[Congressional Record Volume 159, Number 167 (Thursday, November 21, 2013)]
[Senate]
[Pages S8418-S8428]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


                             Nuclear Option

  Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, we didn't have a chance to debate the 
change in rules, and we should have, so I am going to speak now on some 
things I think should have been said before we voted--not that it would 
have changed the outcome but because we ought to have known what we 
were

[[Page S8420]]

doing before we vote rather than afterward. So I will spend a few 
minutes discussing what the majority leader did on the so-called 
nuclear option.
  Unfortunately, this wasn't a new threat. Over the last several years, 
every time the minority has chosen to exercise his rights under the 
Senate rules, the majority has threatened to change the rules. In fact, 
this is the third time in just the last year or so that the majority 
leader has said that if he didn't get his way on nominations, he would 
change the rules. Ironically, that is about as many judicial nominees 
as our side has stopped through a filibuster--three or so.
  Prior to the recent attempt by the President to simultaneously add 
three judges who are not needed to the DC Circuit, Republicans had 
stopped a grand total of 2 of President Obama's judicial nominees--not 
10, as the Democrats had by President Bush's fifth year in office; not 
34, as one of my colleagues tried to suggest earlier this week; no, 
only 2 had been stopped. If we include the nominees for the DC Circuit, 
we have stopped a grand total of 5--again, not 10, as the Democrats did 
in 2005; not 34, as one of my colleagues tried to argue earlier this 
week but 5. During that same time we have confirmed 209 lower court 
Article III judges. That is a record of 209 judges approved to 5 who 
were not approved. So this threat isn't based on any crisis. There is 
no crisis.
  I would note that today's Wall Street Journal editorial entitled ``DC 
Circuit Breakers: The White House wants to pack a court whose judges 
are underworked'' lays out the caseload pretty clearly.
  I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record the editorial 
to which I just referred.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

             [From the Wall Street Journal, Nov. 21, 2013]

                         D.C. Circuit Breakers

              (By the Wall Street Journal Editorial Staff)

       The White House wants to pack a court whose judges are 
     underworked.
       We remember when a ``judicial emergency'' was the Senate's 
     way of calling attention to vacancies based on a court's 
     caseload. Those were the good old days. Now Democrats are 
     threatening to change Senate rules if Republicans don't 
     acquiesce to their plan to confirm three new judges to the 
     most underworked appellate circuit in the country.
       That's the story behind the fight over the D.C. Circuit 
     Court of Appeals, with the White House trying to pack the 
     court that reviews much of its regulatory agenda. On Monday 
     Senate Republicans blocked the third nominee to the D.C. 
     appellate court in recent weeks, and Democrats with short 
     memories of their judicial filibusters in the Bush years are 
     claiming this is unprecedented. Majority Leader Harry Reid 
     and other Democrats are threatening to resort to the so-
     called nuclear option, which would let the Senate confirm 
     judicial nominees by a simple majority vote.
       This is nothing but a political power play because the D.C. 
     Circuit doesn't need the new judges. It currently has 11 
     authorized judgeships and eight active judges--four appointed 
     by Democratic Presidents and four by Republicans. The court 
     also has six senior judges who hear cases varying from 25% to 
     75% of an active judge's caseload. Together they carry the 
     equivalent caseload of 3.25 active judges, according to 
     numbers from Chief Judge Merrick Garland. That means the 
     circuit has the equivalent of 11.25 full-time judges.
       That's more than enough considering that the court's 
     caseload is the lightest in the country. For the 12-months 
     ending in September, the D.C. Circuit had 149 appeals filed 
     per active judge. By comparison, the 11th Circuit had 778 
     appeals filed per active judge for the same period. If all 
     three nominees to the D.C. Circuit were confirmed, the number 
     of appeals per active judge would be 108, while a full slate 
     on the 11th Circuit would be 583 appeals per judge. The 
     national average of appeals per active judge is 383. The 
     closest to the D.C. Circuit is the 10th Circuit, at 217 
     appeals.
       Liberal Senator Pat Leahy claims that these comparisons 
     don't matter because the D.C. Circuit handles complex 
     rulemakings by federal agencies and sensitive national 
     security cases. But the truth is that all the circuits handle 
     complicated cases. And even many regulatory cases have been 
     migrating to other circuits as some of the D.C. Circuit's 
     stars have taken senior status.
       According to the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts, 
     42.9% of the D.C. Circuit's caseload is made up of 
     administrative appeals of federal rules or regulations, the 
     highest percentage of any circuit. In raw numbers, the D.C. 
     Circuit is not carrying the heaviest load. That honor goes to 
     the Second Circuit Court of Appeals.
       Democrats are in a rush to confirm as many judges as 
     possible because they know the clock is ticking on the Obama 
     second term. Liberals have criticized the White House for its 
     slow pace of nominations, but that isn't the fault of 
     Republicans. Iowa Senator Chuck Grassley, the ranking 
     Republican on Judiciary who has led the fight against more 
     D.C. Circuit confirmations, has been entirely consistent. In 
     the Bush years he opposed the nomination of a twelfth judge 
     for the court on workload grounds.
       GOP Senators watched for years as Senate Democrats blocked 
     George W. Bush's nominees to the D.C. Circuit, including the 
     eminently qualified Miguel Estrada and Peter Keisler. 
     Republicans are right to say that the D.C. Circuit now has a 
     full complement of judges following the unanimous 
     confirmation of Obama nominee Sri Srinivasan in May.
       Mr. Reid and his fellow Democrats are claiming that even if 
     they establish a new standard of 51 votes to confirm 
     appellate judges and executive-branch officials, they can 
     keep the 60 vote standard for the Supreme Court. They're 
     kidding themselves. If they change the rules to pack the D.C. 
     Circuit, Democrats should understand they are also setting 
     that standard for future Supreme Court nominees opposed to 
     Roe v. Wade.

  Mr. GRASSLEY. This is about a naked power grab and nothing more than 
a power grab. This is about the other side not getting everything they 
want, when they want it.
  The other side claims they were pushed to this point because our side 
objected to the President's plan to fill the DC Circuit with judges the 
court does not need, but the other side tends to forget history. 
History is something we ought to learn from, so let's review how we got 
here.
  After the President simultaneously nominated three nominees who are 
not needed for the DC Circuit--a blatant political power grab in its 
own right--what did the Republicans do? Well, we did something quite 
simple: We said we want to go by the rules the Democrats set in 2006. 
We said we would hold those Democrats to the same standard they 
established in 2006 when they blocked a nominee of President Bush's by 
the name of Peter Keisler.
  Let's be clear about why the Democrats are outraged. Democrats are 
outraged because Republicans actually had the temerity to hold the 
other political party to a standard they established, and because we 
did, because we insisted we all play by the same rules, they came right 
back and said: Then we will change the rules. In effect, the other side 
has said: We don't want to be held to the standard we established in 
2006. And not only that, but if you don't give us what we want, we are 
willing to forever change the Senate. And that is what happened today.
  We hear a lot of ultimatums around here, but this ultimatum was not 
run-of-the-mill. It was very different. It was different because this 
threat was designed to hold the Senate hostage. It was different 
because it is designed to hold hostage all of the Senate's history and 
traditions and precedents. It was different because its effectiveness 
depends on the good will of Senators who don't want to see the Senate 
as we know it destroyed or function other than as the constitutional 
writers intended.
  I would note that today's majority didn't always feel that way--the 
very way we have seen expressed today. Not too many years ago my 
colleagues on the other side described their fight to preserve the 
filibuster with great pride. For instance, in 2006 one of my colleagues 
on the other side said:

       The nuclear option was the most important issue I have 
     worked on in my public life. Its rejection was my proudest 
     moment as a minority leader. I emerged from the episode with 
     a renewed appreciation for the majesty of Senate rules. As 
     majority leader, I intend to run the Senate with respect for 
     the rules and for the minority rights the rules protect.

