[Congressional Record Volume 159, Number 99 (Thursday, July 11, 2013)]
[Senate]
[Pages S5628-S5640]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                   RECOGNITION OF THE MINORITY LEADER

  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Republican leader is 
recognized.
  Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, I sat here patiently and listened to 
the majority leader's speech, and I hope he will do me the courtesy to 
listen to mine, since this is a very important day in the history of 
the Senate. I want to make a couple of observations, which I hope my 
friend the majority leader will listen to.
  First, he is trying to justify in advance what would be a very clear 
failure to honor his very clear commitment not to break the rules of 
the Senate. What he is referring to are his own statements, not mine, 
regarding extraordinary circumstances. He said that, not me. In other 
words, to justify breaking his clear commitments not to break the rules 
of the Senate in order to change the rules of the Senate, he is 
attributing to me something somebody else said, and that somebody else, 
by the way, is him. He is attributing to me something he said.
  We need to keep our commitments around here and not break them, and 
we need to be honest about quoting people around here. This is about 
trying to come up with excuses to break our commitments. What this is 
about is manufacturing a pretext for a power grab.
  I listened very carefully to what the majority leader had to say. 
What he is saying, in effect, is he doesn't want to have any 
controversy at all attached to any of the nominees. In other words, 
don't ask any questions. Advise and consent means sit down and shut up.
  He was complaining about the number of questions the nominee for EPA 
Administrator was required to answer.
  What he conveniently left out was the chairwoman Senator Boxer 
requested 70,000 documents. Why is it OK for the chairwoman to request 
70,000 documents and somehow if the ranking member makes a lot of 
requests it is some violation of some comity? When the Founders wrote 
``advise and consent,'' I don't think they had in mind sit down and 
shut up.
  It is noteworthy that all of the people he is complaining about got 
confirmed. So what he is saying is he doesn't want any debate at all in 
connection with Presidential appointments, just sit down, shut up, and 
rubberstamp everything, everyone the President sends up here.
  On the calendar right now there are 21 nominations--21. There are 148 
in committee. We don't control the committees, he does: 148 in 
committee, 21 on the calendar. It is pretty obvious Senate Democrats 
are gearing up today to make one of the most consequential changes to 
the Senate in the history of our Nation.
  I want everybody to understand, this is no small matter we are 
talking about. I guarantee you it is a decision that if they actually 
go through with it, they will live to regret. It is an open secret at 
this point that big labor and others on the left are putting a lot of 
pressure on the majority leader to change the rules of the Senate and 
to do so, as he promised not to do, by breaking the rules of the 
Senate. That would violate every protection of the minority rights that 
has defined the Senate for as long as anyone can remember.
  Let me assure you, this Pandora's box, once opened, will be utilized 
again and again by future majorities and it will make the meaningful 
consensus-building that has served our Nation so well a relic of the 
past.
  The short-term issue that has triggered this dangerous and far-
reaching proposal is simple enough. The hard left is so convinced that 
every one of the President's nominees should sail through the 
confirmation process that they are willing to do permanent irreversible 
damage to this institution in order to get their way, and it appears as 
if they have convinced the majority leader to do their bidding and 
hijack the Senate. They are not interested in checks and balances. They 
are not interested in advise and consent. They are not even interested 
in what this would mean down the road when Republicans are the ones 
making the nominations. They want the power and they want it now. They 
do not care about the consequences. The ends justify the means ethos 
has been resisted by basically every Senate leader in the past and it 
is a clear and unequivocal violation of the public assurances that the 
current majority leader made to the entire Senate, his constituents, 
and the American people just a few months ago.
  What is worse is we got to this point on the basis of an absolute 
fairytale, a fairytale. Obviously, the left needed an excuse to justify 
such an unprecedented power grab, so they simply made up a story about 
Republicans blocking the President's nominees. The majority leader is 
entitled to his opinion, but he is not entitled to his facts. The facts 
are the facts. Here is the real story. Almost nothing about this tale 
so often repeated around here holds up to scrutiny.
  The facts are that this President took office and the Senate has 
confirmed 1,560 people. The Senate has confirmed every single one of 
the Cabinet nominees who has been brought up for a vote--every single 
one. The President has gotten nearly three times as many judges 
confirmed at this point as President Bush in his Presidency.
  Here is the point. What this whole so-called crisis boils down to are 
three nominees the President unlawfully appointed--as confirmed by the 
courts. A Federal court has held the three nominees were unlawfully 
appointed. Two of the three are direct parties to the litigation and 
the third one was appointed at exactly the same moment in the exact 
same way. One of these nominees has been held up by inaction over at 
the White House related to structural reforms that the administration 
and even the nominee himself, Mr. Cordray, now say they are willing to 
work with us on. The fact is, indisputably, we have been confirming 
lawfully nominated folks routinely and consistently: The Energy 
Secretary, 97 to 0; the Secretary of the Interior, 87 to 11; the 
Secretary of the Treasury, 71 to 26; the Secretary of State, 94 to 3, 
just a few days after the Senate got his nomination; the Secretary of 
Commerce, 97 to 1; the Secretary of Transportation, 100 to 0; the 
Director of the Office of Management and Budget, 96 to 0; the 
Administrator of the Centers for Medicare

[[Page S5629]]

and Medicaid Services, 91 to 7; the Chair of the Securities and 
Exchange Commission, on a voice vote--in other words, unanimously.
  What about the nominees still awaiting confirmation who have not--not 
been unlawfully appointed? The Senate is ready to vote on them too. 
Regretfully, in my view, frankly, all of them appear ready to have the 
votes to be confirmed. I don't necessarily support them, but they have 
the votes to be confirmed. Why don't they call them up? The majority 
leader determines what the order of business is around here. He could 
have scheduled votes if that is what he wanted to happen. Why don't we 
have a vote on the Secretary of Labor? What about the Administrator of 
EPA? The NLRB nominees who were not unlawfully appointed--there are 
some other NLRB nominees who were not unlawfully appointed--why aren't 
we voting on them?
  As I said, pending the expected negotiations on reforms to the CFPB, 
the Senate would likely confirm the chairman to that position as well.
  We need to be honest about what is going on around here. The only 
crisis is the crisis the Democrats are creating with their threats to 
fundamentally change the Senate, something the majority leader said 
just a few years ago he would never even consider. Here is why he said 
that: Because going down this road is ``ultimately . . . about removing 
the last check in Washington against a complete abuse of power.''
  Those are the words the majority leader himself used in describing 
the very thing he is now threatening to do--the very thing he is now 
threatening to do.
  Let me sum up what is going on around here. Senate Democrats are 
getting ready to do permanent damage to this body to confirm three 
unconstitutionally appointed nominees by a simple majority vote. They 
are willing to break the rules of the Senate to change the rules of the 
Senate in order to confirm three nominees that the Federal courts have 
said were unlawfully appointed. Every other nomination we are talking 
about has either already been confirmed or is on the way to being 
confirmed, but they will not call them up. He gets to decide when we 
vote. Where are the callups for EPA and Labor and the three NLRB 
nominees lawfully appointed?

  If this is not a power grab, I don't know what a power grab looks 
like. The President appoints three people unconstitutionally, the 
second highest court in the land confirms they were unlawfully 
appointed, and Senate Democrats want to break the rules of the Senate 
to confirm them. This is not the story we just heard from the majority 
leader, but this is a fact.
  The entire phony crisis--absolutely phony, manufactured crisis--boils 
down to three unlawfully appointed nominees. The Democrats say we are 
holding up the others. It is not true. He gets to schedule the votes. 
Where are they? Bring them up. The truth is, if there is anyone to 
blame for holding up things in the Senate it is the Democratic 
majority. They are the ones blocking nearly 30 fast-track nominations, 
many of whom Republicans have already agreed to confirm unanimously. 
They are the ones, the Democrats, who have yet to schedule votes on 
McCarthy and Perez, despite the fact that both of these highly 
controversial nominees already have enough votes to clear the 60-vote 
hurdle.
  I do not like the facts, frankly, and I am not going to be voting for 
either of these nominees. Tom Perez in particular is a far left 
ideologue whose record of bending the rules to achieve his ends is 
deeply concerning to me and just one of the reasons I plan to vote 
against him. But to pretend the power to confirm these folks lies in 
the hands of anyone but the majority leader is totally disingenuous.
  The White House knows what I have just said. I have told them. The 
majority leader would know it too if he spent a little more time 
working with his colleagues in a collegial way and a little less time 
trying to undermine and marginalize people.
  The real reason, as I said, is that the far left and big labor are 
leaning hard on Democrats to go nuclear. Go nuclear--they love the 
sound. The majority leader is about to sacrifice his reputation and 
this institution to go along with it because what they truly want is 
for the Senate to ratify the President's unconstitutional decision to 
illegally appoint nominees to the NLRB and the CFPB without the input 
of the Senate. They know they cannot get that done under current rules. 
They know time is not on their side. The second highest court in the 
land ruled unanimously that President Obama had no power to do what he 
did. Another court has since concurred. Now the Supreme Court is set to 
hear the case in just a few months. They obviously thought it was 
important enough to be dealt with at the highest Court in the land.
  This is not a fight over nominees at all. It is a fight over these 
illegal, unconstitutionally appointed nominees. It is laughable to 
think Democrats would ever agree to such a thing if we were talking 
about a Republican President's unlawful nominees--laughable.
  It is equally irrational to think we would go along with this. In 
fact, no Senator, regardless of party, should ever consider ceding our 
constitutional duties in such a way.
  I advised the Romney team before the election that if he won and I 
was ever elected majority leader, I would defend the Senate first in 
these battles. I would defend this institution against a Republican 
President trying to abuse it. That is a precedent set by majority 
leaders, such as Robert Byrd, who revered this institution because they 
knew what it was to be in both the majority and the minority. It is 
what the best leaders of the Senate have always done. It is absolutely 
tragic to think these days may be over.
  Here are the battle lines. On one side are people who think the 
President should have the power to unconstitutionally ignore Congress 
and their constituents. Those are people who believe in it so firmly 
that they are willing to irreparably damage the Senate to ensure they 
get their way. They are willing to do something the majority leader 
himself said would contribute to the ruination of the country. I am not 
making up his quotes; that is what he said.

