[Congressional Record Volume 159, Number 101 (Tuesday, July 16, 2013)]
[Senate]
[Pages S5692-S5698]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
EXECUTIVE SESSION
______
NOMINATION OF RICHARD CORDRAY TO BE DIRECTOR OF THE BUREAU OF CONSUMER
FINANCIAL PROTECTION
Mr. REID. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate
proceed to executive session to resume consideration of Calendar No.
51.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
Without objection, it is so ordered.
The clerk will report the nomination.
The legislative clerk read as follows:
Nomination, Bureau of Consumer Financial Protection,
Richard Cordray of Ohio to be Director.
Mr. REID. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the time until
11 a.m. be equally divided and controlled.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. REID. At 11 there will be a cloture vote on the nomination of
Richard Cordray to be Director of the Consumer Financial Protection
Bureau. If cloture is invoked, there will be up to 8 hours of debate on
the nomination.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Who yields time?
Mr. REID. I ask unanimous consent that the time be equally divided.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Would the Senator withhold that request?
Mr. REID. Absolutely.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Arizona is recognized.
Mr. McCAIN. Mr. President, we are going to move forward to the
Cordray nomination, which has been held up for some period of time. I
would like to thank everybody on both sides of the aisle who was
engaged in this debate and discussion. I would particularly like to
thank all of my colleagues who engaged in a long but productive
discussion last night--which is our custom--of the many issues that
separate us, particularly some pending, what many of us believe to be a
crisis in the history of the Senate.
I wish to thank both our leaders, Senator McConnell and Senator Reid,
and so many others who have been actively engaged in conversations that
have been going on. I look forward to a vote as soon as possible on Mr.
Cordray.
I thank all of my colleagues for believing what I thought was very
important in our relations with the Senate.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The majority leader.
Mr. REID. Mr. President, we may have a way forward on this. I feel
very confident, as you know. That is why we need the time. So what we
are going to do is go into a quorum. I think everyone would be well
advised, if they wish, to talk about substantive matters, if you wish
to speak to Senator Markey. But we have a few i's to dot and t's to
cross, I have to speak to the Vice President, and we are going to have
a phone call to make with Senators Schumer and Murray. So everything is
going well.
I will say I hope everyone learned a lesson last night, that it sure
helps to sit down, stand, whatever it is, and talk to each other. It
was a very good meeting that lasted 4 hours. People were still as
highly engaged at the end of that 4 hours as they were in the
beginning.
I think we see a way forward that will be good for everybody. There
are a lot of accolades to go around to a lot of people. I certainly
appreciate my wonderful caucus.
One of my Senators, who has a lot of humility, told me this morning:
It doesn't matter what you ask me to do, I will do it.
I would hope this is not a time to flex muscles, but it is a time I
am going to tell one person and no one else how much I appreciate their
advocacy, their persuasiveness, persistence, and--a word that truly
describes this man is hard to find.
I was told by another Senator: You know what this man did? I said:
You know who he reminds me of? Bob Kerrey. I hope that doesn't
disparage John McCain. But John McCain is the reason we are at the
point we are. A lot of people have been extremely helpful. This is all
directed toward John McCain from me. No one was able to break through
but for him. He does it at his own peril.
Everyone, we are going to have a caucus today. We will explain in
more detail the direction we are headed. I think everyone will be
happy. Everyone will not think we got everything we wanted, but I think
it is going to be something that is good for the Senate. It is a
compromise. I think we get what we want; they get what they want--not a
bad deal.
I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. ENZI. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for
the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. ENZI. Mr. President, I wish to speak today on the nomination of
Richard Cordray to be the Director of the Consumer Financial Protection
Bureau. I want to speak against this confirmation.
Why is this nomination important? Once the Director is approved by
Congress, by the Senate--not all the Congress, just by the Senate--we
will no longer have any control over a bureau that collects everyone's
financial records in detail and can cancel a loan up to 180 days even
if both parties to the loan are happy.
Mr. Cordray was recess-appointed. I think it was because the
President thought he would not be approved by Congress.
What I am about to tell you already is under the direction of this
nominee. That recess appointment put him in charge of the Consumer
Financial Protection Bureau. It sounds like a good title, but the
reason this is of utmost concern to me and has been for the past 3
years is the lack of congressional oversight and blatant privacy
intrusions of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the CFPB.
The Dodd-Frank Act, which created the CFPB, has been a hot topic of
conversation since its passage in 2010. There are a lot of important
discussions about different parts of the bill and some of the
consequences we are seeing now, 3 years down the road. These are all
important conversations to have, but today I am focusing on the
Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.
The Bureau, as allowed by the Dodd-Frank Act, could direct up to $600
million every year, but it is not subject to the congressional
appropriations process--the same congressional appropriations process
that approves the budgets of the other agencies, such as the Securities
and Exchange Commission and the Federal Trade Commission. Instead, the
agency is funded from revenues from the Federal Reserve--the Federal
Reserve--before the revenues come to the Treasury, funds that are
supposed to be remitted to the Treasury for deficit reduction.