  In 2005 another of my Democratic colleagues had this to say, 
referring to when Republicans were in the majority:

       Today, Republicans are threatening to take away one of the 
     few remaining checks on the power of the executive branch by 
     their use of what has become known as the nuclear option. 
     This assault on our traditions of checks and balances and on 
     the protection of minority rights in the Senate and in our 
     democracy should be abandoned.
       Eliminating the filibuster by nuclear option would destroy 
     the Constitution's design of the Senate as an effective check 
     on the executive.

  So here we have two quotes from Democrats in the 2005-2006 timeframe 
very strongly supporting the precedent of the Senate in using the 
filibuster to protect minority rights. But that was when they were in 
the minority. Now

[[Page S8421]]

they are in the majority, and the tradition of the Senate doesn't mean 
much.
  Here is another quote from the late Senator Byrd in 2005:

       And I detest this mention of a nuclear option, the 
     constitutional option. There is nothing constitutional about 
     it. Nothing.

  But, of course, that was way back then--just 6, 7 years ago when 
today's majority was in the minority and there was a Republican in the 
White House. Today the shoe is on the other foot. Today the other side 
is willing to forever change the Senate because Republicans have the 
audacity to hold them--the majority party of today--to their own 
standard. Why? Why would the other side do this? There clearly isn't a 
crisis on the DC Circuit. The judges themselves say that if we confirm 
any more judges, there won't be enough work to go around. And it is not 
as if all of these nominees are mainstream consensus picks despite what 
the other side would have us believe, that they are somewhat 
mainstream.
  Take Professor Pillard, for instance. She has written this about 
motherhood:

       Reproductive rights, including rights to contraception and 
     abortion, play a central role in freeing women from 
     historically routine conscription into maternity.

  Is that mainstream?
  She has also argued this about motherhood:

       Antiabortion laws and other restraints on reproductive 
     freedom not only enforce women's incubation of unwanted 
     pregnancies, but also prescribe a ``vision of the woman's 
     role'' as mother and caretaker of children in a way that is 
     at odds with equal protection.

  Is that mainstream?
  What about her views on religious freedom? She argued that the 
Supreme Court's case of Hosanna-Tabor Evangelical Lutheran Church, 
which challenged the so-called ``ministerial exception'' to employment 
discrimination, represented a ``substantial threat to the American rule 
of law.'' Now, get this. After she said that, the Supreme Court 
rejected her view 9 to 0, and the Court held that ``it is impermissible 
for the government to contradict a church's determination of who can 
act as its ministers.''
  Do my colleagues really believe mainstream America thinks churches 
shouldn't be allowed to choose their own ministers?
  I could go on and on, but I hope my colleagues get the picture.
  The point is this: Voting to change the Senate rules is voting to 
remove one of the last meaningful checks on the President--any 
President--and voting to put these views on this important court.
  So I ask again, why would the other side do this? It is nothing short 
of a complete and total power grab. It is the type of thing we have 
seen again and again out of this administration and their Senate 
allies, and you can sum it up this way: Do whatever it takes.
  You can't get ObamaCare passed with Republican support? Do whatever 
it takes: Pass it at 7 a.m. on Christmas Eve with just Democratic 
votes.
  You can't get all of your side to support ObamaCare? Do whatever it 
takes: Resort to things like the ``Cornhusker kickback.''
  You lose your 60th vote on ObamaCare due to a special election? Do 
whatever it takes: Ram it through anyway using reconciliation.
  The American people don't want to be taxed for not buying health 
care? Do whatever it takes: Tell the American people it isn't a tax and 
then argue in the court that it is a tax.
  The American people want to keep their health care? Do whatever it 
takes: Promise them ``if you like your health care, you can keep it'' 
and then issue regulations making it impossible.
  Your labor allies want out from under ObamaCare? Do whatever it 
takes: Consider issuing them--labor--a waiver from the reinsurance tax.
  You can't find consensus nominees for the National Labor Relations 
Board? Do whatever it takes: Recess-appoint them when the Senate is 
still in session.
  You can't convince Congress to adopt your gun control agenda? Do 
whatever it takes: Issue some Executive orders.
  You can't convince moderate Democrats to support cap-and-trade fee 
increases? Well, do whatever it takes: Do the same thing through EPA 
regulation.
  Frustrated that conservative groups' political speech is protected 
under the First Amendment? Do whatever it takes: Use the IRS to harass 
and intimidate those same conservative groups.
  Frustrated when the court stands up for religious freedom and issues 
a check on the ObamaCare contraception mandate? Do whatever it takes: 
Stack the DC Circuit Court in your favor.
  Frustrated when the court curbs your power on recess appointments? Do 
whatever it takes: Stack the DC Circuit with your favorite appointees--
people who will rule in your favor.
  Worried EPA's regulations on cap-and-trade fee increases might get 
challenged in the court? Do whatever it takes: Stack the DC Circuit in 
your favor.
  Frustrated because Senate Republicans have the nerve to hold you to 
the same standard you established during the last administration? Do 
whatever it takes: Change the rules of the Senate. That is what we have 
witnessed today, nothing but an absolute power grab.

  The majority in the Senate and their allies in the administration are 
willing to do whatever it takes to achieve their partisan agenda. They 
know there will be additional challenges to ObamaCare. They know that 
if they can stack the deck on the DC Circuit they can remove one of the 
last remaining checks on Presidential power.
  But make no mistake, my friends on the other side will have to answer 
this question: Why did you choose this moment to break the rules to 
change the rules? Why now? Why, when we are witnessing the collapse of 
this massive effort to centrally plan one-sixth of this wonderful 
Nation's economy--why, when millions of Americans are losing their 
health care--why did you choose this moment to hand the keys to the 
kingdom over to the President, a President with less check on his 
authority?
  Because the fact of the matter is this: any vote to break the rules 
to change the rules is a vote to ensure ObamaCare remains intact.
  I will conclude by saying this. Changing the rules of the Senate in 
this way was a mistake. But if the last several years have taught us 
anything, it is that the majority won't stop making these demands. We 
can't always give in to these constant threats. Sooner or later you 
have to stand up and say: Enough is enough.
  But if there is one thing which will always be true, it is this: 
Majorities are fickle. Majorities are fleeting. Here today, gone 
tomorrow. That is a lesson that, sadly, most of my colleagues on the 
other side of the aisle haven't learned for the simple reason that they 
have never served a single day in the minority.
  So the majority has chosen to take us down this path. The silver 
lining is that there will come a day when roles are reversed. When that 
happens, our side will likely nominate and confirm lower court and 
Supreme Court nominees with 51 votes, regardless of whether the 
Democrats actually buy into this fanciful notion that they can demolish 
the filibuster on lower court nominees and still preserve it for 
Supreme Court nominees.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Michigan.
  Mr. LEVIN. I ask unanimous consent that after my remarks, the Senator 
from Alabama be recognized.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection.
  Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, in the past, a few Senate majorities, 
frustrated by their inability to get certain bills and nominations to a 
vote, have threatened to ignore the rules and change them by fiat, and 
to change rules to a majority vote change. Rule XXII of the Senate 
requires two-thirds of the Senate to amend our rules. A new precedent 
has now been set, which is that a majority can change our rules. 
Because that step would change this Senate into a legislative body 
where the majority can, whenever it wishes, change the rules, it has 
been dubbed the nuclear option.
  Arguments about the nuclear option are not new. Senator Arthur 
Vandenberg confronted the same question in 1949. Senator Vandenberg, 
who was a giant of the Senate and one of my predecessors from Michigan, 
said if the majority can change the rules at will, ``there are no rules 
except the transient, unregulated wishes of a majority