  On the other side are the folks in my conference, and even some 
Democrats, with the courage to speak up against this power grab. We are 
the folks who believe deeply that a President of any party should work 
within the bounds of the Constitution, and that Senators of both 
parties should fulfill their own constitutional obligations to 
thoroughly vet nominees. We also believe in giving those nominees a 
fair hearing. If you look at the facts, you will see we have already 
been doing that.
  As Senator Alexander noted, no majority leader wants written on his 
tombstone that he presided over the end of the Senate. Well, if this 
majority leader caves to the fringes and lets this happen, I am afraid 
that is exactly what they will write. In the majority leader's own 
words: Breaking the rules to change the rules is un-American. Those are 
his words, not mine.
  I hope the majority leader thinks about his legacy, the future of his 
party and, most importantly, the future of our country before he acts.
  I yield the floor.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The majority leader.
  Mr. REID. Mr. President, I assume the words ``I agree'' are words 
that mean something. We had a colloquy on the floor, and at that time 
he said he wouldn't do anything extraordinarily--he said that, and I 
said I agree.
  I would like to talk about a few other things. Here is a direct quote 
Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky said a few years ago: The Senate 
has repeatedly adjusted its rules as circumstances dictate. The first 
Senate adopted its rules by a majority vote which specifically provided 
a means to end debate instantly by a simple majority vote.
  This was the first Senate at the beginning of our country, and that 
was so we would have the ability to move the previous question and end 
debate. This is not the first time a minority of Senators has upset a 
Senate tradition or practice. The current Senate majority intends to do 
what the majority of the Senate has often done: Use its constitutional 
authority under Article I, Section 5 to reform Senate procedure by a 
simple majority vote. That is what Senator McConnell said.
  The interesting thing here is my friend talks as if: Gee, this has 
never been done before. But the fact is it has been done many times. 
Since 1977, it

[[Page S5630]]

has been done 18 times--about twice every year. I think that is pretty 
interesting. It has happened 18 times just since 1977: December 12, 
1979; November 9, 1979; March 5, 1980; June 11, 1980; June 10, 1980; 
another time in 1980; 1986, 1985, 1987, 1995, 1996, 1996, 1999, 2000, 
2011. Those are the times the rules have been changed, overruling 
precedence--as my friend Senator McConnell said--with a majority vote.
  It is also important to note that, without getting into a lot of 
legal jargon, the Constitution gives the nomination power to the 
President. The Constitution does not provide for a supermajority of the 
Senate to provide its advice and consent. The Drafters of the 
Constitution knew how to provide for supermajorities when they wanted 
to. The very same clause in the Constitution that gives the President 
the appointment power--the clause from which I just quoted--also 
provides for consortium of treaties, which is two-thirds. Same 
paragraph. Legislation and other things require a simple majority.
  My friend the Republican leader has made my point. He talks about all 
the votes--97-0, 100-0, 98-0. That is the whole point. It takes months 
and months and sometimes years to get to where we can vote. They stall 
everything they can, and they have done that. That is the whole point. 
It was supposed to only be under extraordinary circumstances, and I 
went into some detail to explain that. Is this extraordinary 
circumstances? Of course not.
  He talks about Richard Cordray and how they just want a little tweak 
in the law. Here is the tweak in the law they wanted: Dodd-Frank knew 
we would have trouble with the appropriations process because the 
Republicans don't let us do much appropriating at all. So in the wisdom 
of the people who drafted Dodd-Frank, they said: We are going to make 
sure the position that Cordray is talking about always has the 
resources to do what they want to do. So they did something unique and 
said the money will come from the Federal Reserve. The little tweak the 
Republicans want to do is to switch that and give it to the 
Appropriations Committees. They won't let us do appropriation bills. 
That is like giving us nothing.
  My friend went into great detail about the NLRB. For the entire 
history of this country, the President has had the power to recess-
appoint people. The Republicans have found a gimmick here that now they 
are saying--no one has raised any objection about the qualifications of 
the people the D.C. Circuit said shouldn't be sitting there. No one 
raised anything about their qualifications. If there were an effort to 
avoid what is going on around here, they should approve these people.
  The other Alice-in-Wonderland statement made by my friend is: The 
majority leader can set votes whenever he wants. Oh, don't I wish. 
Stall and obstruct is what we have around here. It is very hard to 
schedule votes. As has been indicated by me a few minutes ago, we wait 
and we wait, and finally we get a vote after months and months--and I 
indicated sometimes years--and then it is a big and overwhelmingly 
positive vote. Yes, because there is nothing wrong with the person to 
begin with.
  As I said early on: He makes my case. There isn't a single word that 
has been said here today about the qualifications of the three people 
who are seeking to go on the NLRB--or the two Republicans. He has not 
produced any facts to question their abilities. He just argues that the 
President's timing was not quite right.
  I think everyone realizes that when you are trying to get somebody 
confirmed, such as Richard Cordray, and you are waiting 725 days, maybe 
that is a little too long.
  Listen to this biggy here: The Principal Deputy Under Secretary of 
Defense for Acquisition, Technology and Logistics--that may sound like 
a big fancy word, but that is an extremely important position in the 
Secretary of Defense's office--has been waiting 300 days. The Governor 
for the International Monetary Fund, Jack Lew, our present Secretary of 
Treasury, has been waiting 169 days. It is now probably 172, I guess, 
since this could be old; the EPA, 128 days; Secretary of Labor, 114 
days; NLRB, 573 days; the Chairman of the Export-Import Bank, 111 days; 
Associate Attorney General, 294 days; Chemical Safety and Hazard 
Investigation--shouldn't we have something going there? Well, they 
don't believe in the program so we have been waiting now for 295 days 
to even have a vote on that.
  Remember, he said I can schedule a vote whenever I want. I wish that 
were true.
  Member of the Board of Directors for the Tennessee Valley Authority, 
292 days; Commissioner of the Rehabilitation Services Administration, 
156 days. The average of those few people I mentioned comes to 260 
days.
  I presented my case. The case is: This is not working. For the 
Republicans to come here today and say: Well, that is fine, we will 
give you Cordray, all we want you to do is change things so the man 
never has any money to do his job doesn't sound like a very good deal 
to me. There has been no answer to these periods of times when we 
waited and waited, and finally we get somebody approved by an 
overwhelming margin. Why? Because all they are doing is stalling.
  I used to do a little work in the courts and I would have a jury. I 
would appeal to the jury to make a decision. The jury I am appealing to 
right now is the American people. They know the Senate as it used to 
work. Our approval rating is in the swamps, and we need to do something 
to change that. Will this change everything? No. But remember: Since 
1977, the rules of the Senate have been changed a couple of times a 
year in this body. My friend the Republican leader said previously that 
that is okay; that is what the majority could do.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Republican leader.
  Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, on the issue of delay, there are 148 
nominations in committees. The majority leader's party controls the 
committees. They can come out at any point. On the calendar of business 
on the floor 21 nominees are pending.
  The majority leader, I am sure, will remind everybody he always gets 
the last word so I am sure he will speak again. But I would remind 
everybody of the core point here: He gave his word without equivocation 
back in January of this year that we had settled the issue of rules for 
the Senate for this Congress. That was in the wake of a bipartisan 
agreement to pass two rule changes and to pass two standing orders. So 
at the core of this is the majority leader's word to his colleagues and 
the Senate as to what the rules would be for this Congress. He gave his 
word, and now he appears to be on the verge of breaking his word.
  Secondly, the only nominees--let's make sure we understand this--
likely to have a problem getting cloture are the ones who were 
unconstitutionally appointed, according to the Federal Court in the 
District of Columbia.
  So where we are is the majority leader wants to fundamentally change 
the Senate after breaking his word in order to jam through three 
nominees the Federal Courts have said were unconstitutionally 
appointed. That is where we are.
  I think it is a sad day for the Senate. I hope the majority leader 
will reconsider what I consider to be a highly irresponsible action on 
his part.
  Is the Senator from Tennessee going to pose a question to me or to 
the majority leader?
  Mr. ALEXANDER. I will wait until the majority leader finishes.
  Mr. McCONNELL. I yield the floor.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The majority leader.
  Mr. REID. My friend the Republican leader continues to ignore his 
words, that he would process nominations consistent with the norms and 
traditions of the Senate. Please. That is just ignored by him? If 
anyone thinks since the first of this year that the norms and 
traditions of the Senate have been followed by the Republican leader, 
they are living in gaga land.
  The Republican leader agreed that we should not have filibusters 
except in the case of an extraordinary circumstance. He agreed with 
that, but he ignores that.
  I think it is also worth talking a little bit here about how the 
Republican leader complains that people just don't like Congress. Well, 
there is a reason for that, and the Republican caucus deserves most of 
the blame. The Gallup organization polled Americans last