Some might ask: Isn't there a cap to the funding available to the
CFPB? Yes, there is, but here is what it looks like. The cap was 10
percent of the Federal revenues for fiscal year 2010, 11 percent for
fiscal year 2012, and it will be 12 percent for fiscal year 2013, with
an inflation factor each and every year after that. This means 12
percent of the combined earnings of the Federal Reserve System, which
was $4.98 billion in 2009. At that time, 10 percent would have been
$500 million. These numbers are astonishing, and anyone saying that the
Bureau is not funded by taxpayers is trying to pull a sleight-of-hand.
The funds may not come directly from the Treasury, but taxpayers are
going to have to take up the slack for funds they are no longer
receiving from the Federal Reserve. I am not sure how we do that
constitutionally, to move somebody outside and still take Federal
money.
In addition, the Director of the Bureau has unlimited discretion over
how the agency's money--these hundreds of millions of dollars I just
talked about--is spent. Let me repeat that. The Director of the Bureau
has unlimited discretion over how the agency's money is spent. He
doesn't submit a budget. Nothing is approved.
Not only that, the Director is allowed to put fines and penalties
collected by the Bureau into a slush fund that it does not have to
return to the Treasury the way other agencies have to do. Do you think
that might encourage a lot of fines and penalties by this Bureau? I
think it would. I don't think it ought to be done that way.
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The same Director who has so much unchecked authority doesn't even
answer to the Office of Management and Budget and only has to submit
routine financial information to the Office.
There is also no inspector general for this Bureau. Here is one
example of why that is a problem. The Dodd-Frank Act expressly exempted
auto dealers from the oversight purview of the Bureau. They listened to
me when this bill was passing and found out that loans could be
canceled within 180 days by the Bureau without the approval of the
automobile dealer or the person who bought the automobile.
However, the Bureau doesn't think auto dealers should be exempt from
oversight, so it found ways to exert itself through the banks. Banks
are now looking at auto loans made, and the Bureau has issued its first
significant penalty in connection with the vehicle financing.
The Bureau has also issued what it calls a fair lending guidance
bulletin directed at institutions that make indirect automobile loans.
In it the Bureau says indirect lenders will be viewed as participants
in any discriminatory pricing by dealers due to their role in the auto
loan credit decision process and suggests lenders impose controls on
dealer markup and compensation policies. Is this revenge for them
getting an exemption in the bill?
The Bureau's interpretation of Dodd-Frank and this guidance will have
wide ramifications for indirect lenders and ultimately auto dealers.
Because the bulletin issued is considered guidance and not a rule,
there has been no opportunity for the public--including consumers,
lenders, and dealers--to comment on this policy interpretation that
will affect an industry that was exempted from the Bureau oversight.
The lack of accountability and congressional oversight over the
Bureau's budget and Director are troubling, to say the least, but the
picture becomes even more concerning when the lens is shifted to what
kinds of oversight power are afforded to and being practiced by this
Bureau--this Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. It sounds like it is
for everybody.
Here is what I said when expressing my concern about this Bureau and
the Dodd-Frank Act on May 20, 2010:
This bill was supposed to be about regulating Wall Street;
instead it's creating a Google Earth on every financial
transaction. That's right--the government will be able to see
every detail of your finances.
Your permission is not needed.
They can look at your transactions from the 50,000 foot
perspective or they can look right down to the tiny details
of the time and place where you pulled cash out of an ATM or
charged to your credit card.
Unfortunately, we are now finding this fear has become a reality. A
recent Bloomberg article states that the Bureau is demanding records
from banks and buying information from companies on at least 10 million
American consumers for ``use in a wide range of policy research
projects.'' This information gathering from banks includes credit card
and checking account overdraft information as well as requirements to
provide records on credit cards and on products such as credit
monitoring.
In addition to the bank records it is collecting, the Bureau is
collecting data on payday loans from debt collection agencies and
building a mortgage database of loan and property records with
information from agencies and other financial and property information
holders.
The CFPD also says they are not including any personally identifiable
information such as names and Social Security numbers while compiling
all of this information. I made that statement at one of our listening
sessions in Wyoming, and somebody from the audience yelled: No, they
just check with the NSA.
What they are doing is taking all of that consumer data and layering
it into consumer profiles to show a complete snapshot of each
consumer's finances. For example, they can say: There is a consumer at
a specified zip code who has $1,500 in the bank, $6,000 in credit card
debt, $10,000 in student loan debt, and a $200,000 mortgage.
To the American people who are listening to me speak right now, what
happens if you are one of the 10 million customers whose data is being
collected? Does this make you angry and uncomfortable? What happens if
you don't want all of your financial information compiled and used by
the Bureau for policy research projects?
I am sure you would like to hear me tell you that you can call or
write the Bureau and say you don't want the Bureau collecting your
financial records from your bank, your student loan from a third party
provider, your mortgage data, or your ATM data. I am sorry. You can't.
You can't tell them to stay out of your records. It is not possible. If
your data is being collected, you do not have the option to opt out nor
does the CFPB need any kind of permission from you to gather your
personal financial information.
This is another issue I tried to work on when the Dodd-Frank Act
passed. I had an amendment that would simply require a privacy release,
a signature from the consumer before the Bureau could collect the
consumer's financial data. Unfortunately, my amendment was not accepted
and we find ourselves in the situation we are in today: Americans
cannot tell the government they don't want their personal financial
information collected and stored.