[[Page S8422]]

of whatever quorum is temporarily in control of the Senate.''
  When Senator Vandenberg took that position, he was arguing against 
changing the rules by fiat, although he favored the rule change that 
was being considered.
  Overruling the ruling of the Chair, as we have now done, by a simple 
majority is not a one-time action. If a Senate majority demonstrates it 
can make such a change once, there are no rules which bind a majority, 
and all future majorities will feel free to exercise the same power--
not just on judges and executive appointments but on legislation.
  We have avoided taking those nuclear steps in the past, although we 
have avoided them sometimes barely. I am glad we avoided the possible 
use of the nuclear option again earlier this year when our leaders 
agreed on a path allowing the Senate to proceed to a vote on the 
President's nominees for several unfilled vacancies in his 
administration. Today we are once again moving down a destructive path.
  The issue is not whether to change the rules--I support changing the 
rules--to allow a President to get a vote on nominees to executive and 
most judicial positions. But this is not about the ends but the means. 
Pursuing the nuclear option in this manner removes an important check 
on majority overreach. As Senator Vandenberg said: If a Senate majority 
decides to pursue its aims unrestrained by the rules, we will have 
sacrificed a professed vital principle for the sake of momentary 
convenience.
  Republicans have filibustered three eminently qualified nominees to 
the Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia. They make no 
pretense of argument that these nominees are unqualified. The mere 
nomination of qualified judges by this President, they say, qualifies 
as court packing. It is the latest attempt by Republicans, having lost 
two Presidential elections, to seek preventing the duly elected 
President from fulfilling his constitutional duties.
  The thin veneer of substance laid over this partisan obstruction is 
the claim that the DC Circuit has too many judges. To be kind, this is 
a debatable proposition, one for which there is ample contrary 
evidence, and surely one that falls far short of the need to provoke a 
constitutional battle. Republicans know they cannot succeed in passing 
legislation to reduce the size of the court. So, presented with a 
statutory and constitutional reality they do not like, they have 
decided to ignore that reality and have decided they can obstruct the 
President's nominees for no substantive reason.
  Let nobody mistake my meaning. The actions of Senate Republicans in 
these matters have been irresponsible. These actions put short-term 
partisan interest ahead of the good of the Nation and the future of 
this Senate as a unique institution. It is deeply dispiriting to see so 
many Republican colleagues who have in the past pledged to filibuster 
judicial nominees only in extraordinary circumstances engaged in such 
partisan gamesmanship. Whatever their motivations, the repercussions of 
their actions are clear. They are contributing to the destruction of an 
important check against majority overreach. To the frustration of those 
willing to break the rules to change the rules, those of us who are 
unwilling to do that have now seen it occur before our eyes when the 
Chair was overruled earlier today.
  So why don't I join my Democratic colleagues in supporting the method 
by which they propose to change the rules? My opposition to the use of 
the nuclear option to change the rules of the Senate is not a defense 
of the current abuse of the rules. My opposition to the nuclear option 
is not new. When Republicans threatened in 2005 to use the nuclear 
option in a dispute over judicial nominees, I strongly opposed the 
plans, just as Senator Kennedy, Senator Biden, and Senator Byrd did, 
and just about every Senate Democrat did--including Democrats still in 
the Senate today.
  Back then, Senator Kennedy called the Republican plan a ``preemptive 
nuclear strike,'' and said:

       Neither the Constitution, nor Senate rules, nor Senate 
     precedents, nor American history, provide any justification 
     for selectively nullifying the use of the filibuster. Equally 
     important, neither the Constitution nor the Rules nor the 
     precedents nor history provide any permissible means for a 
     bare majority of the Senate to take that radical step without 
     breaking or ignoring clear provisions of applicable Senate 
     Rules and unquestioned precedents.

  Here is what then-Senator Biden said during that 2005 fight:

       The nuclear option abandons America's sense of fair play. 
     It's the one thing this country stands for. Not tilting the 
     playing field on the side of those who control and own the 
     field. I say to my friends on the Republican side, you may 
     own the field right now but you won't own it forever. And I 
     pray to God when the Democrats take back control, we don't 
     make the same kind of naked power grab you are doing.

  My position today is consistent with the position that I and every 
Senate Democrat took then--and that is just back in 2005--to preserve 
the rights of the Senate minority. I can't ignore that. Nor can I 
ignore the fact that Democrats have used the filibuster on many 
occasions to advance or protect policies we believe in.
  When Republicans controlled the White House, the Senate, and the 
House of Representatives from 2003-2006, it was a Democratic minority 
in the Senate that blocked a series of bills that would have severely 
restricted the reproductive rights of women. It was a Democratic 
minority in the Senate that beat back efforts to limit Americans' right 
to seek justice in the courts when they are harmed by corporate or 
medical wrongdoing. It was a Democratic minority in the Senate that 
stopped the nominations of some to the Federal courts who we believed 
would not provide fair and unbiased judgment. Without the protections 
afforded the Senate minority, total repeal of the estate tax would have 
passed the Senate in 2006.
  We don't have to go back to 2006 to find examples of Senate Democrats 
using the rules of the Senate to stop passage of what many of us deemed 
bad legislation. Just last year, these protections prevented adoption 
of an amendment which would have essentially prevented the EPA from 
protecting waters under the Clean Water Act. We stopped an amendment to 
allow loaded and concealed weapons on land managed by the Army Corps of 
Engineers. With minority votes, we stopped legislation that would have 
allowed some individuals who were deemed mentally incompetent access to 
firearms. That is just in the last year. Removing these minority 
protections risks that in the future, important civil and political 
rights might disappear because a majority agreed they should.
  Let us not kid ourselves. The fact that we changed the rules today 
just to apply to judges and executive nominations does not mean the 
same precedent won't be used tomorrow or next year or the year after to 
provide for the end of a filibuster on legislation, on bills and 
amendments that are before us.
  Just as I have implored my Democratic colleagues to consider the 
implications of a nuclear option which would establish the precedent 
that the majority can change the rules at will, it is just as urgent 
for my Republican colleagues to end the abuse of rules allowing 
extended debate that were intended to be invoked rarely.
  Some of my Democratic colleagues may rightfully ask, if a Democratic 
majority cannot initially muster a supermajority to end filibusters or 
change the rules, then what can the majority do? The rules give us the 
path, and that is to make the filibusterers filibuster. Let the 
majority leader bring nominations before the Senate, and let the Senate 
majority force the filibusterers to come to the floor to filibuster. 
The current rules of the Senate allow the Presiding Officer to put the 
pending question to a vote when no Senator seeks recognition. Let us, 
as the Senate majority, dedicate a week, or a weekend, or even a night, 
to force the filibusterers to filibuster.
  In 2010, in testimony before the rules committee on this subject, 
this is what Senator Byrd said:

       Does the difficulty reside in the construction of our 
     rules, or does it reside in the ease of circumventing them? A 
     true filibuster is a fight, not a threat, not a bluff. . . . 
     Now, unbelievably, just the whisper of opposition brings the 
     ``world's greatest deliberative body'' to a grinding halt.

