[Congressional Record Volume 154, Number 50 (Tuesday, April 1, 2008)]
[Senate]
[Pages S2297-S2299]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
SUBMITTED RESOLUTIONS
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SENATE RESOLUTION 493--TO LIMIT CONSIDERATION OF AMENDMENTS UNDER A
BUDGET RESOLUTION
Mr. SPECTER submitted the following resolution; which was referred to
the Committee on the Budget:
S. Res. 493
Resolved,
[[Page S2298]]
SECTION 1. LIMITATION ON CONSIDERATION OF AMENDMENTS UNDER A
BUDGET RESOLUTION.
For purposes of consideration of any Budget Resolution
reported under section 305(b) of the Congressional Budget Act
of 1974--
(1) time on a budget resolution may only be yielded back by
consent;
(2) no first degree amendment may be proposed after the
10th hour of debate on a budget resolution unless it has been
submitted to the Journal Clerk prior to the expiration of the
10th hour;
(3) no second degree amendment may be proposed after the
20th hour of debate on a budget resolution unless it has been
submitted to the Journal Clerk prior to the expiration of the
20th hour;
(4) after not more than 40 hours of debate on a budget
resolution, the resolution shall be set aside for 1 calendar
day, so that all filed amendments are printed and made
available in the Congressional Record before debate on the
resolution continues; and
(5) provisions contained in a budget resolution, or
amendments thereto, shall not include programmatic detail not
within the jurisdiction of the Senate Committee on the
Budget.
SEC. 2. WAIVER AND APPEAL.
Section 1 may be waived or suspended in the Senate only by
an affirmative vote of three-fifths of the Members, duly
chosen and sworn. An affirmative vote of three-fifths of the
Members of the Senate, duly chosen and sworn, shall be
required in the Senate to sustain an appeal of the ruling of
the Chair on a point of order raised under section 1.
Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, I submit a resolution which would modify
the budget process to bring some sanity to the Senate as we consider
the budget resolution.
On March 13, less than a month ago, we took up the budget resolution.
From 11:15 a.m. until 2 a.m, on March 14, this body was bedlam. May the
record show the distinguished presiding Senator from Montana was
nodding in the affirmative. If he wishes to have a disclaimer on that--
he has just signaled it is OK with him.
There are two Senators on the floor of the Senate now, one presiding
and one speaking, who can attest to an extraordinary event. The Senate
is billed as the world's greatest deliberative body. During the time
from 11:15 a.m. on the 13th, until 2 a.m. on the 14th, the place was
bedlam--absolute bedlam. We were considering amendments which had not
been available for examination by Senators or their staffs. We were
considering them in a context of 2 minutes equally divided, so the
proponent had a full minute. That may be a little long for speeches in
the House of Representatives, but it is not in the Senate. The opposite
side had 1 minute.
It was impossible to hear what was going on in the Chamber. If you
tried to listen to get the gravamen of what was going on, it simply
could not be heard. During the course of the deliberations after
midnight I had occasion to talk to the distinguished majority leader,
Senator Reid, and the chair of the Rules Committee, Senator Feinstein,
about doing something about it. My staff and I have done some research.
We found that a resolution had been submitted, a proposal had been
submitted by Senator Byrd in the past. I have taken Senator Byrd's
approach, having my staff consult with his staff. We do not yet have it
worked out as to whether he will cosponsor because we have been in the
period of recess for the past 2 weeks, but Senator Byrd is renowned for
his expertise on parliamentary matters. The essence of the resolution
would provide that first-degree amendments would have to be filed prior
to the 10th hour of debate. Then, second-degree amendments would have
to be filed prior to the 20th hour of debate. Then the resolution would
be set aside for 1 day prior to the 40th hour of debate so that the
amendments could be printed in the Congressional Record.
For those who may be watching on C-SPAN, it is impossible to deal
with an amendment which has not been filed and printed so that staff
and Senators can review it. When the amendments are offered--as there
is a right to offer them, under the existing procedures, on the spur of
the moment--nobody can follow them. One minute of explanation is
totally insufficient.