What I would like to know is how this information is reining in Wall
Street. The Dodd-Frank Act was sold to the public as a way to rein in
Wall Street. As far as I can tell, it has turned out to be the perfect
excuse for Big Brother to worm his way even further into our lives and
our privacy.
Actually, Big Brother doesn't have to worm his way in. Dodd-Frank
opened the door and invited him in, and that is what this lack of
oversight is signaling. Go ahead and collect millions of consumers'
information. Don't tell us what you are using it for, and don't feel
the need to tell us much of anything else because this Director and
this Bureau will not be accountable to Congress.
Meanwhile, the message we are getting from the Bureau, and some of my
colleagues, is that Congress needs to sit back and butt out of the
Bureau's business. We are hearing the message that asking for
congressional oversight is akin to wanting consumers to be deceived and
discriminated against.
Let's get one thing straight. None of my colleagues disagree that
protecting consumers is important. We all want consumers to get a fair
shake and be able to make informed financial decisions. I never
envisioned the Federal Government making your financial decisions. I
have championed financial literacy for much of my time in Washington
and believe strongly in the value of individuals having the tools they
need to make sound financial decisions for themselves and their
families. I repeat: I never envisioned the Federal Government making
your financial decisions, but that is not the issue. The issue is the
need for checks and balances and for consumers to be able to make a
choice as to whether their financial information is collected and used.
I cannot in good conscience, with these concerns weighing so heavily
on my mind, support moving forward with the confirmation of a Director
to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau--the one already in charge
of collecting your financial records--while doing a daily speech about
his good work.
Wait until his confirmation. We will see more intrusion into our
personal lives. Until it has changed so this man does not have this
much power--power beyond anybody else in the Federal Government--there
needs to be some changes that will balance consumers' protections with
privacy protections and allow for a healthy and appropriate level of
congressional oversight over an agency that wields this tremendous
power and has its own source of revenue and no oversight. Not even an
inspector general has this kind of power. Until that happens, I have to
oppose this nomination. I hope my colleagues will join me.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Schatz). The Senator from New Mexico
Mr. UDALL of New Mexico. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to
speak for 5 minutes.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection? Without objection, it is
so ordered.
Mr. UDALL of New Mexico. Mr. President, this is a historic day in the
Senate. These are qualified nominees. They have been delayed long
enough. But we are also considering a larger
[[Page S5694]]
question; What kind of Senate do we want? What kind of Senate best
serves the American people?
This is not about breaking agreements. This is about a Senate that is
already broken. We once were called the world's greatest deliberative
body, and we have become a graveyard for good ideas. The traditions of
the Senate have been buried--buried under the weight of filibusters, of
chronic obstruction, and by a tyranny of the minority. The Senate has
been driven by unprecedented partisanship.
The agreement of this past January was modest. Some of us felt it was
too much so. The leaders agreed to schedule the President's nominees in
a timely manner, but that did not happen. That is not what we have
seen. Nominees have been continually blocked--one after another, month
after month. That failure doesn't just violate an agreement, it
violates the trust of the American people.
People in New Mexico--people in the rest of the country--want to
know: Who is minding the store? The answer, too often, is no one. As a
result, important work is left undone. That is not by accident. It is
by design, which is why we are here now. Because the months go by, and
we don't have a Secretary of Labor. We don't have a National Labor
Relations Board. We don't have an administrator of the Environmental
Protection Agency. These, and other, vital agencies are adrift.
Their work matters for the people in my State, for all Americans who
care about the rights of workers, the environment, health care,
consumer protection, and the integrity of our elections.
The American people spoke in November. They re-elected the President.
They expect a government to do its job, and gave the President the
right to select his team to do that job. The people give the President
that right, but a minority in the Senate does not. Find 60 votes or
find someone else or leave the position empty. That is not the
tradition of the Senate.
That is not advise and consent, it is obstruct and delay. In the end,
it is the people of this country who are kept waiting.
These are qualified nominees. They should not be blocked yet again
simply because you don't like their policy or their program, or the law
they are commanded to uphold.
We have a chance here today--a historic chance--to restore the
confirmation process. We have a chance to restore the Senate to how it
has worked for over 200 years. I hope we will take this opportunity.
New Mexicans want a government that works, the American people want a
government that works, and today they will be watching to see if,
finally, it actually does.
In conclusion, I want to talk about the rules and what we engaged in
yesterday, which I thought was a very productive endeavor. We had 3
hours with most Senators in the room in the Old Senate Chamber. We were
able to exchange our thoughts outside of the limelight. I believe it
was very productive.
We had a lot of ideas come forward. Some of those ideas to resolve
this situation may end up being adopted in a little bit. It looks as
though Richard Cordray, the attorney general from Ohio, will get
cloture at this point--at least that is the way it is looking--and then
we will have some debate on that nomination.
I have a couple of other points. First of all, Leader Reid has
incredible patience when it comes to this whole issue of executive
nominations. I have seen him over and over go beyond the pale when it
comes to patience. At this point he realized we were getting things
clogged up, there was too much obstruction, so he needed to force the
issue.