  Then he said:

       Forceful confrontation to a threat to filibuster is 
     undoubtedly the antidote to the malady.


[[Page S8423]]


  We have not used that antidote to the malady which besets this body, 
allowing the mere threat of a filibuster to succeed without challenging 
that threat, without telling the filibusterers: Go ahead, filibuster. 
We have rules that protect us. When you pause and when there is no one 
else here, at 3 o'clock on the fourth day or the fifth day or the sixth 
day, the Chair can put the question. The American people will then see 
in a dramatic way the obstruction which has taken place in this body.
  But before a Senate majority assumes a power that no Senate majority 
before us has assumed, to change the rules at the will of the majority, 
before we do something that cannot easily be undone--and we have now 
done it--before we discard the uniqueness of this great institution, 
let us use the current rules and precedents of the Senate to end abuse 
of the filibuster. Surely we owe that much to this great and unique 
institution.
  There is a conversation, which was a formal conversation between the 
majority and Republican leaders just last January. Here is what the 
majority leader said:

       In addition to the standing order [which is what we have 
     adopted] I will enforce existing rules to make the Senate 
     operate more efficiently. After reasonable notice, I will 
     insist that any Senator who objects to consent requests or 
     threatens to filibuster come to the floor and exercise his or 
     her rights himself or herself. This will apply to all 
     objections to unanimous consent requests. Senators should be 
     required to come to the floor and participate in the 
     legislative process, to voice objections, engage in debate or 
     offer amendments.

  He said:

       Finally, we will also announce that when the majority 
     leader or bill manager has reasonably alerted the body of the 
     intention to do so and the Senate is not in a quorum call and 
     there is no order of the Senate to the contrary, the 
     Presiding Officer may ask if there is further debate, and if 
     no Senator seeks recognition, the Presiding Officer may put 
     the question to a vote.

  He, our majority leader, said:

       This is consistent with the precedent of the Senate and 
     with Riddick's Senate Procedure.

  What this showed again is that if we in the majority have the 
willpower, as much willpower as has been shown by some obstructionists 
in this body--if we have an equal amount of will as they have shown, 
that the current rules, before this change today, can be used to force 
filibusterers to filibuster, to come to the floor and to talk, all we 
need is the willingness to use the rules, to take the weekend off, to 
take a week that we hoped for a recess, and use it to come back here; 
to take the recess itself, if necessary during the summer, for 1 month 
if necessary, to try to preserve what is so essential to this body, its 
uniqueness, which is that the majority cannot change the rules whenever 
it wants.
  The House of Representatives can change the rules whenever it wants. 
It is called a rules committee. They can adopt and modify the rules at 
any time, and they do. This body has not done that. We have resisted. 
We have been tempted to do it. We have come close to doing it. But we 
have never done it--until today.
  Do I want to amend the rules? Do I. I want to amend these rules with 
all my heart. I want to embody a principle that a President, regardless 
of party, should be able to get a vote on his or her nominees to 
executive positions at the district and circuit courts. I believe in 
that. I believe most Senators believe in that. We need to change the 
rule. But to change it in the way we changed it today means there are 
no rules except as the majority wants them. It is a very major shift in 
the very nature of this institution, if the majority can do whatever it 
wants by changing the rules whenever it wants with a method that has 
not been used before in this body to change the very rules of this 
body.
  We should have avoided a nuclear option. We should have avoided 
violating our precedents. We should have avoided changing and creating 
a precedent which can be used in the same way on legislation. It may 
give comfort to some today: ``But this is only on judges, this is only 
on executive appointments.'' This precedent is equally available to a 
majority that wants to change the rules relative to the legislative 
process.
  Those who have abused these rules, mainly on the other side of the 
aisle, whether they acknowledge it, are contributors to the loss of 
protections which we see today for the Senate minority. Given a tool of 
great power, requiring great responsibility, they have recklessly 
abused it. But now I am afraid it will not just be they who will pay 
the price.
  In the short term, judges will be confirmed who should be confirmed. 
But when the precedent is set, the majority of this body can change the 
rules at will, which is what the majority did today. If it can be 
changed on judges or on other nominees, this precedent is going to be 
used, I fear, to change the rules in consideration of legislation. Down 
the road--we don't know how far down the road, we never know that in a 
democracy--but down the road the hard-won protections and benefits for 
our people's health and welfare will be lost.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Alabama.
  Mr. SESSIONS. Madam President, throughout our Senate history we have 
had Senators such as Senator Levin. Before he does depart, I thank him 
for his principled approach to this complex issue.
  Just to share with all of our colleagues, he is completing his 
service in the Senate this year. He is not running for reelection. He 
certainly would have been reelected. This weekend I was at a national 
security conference at the Reagan Library. The first winners of an 
award for national security were former Secretary of Defense Gates, who 
served two Presidents, and Senator Levin was the other winner. I think 
it is a tribute to his commitment to this country.
  We have disagreed on a lot of issues and no one should think he is 
not a strong and effective advocate for values around here. But I think 
all of us should listen to his remarks and his warning, a very simple 
warning. That warning is that if a majority can change the rules with a 
simple majority vote in order to defeat what heretofore was a right of 
a minority party in the Senate, there are no minority rights left. They 
simply exist at the will of the majority. This is a fundamental matter. 
It is an important matter.
  We have had some close calls and a lot of intensity, but we have 
avoided this kind of action. I think it is fair to say without dispute 
that the significance of this rule change today dwarfs any other appeal 
of the ruling of the Chair that we have seen--maybe in the history of 
the Republic. This is a big event. It changes what goes on because we 
deal with power and the exercise of power.
  This whole thing is simply Majority Leader Reid--and he has a 
difficult job. I have tried to not make his life more difficult than it 
needs to be.
  But he is not a dictator. He does not get to dictate how this Senate 
is operated. He does not have the right to come in and change the rules 
because he wants to fill three judgeship slots that are not needed. 
There is no way one can justify filling these court slots, based on 
simple need or by caseload per judge.
  He is unhappy about that. Maybe he wants to change the mood of the 
country from ObamaCare and the overreach that was executed to pass that 
bill on December 24, to ram it through the Senate on a straight party-
line vote. I suspect that is part of it. But this is not the way to do 
business.
  The only reason those judges were blocked, the only reason they did 
not get a confirmation, was because we did not need them. This country 
is going broke. There are districts in America that need judges. The DC 
Circuit does not need more judges. It does not need the eight they 
have. Yes, they have 3 vacancies, but with the current 8 judges, their 
average caseload per judge was 149, and they have been continuing to 
drop. My circuit, the Eleventh Circuit, the Chair would be interested 
to know, has an average caseload per judge of 740. The next lowest 
caseload per circuit is twice 149. The average is well above that per 
circuit. The judges themselves say they do not need anymore judges. 
They take the whole summer off.
  These judges would not have been rejected if we had needed them. But 
the President is so determined to try to leave a legacy of friends on 
that court

