[Congressional Record Volume 158, Number 26 (Thursday, February 16, 2012)]
[Senate]
[Pages S810-S814]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                               THE BUDGET

  Mr. BARRASSO. Mr. President, I come to the floor as someone who sat 
through the President's State of the Union and I have just come from a 
Senate Energy Committee hearing. I sat through the State of the Union 
near the Secretary of Energy and was happy when I heard some of the 
comments of the President when he talked about an ``all of the above'' 
strategy, needing all of the sources of energy. But this Monday the 
President's budget came out which is very different than that. It is a 
budget I would like to discuss this morning and talk about because, as 
I read through it, it looks to me as though the President has abandoned 
his role as leader of the Nation by not being honest with the American 
people about the significance of the debt that we as Americans face. To 
me, this budget ambushes the American people. The President, under the 
pretense of economizing, promises to cut $4 trillion of deficit over 10 
years, but the budget itself actually piles $11 trillion of new debt in 
that same timeframe.
  Under the pretense of helping everyone to prosper, to me the 
President's budget buries every single American under a mountain of 
debt and that is a debt that is going to rob more and more from their 
paychecks with each passing year. The savings the President promises 
are not going to come. The spending he demands is for things we cannot 
afford. It seems to me this President's budget is another painful step 
on the road to bankrupting America.
  We are in the fourth year of the Presidency, and for each of those 4 
years the deficit has exceeded $1 trillion; $1 trillion in each of the 
4 years of this Presidency.
  How does that match with what the President has been saying? In 
February of 2009, the President had been President about a month, he 
made a pledge. The pledge was he would cut the deficit in half by the 
end of his first term in office. Here we are, the final year of the 
President's first term in office, and this deficit is still above $1 
trillion. Once again, what the President has said to the American 
people is very different than what he has delivered to the American 
people. I am still waiting for a chance in this body, in the Senate, to 
vote on the President's budget. The majority leader, who sits in the 
front row, has said he doesn't intend to even bring it to the floor of 
the Senate for a discussion or a debate or a vote. The law is pretty 
clear: The President has to introduce a budget by a certain date--the 
President missed that deadline--and the Senate and the House have to go 
ahead and pass a budget, which this body has not done now for over 
1,000 days. Multiple years and no budget has passed this body.

  There actually was a vote last year on the President's budget. It was 
one where the budget itself was called irresponsible, and there were a 
number of press renderings on it. The majority leader refused to bring 
it to the Senate floor, so the minority leader brought the President's 
budget to the Senate floor. Not one Republican voted for it, but not 
one Democrat voted for the President's budget either. The total count 
on the President's budget last year in the Senate: 0 votes for the 
President's budget, 97 votes against the President's budget. Yet the 
President introduces another budget this year ignoring the two major 
tidal waves we face, the tidal waves of Social Security and Medicare.
  It is interesting. You read in the New York Times:

       Obama Faces Task of Selling Dueling Budget Ideas.
       President Obama more than ever confronts the challenge of 
     persuading voters that he has a long-term plan to reduce the 
     deficit, even as he highlights stimulus spending.

  Challenging to persuade voters that he has a long-term plan to reduce 
the deficit. What did he promise? What did he deliver? What we see is a 
health care law where he promised one thing and delivered something 
very different. We see it now in the budget, and the numbers are so 
large. The numbers are so astronomically large that it is hard for one 
to comprehend how much a deficit of $1 trillion truly is. You can visit 
with high school students or service clubs or go to townhall meetings 
or senior centers, the number is so large it is hard to wrap one's mind 
around it.
  The President tries to make people believe that everything would be 
OK if he could just raise some taxes--just a little bit, he says--on 
some other people--not you but other people--and everything would be 
fine. When you actually look through this, to get to $1.3 trillion, 
which is what the President has proposed in this year's budget as a 
deficit, you could take all the millionaires and billionaires--things 
he likes to rail about--and you could take every penny they earn over 
that $1 million, all of them combined, and then on top of that sell off 
all the gold in Fort Knox, add it all together, and that would not be 
enough to cover just the deficit, that $1 trillion the President plans 
to spend over and above what comes in. It is completely irresponsible, 
but that is what we have seen from this administration.
  So we have a President who makes presentations, gives speeches, and 
yet what the American people see is something very different. So this 
morning in the Energy Committee, we had an opportunity to visit with 
the Secretary of Energy specifically on budgetary issues relating to 
the budget and the future.
  Of course, the President said he supported an all-of-the-above energy 
plan for the country. Well, I support an all-of-the-above energy plan 
for the country, but when you go through the details, that is not 
exactly what the American people see. What the American people see is 
the cost of gasoline at the pump continuing to go up. They see an 
administration that is blocking an opportunity to move oil from 
northern parts of our country, as well as from Canada, to the United 
States for use here.
  Take a look at the front-page headline of USA Today from a couple of 
days ago:

       ``Chaotic spring'' predicted for gas. Average prices likely 
     to hit $4.05 a gallon.

  People care about that. People all across the country drive around, 
they see the signs up, they see what the cost of a gallon of gasoline 
is, and they see it impacting their daily lives.
  Today a number of us visited the Energy Committee and talked about 
today's Wall Street Journal article this

[[Page S811]]

morning. ``Oil Rise Imperils Budding Recovery.'' We want this country 
to recover. We want people to get back to work. We want to make it 
easier and cheaper for the private sector to hire people and get 
America working again. The price of energy goes up, the price of oil 
goes up--``Oil Rise Imperils Budding Recovery.''
  What does it say? ``The average price of a gallon of regular gasoline 
has jumped 13.1 cents to $3.51 cents in the past month.'' So gasoline 
at the pump is up 13 cents in the last month. This is according to AAA.
  It goes on to say:

       Some parts of the country have seen even bigger increases, 
     with prices approaching $4 a gallon in parts of California.

  Higher prices at the pump--and this is where it really hits home. 
This is what I hear about at home in Wyoming when the price of gasoline 
goes up. And we drive great distances, Mr. President, in your home 
State and my home State. People notice it because it impacts on other 
things for which they can use that same money.
  It says here in the Wall Street Journal:

       Higher prices at the pump force consumers to cut back 
     spending on discretionary items like restaurant meals, hair 
     cuts and family vacations, hurting those industries.

  Isn't that what it is really about as the price of gasoline at the 
pump goes up? It hurts the ability of families and the quality of 
life--they could spend that money in other ways.
  It says:

       A prolonged increase can drive up inflation and drive down 
     hiring.

  We are a country that wants people to get back to work. We want to 
give them those opportunities, and it just seems that the President's 
budget and the policies of this administration and a rejection of 
things that would actually help us with American energy are going to 
make it harder for families. When the price of gasoline goes up, the 
impact on an average family is over $1,000 a year in terms of their 
ability to have disposable income. If it is a family dealing with a 
mortgage and bills and kids, that is a huge difference in the quality 
of life for those American families.
  States around the country get it. I look at Wyoming. We are in our 
legislative session there right now. We balance our budget every year. 
The constitution demands it. If less money comes in, we spend less 
money. They make the tough decisions.
  The President said he is ready to make the tough decisions, but I 
don't see tough decisions in this budget. What I see is a political 
document, a campaign document, something that has more stimulus money 
in it, money so he can promise people things. We all know how that 
first so-called stimulus program went. To me, it was a failure. We had 
spending of about $800 billion. The President promised that if we 
passed the stimulus program, the unemployment rate would stay less than 
8 percent. They put out charts, and by today, from those charts, the 
unemployment rate should be 6 percent. The unemployment rate is still 
8.3 percent. It has been over 8 percent for 36 months now.