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month and asked for some of the reasons why people disapprove of 
Congress. The two top reasons outdistance all others. They don't like 
Congress because of gridlock and not getting anything done. Is that our 
fault? No.
  Surveying the years that President Obama has been in office, one can 
see time after time when Democrats reached out to Republicans to get 
things done, and no one can see where they have done that. One can see 
that time after time the Republican leader has pressured his colleagues 
not to work with us.
  There is no reason Congress should be held in such low regard. We 
should clear the calendar. They are not going to do that. They are 
going to continue this process over the next 3\1/2\ years, badgering, 
saying: We are really good. We got this nomination done, and we 
approved it 98 to 0--after waiting months.
  It is the first time ever in the history of this country that the 
Secretary of Defense has been filibustered.
  So I appeal to my friends on the other side of the aisle, remember 
the words I read from Senator McConnell where he said a simple majority 
has the right to do this. And we know that is true.
  Mr. WICKER. Would the distinguished majority leader yield for 30 
seconds?
  Mr. REID. I would be happy to yield for a question.
  Mr. WICKER. I would ask the majority leader, in an hour or so 
Democrats are going to have lunch with Democrats, and Republicans are 
going to go to another room and have lunch with Republicans and talk to 
each other about what the other side is doing. This is such a serious 
matter. It may be the wise thing to do. I totally disagree. But I think 
the majority leader will agree that this is a watershed moment.
  Could it be that early next week, just once we could all meet 
together, perhaps in the Old Senate Chamber--every Democrat and every 
Republican--for a caucus where actually Republicans listen to Democrats 
as to what they perceive as the grievances and rank-and-file Democrats 
listen to our side?
  People are off in classified briefings right now. People are in 
committee meetings. People are doing the work of the Senate whether the 
public realizes it or not.
  We are not listening to each other as rank-and-file Members. I would 
implore the leadership of this body, next Tuesday let's clear the Old 
Senate Chamber and get every Republican and every Democrat who wants to 
be there and actually quit talking past each other and see if there is 
a way for us to avoid this pivotal watershed moment in the history of 
the Senate.
  Mr. REID. I appreciate the remarks of my friend from Mississippi. I 
am going to start the process today. I am going to file cloture on a 
bunch of nominations, and those votes will occur next week when we 
schedule them. I would be happy to see if there is a way I can meet 
with a few Senators. I have already done that with a few Republican 
Senators, and I am happy to see if there is a way of getting us 
together. We had a nice caucus together not long ago led by Senator 
McCain, which was really memorable, but I listened to a bunch of them.
  I say to my friend, if you are so concerned--and I know you are--
about the process, I think you need to take a look at where you are.
  About Cordray, I am so tired of hearing this tweaking: All we need is 
to tweak this a little bit and we will let you have it.
  I repeat, I say to my friend, that the tweak is to take away his 
ability to exist. That is not a tweak; that is further obstruction and 
distraction from what a law we have is meant to do.
  The NLRB, all the happy-talk I hear here--and I don't say that to 
disparage anyone--we will be happy to help you with that, but get rid 
of those two people.
  No one questions their qualifications.
  And I am happy to hear my friend here suddenly so enthused with that 
court decision. The court decision doesn't stop us from doing anything. 
The court decision is something that says that we can do whatever we 
want to do. We are a legislative branch of government. We don't have to 
follow what the Supreme Court does.
  So without going into any more dialog, I appreciate what my friend 
says. I think what he needs to do with his caucus--we are going to have 
one today--is take a look at NLRB. There are five of them. We have no 
problem with the two Republicans. Let's get that done. Let's get 
Cordray done. Let's get the Secretary of Labor, who has waited such a 
long time, and we have the Secretary of the EPA.
  I say to my friend, I don't know why his caucus has such heartburn 
over things dealing with labor. My friend said--I don't know exactly--
leftwing big labor bosses. We have the Secretary of Labor who is being 
held up. We have three NLRB people being held up. Let's try to work our 
way through that. I would be happy to listen to any way he thinks we 
can get through that. If we can't, Tuesday we know what is going to 
happen.
  Mr. WICKER. Just to understand, is that a yes on trying to get us 
together, as Republicans and Democrats, as early as lunch Tuesday to 
see if there is some way we can talk about this?
  Mr. REID. I am happy to consider that. I have talked to a number of 
Republican Senators. One of them called me at home last night. I was 
happy to take the call. He said: What happens if cloture is invoked on 
the people you put forward? Well, if that happens, I have no 
complaints. I would hope everyone would learn from this process.
  I think we need to look at what I just said. All you need is six 
Republicans to agree to do something about NLRB, to do something about 
Cordray without taking away his abilities.
  Are there any appropriators here on the floor? I have been away from 
the committee for a while. We are not doing much appropriating around 
here. I know Senator McConnell and I were on the committee together. I 
gave my spot up to Ben Nelson some time ago. I still have seniority 
protected there.
  So I am happy for the Senator's suggestion. We will take a look at 
that. But it is a very simple problem here. We need to get the labor--
and they are not big bosses. But my culinary workers--70,000 of them in 
Las Vegas alone--who have problems with management, they want to be 
able to gripe to somebody.
  Mr. WICKER. Would the distinguished leader yield on simply one 
further matter?
  Mr. REID. Sure.
  Mr. WICKER. Did the majority leader understand, as I did, Leader 
McConnell saying just a few moments ago that the Secretary of Labor 
nominee is likely to go forward very soon?
  Mr. REID. That is what he said.
  Mr. WICKER. And that the EPA Administrator is likely to go forward 
almost immediately? So we really are down to the three positions where 
there has been a U.S. appeals court decision, which arguably could be 
viewed as an extraordinary circumstance.
  Mr. REID. I say to my friend, this is the first time we have dealt 
with this. As the Senator knows, Senator McConnell is one of those who 
led the charge a number of years ago. I read part of his statement.
  It would seem to me that it would be appropriate for folks to 
understand what I just said. It doesn't take somebody who has been here 
as long as Senator Byrd was.
  I would also say this. To say to me now: We are going to do 
McCarthy--well, she has only waited 150 days. We are going to do Perez; 
we will do him right now. But that is the problem, I say to my friend--
we shouldn't be waiting around here for months and months to get a vote 
on one of these nominees. That is the whole issue.
  So I appreciate his consideration. I am going to go now to my office 
and meet a few people. I am happy to answer any questions while I am 
here on the floor.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Tennessee.
  Mr. CORKER. First of all, I know there have been a number of 
conversations, and I appreciate the majority leader allowing me to talk 
with him recently on the phone. And I know we have an issue here. I 
would just go back to the question from the Senator from Mississippi.
  Last night I was on the phone with numbers of Members of high esteem 
in the Senator's caucus, and when I talk with them about this issue, 
they have no understanding whatsoever about any background. They just 
say: Look, I am frustrated, so I am going to vote for the nuclear 
option.

[[Page S5632]]

  And I would say, to respond to the Senator from Mississippi, that the 
Senator is right. So we have some things that are coming up here 
momentarily. It is possible that many of them--maybe all but many of 
them--will be resolved. But it seems to me, unless we do the thing the 
distinguished Senator from Mississippi just mentioned, there is going 
to be a continual gap of knowledge regarding these issues.
  So I would just say that I think the majority leader knows I do 
everything I can and the senior Senator from Tennessee does everything 
he can to try to make this place work. We want to solve our Nation's 
problems.
  I think if the majority leader will put the actual votes off to at 
least Wednesday, there may be some resolve. But I really would please 
ask that we have that opportunity the Senator asked for so that really 
both sides--we need to understand the other side's grievances more, and 
I know very respected Members on the Democratic side need to understand 
ours. I think that would be very, very helpful, and I really believe it 
would cause the leadership to be far more productive and worthwhile, 
and the majority leader could come in every morning smiling the way he 
is right now.
  Mr. REID. Mr. President, to my friend from Tennessee, from the day he 
got here he has tried to follow on the mold set by Senator Alexander. 
They are both conciliators. They like to work things out. We haven't 
been able to work too many things out, but they try. No one tries 
harder than they do.
  I just want to say this: We talk about extreme circumstances. That 
was the colloquy my friend and I had here on the floor. So to now say 
the NLRB is extreme circumstances is like somebody setting a house on 
fire and then complaining their house is gone. The extraordinary 
circumstances have been created by you guys.
  So I say again to my friends here in the Senate that I would be happy 
to do a joint meeting with the two caucuses but not to come here and 
just throw numbers around. The point is that I want this resolved and I 
want it resolved one way or the other. I am through.
  Just to remind everyone, for two Congresses--the last one and this 
one--I have gone against the wishes of the vast majority of my caucus 
not to have done something before. And we did a few things. Most of 
them were window dressing that hasn't accomplished much of anything on 
the rules that we changed.
  So I am happy to have a group of Senators indicate to me how we are 
going to get these people I have on the calendar done. This is no 
threat. I just think that would be the appropriate thing to do. If we 
have something positive to report in a joint meeting without going back 
to the same stalling, obstruction--I don't need to go over this list of 
people again. Some have been waiting for years to get something done. I 
just am not going to continue doing that. We have to have something 
more than my friend coming to the floor and saying: I am not going to 
do anything unless there are extraordinary circumstances. I think that 
has been stomped into the ground. So there is name-calling we need to 
stop.
  I am happy to go to my caucus today and make my case. I am very 
fortunate that I have a pretty good hand on the caucus, and we are 
going to go ahead and do what is good for the country. I hope that, as 
everyone knows, the vote will be scheduled anytime we want on Tuesday.
  Any other questions?


                       Reservation of Leader Time

  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Under the previous order, the 
leadership time is reserved.


                           Order of Business

  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Under the previous order, the time 
until 12:30 p.m. will be equally divided and controlled between the two 
leaders or their designees, with Senators permitted to speak for up to 
10 minutes each, with the Republicans controlling the first 30 minutes 
and the majority controlling the second 30 minutes.
  The Senator from Tennessee.


                              Nominations

  Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, I thank the majority leader for his 
statement, for the time he has spent.
  I was looking at the Executive Calendar. But, first, I have spent 
most of this week working on the student loan issue, as the majority 
leader knows. And we are coming to an agreement, it looks like, as we 
have with a number of other things. But I would like to renew to the 
majority leader the suggestion that we all get together next week and 
talk this through, as the Senator from Mississippi has suggested. I 
think it would be a wise thing to do.
  There are other Senators here who wish to speak, so I will try to be 
succinct. Let me address just a few of the points the majority leader 
made.
  One reason I think it would be wise for us to get together as 
Democratic and Republican Senators is what he is saying is different 
from the way I read the facts, and one of us has to be wrong about 
that.
  For example, have Republicans used the filibuster to deny President 
Obama's nominees a position in government? The answer is a fact. I 
invited the Senate Historian and the Congressional Research Service 
over to my office. I asked them the question. Here is the answer to the 
question: In the history of the Senate, no Supreme Court Justice has 
ever been denied his or her seat by a filibuster. There was a little 
incident with Justice Fortas that Lyndon Johnson engineered, but that 
was different. So in the cases of the Supreme Court, zero.
  How many district judges have been denied their seat by filibuster? 
The answer is zero.
  How many Cabinet members have been denied their seat by a failed 
cloture vote filibuster? The answer, according to the Senate Historian 
and the Congressional Research Service, is zero.
  How many circuit judges have been denied their seat by a filibuster? 
The answer is seven. How did that happen? Democrats, for the first time 
in history, when President George W. Bush came in, blocked five. And we 
said: Well, if you are going to change the precedent, then we will 
change the precedent, so we blocked two. That is what happens around 
here. But other than that, it is zero.
  Then the majority leader said there has been some big delay about 
President Obama's nominees. These are not throwing statistics around. 
That is either true or it is not true.
  Here is what the Washington Post says and the Congressional Research 
Service says. The Washington Post, by Al Kamen, on March 18, 2013: 
President Obama's second-term Cabinet members are going through the 
Senate at a rate that ``beats the averages of the last three 
administrations that had second terms.''
  President Obama is being better treated in terms of his Cabinet 
nominees than the last three Presidents.
  I asked the Congressional Research Service the same question. They 
said: As of June 27--last month--his nominees were still moving, on 
average, from announcement to confirmation, faster than those of 
President George W. Bush, faster than those of President Clinton.
  Someone in the Democratic caucus needs to hear this. The number of 
Cabinet nominees who have been denied a seat by filibuster is zero. 
President Obama's Cabinet nominees are moving through the Senate faster 
than his last three predecessors. That is important information.
  Now, are there a lot of nominees sitting around for too long a period 
of time? I have the thing we call the Executive Calendar right here. 
Senator McConnell referred to it. I could go through it quickly. I 
count 24 people on the calendar. The one who has been on there the 
longest was reported by committee on February 26 of this year. That is 
a little over 4 months ago.
  Let's be very elementary about this. The only way you get on this 
calendar is to be reported out of committee. The only way you get out 
of committee is for the Democratic majority to vote you on to this 
calendar. So we can fill this calendar up any time the Democratic 
committee majority wants to.
  Of the people here, there is a brigadier general named Long. The 
committee has asked that we hold that. There is Jacob Lew to the 
International Monetary Fund. Bring him up. Bring him up. He will be 
confirmed.
  Let's go back to that. The only way you get a name to a vote on the 
floor is if the majority leader brings his name to the floor. Jacob Lew 
has been