[[Page S8424]]

that he just shoved them anyway and demanded the Senate pass them, and 
Senator Reid demanded that we confirm these judges. The judges say they 
do not need anymore judges on that court. They do not need them, 
whether they say they need them or not. I know how to look at the 
caseload. I am on the Judiciary Committee. I am on the courts 
subcommittee. I have chaired it and been ranking member of it for 
years. I know how to analyze weighted caseloads. There is no 
justification for adding or filling a single slot on that court and we 
should not be doing it.
  I am also ranking Republican on the budget committee, and I know we 
cannot keep throwing away money for no good reason. The last thing we 
should do is ask the American people to fund $1 million-a-year judges. 
That is what each judge and the staff are estimated to cost--and there 
are three of them. It is akin to every year burning $1 million on The 
Mall. We do not have $1 million to throw away. But we do have judges, 
we do have circuits, we do have district courts around the country that 
are overloaded and we are going to add some judges to them. We ought to 
close these judge slots and move them to a place they are needed, as 
any commonsense person would do.
  So it was not any animosity to any of the nominations and their 
character or decency that led to this rejection. It was because we 
warned against it.
  Senator Grassley and I serve on the judiciary committee. He 
previously chaired the court subcommittee, and Senator Grassley blocked 
President Bush in filling one of those slots. Oh, they wanted to fill 
the slot. They thought they might leave a legacy judge who would be 
influential to them. That is what they suggested, but we refused. We 
were actually able to transfer one of those slots to the Ninth 
Circuit. That is how good business should be done around here. We are 
at a point where we don't need to fill that slot, and it should in no 
way cause the majority leader to feel as if his power was threatened or 
that his majority was threatened. We are changing the rules of the 
Senate so he can get three judges confirmed that we do not need. I will 
be prepared to debate that issue anywhere, anytime on the merits. Not 
one of those slots should be filled.

  They have the lowest caseload per judge in America. Their cases are 
not so complex that it would slow down their work and demand more 
judges. That has been analyzed, and it is not true.
  Senator Reid asked for this job. That is what my wife says to me when 
I complain. She says: Don't blame me; you asked for the job. He asked 
to be the majority leader of the Senate, and it is not easy. There are 
a lot of Members and a lot of different ideas about what ought to be 
done.
  Trent Lott called it herding cats. I suppose that is a pretty good 
description of it. One time he said it is like putting a bunch of frogs 
in a wheelbarrow. You put one in and two jump out. It is not easy to 
move the Senate. I understand that. Changing the rules, as Senator 
Levin said, by a simple majority vote and significantly altering the 
tradition of the Senate is dangerous.
  Senator Reid said we have been wasting time on the procedural hurdles 
thrown up in the Senate. He also said Congress is broken and the 
American people think that Congress is broken. They thought it was 
broken when they used legerdemain on December 24 before Scott Brown 
from Massachusetts could take office so they could pass a health care 
bill that the American people overwhelmingly opposed.
  Maybe the reason the American people are frustrated with the Congress 
is that they passed a bill that the American people opposed without a 
single Republican vote in the House or the Senate. Maybe that is why 
the American people are not happy with us.
  I will explain, colleagues, what is causing the greatest frustration 
in the Senate. It is a trend that began some years ago--not long after 
I came to the Senate 17 years ago--and it has accelerated. It has 
reached a pace with Majority Leader Reid we have never, ever seen 
before, and it undermines the very integrity and tradition of the 
Senate. It has to stop. We have to recover the tradition of this body. 
We owe it to those who will be filling these seats in the years to 
come.
  This is the problem: A maneuver called filling the tree was 
discovered. It is a parliamentary maneuver where the majority leader, 
who gets recognition first in the Senate, seeks recognition and then he 
fills the tree. That parliamentary maneuver basically blocks anyone 
else from getting an amendment. A Senator cannot introduce his or her 
amendment. So how do we have an amendment? You have to go hat in hand 
to Senator Reid and say: Senator Reid, I would like an amendment.
  Well, I don't think so.
  I don't like that amendment.
  But I like it. I want to vote on it.
  Sorry. We don't want to vote on it.
  That is the way it has been going every year. The Defense bill 
commonly had 30 or more amendments of substance when it hit the floor--
$500 billion. It was the biggest appropriation bill we had--$500 
billion. Senator Coburn has an amendment directly related to the 
Department of Defense that would save some money.
  Senator Reid will not give him a vote on that.
  People say: Why don't you do something, Sessions? Why don't you get 
an amendment passed? I cannot bring an amendment to the floor unless he 
agrees. He says it is because of delay. He says it is because it 
creates time difficulties. We have been on this bill for a week, and we 
have only had two votes. We have gone for days with no votes. It is not 
about time. Let me tell you what it is: The majority leader of the 
Senate is protecting his members from tough votes. He does not want 
them to have to cast votes on critical issues in this country. He is 
not concerned about time or delay. There is plenty of time.
  We could have already cast 15 votes on this bill, and everybody would 
be satisfied. That is the way it was when Senator McConnell was here. 
That is the way it has been. That is the way it had been when I came 
here. We had 60-something votes on a bankruptcy bill. It went on for 3 
weeks.
  This is causing tension and frustration. One of our new Members in 
the Senate when we were debating this very question some months ago 
said: They tell us we have to get Senator McConnell's decision before 
they will let us introduce an amendment. I said: Wait a minute. Do you 
not understand that you are a duly elected Senator from the United 
States of America and you have to ask permission of the Republican 
leader before you can get a vote on an amendment? How did this happen?
  This is a background issue that is undermining collegiality in this 
body. I am tired of asking the majority leader for permission to give 
me a vote in the Senate. It is not right.
  Mr. ROBERTS. Would the Senator yield?
  Mr. SESSIONS. Yes, I will yield for a question.
  Mr. ROBERTS. I am assuming that his situation is very similar to the 
situation that I find myself in. About a year ago we brought the farm 
bill to the floor. I was the ranking member of the committee. We voted 
73 times. We had over 300 amendments offered. The amendments came 
forth, and the first amendment had nothing to do with agriculture. 
Basically, we were able to get through it in 2\1/2\ days.
  Fast-forward to this year's farm bill. I think there were 10 votes. 
Senator Thune has been on the committee for a long time. We respect his 
voice, and we respect his amendments. He had about four amendments. 
Senator Grassley has been on the committee a lot longer. He always has 
amendments on the farm bill. Senator Johanns is a former Secretary of 
Agriculture. He is an excellent Senator for Nebraska and a real voice 
for Agriculture. He had several amendments. I had two or three 
amendments that I would have liked to have had considered.
  The reason I mention them is because we all agreed to hold off in 
committee as long as we could bring them to the floor. We wanted to 
expedite it because the big issue was time. They said: Well, we don't 
have time for a farm bill. Usually a farm bill takes 1 to 2 weeks. That 
is just not the case anymore. Last year we got through it in 2\1/2\ 
days.

  This year we expected to have votes, but none of us got amendments. 
After 10 votes, bingo, it was cut off. The majority leader controlled 
the effort. This is like the Rules Committee in the House.