  When you look at this and look at the President's budget, to me, it 
is debt on arrival. The budget spends $47 trillion, it borrows $11 
trillion, and it increases the national debt to $26 trillion by 2022. 
It is debt upon debt upon debt. So from were do you borrow the money? A 
lot of it you borrow from overseas. A lot of it comes from China. So 
what role is China playing now? Well, they are continuing to lend us 
money.
  By the way, when the President blocked the Keystone XL Pipeline, what 
did China say to our northern neighbors, our big trading partner, 
Canada? If the United States doesn't want it, if President Obama isn't 
interested, we will take the oil in China. The Prime Minister of Canada 
was in China last week doing exactly that--cutting a deal with the 
Chinese for energy that will be sold from Canada. I think we should 
want it. I think if we want to be energy secure and work on energy 
security, which, to me, is an issue of national security, we should 
want that energy. Good jobs; the amount of money in terms of jobs that 
are available--this isn't government money, it is private money to put 
people back to work. We haven't seen it, and this administration, 
through its budget and through its policies, continues to oppose those 
efforts for American jobs.
  So what we see is that under the President's 10-year budget proposal, 
the spending goes up every year without stop. Every year from now to 
over the next 10 years, spending goes up and we see trillion-dollar 
deficits year after year after year.
  What is most disturbing to some of my colleagues who have accounting 
degrees--especially the senior Senator from the State of Wyoming, who 
is an accountant, who has run businesses; he looks at this, and he can 
easily point out the budgetary gimmicks, the accounting tricks that 
have been used over and over to make this budget, as irresponsible as 
it happens to be, look not as bad as it really is.
  This budget is bad for America, and it is a continuation of a number 
of policies that have come out of this administration that have made it 
harder and more expensive for the private sector to create jobs. What I 
am trying to do is look for ways to make it easier and cheaper for the 
private sector to create jobs. We have not seen it in the President's 
budget, we have not seen it in the policies of this administration, and 
we have not seen it in this President.
  Thank you very much.
  I yield the floor.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Vermont.
  Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak for up to 
10 minutes as in morning business.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so 
ordered.
  Mr. LEAHY. The Senate was forced to spend the better part of this 
week ending a filibuster against the nomination of Judge Adalberto 
Jordan of Florida to fill a judicial emergency vacancy on the Eleventh 
Circuit. Finally, after a four month Republican filibuster that was 
broken on Monday by an 89 5 cloture vote, and after Republicans 
insisted on two additional days of delay, the Senate was allowed to 
vote on the nomination. We voted 94 5 to confirm Judge Jordan. I 
suspect the vote would have been the same four months and two days 
sooner. It was a colossal waste of the Senate's time and another week 
lost to obstruction and delay.

  Now the Senate Majority Leader has been required to file another 
cloture petition on yet another consensus nominee. This is the ninth 
time the Majority Leader has had to file a cloture petition to overcome 
a Republican filibuster of one of President Obama's superbly-qualified 
judicial nominees. The nomination of Jesse Furman to fill a vacancy on 
the Southern District of New York has been stalled for more than five 
months after being reported unanimously from the Senate Judiciary 
Committee. Consensus nominations like this to Federal district courts 
have nearly always been taken up and confirmed by the Senate within 
days or weeks, whether nominated by a Democratic or a Republican 
President. Certainly that was the approach taken by Senate Democrats 
when President Bush sent us consensus nominees. That is how we reduced 
vacancies in the presidential election years of 2004 and 2008 to the 
lowest levels in decades and how we confirmed 205 of President Bush's 
judicial nominees in his first term. Yet, in an almost complete 
reversal of this approach, Mr. Furman's nomination has been blocked by 
Senate Republicans for over five months, without reason or explanation.
  Regrettably, for the second time, we will have to vote to end a 
Republican filibuster of one of President Obama's district court 
nominations. I cannot recall a single instance in which a President's 
judicial nomination to a Federal trial court, a Federal district court, 
was blocked by a filibuster. Yet, Senate Republicans nearly did so last 
year when they sought to filibuster Judge Jack McConnell's nomination 
to the Rhode Island District Court, despite the strong support of both 
home state Senators who know their state best. At that time I 
emphasized the danger of rejecting the Senate's traditional deference 
to home state Senators and beginning to filibuster district court 
nominations. Fortunately, the Senate rejected that filibuster and that 
path and Judge McConnell was confirmed. I trust the Senate will do so 
again, bringing to an end another filibuster, this time for a district 
court nominee, Mr. Furman, who was reported unanimously by the 
Judiciary Committee.