[[Page S5633]]

reported from Committee since April 16. Bring him up.
  Here is an Air Force person. Here is Ms. McCarthy from Massachusetts. 
She has been reported from the committee. Bring her up. The Republican 
leader has said she will get cloture. That means she will be confirmed. 
He said the same thing about the nominee for the Department of Labor. 
He has been reported since May 16.
  Mr. President, I am not a very controversial person. I was held up 
for 88 days by an ill-tempered Democratic Senator, for what I thought 
was no good reason, relying on article II, section 2 of the 
Constitution's right to advise and consent. President Reagan's nominee 
for Attorney General Ed Meese was held up for 1 year, and nobody 
thought about changing the rules of the Senate because it used its 
constitutional authority to advise and consent. Former Senator Rudman 
was held up by his home State Senator until Rudman withdrew his name, 
and then he ran against that Senator and was elected to the Senate.
  The advice and consent responsibility of the Senate has gone on since 
the days this country was founded.
  If you go down through this list of people, there are only 24 on the 
list. He could bring them all up. And 24 is not very many.
  Then it reminds me that right after that are the privileged 
nominations. What are those? Those are the result of our rules changes 
which removed a number of people from Presidential confirmation and 
created a whole new category for several hundred executive positions so 
they do not go through a more cumbersome process, and that is working 
very well.
  So zero filibusters denying nominations, Cabinet members going 
through the Senate more rapidly than the last three Presidents. So what 
is the beef? What is going on? There are only three judges on this 
calendar, an embarrassingly small number for us to deal with. We could 
clear this calendar in one afternoon. How do we do that? The majority 
leader brings them up--except for three who are illegally appointed.
  Now, I will not go into a long thing about the three illegally 
appointed, except to say they are illegally appointed.
  Most of the Founders of this country did not want a king. They 
created a system of checks and balances, and they created a Congress, 
and they created an ability for us to restrain an imperial Presidency. 
That is what this advice and consent is supposed to do, and we should 
exercise that, as former Senator Byrd used to say most eloquently on 
this floor. It is our opportunity to answer questions. Just because the 
majority leader seeks to cut off debate does not mean that person is 
being denied confirmation.
  I will give you an example: Secretary Hagel. The majority leader 
tried to cut off debate 2 days after he came to the floor from the 
committee. We said: We want a little more time to consider this. We 
will be glad to vote for him for cloture in 10 days. He went ahead with 
the cloture vote and called that a filibuster. But Secretary Hagel is 
sitting in his spot as Secretary of Defense today.
  So you can go down through all of these nominations and really find 
no evidence--no evidence whatsoever. So we need a meeting of the two 
caucuses to say: What is going on? Why are you seeking to do this?
  The last thing I would like to say is, it is appropriate from time to 
time in the case of subcabinet members to use the cloture to deny a 
seat. That has happened seven times. John Bolton was one that the 
Democrats did to President Bush.
  As I conclude my remarks, I would like to say this: The majority 
leader said: Well, we have changed the rules 18 times.
  Never like this. What he is proposing to do is to turn this body into 
a place where the majority can do whatever it wants to do. That is like 
the House of Representatives--so the majority can do whatever it wants 
to do. A freight train can run through the House of Representatives in 
1 day, and it could run through here in 1 day if the Majority leader 
does this. This year it might be a Democratic freight train. In a year 
and a half it might be the tea party express. There are a lot of people 
on that side of the aisle who might be very unhappy with the agenda 
that 51 people who have creative imaginations on this side of the aisle 
could do if they could do anything they wanted to do with 51 votes.
  I like to read a lot of history. John Meacham's book about Jefferson 
has a conversation between Jefferson and Adams at the beginning of our 
country. They were President and Vice President, I guess, at the time. 
Jefferson said to Adams he feared for the future of the Republic if it 
did not have a Senate. ``[N]o republic could ever last which had not a 
Senate. . . . [T]rusting the popular assembly''--that means the House, 
that means a majority vote institution--``for the preservation of our 
liberties. . . . [is] the merest chimera''--or illusion--
``imaginable.''
  One other distinguished public servant said the same thing in his 
book in 2007. This is what Harry Reid said in his book when he wrote 
about the nuclear option. He was talking about the then-majority leader 
Senator Frist. He decided to pursue a rules change that would kill the 
filibuster for judicial nominations.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator's time has expired.
  Mr. ALEXANDER. I will be through in just a minute. I ask unanimous 
consent to speak for another minute.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so 
ordered.
  Mr. ALEXANDER. So the leader said:

       Senator Frist of Tennessee, who was the Majority Leader, 
     had decided to pursue a rules change that would kill the 
     filibuster for judicial nominations.

  This is Harry Reid writing.

       And once you opened that Pandora's box--

  Said Senator Reid--

       it was just a matter of time before a Senate leader who 
     couldn't get his way on something moved to eliminate the 
     filibuster for regular business as well.

  Senator Reid wrote:

       And that, simply put, would be the end of the United States 
     Senate.

  I do not want Senator Reid to have written on his tombstone he 
presided over the end of the Senate. Yet if he does what he is 
threatening to do, that would be what he is remembered for in the 
history of this country.
  I yield the floor.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Wyoming.
  Mr. BARRASSO. Mr. President, I listened very carefully to the 
majority leader this morning. What he said was confirming nominees 
should be the norm, not the exception--confirming nominees should be 
the norm, not the exception.
  Well, I would ask, respectfully, that the majority leader take a look 
at actually the record because you cannot ignore the facts.
  Of the 1,564 nominations that President Obama has sent to the Senate, 
only 4 have been rejected--4 of 1,564. During the first 2 years of the 
President's first term in office--the 111th Congress--the Senate 
confirmed 9,020 nominees and rejected 1. In the second portion of that 
first term--which was the 112th Congress--the Senate confirmed 574 
nominees and rejected just 2. Now, during the 113th Congress, the 
Senate has confirmed 66 nominees and rejected just 1.
  In terms of Cabinet nominees--and we heard the majority leader speak 
of that--the Congressional Research Service shows that President 
Obama's nominees have waited an average of 51 days. That is shorter 
than for President George W. Bush and shorter than the time under 
President Clinton.
  When you take a look at judges--and the majority leader talked about 
that--the Democrats should remember the Senate has already confirmed 
more judges this year so far than were confirmed in the entire first 
year of President Bush's second term.
  When you go over this item by item, detail by detail, what you see is 
that confirming nominees is the norm, not the exception.
  It was interesting to listen to the majority leader talk about Don 
Berwick, who was actually nominated to be the head of Health and Human 
Services, Medicare. As the Medicare nominee, what happened? The 
Democratic chairman of the committee never ever scheduled a hearing. 
The Democrats are in charge of that nominee. The President made a 
recess appointment. There was never even a nomination hearing.
  We go through the years and look at the quotes, and here is Senator 
Reid in 2005:


[[Page S5634]]


       Some in this Chamber want to throw out 214 years of Senate 
     history in the quest for absolute power.

  He said:

       They think they're wiser than our Founding Fathers.

  Senator Reid said:

       I doubt that that's true.

  I think we should all follow that advice. We are not wiser than the 
Founding Fathers. It is not time to throw out the rules.
  Then, even as majority leader, in 2009, Senator Reid said:

       [T]he nuclear option was the most important issue I've ever 
     worked on in my entire career, because if that had gone 
     forward it would have destroyed the Senate as we know it.

  So there is not a problem with President Obama's nominees being 
treated fairly and being treated in a timely fashion. There is not a 
problem with his nominees in terms of not being confirmed--1,560 
confirmed, 4 rejected.
  Senate Democrats should remember--should remember--their prior 
commitments and abandon this plan before irreparably damaging the 
Senate.
  I yield the floor.
  Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, 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.
  Mr. MERKLEY. I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum 
call be rescinded.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so 
ordered.