[[Page S8425]]

  When I was in the House, we had a Roberts-Stenholm amendment.
  Mr. SESSIONS. An amendment can't come up for a vote in the House 
unless it is approved by the Rules Committee.
  Mr. ROBERTS. That is correct.
  Mr. SESSIONS. That is the difference between the House and the 
Senate.
  Mr. ROBERTS. Madam President, if I could respond to the distinguished 
Senator. We had a Roberts-Stenholm amendment at that point while the 
Republicans were in the minority. Charlie Stenholm was a Democrat. As 
we went in he whispered: You might want to make this the Stenholm-
Roberts amendment. I figured that out pretty fast, and we got our 
amendment made in order.
  As a younger member of the House at that particular time, I thought 
the Rules Committee was based on the merits of whether it was germane 
or pertinent, et cetera. It wasn't. It was just a complete rehash of 
what went on with the authorizing committee.
  One of the reasons I decided to come to the Senate was that you can 
offer an amendment at any time on any subject, unless it was something 
involving national security or whatever. I understand that. What we 
have now is a one-man rules committee. I deeply resent that.
  I feel sorry for the Senate, and I feel sorry for the Members who 
come here and are not able to have their amendments considered.
  One of the first things I did as the ranking member of the Senate 
agriculture committee last year was to promise that amendments could be 
brought to the floor. A lot of people on our side never had the 
opportunity to offer an amendment before. I said: You will have that 
opportunity if I can get this thing done. And we did. We opened it and 
it was one of the few bills that went under regular order, and we got 
things done.
  There is only one House. There is the House and there is the Senate--
just like the House--and that is a shame.
  I thank the distinguished Senator for his comments.
  Mr. SESSIONS. I thank the Senator so very much. His insight is 
correct. I will wrap up and say that what happened today is very 
significant, and it is a sad day. It represents the greatest alteration 
of the rules without proper procedure that we have probably seen in the 
history of the Republic.
  It erodes legitimate minority rights in a way that subjects every 
right a minority party has in the Senate and the right any individual 
Senator has in the Senate. It places that right at great risk. A 
majority can do that at any time. That was explained so eloquently by 
Senator Roberts a few moments ago. I was so impressed with his 
analysis.
  We will wrestle through this and work at it. I know that Senator 
Alexander has worked hard in every way possible to avoid this day. He 
has expressed great interest in it, and I look forward to hearing his 
comments at this time on where we are and what is going to happen to 
us.
  I thank the Senator and yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Ms. Heitkamp). The Senator from Tennessee.
  Mr. ALEXANDER. Madam President, I thank the Senator from Alabama for 
his thoughtfulness and leadership.
  As Senator Byrd used to say: The purpose of the Senate is to have a 
place where there can be an opportunity for unlimited discussion, 
unlimited debates and unlimited amendments. That is why we are here.
  Senator Byrd used to say so eloquently that the Senate was a unique 
body because it provided the necessary fence against the abuses of the 
executive. That is what Senator Byrd said in his last speech to the 
Senate when he spoke before the rules committee. He said the Senate is 
the necessary fence against abuses of the executive--remembering how 
this country was founded in opposition to the king and the popular 
excesses. That was what the Senate was supposed to be. I am afraid that 
ended today.
  This action by the Democratic majority is the most important and most 
dangerous restructuring of the rules of the Senate since Thomas 
Jefferson wrote the rules at the founding of our country. It creates 
the perpetual opportunity--as Alexis de Tocqueville described--that is 
most dangerous for our country. He said that when he came to our 
country to visit in the 1830s. The young Frenchman said: I see two 
great dangers for this new American democracy. One was Russia and the 
other was the tyranny of the majority.
  The action that was taken today creates a perpetual opportunity for 
the tyranny of the majority because it permits a majority in this body 
to do whatever it wants to do anytime it wants to do it. This should be 
called ObamaCare 2 because it is another example of the use of raw 
partisan political power for the majority to do whatever it wants to do 
any time it wants to do it.
  In this case what it wants to do is implement the President's radical 
regulatory agenda through the District of Columbia court. That's what 
this is. It is not about an abuse of the filibuster.
  There is a big football weekend coming up in Tennessee. Vanderbilt 
University plays the University of Tennessee in Knoxville.
  Let's imagine this: The Vanderbilt-Tennessee game, which is being 
played in Knoxville, home of the University of Tennessee, and 
Vanderbilt gets on the 1-yard line. The University of Tennessee says: 
Well, we are the home team, so we will just add 20 yards to the field 
or whatever it takes for us to win the game. Or the Boston Red Sox are 
playing at home. Let's say they are behind the Cardinals this year. 
They get to the ninth inning and they are behind and they say: Well, it 
is our home field. We will just add a few innings or whatever it takes 
so we can win the game. That is what the Democratic majority did today. 
They say: The rules don't allow us to do what we want to do, so we will 
just change the rules to do whatever it takes to get the result we 
want.

  That is what they did with ObamaCare. We remember that. I was 
standing right here at the desk. It was snowing. It was the middle of 
the winter. Senators were coming in, in the middle of the night, and 
what happened? Among the things the American people like the least 
about ObamaCare is that it was crammed down the throat of the American 
people by the raw exercise of partisan political power with not one 
single Republican vote. That is not the way the civil rights bill was 
passed. That is not the way Social Security and other great bills were 
passed. They were passed by a bipartisan majority so we could gain the 
support of the American people.
  Our Democratic majority must have liked that ObamaCare night. The 
American people aren't liking it so much because apparently nobody read 
the bill very closely. There are millions of Americans who have had 
their policies canceled. There are going to be millions more when 
employers start looking at the cost of ObamaCare.
  This is ObamaCare 2; I say to my colleagues. This is another exercise 
of raw partisan political power for the Democratic majority to get the 
result it wants. There is only one cure for it, and that is an 
election. An election is coming up in about a year. The American people 
can speak. In the meantime, this has been the most dangerous, most 
important restructuring of the Senate since Thomas Jefferson wrote the 
rules.
  It is, according to the Senator from Nevada, who is the majority 
leader--it is, according to his book in 2008, the end of the Senate. 
That is what he said this would be, and now he has done it. He has 
written the end of the Senate by his actions today.
  The Senator from Michigan, Mr. Levin, said to all of us when we were 
discussing this earlier this year--he reminded us of the great Senator 
from Michigan, Arthur Vandenberg, who was the author of the idea of a 
bipartisan foreign policy. Senator Vandenberg said shortly after World 
War II that a U.S. Senate in which a majority can change the rules 
anytime the majority wants is a U.S. Senate without any rules. Let me 
say that again. A U.S. Senate in which the majority can change the 
rules anytime the majority wants is a U.S. Senate without any rules.
  So this is not about the filibuster. This is another raw partisan 
political power grab so the Democratic majority can do whatever it 
wants to do whenever it wants to do it. It is ObamaCare II, and the 
American people will see it that way when they can take time away from 
the Web sites trying to fill