[[Page S812]]

  Like the needless delay in Judge Jordan's confirmation, the 
Republican filibuster of Jesse Furman, who by any traditional measure 
is a consensus nominee, is another example of the tactics that have all 
but paralyzed the Senate confirmation process and are damaging our 
Federal courts. It should not take five months and require a cloture 
motion for the Senate to proceed to vote on this nomination. At a time 
when nearly one out of every 10 judgeships is vacant and we have over 
20 judicial nominations reported favorably by the Committee, 16 of 
which have been stalled on the Senate calendar since last year, nearly 
all of them superbly-qualified consensus nominees, our Federal courts 
and the American people cannot afford more of these partisan tactics.
  I read with interest this morning Gail Collins' column in The New 
York Times on the approval rating of Congress. She notes that Congress 
is ``unpopular like the Ebola virus, or zombies . . . like TV shows 
about hoarders with dead cats in their kitchens.'' She goes on to 
discuss the Republican filibusters of judicial nominees and writes:

       This week, the Senate confirmed Judge Adalberto Jose Jordan 
     to a seat on the federal Court of Appeals for the 11th 
     Circuit in Atlanta. A visitor from another country might not 
     have appreciated the proportions of this achievement, given 
     that Jordan, who was born in Cuba and who once clerked for 
     Sandra Day O'Connor, had no discernible opposition.

  I ask consent that a copy of Ms. Collins' column be printed in the 
Record at the conclusion of my remarks.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Brown of Ohio). Without objection, it is 
so ordered.
  (See exhibit 1.)
  Mr. LEAHY. This is the kind of obstruction that is hard to explain to 
the American people. This Republican filibuster, like that of Judge 
Jordan, is very hard to understand. Jesse Furman is an experienced 
Federal prosecutor who has prosecuted international narcotics 
trafficking and terrorism and consulted on some of the Southern 
District's most complex cases, including the Galleon insider trading 
case, the prosecution of former Madoff employees, and the Times Square 
bomber case. A dedicated public servant, Mr. Furman has been a law 
clerk at all three levels of the Federal judiciary, including as a 
clerk to Supreme Court Justice David Souter.
  I got to know Mr. Furman when he was the counselor to Attorney 
General Michael Mukasey. That is right: The Senate Republicans are 
filibustering someone strongly supported by President Bush's Attorney 
General who was himself a Federal judge. When Mr. Furman's nomination 
was before the Committee last summer, Attorney General Mukasey wrote to 
the Committee in strong support:

       All I can hope to add is my own belief that he is a person 
     to whom one can entrust decisions that are consequential to 
     the lives of people and to the general welfare of the 
     populace, with confidence that they will be made wisely and 
     fairly . . . and I urge that he be confirmed.

