 
many team meetings--and by that I mean with Republicans meeting with 
other Republicans trying to figure out how we can win or score points 
against Democrats and Democrats meeting with Democrats thinking about 
ways they can score points against Republicans--and not enough meetings 
where we get together on a bipartisan basis to try to figure out what 
we can do to get business done for the benefit of the American people.
  Senator Kyl mentioned the woeful record of accomplishments so far 
this year. I note that beyond the unanimous consent requests that were 
proffered this morning that passed the Wounded Warrior legislation and 
the pay raise for our men and women in uniform, the minimum wage 
increase is the only substantive legislation that has passed so far 
this year, notwithstanding that being part of the ``6 for '06'' part of 
the campaign our friends on the other side of the aisle made part of 
their agenda.
  I note, as Senator Kyl has pointed out, that since taking power more 
than 200 days ago, the new majority has renamed 20 post offices. But my 
point is that it has opened more than 300 investigations and held more 
than 600 oversight hearings. Unfortunately, this has resulted in an 
effort to try to score political points by looking backward, conducting 
investigations about matters that have happened in the past or, I fear, 
too often partisan purposes and at the loss of our ability to look 
forward and figure out how do we work together to solve problems.
  I guess one of the most recent manifestations of this hyperpartisan 
atmosphere and the kind of point-scoring we see going on, to the 
detriment of passing good bipartisan legislation, the Senator from 
Wisconsin, Mr. Feingold, announced recently his intention to submit two 
resolutions to censure the President, one for his handling of the war 
in Iraq and the other for antiterrorism policies the administration has 
established. Of course, if he does follow through with his stated 
intention to submit these censure resolutions, that would prompt debate 
on what I believe would be meaningless political gestures and would 
further delay substantive legislation we should be considering.
  Senator Kyl mentioned the most direct example of the kind of game-
playing we have seen recently with the Defense authorization bill. Of 
course, that served as the platform for the debate on the withdrawal 
resolutions and the sense-of-the-Senate resolution offered by Senator 
Levin and Senator Reed, but when that did not pass, of course, that 
legislation was pulled from the Senate's agenda. Of course, as Senator 
Kyl pointed out, there are a lot of important parts of that bill which 
will not be enacted because it was pulled down.
  I am glad to see that the Wounded Warrior legislation, which I have 
worked on as part of the Senate Armed Services Committee, has now 
passed, as well as the 3-percent across-the-board pay raise. But other 
important parts of that legislation have not been passed, including a 
$4.1 billion authorization to procure Mine Resistant Ambush Protected 
vehicles. These, of course, are a new design of vehicles that are 
designed to defeat improvised explosive devices, which have been one of 
the most deadly weapons used against our troops in Iraq. Unfortunately, 
many of these weapons have been shipped, especially explosive foreign 
penetrators, from Iran to Iraq.

[[Page S9863]]

  There are other important parts of this legislation: For example, 
adding $2.7 billion for items on the Army Chief of Staff's unfunded 
requirements list, including money for reactive armor and Stryker 
requirements; $207 million for aviation survivability equipment; $102 
million for combat training centers, and funding for explosive ordnance 
equipment, night-vision devices, and the like.

  There is also $50 million in supplemental educational aid to local 
school districts affected by the assignment or location of military 
families, so-called impact aid, which affects my State. A lot of school 
districts depend on that money which is provided to local school 
districts because, of course, Federal property cannot be taxed for 
purposes of local education, and when you have a Federal military 
installation there with a lot of children going to those schools, the 
only way they can pay the bills is to get this impact aid.
  I could go on and on. Unfortunately, because of what we have seen in 
this hyperpartisan atmosphere, those important provisions of the 
Defense authorization bill have not been passed, although I am glad 
that the Wounded Warrior legislation and the 3-percent pay raise did 
pass this morning by unanimous agreement.
  Then, of course, we see another casualty of the hyperpartisan 
atmosphere where it took more than 100 days for the new majority to 
allow the passage of an emergency war funding bill for our troops in 
combat. This delay caused a lot of dislocation and hardship for our men 
and women in uniform and their families, the very people we ought to be 
trying to lighten the burden for rather than burden them further with 
the political theater and the political wars in the Senate.
  Then there is the issue of judicial nominees. The last 2 years of 
President Clinton's term of office, with a Republican-controlled 
Congress, there were, if memory serves me correctly, 15 to 17 circuit 
court nominees confirmed. So far, we have only had a handful confirmed 
by this Congress, and we have judges stuck in this slow walk of a 
process--for example, judges such as Leslie Southwick, a nominee for 
the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals.
  Judge Southwick's qualifications and credentials are outstanding. The 
American Bar Association has given him its highest rating. He was 
approved unanimously by the Senate Judiciary Committee for a life-
tenured position as a U.S. district judge during the 109th Congress. 
Although he is from Mississippi now and serves on the State courts in 
Mississippi, he graduated from the University of Texas in 1975. After 
completing law school, he clerked for the presiding judge of the Texas 
Court of Criminal Appeals and then for Judge Charles Clark on the Fifth 
Circuit Court of Appeals. After a few years in private practice, Judge 
Southwick reentered Government service in 1989 when he became a deputy 
assistant attorney general for the U.S. Department of Justice. In 1994, 
Judge Southwick was elected 1 of the first 10 judges on the Mississippi 
Court of Appeals. He remained on the bench, except for a military leave 
of absence from 2004 until 2006. During that time, he served as a staff 
judge advocate for the 155th Brigade combat team in Iraq.
  Despite his stellar qualifications and strong support from his two 
home State senators, so far it has been the demonstrated intent of our 
colleagues on the other side of the aisle to block his ability to get a 
vote in the Senate Judiciary Committee and to prevent him from getting 
an up-or-down vote on the floor of the Senate.
  I should correct that. In fairness, the chairman of the Judiciary 
Committee has offered to give Judge Southwick a vote in the committee, 
but we know committee Democrats are poised not only to tarnish the good 
record of this judge but then to perhaps send him here with a negative 
vote in committee. I know there are talks that are ongoing.
  Unfortunately, I think this is a demonstration again of the 
hyperpartisan atmosphere that unfortunately poisons relations, not only 
between colleagues in the Senate but turns off so many people across 
the country. It is regrettable.
  My hope is, as we did last Thursday night, that we can walk away from 
this hyperpartisan atmosphere, seeing that basically no one wins when 
congressional approval hovers at 16 percent. It is hard to imagine that 
it could go much lower. Unless we turn away from the kinds of practices 
we have seen for the first 200 days under this new majority and unless 
we try harder to work together, have less team meetings and have more 
bipartisan meetings where we talk about what we can do to pass 
legislation for the benefit of the American people, I fear Congress 
will continue to be held in low esteem by the American people.
  It is important that we wake to what should be a wake-up call that is 
provided by these low poll numbers and the recognition that this serves 
no one's best interests, certainly not the best interests of the 
American people.
  My hope is that rather than just naming more post offices, rather 
than passing one or two bills, such as the minimum wage bill and now 
these bills by unanimous consent this morning, we will seize this 
opportunity to try to do what is in the best interest of the American 
people. That is why most of us came to the Senate. Unfortunately, we 
have been captivated by the partisanship that is insisted upon too 
often by narrow special interest groups that seem to spend a lot of 
time at the Capitol and have way too much influence, in my view.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mrs. MURRAY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Cardin). Without objection, it is so 
ordered.

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