[[Page S8426]]

out their new insurance policies to be able to pay enough attention to 
it.
  What is the excuse for this extraordinarily disturbing action today? 
They are the flimsiest of excuses, and I will take a few minutes to 
outline what those are.
  The first allegation is that the Republican minority was using the 
filibuster to keep President Obama's appointees from gaining their 
seats. Well, let's look at the history from the Congressional Research 
Service. How many Supreme Court nominees have ever not been seated 
because of a failed cloture vote? That is a filibuster. The answer is 
zero in the history of the Senate--not just President Obama but the 
history of the Senate. Someone might point to the Abe Fortas case when 
President Johnson--I guess it was in the late 1960s--engineered a 45-
to-43 cloture vote so, in Johnson's words, Abe Fortas could hold his 
head up, but, in fact, the filibuster has never been used to deny a 
Supreme Court Justice his or her seat. How many Cabinet Members of 
President Obama have been denied their seat by a filibuster? Zero. This 
is the Congressional Research Service.
  The majority leader said: Well, what about Secretary Hagel, the 
distinguished Defense Secretary? He had to wait 34 days to be 
confirmed. Why shouldn't he wait 34 days to be confirmed? He was 
confirmed shortly after his name was reported. We had a perfectly 
adequate Secretary of Defense sitting in the office at the time--
Secretary Panetta. I remember the Senator from Nevada standing over 
there and asking: What if we are attacked and Secretary Hagel is not 
there? Well, Secretary Panetta was there.
  The number is zero.
  Mr. INHOFE. Madam President, will the Senator yield?
  Mr. ALEXANDER. Of course.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Oklahoma.
  Mr. INHOFE. I ask unanimous consent that after the Senator concludes 
his remarks, we hear from the Senator from Arkansas Mr. Pryor, and that 
I be recognized after Senator Pryor for such time as I may consume.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
  Mr. ALEXANDER. Certainly. And if the Senator from Oklahoma needs to 
speak now, I will be glad to yield.
  Mr. INHOFE. That is not necessary.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. ALEXANDER. Madam President, my point is that the charge is that 
Republicans had been denying President Obama his nominations by 
filibuster. Not on the Supreme Court, not to his Cabinet, and no 
district judges, I say to my colleagues.
  How many in the history of the country have ever been denied their 
seats by a failed cloture vote, including President Obama? The answer 
is zero.
  That is very interesting. So what is the reason for this? Well, let's 
go on. Maybe it was some other nomination that caused such a problem 
that would justify this dangerous restructuring of the Senate rules.
  Let's go to the sub-Cabinet category. These are all the executive 
appointments below the Cabinet level. How many of those have been 
denied? Under President Clinton, the Senate rejected two nominees of 
his by a cloture vote. Under George W. Bush, it was three. Under 
President Obama, it has been two. So in the history of the Senate, the 
cloture vote has been used to deny seven Presidential nominees their 
seat, including two for President Obama.
  Let's go to the one area where there has been a little bit more; that 
is, the circuit judges. Remember, on the Supreme Court, never; district 
judges, never; Cabinet member, never; but circuit judges, yes. There 
have been 10 instances where Presidential nominees for the Federal 
circuit courts of appeals have been denied their seats because of a 
failed cloture vote--that is a filibuster--five Democrats, five 
Republicans.
  How did this happen? If in all of these other areas it never happens, 
why did it happen here? Because, as the Republican leader explained 
this morning, Democrats got together in 2003--the year I came to the 
Senate--and said, for the first time in the history of the U.S. Senate, 
we are going to use the filibuster to deny President George W. Bush 10 
nominations to the circuit court because they are too conservative, not 
because they are not qualified. One was Miguel Estrada, one of the most 
highly qualified nominees ever presented. One was Judge Pickering. One 
was Judge Pryor, who used to be a law clerk to Judge Wisdom, as I once 
was. I know the high respect Judge Wisdom had for him. The end result 
was that we had this Gang of 14, and the Democrats ended up only 
stopping five of President Bush's judges, but that was the first time 
in the history of the Senate. To date, including the judges we are 
discussing now, the three on the DC Circuit Court, the total is five. 
So that is it.
  How can anyone say President Obama has not been treated fairly when, 
in fact, the answer is zero on the Supreme Court, zero on district 
judges, zero on Cabinet and two on sub-Cabinet, and the same on circuit 
courts that President Bush had?
  I asked the Senate Historian if President Obama's second term Cabinet 
nominees had been moved through the Senate more swiftly or slower than 
those of his two predecessors, Bush and Clinton. The Senate Historian 
told me it was about the same. So on that question, that is a fake 
crisis.
  The second allegation is that it takes too long for President Obama's 
nominees to come through the Senate. Well, we have something on our 
desks called the Executive Calendar. Every Senator has this. There are 
44 Senators in their first term, and maybe some haven't had a chance to 
read it very carefully, but it has on it all of the names of everyone 
who could possibly be confirmed.
  The way Senate procedure works is a nominee comes out of a committee 
to the Executive Calendar. Let me state the obvious: All of the 
committees are controlled by the Democrats. So if we want to report 
someone for the National Labor Relations Board, it has to be approved 
by a majority of senators on the committee on which I serve. Democrats 
have a majority of the seats on the Committee; so a nominee gets on 
this calendar by a majority of Democratic votes.
  So how long have the people on the calendar been waiting? Well, 54 of 
them have been waiting only 3 weeks; in other words, they just got 
there. Most of them aren't controversial. Usually they are approved on 
a day such as this when we are wrapping up before we go home for a week 
or two, so half of them would probably be gone today. There are 16 who 
have been on the calendar for up to 9 weeks. That is a very short 
period of time in the U.S. Senate for people to have a chance to do 
their other business and get to know the nominees. There are eight who 
have been on the calendar more than 9 weeks. Of the eight, two are 
being held up by Democrats, and two more are Congressman Watt and Ms. 
Millett. That leaves four, and one of those is a newscaster who has 
been nominated to be a member of the board of the Morris K. Udall 
Foundation and who is being moved along with other people to that 
foundation board.
  In other words, it is not true that there are people being held up 
for a long period of time because the only way a nominee can be 
confirmed in the U.S. Senate is if the majority takes someone from this 
Executive Calendar, moves their nomination--it doesn't have to go 
through any sort of other motion; he can do it on his own--and then we 
move to consider that person.
  Well, one might say: But someone can hold each up one of those. Yes, 
we can, under the cloture procedure. But let's take an example. Let's 
say Senator Reid, the distinguished majority leader, were to come, 
under the old rules, to the floor and say: I believe Republicans are 
holding up 10 of our lower-level nominees in an obstructionist way. So 
let's say he arrives on Monday and he files cloture. He moves to 
confirm all 10 of those. He takes them off this calendar, he moves them 
to be confirmed, and he files cloture on each of the 10 on Monday. 
Tuesday is what we call an intervening day. He can get the rest of them 
confirmed, by bankers' hours, by Friday if he wants to because after he 
has that intervening day, there could only be, because we changed the 
rules earlier this year, 8 hours of debate, and his side can yield back 
their 4 hours, and then we go to the next one and then the next one. So 
we have 40 or 45 hours, and we have them all.
  The majority leader, if he wished to, could confirm all of these 
people very

[[Page S8427]]

easily unless 41 Republicans said no. But what we have already seen is 
that almost never happens. In the history of the country, it has 
happened twice to President Obama on his sub-Cabinet members, never on 
a Cabinet member; and never on district judges.
  So the majority leader had plenty of opportunity to have everybody 
confirmed if he wanted to. This is why Senator Byrd, who was majority 
leader and minority leader, in his last speech to the Senate said: 
There is no need to change the rules--and I am paraphrasing. I was at 
the Rules Committee hearing when he spoke. He said: A majority leader 
can use the rules that we have--that is, until today--to do whatever he 
wants to get done.
  Then there is the last charge about the District of Columbia Circuit. 
That was the other pretext for this. Somehow Republicans were doing 
something wrong by saying it is too soon to cut off debate on the 
President's three nominees for the District of Columbia Circuit.