  Former Supreme Court clerks who served at the same time as Mr. 
Furman, including clerks for conservative Justices such as Chief 
Justice Rehnquist, Justice Thomas, and Justice Scalia wrote in support 
of Mr. Furman's nomination, stating that, ``Mr. Furman has demonstrated 
his deep respect for and commitment to the rule of law, over and above 
politics or ideology.''
  With this bipartisan support, the strong support of his home state 
Senators, and his impressive background, Mr. Furman's nomination was 
reported by the Judiciary Committee on September 15, without opposition 
from a single member of the Committee. We should have voted on his 
nomination many months ago, and certainly before the end of the last 
session. Senate Republicans have blocked this nomination for over five 
months without any explanation.
  Sadly, this is not the first New York judge to be filibustered by 
Senate Republicans. Just a few years ago, Judge Denny Chin, an 
outstanding nominee with 16 years of judicial experience, was delayed 
from being elevated to the Second Circuit for four months until the 
Majority Leader forced a vote and he was confirmed 98 0.
  Last May, the Majority Leader was required to file for cloture to end 
the filibuster of Judge Jack McConnell of Rhode Island. By rejecting 
that filibuster, the Senate took a step toward restoring a longstanding 
tradition of deference to home state Senators with regard to Federal 
District Court nominations. The Senate turned away from a precipice. It 
is wrong now for us to approach that precipice again. Filibustering 
this nomination would set a new standard for obstruction of judicial 
nominations.
  Indeed, I have looked back over the last six decades and found only 
four district court nominations--four in over 60 years, on which 
cloture was even filed. For two of those, the cloture petitions were 
withdrawn after procedural issues were resolved. In connection with the 
other two, the Senate voted on cloture and it was invoked and the 
filibuster ended. All of those nominations were confirmed.
  From the start of President Obama's term, Republican Senators have 
applied a heightened and unfair standard to President Obama's district 
court nominees. Senate Republicans have chosen to depart dramatically 
from the long tradition of deference on district court nominees to the 
home state Senators who know the needs of their states best. Instead, 
an unprecedented number of President Obama's highly-qualified district 
court nominees have been targeted for opposition and obstruction. That 
approach is a serious break from the Senate's practice of advice and 
consent. Since 1945, the Judiciary Committee has reported more than 
2,100 district court nominees to the Senate. Out of these 2,100 
nominees, only six have been reported by party-line votes. Only six 
total in the last 65 years. Five of those six party-line votes have 
been against President Obama's highly-qualified district court 
nominees. Indeed, only 22 of those 2,100 district court nominees were 
reported by any kind of split roll call vote at all, and eight of 
those, more than a third, have been President Obama's nominees.
  Democrats never applied this standard to President Bush's district 
court nominees, whether in the majority or the minority. And certainly, 
there were nominees to the district court put forth by that 
administration that were considered ideologues. All told, in eight 
years, the Judiciary Committee reported only a single Bush district 
court nomination by a party line vote. President Obama's nominees are 
being treated differently than those of any President, Democratic or 
Republican, before him.
  When I first became Chairman of the Judiciary Committee in 2001, I 
followed a time when Senate Republicans, who had been in the majority, 
had pocket filibustered more than 60 of President Clinton's judicial 
nominations, blocking them with secret holds in backrooms and 
cloakrooms, obstructing more with winks and nods, but with little to no 
public explanation or accountability. I worked hard to change that and 
to open up the process. I sought to bring daylight to the process by 
making the consultation with home state Senators public so that the 
Senate Republicans' abuses during the Clinton years would not be 
repeated.
  When Senate Democrats opposed some of President Bush's most 
ideological nominees, we did so openly, saying why we opposed them. And 
when there were consensus nominees--nominees with the support of both 
Democrats and Republicans--we moved them quickly so they could begin 
serving the American people. That is how we reduced vacancies in the 
presidential election years of 2004 and 2008 to the lowest levels in 
decades. That is how we confirmed 205 of President Bush's circuit and 
district nominees in his first term.
  Now we see the reverse of how we treated President Bush's nominees. 
Senate Republicans do not move quickly to consider consensus nominees, 
like the 14 still on the Senate Calendar that were reported unanimously 
last year and should have had a Senate vote last year. Instead, as we 
are seeing today and have seen all too often, Senate Republicans 
obstruct and delay even consensus nominees, leaving us 43 judicial 
nominees behind the pace we set for confirming President Bush's 
judicial nominees. That is why vacancies remain so high, at 86, over 
three years into President Obama's first term. Vacancies are nearly 
double what they were at this point in President Bush's

[[Page S813]]