There was one complex amendment which was offered with respect to the
city of Berkeley, to take away their earmarks and their grants. I
happened to be on the other end of the Chamber at the time and actually
could not hear; the bedlam, the noise just precluded hearing. I later
found out that there was a lot more to the consideration of the issue
than I could digest in the course of that time.
The procedures that have been used on the budget resolution have
taken two forms which have subverted the process. One is the sense-of-
the-Senate resolution, and the second is the resolution on deficit-
neutral reserve funds to try to bring it within the confines of the
budget resolution. Through those two artifices there are efforts made
to legislate, put legislative proposals in the budget resolution.
I will ask unanimous consent my full statement be printed in the
Record at the close of my comments. The full statement has a reference
to amendment No. 4299, which was offered, which was on prescription
drugs. It doesn't have anything to do with the budget resolution, but
it was a sense of the Senate. This is just illustrative of substantive
matters which are offered which have no place on the budget resolution.
My prepared statement also refers to amendment No. 4231, which refers
to immigration, a detailed proposal.
Many of these, if not most of these amendments, are ``gotcha''
amendments. I am getting a lot of agreement from the distinguished
Presiding Officer. If anyone is watching on C-SPAN II, a ``gotcha''
amendment is an amendment that compels people to vote on complex
questions which can be used on a 30-second commercial.
One of the difficulties of campaign practice is to be able to defend
your votes. It is sometimes hard to defend a vote on a complex matter
where you have no advance notice of the issue and no opportunity to
hear it debated. The procedures of the Senate, worth just a momentary
comment, are, somebody proposes legislation and files it at the desk.
It is referred to a committee. The committee has hearings. Then there
is a markup where the bill is considered. Then the committee files a
report, analyzing it. Then it comes to the Senate floor for
consideration.
That is the way the Senate is supposed to function. That is what
makes the Senate, arguably, the world's greatest deliberative body. But
not when you have amendments which are offered on the spur of the
moment with no opportunity to know what is in the amendment and all of
these votes are recorded. Try to explain a ``gotcha'' amendment as to
why you voted a certain way in answering on a commercial. It just
cannot be done.
It is my hope the Senate will take up this issue. I think the
proposal by Senator Byrd on the scheduling is a good approach. I am not
wedded to this approach. There are other approaches which could be
undertaken which would be satisfactory to this Senator. We had some
discussions on the Senate floor about perhaps limiting the number of
amendments with a certification by the two leaders that you had germane
amendments. But one way or another, we ought not to again next year
undertake a process which has 44 votes. That established a new record--
although on prior years we came close to that with votes numbering in
the thirties. We ought to avoid this kind of process and redo our
procedures under the budget resolution.
Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent my full statement be printed
in the Record.
There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in
the Record, as follows:
Bill Introduction
Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, I have sought recognition to
introduce legislation to provide greater efficiencies to what
I believe is a broken process for consideration of the budget
resolution. The need for reform is based on the most recent
consideration of the budget resolution on March 13, 2008,
when the Senate conducted 44 stacked roll call votes in one
day--the so-called ``vote-a-rama.'' With the 44 stacked
votes, the frequent unavailability of amendment text in
advance so there could be no analysis and preparation, the
chamber full of senators, the unusual noise level, the
constant banging of the gavel by the presiding officer, the
near impossibility of hearing even just the two minutes
allotted for discussion, and consideration of matters
entirely unrelated to the budget, I believe the process needs
reform. The resolution I am introducing today is based on a
proposal previously submitted by Senator Robert Byrd, whom
most would agree is our most-knowledgeable Senator on
parliamentary procedure. The Byrd proposal seeks to correct
these problems I have cited by imposing several new rules
designed to foster greater transparency and efficiency on a
budget resolution.