  Republicans were doing--to the letter--exactly what Democrats did in 
2006 and 2007. They were saying that court is underworked, that other 
courts are overworked, and we ought to move judges from where they are 
needed least to where they are needed most before we put anymore judges 
on the court.
  This is the letter sent on July 27, 2006, by all the Democrats on the 
Senate Judiciary Committee, including Senators Leahy, Schumer, 
Feingold, Kohl, Biden, Feinstein, Ted Kennedy. They said ``under no 
circumstances'' should President Bush's Republican nominee be 
considered, much less confirmed, by this committee before we address 
the very need for the judges on the committee.
  All we in the Republican Party were saying is--Senator Grassley has 
had his bill in since 2003; the Democrats said in 2006 we should not 
put anymore judges on the court until we look at where the judges are 
needed--we are saying: Consider Senator Grassley's bill before you 
confirm the judges.
  So that is the excuse--the flimsiest of excuses. The idea that 
President Obama is not being treated at least as well as previous 
Presidents with his nominees is just not true. The filibuster has not 
been used to deny him nominees, except in two cases for sub-Cabinet 
members; and in the case of circuit judges, no more than with President 
Bush.
  The majority leader has not used the rules he had before him to 
easily confirm the people on the Executive Calendar. Those on the 
Executive Calendar for the most part have only been there for a few 
weeks. So why then did the majority feel the need to take this 
extraordinary action?
  That takes us back to where we started. This is, very simply, another 
partisan political power grab to permit the majority to do whatever it 
wants to any time it wants to do it.
  The American people--millions of them--are filling out their 
insurance forms. They are trying to make the Web site work. They are 
terrified by the fact that they may not have insurance by January 1. 
That is totally the result of a partisan political power grab in the 
middle of the night 3 years ago that put ObamaCare into place. This is 
another example of that. The only cure for that is a referendum next 
November.
  I deeply regret the action the Democratic majority took today. It is 
the most dangerous and the most consequential change in the rules of 
the Senate since Thomas Jefferson wrote those rules at the founding of 
our country.
  Madam President, I would refer my colleagues to the letter I had 
included in the Record yesterday, the letter from the Senate Democrats 
in 2006 arguing that the DC Circuit should have no more judges until we 
consider the proper number and also a 1-page list of the total number 
of sub-Cabinet members who have ever been denied their seat by a failed 
cloture vote--and that number is seventeen in the history of the 
Senate; two under Clinton, three under Bush, and two under President 
Obama--plus five Bush judges and five Obama judges.
  Mr. ALEXANDER. I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Arkansas.
  Mr. PRYOR. Madam President, I want to echo at least some of the 
sentiment that my distinguished colleague from Tennessee just 
mentioned--that I am disappointed in the use of the nuclear option. I 
opposed that. I think it could do permanent damage to this institution 
and could have some very negative ramifications for our country and for 
the American people.
  I do not want to be an alarmist about it, but I do have concerns. I 
am very disappointed that it got to this point, and I want to talk 
about that in a moment. But before I do, I would like to say, if you 
step back, the Senate was designed to be a place for debate. It is 
where Members--the way it was designed, the way the rules were 
structured, the size of it, the history of it--the Members can reach 
across the aisle and find solutions.
  That is what this country needs right now. We need solutions. We need 
people who are willing to work together to get things done. Part of 
that is to allow the minority to speak, even if it is a minority of 
one. We need to protect that right, and we need to protect every 
Senator's right to debate and to amend legislation. I think no one here 
with a straight face would say there have not been abuses from time to 
time. We know that. There have been, and I have seen a lot since I have 
been here.
  But also, if you step back and look at the Senate, it is the only 
place in our government where the American people can actually see law 
being made. With all due respect to our colleagues in the House, you do 
not see law being made there. They come out of their Rules Committee 
and it is all pretty much set up, and right now at least they kind of 
tend to vote party line, party line, party line--done. You do not see 
law being made at the White House. When they are doing things such as 
executive orders, all you know is you kind of get the press release or 
you see an announcement in the Rose Garden, and that is it. You do not 
see law even being made in the courts. A lot of law in this country is 
made by the courts. For example, across the street at the U.S. Supreme 
Court, what you have is they hear the arguments, and they all go back 
in chambers. You do not really know what they talk about, you do not 
really know how that is working, and then they come out with their 
decision--and in some cases decisions because a lot of times there is a 
dissent.
  But the Senate is unique in that way. We are the only place in our 
government where you can actually see the law being made. It is also, 
in that same sense, the only place where the minority is guaranteed a 
voice. They sometimes get outvoted, but they are guaranteed at least to 
be heard. I think that is important.
  So again, I share the disappointment of many of my colleagues today 
in how this happened.
  The Senate rules I have worked with for 11 years now. They can be 
arcane and frustrating. But the way it is designed is it allows people 
to fight for their State's interests or their ideological beliefs, 
whatever it happens to be, and the sense is everybody is fighting for 
what is best for the country. We may disagree with what is best, and 
that is why we should have votes eventually on these matters. But it 
allows people to fight for what they think is right, best for their 
State, best for the country, best for the world--whatever the issue 
happens to be.
  Since I have been here, what I have tried to do consistently is to 
fight to maintain the integrity of this institution. Since I have been 
here, there have been numerous times--and I have been part of 
bipartisan groups. Probably the most high profile one was the Gang of 
14 back in 2005, where we worked out some judicial nominations. But 
nonetheless I was a part of that; just recently, the Levin-McCain group 
that helped to change the rules, as the Senator from Tennessee talked 
about.
  What that is all about is working with Senators from both sides of 
the aisle to reach commonsense solutions--not just to protect the 
rights of the minority but also to improve the legislative process, to 
make sure this place works as it is designed. So certainly that is what 
I try to do every single day when I come here. I do understand that if 
you are going to get anything done in Washington, anything done in this 
Senate, you are going to have to work together to do it. It is like in 
the Book of Isaiah. It says: ``Come now, let us reason together.'' I 
think that is the

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one verse in the whole Bible that sort of sums up the Senate: Come and 
let us reason together. The Senate should always be the place for that.

  Let me make two last points on this nuclear option. The first is that 
I would encourage the American citizens to be very careful in looking 
at statistics. They are difficult to use. They can be very misleading 
because almost always these statistics lack context. I hear the talking 
heads. I hear folks on talk radio. I have even seen a few people right 
here in this Chamber use these extensively, and very often there is no 
context. Sometimes, for example--if you just look at cloture motions--
you can actually have a filibuster without filing a cloture motion, and 
you can have a cloture motion without there actually being a 
filibuster. So, again, that will skew the numbers.
  The bottom line is, there is plenty of blame to go around--plenty of 
blame. If one person says it is all the other side's fault, they are 
not being truthful. There is plenty of blame to go around. On this both 
parties are at fault. I will give you one example. It was not too long 
ago that I heard people come down here and say the DC Circuit's 
workload was such that they needed more judges. Well, guess what. Now I 
have heard those very same people say that the DC workload is so light 
they do not need any more judges. The shoe is on the other foot. 
Democrats back in the day said the DC Circuit had a light workload and 
did not need any more judges. Now Democrats are saying it does need 
more judges.
  We need to stop the games and get back to work. I think there is one 
way to fix this, and that is by following the Golden Rule. I think if 
we take those words of Jesus literally and apply those to what we do 
here in the Senate--``Do unto others as you would have them do unto 
you''--and really mean that and really apply that--to do unto others as 
you would have them do unto you--I think all these problems would go 
away.
  It is about respecting one another. It is about working with one 
another. It is about respecting elections in other States, and national 
elections. Do unto others as you would have them do unto you and all 
this would go away. Also, a little dose of forgive one another would 
also help.