third year. That is why 130 million Americans live in circuits or 
districts with a judicial vacancy that could have a judge if Senate 
Republicans would only consent to vote on judicial nominees that have 
been favorably voted on by the Senate Judiciary Committee and have been 
on the Senate Executive Calendar since last year.
  This is an area where we should be working for the American people, 
and putting their needs first. It is the American people who pay the 
price for the Senate's unnecessary and harmful delay in confirming 
judges to our Federal courts. It is unacceptable for hardworking 
Americans who are seeking their day in court to find seats on one in 10 
of those courts vacant. When an injured plaintiff sues to help cover 
the cost of medical expenses, that plaintiff should not have to wait 
for years before a judge hears his or her case. When two small business 
owners disagree over a contract, they should not have to wait years for 
a court to resolve their dispute. With over 20 judicial nominees 
favorably reported by the Committee and cloture motions being required 
for consensus nominees, the Senate is failing in its responsibility, 
harming our Federal courts and ultimately hurting the American people. 
Is it any wonder that barely 10 percent of the American people view 
Congress favorably?
  The slow pace of confirmations of President Obama's judicial nominees 
is no accident or happenstance. It is the result of deliberate 
obstruction and delays. For the second year in a row, the Senate 
Republican leadership ignored long-established precedent and refused to 
schedule any votes before the December recess on the nearly 20 
consensus judicial nominees who had been favorably reported by the 
Judiciary Committee. Here we are in the middle of February fighting to 
hold a vote on one of the 18 nominees who should have been confirmed 
last year. Fourteen of the nominees being blockaded by Senate 
Republicans were reported with the unanimous support of their home 
state Senators and every Republican and every Democrat on the Senate 
Judiciary Committee. The result of these Republican delay tactics is 
clear--we are far behind the pace set by the Senate during President 
George W. Bush's first term, with a judicial vacancy rate nearly twice 
what it was at this point in his first term.
  During President George W. Bush's administration, Republican Senators 
insisted that filibusters of judicial nominees were unconstitutional. 
They threatened the ``nuclear option'' in 2005 to guarantee up-or-down 
votes for each of President Bush's judicial nominees. Many Republican 
Senators declared that they would never support the filibuster of a 
judicial nomination--never. Yet, only a few years later, Senate 
Republicans reversed course and filibustered President Obama's very 
first judicial nomination, that of Judge David Hamilton of Indiana, a 
widely-respected 15-year veteran of the Federal bench who had the 
support of the most senior and longest-serving Republican in the 
Senate, Senator Lugar. The Senate rejected that filibuster and Judge 
Hamilton was confirmed.
  But the partisan delays and opposition have continued. Senate 
Republicans have required cloture votes even for nominees who ended up 
being confirmed unanimously when the Senate finally overcame those 
filibusters and voted on their nomination. So it was with Judge Barbara 
Keenan of the Fourth Circuit, who was confirmed 99 0 when the 
filibuster of her nomination finally ended in 2010, and Judge Denny 
Chin of the Second Circuit, an outstanding nominee with 16 years 
judicial experience, who was ultimately confirmed 98 0 when the 
Republican filibuster was overcome after four months of needless 
delays. Just this week the long-delayed nomination of Judge Adalberto 
Jordan to the Eleventh Circuit was confirmed 94 5.
  This obstruction is particularly damaging at a time when judicial 
vacancies remain at record highs. There are currently 86 judicial 
vacancies across the country, meaning that nearly one out of every 10 
Federal judgeships remains vacant. The vacancy rate is nearly double 
what it had been reduced to by this point in the Bush administration, 
when we worked together to reduce judicial vacancies to 46.
  Some Senate Republicans are now seeking to excuse these months of 
delay by blaming President Obama for forcing them to do it. They point 
to President Obama's recent recess appointments of a Director for the 
Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and members of the National Labor 
Relations Board. Of course, those appointments were made a few weeks 
ago, long after Judge Jordan's nomination was already being delayed. 
Moreover, the President took his action because Senate Republicans had 
refused to vote on those executive nominations and were intent on 
rendering the Government agencies unable to enforce the law and carry 
out their critical work on behalf of the American people. Some Senate 
Republicans are doubling down on their obstruction in response. They 
are apparently extending their blockage against nominees beyond 
executive branch nominees to these much-needed judicial nominees. This 
needless obstruction accentuates the burdens on our Federal courts and 
delays in justice to the American people. We can ill afford these 
additional delays and protest votes. The Senate needs, instead, to come 
together to address the needs of hardworking Americans around the 
country.
  I, again, urge Senate Republicans to stop the destructive delays that 
have plagued our nominations process. I urge them to join us not only 
in rejecting the five-month filibuster of Mr. Furman's nomination, but 
also in restoring the Senate's longstanding practice of considering and 
confining consensus nominees without extended and damaging delays. The 
American people deserve no less.