[[Page S2299]]
Under the budget rules, once all debate time has been used
or yielded back, the Senate must take action to agree to or
to dispose of pending amendments before considering final
passage. This scenario creates a dizzying process of voting
on numerous amendments in a stacked sequence, often referred
to as a ``vote-a-rama.'' During the course of the ``vote-a-
rama'', dozens of votes may occur with little or no
explanation, often leaving Senators with insufficient
information or time to deliberate and evaluate the merits of
an issue prior to casting a vote. By consent, the Senate has
typically allowed two minutes of debate, equally divided,
prior to votes. However, the budget process does not require
Senators to file their amendments prior to their
consideration. In many instances, members are voting on
amendments on which the text has never been made available.
This difficult working environment is further compounded by a
Chamber full of Senators and the constant banging of the
gavel by the presiding officer to maintain order. This
unusual noise level makes it nearly impossible to hear the
one minute of debate per side.
The Budget Act of 1974 outlines the many clearly defined
rules for consideration of a budget resolution, including
debate time and germaneness. Despite these rules, the Senate
has often set aside these rules and found clever ways to
circumvent the rules. To restore some order to the process,
the resolution I am offering today would require first-degree
amendments to be filed at the desk with the Journal Clerk
prior to the 10th hour of debate. Accordingly, second-degree
amendments must be filed prior to the 20th hour of debate.
This legislation would require a budget resolution to be set
aside for one calendar day prior to the 40th hour of debate.
Doing so would allow all filed amendments to be printed in
the Record allowing Senators, and their staff, an opportunity
for review before debate on the resolution continues. To
preserve the integrity of these new rules, debate time may
only be yielded back by consent, instead of the current
procedure whereby time may be yielded at the discretion of
either side.
Another problem has been the subversion with the budget's
germaneness rules by offering amendments to deal with
authorization and substantive policy changes. It is important
to remember that the Federal budget has two distinct but
equally important purposes: the first is to provide a
financial measure of federal expenditures, receipts,
deficits, and debt levels; and the second is to provide the
means for the Federal Government to efficiently collect and
allocate resources. To keep the debate focused, amendments to
the budget resolution must be germane, meaning those which
strike, increase or decrease numbers, or add language that
restricts some power in the resolution. Otherwise, a point of
order lies against the amendment, and 60 votes are required
to waive the point of order. Yet, to circumvent this
germaneness requirement and inject debate on substantive
policy changes, Senators have offered Sense of the Senate
amendments and Deficit-Neutral Reserve Fund amendments that
include exorbitant programmatic detail.
A sense of the Senate amendment allows a Senator to force
members to either support or oppose any policy position they
seek to propose. An excerpt of an amendment to the FY09
Budget Resolution follows:
Amendment No. 4299
(b) Sense of the Senate.--It is the sense of the Senate
that--(1) the leadership of the Senate should bring to the
floor for full debate in 2008 comprehensive legislation that
legalizes the importation of prescription drugs from highly
industrialized countries with safe pharmaceutical
infrastructures and creates a regulatory pathway to ensure
that such drugs are safe; (2) such legislation should be
given an up or down vote on the floor of the Senate; and (3)
previous Senate approval of 3 amendments in support of
prescription drug importation shows the Senate's strong
support for passage of comprehensive importation legislation.
The use of sense of the Senate amendments on the budget
resolution has been discouraged in recent years because they
have little relevance to the intended purpose of the budget
resolution. As a result, it has become increasingly popular
to offer deficit-neutral reserve fund amendments. Prior to
the FY06 Budget Resolution, reserve funds were used
sparingly. In in FY07, 22 were included in the Senate
resolution and 8 in the House resolution; in FY08, 38 were
included in the Senate resolution and 23 in the conference
report; and in FY09, 31 were included in the Senate
resolution.