I am very proud he has done this because I think it has pushed us in
the right direction. As a result, we are going to get executive
nominees in place on a timely basis, and we are going to get rid of all
the delay we have had.
I looked back in history at executive nominees. I remember my father
when he became Secretary of the Interior in 1961. When I was first
sworn into the Senate and came home, I told him we were having a hard
time getting executive nominees in place. He said: Tom, the amazing
thing, if you highlight the 50 years ago and 50 years later, is I had
my whole team in place within 2 weeks. My entire team was in place in 2
weeks.
This is President Obama's fifth year as President, and he doesn't
have his team in place. That is the issue. I know we are focusing on
trying to do everything we can to find a solution as to how we allow a
President who has been reelected--and by a pretty good margin--to have
his team in place.
I am very confident that Senator John McCain is working on a
compromise. He is a good friend to the family and somebody who cares
about moving forward with the issues rather than obstructing the
issues.
As everybody knows, he was part of the Gang of 14. Senator McCain
with 13 other Senators came up with that compromise to move us forward
in terms of the gridlock that we were facing with judicial nominations.
So I hope the discussions that are taking place are going to produce
something.
I think it is a big breakthrough to see we are at the point where
Richard Cordray, who has been waiting for 2 years--he is a very
competent individual. He has served as the attorney general of Ohio,
one of our biggest States. He is a great consumer protection person--is
going to get cloture, we will have debate, and my sense is we are going
to get him into that consumer agency, and it will make a big
difference.
I see my good friend Senator Corker, so I want to make sure he gets
to speak before we have this 11 a.m. vote.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Tennessee.
Mr. CORKER. Mr. President, I thought last night's meeting was a
healthy meeting. I am glad we did what we did. I appreciate the two
leaders sponsoring that meeting, and I appreciate the time in which
everyone spoke.
I think with a lot of phone calls having been made this morning we
can and will move past the cloture vote for Mr. Cordray. I have had
several conversations with him and others, this morning, but I do want
to say this is a gesture of good faith. We will see what happens in a
moment when the vote takes place and, obviously, in this body, nothing
happens until it happens.
I hope Members on the other side will note this good-faith effort
that is taking place in a few moments. I hope it is going to happen. I
think it may.
I hope that over the course of the next 24 to 48 hours we can work in
a little more comprehensive manner. I think this would be something to
get behind us during this next year and a half so we can move on to
solving our Nation's problems. I don't think it is healthy for this
body to constantly have potential rules changes hanging over the issues
of our Nation, and we do have big issues.
We have an opportunity, potentially, to get the immigration issue
behind us. I know there are other pieces of legislation we could well
deal with. In the event we do move into this postcloture period, I hope
Members on the other side of the aisle will take note of that and will
work with us constructively toward a solution that brings this place
together instead of pulling it apart.
I thank the Senator for his efforts. Again, I empathize and
sympathize with his family over the personal loss that just occurred. I
look forward to working with the Senator from New Mexico as we move
ahead.
I yield the floor.
Cloture Motion
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order and pursuant to rule
XXII, the Chair lays before the Senate the pending cloture motion,
which the clerk will state.
The legislative clerk read as follows:
Cloture Motion
We, the undersigned Senators, in accordance with the
provisions of rule XXII of the Standing Rules of the Senate,
hereby move to bring to a close debate on the nomination of
Richard Cordray, of Ohio, to be Director, Bureau of Consumer
Financial Protection.
Harry Reid, Tim Johnson, Barbara Boxer, Elizabeth Warren,
Debbie Stabenow, Jon Tester, Al Franken, Jack Reed, Tom
Harkin, Ron Wyden, Patrick J. Leahy, Amy Klobuchar,
Robert P. Casey, Jr. Jeff Merkley, John D. Rockefeller
IV, Max Baucus, Richard Blumenthal, Carl Levin.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. By unanimous consent, the mandatory quorum
call has been waived.
The question is, Is it the sense of the Senate that debate on the
nomination
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of Richard Cordray, of Ohio, to be Director of the Bureau of Consumer
Financial Protection, for a term of 5 years, shall be brought to a
close?
The yeas and nays are mandatory under the rule.
The clerk will call the roll.
The yeas and nays resulted--yeas 71, nays 29, as follows:
[Rollcall Vote No. 173 Ex.]
YEAS--71
Ayotte
Baldwin
Baucus
Begich
Bennet
Blumenthal
Blunt
Boxer
Brown
Cantwell
Cardin
Carper
Casey
Chambliss
Coats
Collins
Coons
Corker
Donnelly
Durbin
Feinstein
Flake
Franken
Gillibrand
Graham
Hagan
Harkin
Hatch
Heinrich
Heitkamp
Hirono
Hoeven
Isakson
Johanns
Johnson (SD)
Kaine
King
Kirk
Klobuchar
Landrieu
Leahy
Levin
Manchin
Markey
McCain
McCaskill
Menendez
Merkley
Mikulski
Murkowski
Murphy
Murray
Nelson
Portman
Pryor
Reed
Reid
Rockefeller
Sanders
Schatz
Schumer
Shaheen
Stabenow
Tester
Udall (CO)
Udall (NM)
Warner
Warren
Whitehouse
Wicker
Wyden
NAYS--29
Alexander
Barrasso
Boozman
Burr
Chiesa
Coburn
Cochran
Cornyn
Crapo
Cruz
Enzi
Fischer
Grassley
Heller
Inhofe
Johnson (WI)
Lee
McConnell
Moran
Paul
Risch
Roberts
Rubio
Scott
Sessions
Shelby
Thune
Toomey
Vitter
The PRESIDING OFFICER. On this vote the yeas are 71 and the nays are
29. Three-fifths of the Senators duly chosen and sworn having voted in
the affirmative, the motion is agreed to.