                              Senate Rules

  Mr. MERKLEY. Mr. President, this morning a significant debate began 
on the floor of the Senate as to how to make the Senate function within 
the framework of the Constitution and within the norms and traditions 
of the Senate.
  Indeed, the Constitution envisioned three coequal branches of 
government, and it provided checks and balances. One of those was that 
when the President nominates individuals for executive branch 
positions, Congress could serve as a check. Specifically, the Senate 
was given that power, to review the qualifications and make sure there 
was not something outrageous about the nomination, as a check on the 
Executive.
  This principle was embedded as a simple majority review. Indeed, in 
the Constitution, it is in the same paragraph that lays out a 
supermajority standard for treaties, but retains a simple majority 
standard for reviewing executive branch nominations.
  The Senate in recent times has started, however, to use the privilege 
of having your say; that is, everyone should be heard before a decision 
was made, as a way to change that fundamental principle in the 
Constitution from a simple majority to a supermajority. We can't close 
debate here in the Senate without a supermajority. Even though no one 
has anything else to say, that power has been used to prevent a simple 
up-or-down vote.
  Under this theory of three coequal branches of government, no one 
could envision that a minority of one Chamber of the legislature could, 
in fact, completely undermine either the executive branch or the 
judicial branch. That certainly was never anticipated. Indeed, the 
reason it was left as a simple majority is that our Founding Fathers 
who were writing the Constitution had experienced the challenge of what 
a supermajority would do. Madison said, regarding the supermajority, 
``The fundamental principle of free government would be reversed.''
  He said in Federalist Paper No. 22, speaking from the painful 
experience as a New York representative to the Congress that created 
the Articles of Confederation, that supermajority rule results in 
``tedious delays; continual negotiation, and intrigue; contemptible 
compromises of the public good.''
  Madison was not the only one to observe the deadly nature of 
paralysis to a Congress. In Federalist Paper No. 76, Alexander Hamilton 
lays out the nomination process in great detail. Indeed, he says he has 
kept the nomination power with the President and not the legislative 
branch to avoid the ``party likings and dislikes, partialities and 
antipathies, attachments and animosities, which are felt by those who 
compose the assembly.''
  He then went on to argue the Senate is necessary to vet nominees for 
the ``intrinsic merit of the candidate'' and continued, ``the 
advancement of the public service.''
  Hamilton states that he expects nominees would be rejected only when 
there were, and I quote, ``special and strong reasons for the 
refusal.''
  This principle of oversight to make sure that something that is 
outside the bounds of reason is done by the executive branch has now 
reached a point of deep abuse.
  Our majority leader came to the floor earlier today, and he laid out 
the history of how the nomination process has been bent from an 
unrecognizable process that neither Madison nor Hamilton nor any of our 
other Founders could have envisioned, a process that allows this Senate 
to utilize the privilege of having your say on the floor and turn it 
into a weapon of destruction against the legislative branch and the 
judicial branch.
  We can take a look at how long it has taken folks to be able from the 
announcements and their waiting time to get a vote, such as Richard 
Cordray, 724 days and counting; Alan Estevez, 292 days; Jack Lew, 169; 
and so on and so forth.
  The traditional norm of the Senate, a timely up-or-down vote with 
rare exceptions, is certainly missing today.
  The executive branch is headed by the President, who was elected by 
the citizens of the United States. In this case President Obama was not 
elected once, he was elected twice. He was elected with a vision, and 
people expect, the citizens expect, that the President will operate the 
Presidency consistent with implementing that vision and carry out the 
responsibilities of an executive branch.
  This cannot be done if the folks necessary to lead different agencies 
or sit on different boards cannot get through the nomination process in 
this Senate.
  For those who are passionate about believing in the vision we have, 
the constitutional vision, the balance of power, the coequal branches 
of government, we must act to remedy the deep abuses we are 
experiencing today.
  Let me first emphasize the extensive delays. Executive nominees who 
are ready to be confirmed by the Senate have been pending an average of 
258 days, the better balance of a complete year, more than 8 months 
since they were first nominated--258 days. This hardly meets the norm 
or the tradition of the Senate of timely consideration. This has been a 
prime cause of the difficulty filling executive branch slots. Not only 
does it make the vacancies extend for a long period of time and, 
therefore, dysfunction in executing the responsibilities of government, 
but it certainly makes it more difficult to recruit qualified folks who 
don't want to be held in limbo and procedurally tortured by a minority 
of the Senate in this fashion. This is not new. This did not start this 
year, but it keeps getting worse.

  In that context, let's go back to January. In January, there were a 
series of bipartisan modest changes in the rules, and they were 
accompanied by a promise of comity. That is c-o-m-i-t-y, comity. 
Specifically, the pledge by the Republican leader was this:

       Senate Republicans will continue to work with the majority 
     to process nominations, consistent with the norms and 
     traditions of the Senate.

  What are those norms and traditions? Those are timely consideration, 
up-or-down votes, with rare exception.
  Let's take a look and see if what has happened over the last 6 months 
is consistent with the norms and traditions of the Senate and let's 
start first with looking at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. 
Only weeks after the January pledge, 44 Republican Senators sent a 
letter that said: ``We will not support the consideration of any 
nominee, regardless of party affiliation, to be the CFPB director''--
February 1, 2013, just days after the Republican leader pledged a 
return to the norms and traditions of the Senate.
  This is not within the norms and traditions of the Senate, even going 
back to our Founders, who pointed out that they were worried about 
partisan, party-affiliated differences and animosities permeating the 
system. They laid out a simple nomination-confirmation process about 
the qualifications of the individual, not about the legitimacy, if

[[Page S5635]]

you will, of the agency. It is a policy decision. It is a policy that 
has been passed in this Senate saying the Consumer Financial Protection 
Bureau is a valuable addition to end practices that are predatory 
financial practices.
  We had a consumer safety group that looks at things such as keeping 
lead out of the paint on children's toys. That is very important, and 
it goes on to monitor the safety of toys and many other aspects.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The time of the Senator has 
expired.
  Mr. MERKLEY. I ask unanimous consent to speak for an additional 10 
minutes.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so 
ordered.
  Mr. MERKLEY. We indeed in this case are talking about an agency that 
will protect our families from predatory financial practices. We all 
know what those are. They are hidden charges on prepaid credit cards. 
They are exploding interest rates on mortgages, where there is a teaser 
rate for 2 years and then the mortgage zooms up from 4 percent to 9 
percent, driving defaults. In fact, that was a major factor, not only 
in the loss of homes of millions of families but also a major factor in 
the meltdown of our economy.
  What is good for the family, building successful families, is also 
good for building a successful economy. We had that debate, and we as a 
Senate approved creating this organization. Now we have 44 Senators who 
say they are going to destroy this agency by blocking a Director from 
ever being appointed. This is 100 percent outside the norms and 
tradition of the Senate.
  Of course, that restoration of the norms and traditions was the 
promise made on this floor by the Republican leader just days before 
this letter was sent.
  According to the Senate Historian, this is the first time in history 
a political party has blocked a nomination of someone because they 
didn't like the construction of the agency. Let me repeat that. This is 
the first time in history.
  A few weeks later we had another first, the first ever filibuster of 
a Defense Secretary nominee. The New York Times wrote: ``The first time 
in history that the Senate has required that a nominee for Secretary of 
Defense clear the 60-vote hurdle.''
  This is the first time in history. The irony, of course, is that the 
nominee was a former Republican colleague of this Chamber, Chuck Hagel. 
Certainly this was out of sync for the norms and traditions of the 
Senate.
  Then we come to this spring, again, unprecedented delay tactics. A 
Republican former House Member called the boycotting of Gina McCarthy 
``an unprecedented attempt to slow down the confirmation process and 
undermine the agency.''
  Is that consistent with the norms and traditions that were promised 
in January? It is not.
  In fact, I sit on the committee that voted Gina McCarthy out. When we 
tried to have the vote, we were faced with the boycott; that is, a 
quorum was denied because our colleague, Senator Lautenberg, was 
extremely sick and could not attend. Taking advantage of his illness, 
Republicans decided not to show up and therefore block that nomination 
from coming out of the committee. Only when Senator Lautenberg came in, 
in the midst of an extreme illness, did the Republican members attend 
the committee. This is part of this ongoing process of unprecedented 
obstruction.
  Real delays involve real hurt. It is not an academic debate. This 
obstruction is having a real impact on people's lives.
  Let's turn to the National Labor Relations Board. In a few weeks in 
August, there will no longer be a quorum of the NLRB. This means for 
the first time in 78 years there will be no referee in place between 
the rules for the conduct of employers and employees. That referee 
makes sure that illegal practices by workers don't occur and illegal 
practices by employers don't occur. We lose that referee in a few weeks 
and that, as Members of this Senate have expressed, is their 
goal. Again, this is unprecedented--not putting forward a policy debate 
over eliminating the National Labor Relations Board but instead 
undermining it by blocking the ability to hold up-or-down votes on the 
nominees.

  Workers are deeply affected by whether this referee is in place. 
Kathleen Von Eitzen, a Panera baker who tried to organize her fellow 
bakers, came to Washington, DC, to talk about how they have been unable 
to get to a final contract and how, in the process, their members have 
been cut, in some cases their hours have been cut, and a whole host of 
other retaliatory measures. These are the things you need a referee 
for--to say that is not acceptable or to judge the evidence as both 
sides present it. That is why we need the NLRB.
  How about Marcus Hedger, who was fired for taking a friend through 
the shop floor. It just so happened Marcus was a union leader in his 
shop. He asked permission to escort a friend through the floor and it 
was granted. Then the employer said: Aha, we got you. We can fire you 
because you know you are not allowed, under the rules, to escort a 
friend through the shop floor.
  The NLRB ruled quickly, saying this was an extraordinarily flimsy 
pretext for firing someone because he happened to be a shop steward, 
and it was during the timeframe of a labor negotiation. The company was 
trying to send a message. They were trying to say: If you support 
workers organizing to fight for living wages, you may get fired, and 
here we have just set an example.
  It is the NLRB that is the referee that says those sorts of 
unacceptable tactics cannot occur.
  Back to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. It has refunded 
Americans $425 million in savings by getting rid of credit card tricks 
and traps.
  I think it is important we fight for the success of our families. 
These are family values. We should not measure the success of our 
Nation by the size of the gross domestic product. We should measure it 
by the success of our families, and eliminating predatory tactics is an 
incredibly important piece of that puzzle that touches millions.
  What we have seen is this: The pledge made on this floor by our 
Republican leader in January--the pledge that said we will return to 
the norms and traditions of the Senate for nominations--has not 
occurred. The Republican leader may indeed have had every good will in 
making that pledge, but it requires the cooperation of the entire 
caucus and that certainly has not occurred and we haven't heard a 
strong effort to abide by that pledge made in January.
  So it is time to restore the norms and traditions in the Senate, 
where the Senate provides a check on outrageous nominations, but it is 
a check, not a form of paralysis. It is advise and consent, not 
paralyze or veto.
  For those who love democracy, it has been sad to see this Chamber, 
once considered the premier deliberative body in the world, fall into 
such a State of paralysis and dysfunction. It is up to us, as Members 
of this body, to come forward and say that is absolutely unacceptable.
  That is the debate that was started today. I applaud the majority 
leader who in January of 2011 strived to resolve this dysfunction 
through a gentleman's agreement, but within weeks that gentleman's 
agreement was in tatters. I applaud the majority leader for his 
instinct in January when he sought modest bipartisan rule changes with 
the promise of comity and a pledge from the Republican leader to return 
to the customs and traditions of the Senate. His instinct was right. We 
should be able to accomplish these things by restoring the social 
contract.
  The leader, Harry Reid, has gone the extra mile and then another 
extra mile in seeking to adopt the social contract that held this body 
together, but now what we see is it has not been reciprocated. The 
pledges made, the promise of comity, the gentleman's agreement has not 
resulted in material changes in tactics employed on the floor of the 
Senate. So now we have to work to restore the vision of our Founders, 
the vision of simple majority, with timely up-or-down votes on 
nominations. We owe this to the executive branch, and we certainly owe 
it to our citizens who reelected President Obama.
  I wish to address one last point; that is, it has been argued what 
the majority leader is proposing--that we, if necessary, change the 
rule or change the application of the rule in order to make this place 
work again--is unprecedented.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Ms. Baldwin). The Senator's time has expired.