                               Exhibit 1

                   Congress Has No Date for the Prom

                           (By Gail Collins)

       I am shocked to report that Congress, the beating heart of 
     American democracy, is unpopular.
       Not unpopular like a shy kid in junior high. Unpopular like 
     the Ebola virus, or zombies. Held in near-universal contempt, 
     like TV shows about hoarders with dead cats in their 
     kitchens. Or people who get students to call you up during 
     dinner and ask you to give money to your old university.
       The latest Gallup poll gave Congress a 10 percent approval 
     rating. As Senator Michael Bennet of Colorado keeps pointing 
     out, that's lower than BP during the oil spill, Nixon during 
     Watergate or banks during the banking crisis.
       On the plus side, while 86 percent of respondents told 
     Gallup that they disapproved of the job Congress was doing, 
     only 4 percent said they had no opinion. That's really a 
     great sense of public awareness, given the fact that other 
     surveys show less than half of all Americans know who their 
     member of Congress is.
       So little attention, yet so much rancor. We're presuming 
     that this is because of the dreaded partisan gridlock, which 
     has made Congress increasingly unproductive in matters that 
     do not involve the naming of post offices.
       And Congress is listening! Lately, we have been seeing 
     heartening new signs of bipartisan cooperation. For instance, 
     the House and Senate are near an agreement on the payroll tax 
     cut, namely that it will continue and not be paid for.
       This is actually sort of a tradition. No matter who is in 
     power in Washington, Congress has always shown a remarkable 
     ability to band together and pass tax cuts that are not paid 
     for. It's like naming post offices, only somewhat more 
     expensive.
       But there's much, much more. For instance, both chambers 
     recently approved a big new ethics reform bill that would ban 
     members of Congress from engaging in insider trading.
       Perhaps you imagined that this was already against the law.
       This piece of legislation had been lying around gathering 
     dust since 2006. But, this year, the House and Senate decided 
     to stand tall and pass it as a matter of principle. It had 
     nothing to do with a ``60 Minutes'' report that made the 
     whole place look like a convention of grifters. Totally 
     unrelated. This was simply a bill whose time had come.
       And that bill would probably already be signed into law 
     were it not for a disagreement over whether to require the 
     high-paid professionals who poke around Congress collecting 
     information that might be of use to their Wall Street clients 
     to register the same way lobbyists do.
       You'd think this would be easy to sort out since most 
     members of the House and the Senate have gone on the record 
     in favor of registering these guys.
       But, no, the idea ran afoul of the House majority leader, 
     Eric Cantor, the Darth Vader of Capitol Hill. Cantor says the 
     idea should be studied, which is, of course, legislatese for 
     ``trampled to death by a thousand boots.''
       Still, the good news is that the basic idea of prohibiting 
     members of Congress from using the information they acquire 
     in the course of their public duties to engage in insider 
     trading did pass both chambers by enormous majorities.

[[Page S814]]

       Yippee.
       And the bipartisan cooperation keeps rolling on. This week, 
     the Senate confirmed Judge Adalberto Jose Jordan to a seat on 
     the federal Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit in Atlanta. 
     A visitor from another country might not have appreciated the 
     proportions of this achievement, given the fact that Jordan, 
     who was born in Cuba and who once clerked for Sandra Day 
     O'Connor, had no discernible opposition.
       But Americans ought to have a better grasp of how the 
     Senate works. The nomination's progress had long been 
     thwarted by Mike Lee, a freshman Republican from Utah, who 
     has decided to hold up every single White House appointment 
     to anything out of pique over . . . well, it doesn't really 
     matter. When you're a senator, you get to do that kind of 
     thing.
       This forced the majority leader, Harry Reid, to get 60 
     votes to move Judge Jordan forward, which is never all that 
     easy. Then there was further delay thanks to Rand Paul, a 
     freshman from Kentucky, who stopped action for as long as 
     possible because he was disturbed about foreign aid to Egypt.
       All that is forgotten now. The nomination was approved, 94 
     to 5, only 125 days after it was unanimously O.K.'d by the 
     Judiciary Committee. Whiners in the White House pointed out 
     that when George W. Bush was president, circuit court 
     nominations got to a floor vote in an average of 28 days.
       No matter. Good work, Senate! Only 17 more long-pending 
     judicial nominations to go!
       Meanwhile, the House named a post office in Missouri for a 
     fallen Marine.

  Mr. LEAHY. I yield the floor.

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