Pursuant to S. Res. 15 of the 113th Congress, there is now 8 hours of
postcloture debate on this nomination, equally divided in the usual
form.
The majority leader.
Mr. REID. I hope we don't have to use all of the 8 hours, but we will
see.
Mr. REID. I ask unanimous consent the Senate recess from 12:30 p.m.
to 2:15 p.m. to allow for the weekly caucus meetings and that the time
during the recess count postcloture on the Cordray nomination.
I express my appreciation for the strong vote this good man received.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. REID. I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. REID. I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call
be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. REID. What I should have done and will do now is ask unanimous
consent that the time during this quorum call be divided equally on
both sides.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. REID. I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. MERKLEY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order
for the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. MERKLEY. Mr. President, I thought I would make a couple of
comments regarding the activities of this Chamber a few minutes ago. We
had 71 votes in favor of closing debate on the nomination of Richard
Cordray to be Director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the
CFPB. The CFPB is vested with the responsibility of protecting
consumers from predatory financial practices.
We all discovered in the runup to the great recession just how
important this protection is. We had many crazy predatory practices.
On credit cards we had fees that came out of nowhere and shifting
time periods from month to month in terms of when the payments were
due, even shifting destinations of where the credit card payments got
mailed to, and also fees that could be wracked up on unsuspecting
consumers.
We certainly found out on mortgages how important financial
protection is because we had, starting from 2003 forward, a booming
industry in predatory teaser rate mortgages, where the mortgages might
be 4 percent for 2 years but then were changed after 2 years to 9
percent. One would think most would-be homeowners would look at that
deal and say: That is not a good deal. But here is what happened. They
went to a mortgage broker, and the mortgage broker said: I am your
financial adviser. Mortgages have gotten very complex, they are very
thick, and there is a lot of fine print, so you are paying me to sort
through and find the best deal for you.
So first-time home buyers trusted their mortgage brokers. Unbeknownst
to the new homeowners, those brokers were being paid kickbacks called
steering payments. They were being paid special bonuses outside the
framework of the deal in order to steer the unsuspecting first-time
home buyer--the customer--into a predatory loan when the first-time
customer actually qualified for a prime fixed-rate mortgage. Well,
those predatory mortgages proceeded to be put into securities, and
those securities were bought up by financial institutions across
America and beyond because the folks who were buying the securities
understood that in a couple of years the interest rate would go way up
and they would make a lot of money off those securities.
So this was a system rigged against the first-time home buyer,
against the home buyer who wanted to start their journey to owning
their piece of the American dream.
Those predatory practices should never have been allowed. Some here
will remember the responsibility for consumer protection was vested in
the Federal Reserve. But what happened in the Federal Reserve? The
Federal Reserve carried on with its responsibility on monetary policy,
but it put its responsibility for consumer protection down in the
basement of its building. They locked the doors, they threw away the
key, and they said let the market be the market. They abandoned our
consumers across this country.
That is why we need a Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. It
doesn't have a conflict in its mission. It is not obsessed with a
different mission such as monetary policy. We need a bureau that says:
New predatory techniques will crop up and we will try to end them, try
to end practices in predatory payday loans that can charge 350 to 550-
percent interest on unsuspecting citizens. We need a bureau that will
look out and say we need to stop the practice on which online payday
lenders get your bank account number and, without your permission, do a
remotely generated check and reach in and grab the funds out of your
account. The list of predatory practices is endless because the human
mind is endlessly inventive. So we have an important bureau--but an
important bureau that cannot do its job unless there is a director to
run it.
Two years ago Richard Cordray was nominated to head the Bureau. He
has been waiting to get cloture on his nomination and a subsequent vote
for 2 years. He has been an interim appointee during that period of
time and, by all accounts, from everything I have heard from folks in
this Chamber, doing a very good job, working very hard with the great
technical details of the financial world to find a fair and solid way
forward.
The fact is his nomination, so long delayed, is not a reflection on
him personally. In fact, many Senators who have opposed allowing the
vote to take place have come forward and said it is not about him
personally; it is about the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.
Forty-three Senators in this Chamber wrote a letter to say they would
oppose any nominee for the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. It was
a bold attempt to change back to a situation where there was no one to
fight for consumer protection for our citizens in this Nation.
Today we end that drama in favor of fairness for American citizens,
in favor of taking strong action against predatory mortgages and the
predatory practices of the future. In 8 hours we will be voting up or
down on his nomination, as we should have long ago.