[[Page S5636]]

  Mr. MERKLEY. I ask unanimous consent to speak for 1 more minute.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. MERKLEY. I have in my hands a document entitled ``The Senate's 
Power to Make Procedural Rules by Majority Vote,'' and this lays out a 
whole host of viewpoints expressed in 2005 that I think would be 
interesting reading for my colleagues across the aisle because it was 
their document.
  I also have a long list of cases where every other year, on average, 
we have changed the application of a rule in order to make the Senate 
function in a different way, a better way. So this is far from 
unprecedented.
  It is time for us, together as Senators, to live up to our 
responsibility and restore the power to the executive branch to put 
their folks in place, operating under our advise and consent in the way 
envisioned in the Constitution.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New Mexico.
  Mr. UDALL of New Mexico. Madam President, I come to the floor to 
speak about the rules issue that has come to a head in the Senate. We 
have seen unprecedented obstruction by the other side of the aisle. 
They have continually blocked nominations--and I will get into the 
numbers--and this is something that has been building since we came in, 
in this Congress. We had a debate about rules, and we didn't do the 
things we should have done. We should have put in place a talking 
filibuster. There is no doubt about it. We should have put in other 
rules changes. What has happened is we find ourselves in the situation 
of a tyranny of the minority.
  What is a tyranny of the minority? The Founders talked about it. The 
Founders saw that if a situation was created where a minority could 
block the action of the Senate, then the minority would actually be 
governing, and that is the situation we have before us. The minority 
governs when it comes to nominees, and they have blocked nominees in a 
very significant way. I can't repeat enough that this is unprecedented 
in the history of the country.
  The President can't get his team. What is at issue is we have a 
President of the United States who had a very big win in the last 
election. He put himself out there, he campaigned on a number of 
issues, and he won the election. So one would think he can now get his 
team in place, but he is unable to get his team in place. He tries to 
propose people.
  For example, in talking about the Consumer Financial Protection 
Bureau, we have a very qualified attorney general--and I was a former 
attorney general a few years back--a young man the President put 
forward from Ohio who was very well qualified. He has not been able to 
get a vote. He is in an agency that is tremendously important to the 
middle class, he is in an agency that is important to consumers, and he 
is able to do things that are very important for consumers across this 
Nation when it comes to bank loans, when it comes to safety issues, and 
all across the board. Yet we have a situation where he cannot be sworn 
in and do his job as a full-time appointee for that agency. This is 
absolutely unprecedented, and we have to tackle this issue.
  What is happening with the minority side is, if they do not like a 
nominee or they do not like the policies the nominee stands for or they 
do not like the administration's policies, they prevent the nominee 
from taking office at all. In effect, through the minority process that 
is being utilized, they are determining policy.

  That is what the big objection is, and I think we are going to have 
to address this. I am very supportive of Leader Reid coming out and 
saying we have to address this, we have to deal with this, and I think 
we are going to deal with it starting today and flowing into the next 
week or so.
  It was mentioned here recently that the Republican policy committee 
put out a document entitled ``The Senate's Power to Make Procedural 
Rules by Majority Vote.'' I believe that document was put into the 
Record.
  Earlier in the debate this document was referred to, and I just want 
to make sure everyone understands it is very clear, in reading this 
document, that at the time of April 2005 and in that period, the 
Republicans were making very strong arguments that we could go forward 
with rule changes during the middle of a session. They were pointing 
out that Majority Leader Robert Byrd--and we all know Robert Byrd was 
one of the Senators in this institution who studied and knew the rules; 
most people believe Robert Byrd knew the rules better than any Senator 
in the last 100 years--always felt we had the right, under the 
constitutional option, to make changes that needed to be made.
  In 1977, 1979, 1980, and 1987, Majority Leader Byrd established 
precedence that changed Senate procedures during the middle of a 
Congress, and I think that is what we are talking about, something 
along those lines. This is a critical issue for us as we try to move 
forward and we try to govern.
  The Democrats have a majority and a big majority, if we consider the 
Independents who have joined with us, no doubt about it. Yet we cannot 
govern because of the procedures being utilized today.
  I wish to highlight a little of this unprecedented Republican 
obstruction. Executive nominees who are ready to be confirmed by the 
Senate have been pending, on average, for 260 days--more than 8 months 
since they were first nominated. The Senate confirmed only 34 executive 
nominees by the July 4 recess compared to 118 at this point in the Bush 
administration. There are 184 pending executive nominees.
  Since President Obama took office, Senate Republicans have 
filibustered 16 executive nominations and two nominees, including Mr. 
Cordray to be the head of the Consumer Financial Protection Board, via 
filibuster. For the first time ever, Senate Republicans filibustered a 
nomination for the Secretary of Defense. As the New York Times noted, 
``The vote represented the first time in history that the Senate has 
required that a nominee for Secretary of Defense clear the 60-vote 
hurdle before a final simple majority vote.''
  That is the New York Times.
  Senate Republicans continue to block the nomination of Gina McCarthy 
to be EPA Administrator, claiming she has been unresponsive. Mrs. 
McCarthy was forced to answer more questions than ever before--more 
than 1,100 questions--since Senate Republicans boycotted her hearing at 
the committee I serve on, the Environment and Public Works Committee.
  Mrs. McCarthy was previously environmental adviser to Mitt Romney. 
She has very good credentials.
  I urge my colleagues to look at what she did in New Mexico. Here you 
have Gina McCarthy. There is a potential for a lawsuit. It is an issue 
that has to do with air quality in New Mexico. She ended up pulling all 
the parties together through her Regional Administrator and reached a 
compromise where we closed down two coal-fired plants and opened in 
their place two natural gas-fired plants. It was considered by the 
Governor, the EPA Regional Administrator, and everybody as a win-win 
for everyone, and she engineered that from her position at air quality 
there in the EPA.
  Another point that should be made about Gina McCarthy is Gina 
McCarthy is a woman who has already been approved by the Senate. She 
was approved in a lopsided vote and has been doing her job for 4 years.
  So what are we doing that they are saying she has to be filibustered, 
she has to be stopped because they don't like the policies she is going 
to put in place. It is absolutely outrageous what is happening, and we 
need to rein this in. I agree Senator Reid is headed in the right 
direction to do this.
  I applaud Senator Murray for her good work with Senator Reid and the 
leadership team in terms of trying to address how we govern and very 
much appreciate how she has tried to shape this issue and tries to 
always work with the Republicans on this issue. We have tried to work 
through these things and haven't been able to.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Who yields time?
  The Senator from Virginia.
  Mr. WARNER. Madam President, I appreciate the comments of my 
colleague from New Mexico. As a former chief executive myself, it is 
remarkable to me that regardless of who is the President of the United 
States, he or

[[Page S5637]]

she ought to be able to get their team in place, with appropriate 
oversight and review. Unfortunately, it doesn't seem to be the case in 
this body.
  Many of the other debates we have had are important, but in my 4-plus 
years that I have been here, this supersedes everything else that if we 
could reach some resolution on, I think might go further than any other 
action in both lowering some of the rhetoric and lancing some of the 
boil of partisanship in the Senate, as well as doing more for the kind 
of job growth that is still so desperately needed. That is getting our 
fiscal house in order, getting our balance sheet in order.
  We have seen some good news as the economy recovers. We have seen our 
annual deficit numbers go down, although I have to look with somewhat 
jaundiced eyes when the press is saying: Hallelujah, this year our 
deficit may only be $746 billion. That is still not good enough, and 
the solution set we are looking for is not that far away.
  I am going to make a couple comments and then ask my colleague, the 
chair of our Budget Committee, to once again make an offer to proceed 
with regular order, something that is in the backstop of this debate 
about rules, something our colleagues on the other side of the aisle--
perhaps appropriately--beat us over the head for 3 years about the fact 
that we ought to have regular order around the budget.
  It has now been 110 days since the Senate approved a budget, after a 
marathon session that went to 5 in the morning--a session that I think 
even our colleagues on the other side who didn't vote for the budget 
would agree was open and appropriate to rules and everybody got the 
chance to have their say and offer their ideas.
  Now, for the 16th time, we are going to come and ask our colleagues: 
Let's abide by regular order and go to a budget conference. Let's do 
the hard work that is necessary to make sure we finish the job of 
getting the kind of deficit reduction, getting our balance sheet in 
order, that will allow this economy to move forward and, quite 
honestly, allow us to get back to regular order on issues such as 
appropriations bills and a host of other things. I can't speak for 
everyone, but people in Virginia and I imagine people in Washington 
State--and I see colleagues from New Mexico and Florida--and elsewhere 
are saying: What are you doing? Why can't you get something done?
  Every day that we remain in this paralyzed state, while it may be 
great late-night fodder for comedians about Congress's inability to 
act, at some point this dysfunction erodes the underlying confidence 
the American people have in our institutions. That is not good for 
American democracy, and it is not good as well for the ability of our 
economy to recover.
  One of the things we have seen in press reports and what is starting 
to seep into consciousness is the actions that were set up in 
sequestration; that they don't seem to be as bad as people think. But 
let's remind ourselves that sequestration was set up to be the 
stupidest option possible, an option so stupid that no rational group 
of people would ever let it come to pass.
  I have cut budgets as Governor. I have cut budgets in business. There 
is a smart way and a stupid way to cut a budget. We set up a process 
that was so stupid that no rational group would ever let it happen.
  One of the reasons why I think our approval rating hovers around 8 
percent is we didn't come together, we didn't let this budget process 
take place, and we allowed this sequestration to move forward.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The time for the majority has expired.
  Mr. WARNER. I ask unanimous consent for a 5-minute extension.
  Mrs. MURRAY. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent for the Senator 
from Virginia to finish his statement, for me to have 8 minutes of 
morning business, and then allow our colleagues on the other side to 
respond.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
  The Senator from Florida.
  Mr. RUBIO. Madam President, I don't have objection to the time they 
want to use. What is our order on the time until 12:30?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. At 12:30, the Senate will stand in recess.
  Mr. RUBIO. I ask unanimous consent that after they are done with 
their remarks, I have 10 minutes. I may have an objection, and probably 
will, and would like to speak on that as well. I want to make sure we 
could have unanimous consent on that. I don't intend to keep us in 
longer than we need to be.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
  Without objection, it is so ordered.
  The Senator from Virginia.
  Mr. WARNER. I thank my colleague.