Deficit-neutral reserve funds--which are specifically
permitted by section 301(b)(7) of the Budget Act of 1974--
have an important functional use in the budget process, but
do not require extensive programmatic detail to be useful. On
the speculation that Congress may enact legislation on a
particular issue--perhaps ``immigration,'' ``energy,'' or
``health care''--a reserve fund acts as a ``placeholder'' to
allow the chairman of the Budget Committee to later revise
the spending and revenue levels in the budget so that the
future deficit-neutral legislation would not be vulnerable to
budgetary points of order. Absent a reserve fund, legislation
which increases revenues to offset increases in direct
spending would be subject to a Budget Act point of order
because certain overall budget levels (total revenues, total
new budget authority, total outlays, or total revenues and
outlays of Social Security) or budgetary levels specific to
authorizing committees and the appropriations committee
(committee allocations) would be breached.
However, it is unnecessary to include extensive
programmatic detail into the language of a deficit-neutral
reserve fund for it to be useful at a later date. An excerpt
of an amendment to the FY09 Budget Resolution demonstrates
the unnecessary level of programmatic detail that I refer to:
Amendment No. 4231
DEFICIT-NEUTRAL RESERVE FUND FOR BORDER SECURITY, IMMIGRATION
ENFORCEMENT, AND CRIMINAL ALIEN REMOVAL
PROGRAMS.
(a) In General.--The Chairman of the Committee on the
Budget of the Senate may revise the allocations of 1 or more
committees, aggregates, and other appropriate levels in this
resolution by the amounts authorized to be appropriated for
the programs described in paragraphs (1) through (6) in 1 or
more bills, joint resolutions, amendments, motions, or
conference reports that funds border security, immigration
enforcement, and criminal alien removal programs, including
programs that--(1) expand the zero tolerance prosecution
policy for illegal entry (commonly known as ``Operation
Streamline'') to all 20 border sectors; (2) complete the 700
miles of pedestrian fencing required under section 102(b)(1)
of the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant
Responsibility Act of 1996 (8 U.S.C. 1103 note); (3) deploy
up to 6,000 National Guard members to the southern border of
the United States; (4) evaluate the 27 percent of the
Federal, State, and local prison populations who are
noncitizens in order to identify removable criminal aliens;
(5) train and reimburse State and local law enforcement
officers under Memorandums of Understanding entered into
under section 287(g) of the Immigration and Nationality Act
(8 U.S.C. 1357(g)); or (6) implement the exit data portion of
the US-VISIT entry and exit data system at airports,
seaports, and land ports of entry.
Voting on amendments that advocate substantive policy
changes in the context of a budget debate are a subversion of
the budget's germaneness requirements and clearly fall
outside the jurisdiction of the Budget Committee. In many
instances, the programmatic detail is of a controversial
nature, such as a recent amendment to ``provide for a
deficit-neutral reserve fund for transferring funding for
Berkeley, CA earmarks to the Marine Corps'' (Coburn Amendment
No. 4380).
To bring the focus back to the budget, my legislation
states that ``provisions contained in a budget resolution, or
amendments thereto, shall not include programmatic detail not
within the jurisdiction of the Senate Committee on the
Budget.'' It is my hope that this language will bring about a
change in practice in the Senate whereby Senators will avoid
including excessive programmatic detail in their reserve fund
amendments. Doing so will put the focus back on the important
purposes of a budget resolution.
The provisions in my legislation may be waived or suspended
in the Senate only by an affirmative vote of three-fifths of
the Members. Also, an affirmative vote of three-fifths of the
Members of the Senate is required in the Senate to sustain an
appeal of the ruling of the Chair on a point of order raised
under this section.
I commend the chairman and ranking member of the Senate
Budget Committee for their hard work in processing amendments
to the budget resolution. Unfortunately, the process needs
reforms to provide structure and to increase transparency and
efficiency. The 44 rollcall votes conducted in relation to S.
Con. Res. 70 are the largest number of votes held in one
session dating back to 1964, according to records maintained
by the Senate Historical Office. The Senate cast more votes
on the budget in one day than it had previously cast all year
on various other issues. It is my hope that this resolution,
modeled in part on a previous proposal by Senator Byrd, will
lead us to a more constructive debate on the budget
resolution.
I urge the support of my colleagues.
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