But let me shift gears here and say the vote we took today is
symbolic of much more than the important function of establishing an
effective Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. The vote we took a
short while ago is central to ending the paralysis that has generally
haunted this Chamber. That paralysis is something new. In
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the time from Eisenhower's Presidency through Ford's Presidency, there
was not one filibuster of an executive nominee. In President Obama's
4\1/2\ years, there have been 16 such filibusters. So if we talk about
the norm and tradition of the Senate, the norm and tradition of the
Senate is a reasonable and timely up-or-down vote. That is the
tradition, and it is a tradition that fits with the Constitution. The
Constitution calls for a supermajority for treaties to be confirmed,
but it only embeds a simple majority requirement for nominations. There
is reasoning behind that: because our Founders envisioned three coequal
branches of government. They could never have envisioned it would be OK
for the minority of one branch to be able to deeply disable another
branch, be it the executive branch or be it the judiciary.
So the vote we took today is part of a larger conversation about
ending the paralysis and focusing on the challenge of executive
nominations getting timely up-or-down votes.
Mr. DURBIN. Would the Senator yield for a question?
Mr. MERKLEY. Absolutely.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Ms. Heitkamp). The Senator from Illinois.
Mr. DURBIN. Madam President, I first thank the Senator for his
leadership. He has been the singular force in the Senate to have us
reassess the rules of the Senate to make certain they are serving the
needs of our Nation. I thank Senator Merkley for his leadership, and I
know he felt a great sense of satisfaction with the vote that was just
cast on the floor--a vote in which 71 Senators voted to invoke cloture
and end the filibuster on the nominee to head the Consumer Financial
Protection Bureau.
As the Senator from Oregon knows, this Bureau has been controversial
since its inception when we passed the Dodd-Frank finance reform bill
after the tragedies and scandals of Wall Street. There were many who
did not want to see us create a consumer protection agency. Yet we did.
It was the brainchild of one of our current colleagues, Senator
Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, who, before she was elected, thought
this was an important agency--literally the only consumer protection
agency in the Federal Government. But it wasn't welcomed by some
corners, particularly some financial institutions and others.
I think it is noteworthy at two levels, and I would like to ask the
Senator from Oregon to respond. First, it is noteworthy that although
it took 2 years, in that 2-year period of time this Consumer Financial
Protection Bureau has proven its worth.
I am working now on the exploitation of our military by for-profit
schools. Holly Petraeus, the wife of General Petraeus, works for this
agency, and she has focused her efforts on military families and the
exploitation of the GI bill by these schools.
I think every American would agree that those who are guilty of it
should be held accountable, and this investigation is under way by this
agency. Now Richard Cordray is there to head it. I think that is
important, and that is why this vote which will be in a few hours on
Richard Cordray's nomination is important.
But the second point is a larger global point about the Senate and
perhaps Congress. We have in a very brief period of time--1 month--seen
two very significant votes, in my estimation. The first was on the
immigration bill, where 68 Senators voted for the immigration reform
bill, 14 Republicans joining all the Democrats. It was a breakthrough,
and most of us feel it was the first time in a long time that we have
seen Senators of both political parties sit down and hammer out an
agreement that was reflected in the vote on the floor: 14 Republicans,
54 Democrats.
Now we have the second evidence of bipartisanship with the vote that
was just cast, 71 who came forward--some 17 Republicans and 54
Democrats, if I am not mistaken--voting in favor of ending cloture.
The point I would like to get to in this long question--and I would
ask the Senator from Oregon for his reflection on this--it seems to me
the key to getting things done on Capitol Hill these days, in a
fractured political Nation, is bipartisanship--not just in the Senate
Chamber but in the House as well, that they have to reach beyond the
majority party--in our case Democrats and in their case Republicans--
and start thinking about how we put things together on a bipartisan
basis that have a chance of passing and ultimately becoming law and
solving the problems facing our Nation.
When it comes to consumer protection, with a bipartisan vote, we move
forward. A few weeks ago when it came to immigration reform, we had a
bipartisan vote that moved forward. So I would ask the Senator to not
only reflect on this institution and the earlier vote but on the
current challenges we face politically and how these votes reflect on
those.
Mr. MERKLEY. I would say to my colleague from Illinois that, indeed,
these are key milestones where the journey is to restore the
functionality of this Senate so it can take on the significant issues
Americans expect us to take on.
The path forward is not yet one without obstruction. We have these
two important milestones--one of going forward on immigration, a second
of going forward in terms of putting a functioning Consumer Financial
Protection Bureau fully together. We have had some other recent moments
that fit this pattern, including passing the farm bill out of this
Chamber for the second time, passing a Water Resources Development Act
that would fund enormous amounts of infrastructure across this country
to help provide both water supply infrastructure and wastewater
treatment infrastructure. These are good moments. But we also are
reminded that the path is not completely clear.
For example, at this moment we should be in the middle of a
conference committee on the budget. The Senate passed a budget and the
House has passed a budget, but the conference committee is being
filibustered by this Chamber. That is evidence of the model we are
trying to break that is unexplainable to the American people. Folks
back home want to know why we can't get a bill on the floor of the
Senate to address the sequester. Because fewer kids are getting into
Head Start, fewer kids are getting their inoculations, title I schools
are not getting their funding. And, of course, there is a lot of
concern within the military world about our national security where
programs are being compromised. But we couldn't get the bill to the
floor of the Senate because it was filibustered.