                           Budget Conference

  I just want to point out the fact that we are now starting to see 
furloughs in the Federal workforce. There is no State in our Nation 
that is more ground zero, that is getting hit harder than the 
Commonwealth of Virginia with sequestration. There are real people who 
are being hurt.
  We have talked about some of the numbers, whether it is in Head Start 
or NIH grants, but let me share some of the things I have heard in the 
last 2 weeks from Virginians.
  Pat Hickman, who works at the Department of Defense in northern 
Virginia, says: ``I'm tired of hearing, `It's only one day,' and `it's 
only 20 percent.' ''
  Pat is now starting to decide, because of these 11 days of furlough, 
whether she is going to have to start to curtail her contributions to 
her Thrift Savings Plan. Her retirement would be in jeopardy.
  Another employee whose name didn't come forward said that if you have 
kids in school, during the summertime they are in daycare. This Federal 
employee spends $2,000 a month for daycare, and they are not getting a 
discount on these expenses that are built into their family budget. How 
could they have planned 1 year out that they were going to get 
furloughed 11 weeks in a row?
  Craig Granville, who works down at the shipyard in Portsmouth, says 
that furloughing for the next 12 weeks will hit their expenses hard. He 
has a wife who is currently going for treatment for an illness and the 
insurance company only pays half. They have to decide do they cut back 
on the wife's treatment or do they go into their savings.
  I have letters and comments from Virginian after Virginian urging 
us--begging us--to take off our Democratic and Republican hats and put 
the interests of our country first and foremost.
  I know we have lots of differences on how we want to approach and 
bridge this gap. We are never going to get to bridge the gap in our 
differences on the debt and deficit and on the budget unless we can get 
to conference and try to work it out.
  I say in strong support of our Budget chairman, I thank her for the 
great work she has done in getting a budget in a fair way, where our 
Republican colleagues had a chance to raise their objections. I hope 
and pray we will get to that conference so we can get this issue 
resolved.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Washington.
  Mrs. MURRAY. Madam President, I thank the Senator from Virginia. 
There is no one in this body more passionate to do the work to get us 
to a balanced bipartisan deal, to put the budget deficit and the budget 
issues behind us, and to get our country back on track than the Senator 
from Virginia. I know he wants to get to a conference committee as 
badly as I do--not to demand that we only have our position but to work 
with others to find a bipartisan solution.
  As he so eloquently stated, it has been more than 100 days now since 
the Senate did pass a budget, and we have tried now 15 times to take 
the next step to move to a bipartisan conference with the House. Every 
time we have asked, we have been blocked by a tea party Republican with 
the support of the Republican leadership.
  I understand that for some factions in the Republican Party, 
``compromise'' is a dirty word. That may explain why they have offered 
up excuse after excuse for blocking the regular budget order we are 
trying to work toward. They refuse to allow a conference before we get 
to a so-called preconference framework. They demand we put 
preconditions on what can be discussed or talked about in a bipartisan 
conference, to claiming that moving to a budget conference--which 
leading Republicans called for just

[[Page S5638]]

months ago--was somehow now not regular order, to most recently 
claiming we need to look at a 30-year budget window before we look at 
the major problems we have in front of us right now, when we can--and 
must--do both at the same time.
  I know there are significant differences between our parties' values 
and our priorities. Some of us--Democrats and Republicans--think this 
is a reason to come together and try to reach a bipartisan deal in a 
budget conference now. It has been heartening to hear from Senators 
McCain and Collins and many other Republicans who have chatted with me 
about why they believe we need to have a formal bipartisan negotiation 
move on this. Unfortunately, there is a small group of Senators who 
would prefer to throw up their hands and stall until we reach a crisis, 
when they think they can get a better deal.
  Last week, I was home in my State, similar to most Senators, and I 
talked to a lot of Americans who don't understand that kind of 
approach. They run their businesses and help their communities and 
support their families by compromising every single day. They can't 
afford to wait to reach agreements until the very last minute, because 
when that happens, they have to deal with the consequences. But that is 
exactly what my Republican colleagues are doing to thousands of my 
families in the State of Washington. Because Republicans will not allow 
us to come to the table, the automatic cuts from sequestration are 
impacting everything from children who depend on Head Start to our 
national security. What is more, many of the same colleagues will try 
to tell you that sequestration is not impacting American families. As 
the Senator from Virginia just talked about, I can tell you firsthand 
that the impacts are real.

  For thousands of families in my home State, these become a reality 
tomorrow morning. That is because furloughs for the Department of 
Defense employees begin this week--equivalent to a 20-percent pay cut 
for 650,000 defense workers nationwide. Bases in my home State of 
Washington are being affected, and the first furlough date at Joint 
Base Lewis-McChord in Washington State is tomorrow. So instead of going 
to work, thousands of workers in my State will go home. The 9/11 call 
center and the fire department will be understaffed. Airfields are 
going to be shuttered except for emergencies. The military personnel 
office is closed. The substance abuse center is closed. The Army 
Medical Center is going to close clinics, and even the Wounded Care 
Clinic is going to be understaffed.
  I am reminded of one worker I met last week, Will Silba. Will is a 
former marine, an amputee. He works now as a fire inspector, and he 
told me that because of these furloughs he is going to have to get a 
second job. He is going to struggle with his mortgage payments.
  While these furloughs are going to directly impact thousands of 
people and civilian employees, the leaders at Lewis-McChord have made 
it very clear that the furloughs are going to hurt our soldiers. They 
are going to limit their access to medical care. They are going to cut 
back on the family support programs. They are going to make it tougher 
to find a job when they finish their military careers. Why? Because our 
colleagues refuse to work together. To me, this is unacceptable.
  Because some Republicans would like to preserve the harmful cuts from 
sequestration despite these kinds of impacts, we have a $91 billion gap 
between the House and the Senate appropriations levels for next year. 
If we do not resolve that gap, we are headed for another round of 
uncertainty and brinkmanship, another unnecessary burden on our 
economic recovery and the millions of Americans who are looking for 
work every day. Some of my Republican colleagues say they are fine with 
that. In fact, House Republicans are reported, right now, to be busy 
working on a debt limit ransom note--right now--and so far that ransom 
note sounds quite a lot like the Ryan budget. As you know, the budget 
we did pass here in the Senate was very different, but that is exactly 
why we have to resolve our differences in conference. That is where we 
come together in a public fashion and talk about our differences and 
work out agreements.
  I believe we have an opportunity, a window of opportunity over the 
next few weeks to do what Americans across the country have asked us to 
do--compromise and confront these problems before we head back to our 
home States for the work period in August. We do not have a lot of 
time, but I am confident that if those of us who can see working 
together as a responsibility rather than a liability come to the table, 
we can get a fair bipartisan agreement.
  By the way, I was very discouraged to hear just this week from some 
tea party Republicans--many of the same ones who are now blocking us 
going to conference--who are already talking now about shutting down 
the government in order to defund ObamaCare. Not only do they want to 
push us to a crisis, but they want to do that in order to cut off 
health care coverage for 25 million people and reopen that doughnut 
hole we know so much about, causing seniors to pay more for their 
prescriptions, and end preventive care for seniors, and the list goes 
on.
  This is an absurd position. We should not be talking about shutting 
down the government. I really hope responsible Republicans reject this 
approach and work with us on real solutions, not more political fights. 
My colleagues and I are going to continue urging the Senate Republican 
leadership to end their tea party-backed strategy of manufacturing 
crises and allow us to do the work we were sent here to do and go to a 
conference. I urge them to listen not just to Democrats but to many 
Members of their own party who want to get to a budget conference and 
allow us to get to work to solve the Nation's problems.


               Unanimous Consent Request--H. Con. Res. 25

  Today I come to the floor to ask unanimous consent that the Senate 
proceed to the consideration of Calendar No. 33, H. Con. Res. 25; that 
the amendment which is at the desk, the text of S. Con. Res. 8, the 
budget resolution passed by the Senate, be inserted in lieu thereof; 
that H. Con. Res. 25, as amended, be agreed to; that the motion to 
reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table; that the Senate 
insist on its amendment, request a conference with the House on the 
disagreeing votes of the two Houses, and the Chair be authorized to 
appointment conferees on the part of the Senate; that following the 
authorization, two motions to instruct conferees be in order from each 
side: the motion to instruct relative to the debt limit and a motion to 
instruct relative to taxes and revenues; that there be 2 hours of 
debate equally divided between the two leaders or their designees prior 
to a vote in relation to the motions; that no amendments be in order to 
either of the motions prior to the votes; and that all the above 
occurring with no intervening action or debate.
  I ask unanimous consent for that.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection? The Senator from Florida.
  Mr. RUBIO. Madam President, reserving the right to object, I do not 
oppose going to a budget conference with the House. I think I have 
shown, especially in the last week, a willingness and ability to 
compromise on important issues--one, quite frankly, very unpopular 
among people supportive of my candidacy--in my time here in the Senate 
when we dealt with the issue of immigration. My concern is that when 
this goes to a budget conference with the House, they will negotiate 
the debt limit--an issue that I believe is so monumental it should be 
debated on its own merits and by itself.
  So what I am arguing for is a compromise. Let's go to conference but 
assure everyone here that this is not a conference that is going to 
deal with the debt limit issue. We need to deal with that issue 
separately.
  I ask unanimous consent of the Senator on a compromise. I ask 
unanimous consent that the Senator modify her request so that it not be 
in order for the Senate to consider a conference report that includes 
reconciliation instructions to raise the debt limit.