So we have important milestones to grab hold of that are presenting a
vision of the restoration of this Senate as a deliberative body, but we
are going to have to work together in this bipartisan fashion we speak
of to continue on this road.
Mr. DURBIN. I thank the Senator.
Mr. MERKLEY. Madam President, I appreciate my colleague from Illinois
emphasizing the important role of bipartisanship in making this Chamber
work. His question gave me an opportunity to talk about what has just
transpired as an important victory--an important victory for this
Chamber and its deliberation, an important victory for people across
America, families working to have their financial foundation solid
rather than torn asunder by predatory practices.
In this journey, this effort to achieve a Senate that can again
function as a deliberative body, I want to take this moment to thank my
colleague Tom Udall. Tom Udall and I came into the Senate together. Tom
Udall immediately recognized that the Senate needed to address its
internal functioning because we were becoming more and more paralyzed.
He proposed before this body that we have a conscious debate every 2
years about how to adjust the rules and to make this Senate Chamber
work much better, because we are not only being paralyzed on executive
nominations but we have this terrible paralysis on legislation, with a
few important exceptions that my colleague from Illinois and I spoke
about.
I want to thank Tom for his work to help motivate this body to take
on these issues and to restore the functionality. I have been pleased
to be a partner with him on this journey. I know it is a journey that
is not yet done, but I do thank my colleagues--across the aisle and on
this side of the aisle--for the very frank discussions last night in
which for 3 hours we bared our hearts, if you will, about what is
working and not working in this Chamber. That too is an important
moment
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in this journey to make the Senate work. So I applaud the spirit that
came into the Chamber today that resolved the 2-year standoff in regard
to having a functioning chair of the Consumer Financial Protection
Bureau, and to set the tone, hopefully, for changing dramatically the
partnership to restore the functioning of the Senate going forward.
I yield the floor.
Mr. SANDERS. Madam President, I am glad an agreement has been reached
in which President Obama will finally get Senate confirmation votes on
his appointees to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the
Department of Labor, and the head of the Environmental Protection
Agency. This agreement, as I understand it, will also provide that the
President's new nominees for the National Labor Relations Board will be
rapidly confirmed. That is a step forward.
While this agreement addresses the immediate need for the President
of the United States to have his Cabinet and his senior staff
confirmed, this agreement today only addresses one symptom of a
seriously dysfunctional Senate. The issue that must now be addressed is
how we create a process and a set of rules in the Senate that allows us
to respond to the needs of the American people in a timely and
effective way--something virtually everyone agrees is not happening
now. The Senate cannot function with any degree of effectiveness if a
supermajority of 60 votes is needed to pass virtually any piece of
legislation and if we waste huge amounts of time not debating the real
issues facing working people but waiting for motions to proceed hour
after hour where nobody is even on the floor of the Senate.
The good news is that I think the Nation is now focused on the
dysfunctionality of the Senate and the need for us to have rules or a
process that allows us to address the enormous problems facing our
country. When people ask why is it that Congress now has a favorability
rating of less than 10 percent, the answer is fairly obvious: The
middle class of this country is disappearing. Real unemployment is
somewhere around 14 percent. The minimum wage has not kept up with
inflation. Millions of people are working in jobs that pay them poverty
wages. Tens of millions of people today lack health care, while we have
the most expensive and wasteful health care system in the world. The
greatest planetary crisis facing our Nation and the entire world is
global warming, and we are not even debating that issue.
The Senate is a very peculiar institution. It is peculiar in the
sense that any one Member--one of 100--can come down here on the floor
and utter two magical words that bring the Senate to a complete halt;
that is, ``I object.'' I will not allow the Senate to go forward, which
means the whole government shuts down. I object. I object.
What we have seen in recent years--especially since Barack Obama was
elected--is an unprecedented level of ``I object,'' of holds, of a
variety of mechanisms that bring the functioning of the Senate to a
halt. All of this takes place at a time when millions of people cannot
find jobs and at a time when kids are graduating college deeply in debt
and millions of others are now choosing not to go to college because we
are not addressing the issue of higher education. It takes place at a
time when our infrastructure--our roads and bridges and airports and
rail systems--is crumbling, when our educational system is in need of
major reform, and the gap between the people on top and everybody else
is growing wider.
The American people perceive this country has major problems that
must be addressed. What does the Senate do? We are sitting here waiting
30 hours for a motion to proceed, to see if, in fact, we can vote on a
piece of legislation that requires 60 votes. Time and time again we do
not get those votes.
When votes come up, I would like to win, to be on the winning side.
That is natural. Everybody would. But what happens here--and the
American people by and large do not fully understand it--we do not vote
on issues. What happens is the debate ceases because we do not get
motions to proceed. So we do not vote on a jobs program, we vote on
whether we can proceed to a jobs program to create millions of jobs. We
do not vote on whether we can keep interest rates low for college
students who are borrowing money, we vote on whether we can proceed to
have the vote.