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Does the Senator so modify her request?
  Mrs. MURRAY. Madam President, I will object, but let me just say 
this. What the Senator is requesting is that we tell our conferees 
before they ever get to the conference committee what they can do on a 
specific issue. What I offered in my original offer is to have a vote 
on that, which is how we do this here. The Senator is requesting not

[[Page S5639]]

that we have a vote but that we have a demand.
  I respect the Senator from Florida. He has worked very hard, as he 
stated, on immigration reform. He is working now to try to get the 
House to pass that. At some point they will go to conference. What he 
is saying is that when his bill goes to conference, what he wants to do 
is allow any Senator on this floor to make a demand of that conference 
committee before they get there--not a vote, not a majority vote, but a 
demand from a small minority of what is going to be in that conference. 
We cannot agree with that.
  What I have offered is a vote on that, which is what we are--a 
democracy. You are allowed to vote, and if enough Senators agree with 
that position, that is what we would direct the conference to do. But 
this body is not built on a demand from one Senator or a small group of 
Senators on a conference before we go there. We are a democracy.
  So I again object to his request as he said and renew my request, 
which will allow a debate and a vote on that issue he is requesting, as 
happens in a democracy.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Objection is heard to the modification. Is 
there objection to the original request?
  Mr. RUBIO. I object.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Objection is heard.
  The Senator from Florida.
  Mr. RUBIO. How much time do I have remaining?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Ten minutes.
  Mr. RUBIO. Madam President, let me say at the outset on this debt 
limit issue that we have been told by everyone here that the debt limit 
is not going to be dealt with; they don't intend to deal with it; that, 
in fact, we have rules in place that prohibit that from happening. So 
if the intent is to say we are not going to deal with the debt limit, 
why not just put it in writing? Why not just agree to it? I think it 
raises suspicion that they refuse to take the debt limit off the table 
in writing in a specific motion, even though they told us that is not 
the case.
  But I want to raise a couple of points in regard to all this debate 
we are having. We heard a lot of debate about the impact of the 
sequester on this country. I do not dispute that it will have an 
impact. In fact, I voted against the deal that actually gave us the 
sequester, and I voted against it because, while I believe deeply we 
need to constrain spending because we are spending a lot more money 
than we are taking in, about $1 trillion a year more than we are taking 
in, borrowing about 40 cents of every dollar we spend in the Federal 
Government--for the folks visiting here in the gallery, you may be 
shocked to hear that. Every dollar the Federal Government spends, 40 
cents of it is borrowed. When you borrow it, that means you have to pay 
it back with interest. That is your money. That doesn't come from a 
tree. That is money taxpayers are eventually going to have to come up 
with. And for the youngsters here, I want you to understand it is 
primarily going to come from you in the years to come.
  So the reason I thought the sequester was a bad idea is because that 
sequester is going after things that by and large are not the drivers 
of our debt. The drivers of our debt are certain programs that are 
built in a way that are unsustainable, important programs such as 
Medicare. I believe in Medicare. I support Medicare, as I tell anyone 
when they ask me about it. My mother is on Medicare. I don't want to 
see Medicare hurt or changed for her. But I also recognize that if 
Medicare is going to exist when I retire, we better start making some 
changes to it for future retirees, people 20 or 30 years from now. That 
is where we should be focusing our reform efforts.
  We cannot get the other side to agree on any sort of changes. There 
was an effort in the House last year to try to do something very 
serious about that. They brutally attacked it. There was a reference to 
the Ryan budget a moment ago. The Ryan budget--I am not saying it was 
perfect, but it was the most serious effort yet in this Congress, in 
this city, to reform a program that is going bankrupt on its own.
  I think the only thing worse than the sequester is to raise taxes to 
prevent a sequester because that will hurt job creation in America. The 
only thing worse than the sequester is not to have any spending 
reductions at all, which leads me to the point that was raised earlier 
saying that we are not going to agree to a short-term budget unless 
ObamaCare is defunded and that we are threatening a crisis by shutting 
down the government.
  Let me say that one of the people who said that was me, so let me 
address that for a moment. Let me tell you what the disaster is. The 
real disaster is ObamaCare itself. In fact, it is such a disaster that 
the people who supported it are now delaying implementing portions of 
it. Just last week we were told that one of the key components of the 
law requiring that employers provide insurance--they are going to have 
to delay that by a year, conveniently until after the next election.
  Here is the other thing we found out last week. I know that under 
ObamaCare, when you go in and say, I make so much money, you can 
qualify for the government to give you extra money to buy insurance. 
Guess what. They now admitted they have no way of verifying how much 
money you really make. Basically, it means people are going to get to 
show up and say, I only make $20,000 a year, and get their subsidy, 
with no way to verify the truth about what they make.
  It is not limited to that. The disaster that is looming with regard 
to ObamaCare impacts every single American. Here is a list of them that 
was recently produced by the Heritage Foundation. They missed a bunch 
of deadlines.

       Most states resisted Obamacare's call to create insurance 
     exchanges, choosing to let Washington create a federally run 
     exchange instead. However, a Government Accountability Office 
     report noted that ``critical'' activities to create a federal 
     exchange have not been completed and the missed deadlines 
     ``suggest a potential for challenges going forward.''

  That is right--you may have to go on a Federal exchange--including, 
ironically enough, the Members of the Congress and their staffs--and 
the exchange doesn't exist yet. You are going to be expected in a 
couple of months to sign up for something that doesn't even exist yet. 
That is one part of the disaster. There are many others.

       The administration announced in April that workers will not 
     be able to choose plans from different health insurers in the 
     small business exchanges next year--a delay that [a liberal 
     blogger] called ``a really bad sign of ObamaCare 
     incompetence.''

  Here is another one, the child-only plans--one of the things people 
were excited about. There was a drafting error in the law that actually 
led to less access to care for children with preexisting conditions.

       A 2011 report found that in 17 states, insurers are no 
     longer selling child-only health insurance plans, because 
     they fear that individuals will apply for coverage only after 
     being diagnosed with costly illnesses.
       Basic health plan: DELAYED.
       This government-run plan for states, created as part of 
     ObamaCare, has also been delayed, prompting one Democrat to 
     criticize the Administration for failing to ``live up'' to 
     the law and implement it as written.

  The early retiree reinsurance--it is broke.

       The $5 billion in funding for this program was intended to 
     last until 2014--but the program's money ran out in 2011, two 
     years ahead of schedule.

  Waivers:

       After the law passed, HHS discovered that some of its new 
     mandates would raise costs so much that employers would drop 
     coverage rather than face skyrocketing premiums. Instead, the 
     Administration announced a series of temporary waivers--and 
     more than half the recipients of those waivers were members 
     of union health insurance plans.

  It goes on and on. This thing is a disaster. I don't care about how 
you feel about it, there is an insurance crisis in America, let there 
be no doubt. People are struggling to find access to quality health 
insurance. We should deal with that, but this approach is a disaster. 
No matter how you feel about it, it is a disaster. It cannot be 
implemented in time. You don't think that is looming over our economy?
  I just left a meeting with an owner of a chain of restaurants. They 
are worried about it. They don't know what to make of it. Why, if you 
ask what it is going to look like next year, they don't know. They 
don't know. We are in July already, folks. We are going to implement 
this? We are going to force this on our economy? You don't think that 
is a disaster? You don't think in the

[[Page S5640]]

real world--not in Washington or the think tanks--small- and medium-
sized businesses and individuals are holding back on investing or 
holding back on making moves? You don't think someone who decided to 
leave their job, take their life's savings, and open a business because 
they believe so much in their dream--you don't think this uncertainty 
is hurting that from happening? It is.

  You cannot grow your economy unless people are willing to start new 
businesses or grow existing businesses, and ObamaCare is keeping that 
from happening. That is the disaster.
  Why would we fund a disaster? Why would we pay for something out of 
the American taxpayer's wallet we know isn't going to work? When they 
talk about shutting down the government and how it is going to be a 
disaster--ObamaCare threatens to shut down our economy. I am telling 
you this is a disaster. We should not fund it, and we should not have a 
temporary budget around here that gives money to this thing. It is a 
disaster, it will not work, and it is going to hurt people.
  The other thing about this debt limit that I make such a big deal 
about--let me tell you why. We owe $17 trillion, and that is bad, and 
it is bigger than our economy. Here is the worst part about it: There 
is no plan in place to stop that from continuing to grow. You heard 
right. There is no plan. This budget the Senate passed--I am glad we 
passed a budget--only makes it worse; it doesn't make it better.
  Where is the urgency? What are we waiting for? This isn't going to 
take care of itself. We are not going to win the Powerball lottery and 
pay this thing off. When is someone going to step up and say it is time 
to solve it?
  I have been here now 2\1/2\ years. If on the day I got elected you 
told me we would go 2\1/2\ years without seriously dealing with this, I 
wouldn't have believed you. I would have said: Look, I know it is going 
to be hard, but we have to do something. We are 2\1/2\ years into this, 
and they are saying: We are going to raise the debt limit, and we don't 
want any conditions. We don't want to deal with anything that fixes it.
  People say: Well, the debt is something that is far off in the 
future. It is off in the future, but it is also happening now. Do you 
think when people decide to invest money to start a new business or 
expand an existing business--which is how you create jobs; that is how 
jobs are created in the private sector.
  If you graduated college, went to school, got your degree, and now 
you can't find a job, I will tell you why you cannot find a job: The 
businesses that create those jobs will not create them until all of 
this is figured out. People do not want to risk their hard-earned and 
saved money in an economy that is headed for a catastrophe.
  Look at what is happening in Europe now. Europe has a debt problem. 
You know how they have had to deal with it? Disruptive changes in 
government and tax increases. If you think that stuff attracts 
investment in business, you are out of your mind. There isn't a chamber 
of commerce in the world that tells people: Come to us. Here we have 
high taxes and heavy debt that will make those taxes even bigger in the 
future.
  The bottom line is that the debt limit and the fact that we don't 
have a solution for the debt is also the reason for the crisis. We need 
to begin dealing with this seriously and stop playing games. Someone 
has to draw a line in the sand, and I know many of my colleagues and I 
intend to do so every chance we get.
  I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Will the Senator withhold that suggestion.
  Mr. RUBIO. Yes.

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