What we have seen in the last several years is an unprecedented level
of obstructionism and filibustering. Between 1917 and 1967 there was
more or less an agreement in the Senate that a filibuster would only be
used under exceptional circumstances. There were only some 40 or 45
filibusters in a 50-year period. When Lyndon Johnson was majority
leader in the late 1950s, in his 6-year tenure as majority leader he
had to overcome a filibuster on one occasion. Since Harry Reid has been
majority leader in the last 6\1/2\ years, he has had to overcome 400
filibusters or at least requirements for 60 votes. The amount of time
we are wasting is unconscionable.
Furthermore, what the American people do not know is that time after
time we are winning. We have the votes to win and have shown that on
very important issues. In terms of one major issue, just as an example,
right now, rather tragically, we have a situation as a result of the
disastrous Citizens United Supreme Court decision that corporations and
billionaires can spend hundreds of millions of dollars on elections.
As bad as that is, what is even worse, they can hide their
contributions--not make them public. Guess what. The Senate by a
majority vote said: That is wrong. If you are going to contribute huge
amounts of money into the political process, the people have a right to
know who you are.
We have a majority vote on this issue. We could not get it passed
because we needed 60 votes.
The American people know our tax system is enormously flawed. We have
major corporations--General Electric and other corporations--that in a
given year, after making billions of dollars in profits, pay zero in
Federal taxes. Legislation was passed on the floor of the Senate by a
majority--legislation that begins to address that issue--but we did not
have 60 votes.
We provided emergency relief to senior citizens who several years ago
were getting no COLAs for Social Security. We had a majority vote but
could not get 60 votes.
We had a majority vote to say that women should be paid equal pay for
equal work. A majority of Senators said that. We couldn't get it
passed.
What we have seen in recent years is reasonably good legislation
getting a majority vote, but we cannot get it passed because time after
time we need 60 votes. What we are operating under now is a tyranny of
the minority.
The American people go to vote. They elect Obama President, and they
elect a Democratic Senate. People who campaigned on certain issues--as
people go forward trying to implement their campaign promises, they
cannot do it because we cannot get 60 votes.
Once again, at one point in Senate history, from 1917 to 1967, the
filibuster was used very sparingly--only in exceptional circumstances.
Since that point, have Democrats--and I speak as an Independent--have
Democrats abused the system? Have they been obstructionist? There are
times when they have been. But since 2008 what has happened is the
Republicans have taken obstructionism to an entirely new level.
Virtually every piece of legislation now requires 60 votes, and
virtually every piece of legislation requires an enormous amount of
time.
What do we do? My colleagues on both sides of the aisle have made the
point that the Senate is not the House. And they are right. In the
House there are 435 Members and majority rules. The majority has a
whole lot of power. The minority doesn't have that much power. People
have said: We do not want the Senate to be like the House, and I agree
with that. The Senate should not be the House.
Senate Members should be guaranteed the right to offer amendments,
not be shut out of the process. Whether you are the minority or the
majority, you should have the right to offer amendments. There should
be thorough and lengthy debate. If a Member of the Senate wants to
stand here on the floor and speak hour after hour to call attention to
some issue he or she believes is important, that Senator has the right,
in my view, to do that. If that debate goes on for a week, it goes on
for a week. Senators, whether in the minority or the majority, have the
right to call attention and to debate and focus on issues they consider
to be
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important. But at the end of that debate there must be finality. There
must be a majority vote--51 votes should win. The concept I support is
what is called the talking filibuster. Minority rights must be
protected. They must have all the time they need to make their point.
But majority rights must also be protected. If democracy means
anything, what I learned in the third grade was that the majority
rules, not the minority.
What is happening in our country is not only enormous frustration
about the very serious economic and environmental problems we face,
there is huge outrage at the inability of Congress to even debate those
issues.
For example, I am a very strong believer that the minimum wage in
this country must be significantly raised. It is now about $7.25. I
would like it to go up to $10 an hour, and even at $10 an hour people
working 40 hours a week will still be living in poverty, but we have to
raise the minimum wage. My strong guess is that if we do not change the
rules, despite overwhelming support in this country for raising the
minimum wage, we will never get an up-or-down vote here on that issue
because Republicans will obstruct, demand 60 votes, and filibuster the
issue.
If my Republican friends are so confident in the points of view they
are advocating, bring them to the floor and let's have an up-or-down
vote. Let the American people know how I feel on the issue, how you
feel on the issue, but let's not have issues decided because we could
not get 60 votes for a motion to proceed. Nobody in America understands
what that is about. Do you want to vote against the minimum wage? Have
the guts to come and vote against the minimum wage. Do you want to vote
against women's rights? Come on up, have your say, and vote against
women's rights. Do you want to vote against global warming? Vote
against global warming. At least let us have the debate the American
people are demanding.
I will conclude by saying I am glad the President will finally be
able to get some key appointees seated. I was a mayor so I know how
terribly important it is for a chief executive to have their team
around them. I am glad he will get some key appointees.
Everyone should understand that what we are doing today is dealing
with one very small part of an overall problem, which is the
dysfunctionality of the Senate. I hope--having addressed the immediate
crisis--we can now go on and address the broader issue, which is making
the Senate responsive to the needs of the American people. Let's have
serious debates on serious issues and let's see where the chips fall.
I yield the floor.
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