[Congressional Record Volume 164, Number 16 (Tuesday, January 23, 2018)]
[Senate]
[Pages S452-S454]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                             Senate Reform

  Mr. WICKER. Mr. President, the Senate voted yesterday to reopen the 
government. I am glad that cooler heads and bipartisan good will 
prevailed before too much damage was done, but where do we go from 
here?
  The leadership of both Houses needs to negotiate appropriations caps 
for the rest of this year and all of next year. We all need to do our 
part to make sure this is done immediately. As a matter of fact, half 
of that job is practically done. Our colleagues in the House have a 
promise from the Speaker of the House to consider a Defense 
appropriations bill at the spending level set by the most recent 
National Defense Authorization Act. That amount is $700 billion and 
represents an increase of $88.6 billion over last year's enacted 
spending level--a welcome development. It would seem to make sense for 
this body to adopt that figure in the Senate bill, and the job would be 
halfway done. I hope our leaders will not wait until the week after 
next to get us an agreement on domestic spending.
  Let's not approach the next few days as if the battle lines are again 
drawn. Rather than using the coming days to suit up for the next 
showdown, perhaps we can work to strengthen the Senate so that it does 
the governing that our Founders envisioned, the governing that the 
statesmen who preceded us have protected. Americans do their jobs day 
in and day out, and they expect the same hard work from their elected 
representatives in Washington.
  In this regard, I would like to call attention to an op-ed by radio 
host Hugh Hewitt that was published online yesterday by the Washington 
Post. It is titled ``How to end the Senate's astonishing 
dysfunction''--a pretty graphic title for an op-ed. Mr. Hewitt warns 
that the institution of the Senate is ``careening toward widespread 
contempt, as happened to its Roman predecessor even before the emperors 
turned it into a fancy advisory council.'' One might be inclined to 
agree given the events of the past few days. Indeed, we have reached an 
embarrassing low point where a government shutdown is wrongly used as a 
bargaining chip for merely political gain. Mr. Hewitt concludes, ``It 
would be best for both parties to head off change imposed from pressure 
from the outside with change organically orchestrated from within by 
those with care for the body and its original design.''
  There are plenty of experts with ideas on how to create a more 
efficient and more effective Senate. Those ideas should be welcomed 
now. But those of us who took an oath in this Chamber and serve with 
the great legacy of this institution cannot stay on the sidelines. We 
occupy a unique position to drive reforms and to make the Senate 
better, ensuring its existence and its success for the next generation.
  There is real hope that these reforms have already begun. For 
example, there has been support by both Democrats and Republicans to 
change the procedural rules on executive and judicial nominations, 
shortening postcloture debate from 30 hours to 8 hours. The Democratic-
led Senate passed this rule on a temporary basis in 2013, with 
bipartisan support. Our colleague from Oklahoma, Senator Lankford, has 
a thoughtful proposal. He suggests that we permanently shorten 
postcloture debate on executive and judicial nominations. I agree with 
this proposal. The practice of confirming noncontroversial nominees is 
a courtesy historically given without needless delay to whoever 
occupies the Oval Office, to whomever the public has installed as 
President, Democrat and Republican alike.
  Delays are not only inconvenient as the new administration tries to 
put its team in place, but more importantly,

[[Page S453]]

delays keep highly qualified individuals from serving the American 
people--sometimes in positions affecting our national security or 
delivering disaster response.
  Like Mr. Hewitt, I believe we can do more to make the Senate work for 
the American people with ``an overhaul of its rules'' that ``preserves 
the rights of the minority in some cases . . . while also reflecting 
the speed at which the world moves today.''
  Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the op-ed by Mr. Hewitt 
be printed in the Record.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

               [From the Washington Post, Jan. 22, 2018]

            How To End the Senate's Astonishing Dysfunction

                            (By Hugh Hewitt)

       Remember Roscoe Conkling? Few people do even though for 
     many years the New Yorker was the ``first man'' in the Senate 
     and king of patronage.
       How about Henry Cabot Lodge? ``Something about the League 
     of Nations?'' you ask, if you are going off your college days 
     or AP history prep. ``No, wait, Nixon's running mate!'' you 
     say, and head to Wikipedia to discover both fragments of 
     memory are right. The Lodges were a father-and-son team of 
     senators.
       How about Robert Taft and Mike Mansfield? Lyndon Johnson 
     was preceded as Senate majority leader by the man known as 
     ``Mr. Republican'' and followed by the good and decent 
     Mansfield, who went on to be a good and decent ambassador to 
     Japan under Presidents Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan. (When 
     was the last time anyone thought of a senator as such a 
     statesman that he or she could serve as ambassador to a key 
     ally for more than a decade under presidents from both 
     parties?)
       The point is that the Senate as an institution is--or was--
     quite the work of genius, but its individual members, no 
     matter how famous in their day, fade into background 
     characters in presidential biographies. (And most 
     presidential biographies don't really get read all that 
     much.) Now the Senate itself is careening toward widespread 
     contempt, as happened to its Roman predecessor even before 
     the emperors turned it into a fancy advisory council.
       Whether the decline began with the sliming of Robert Bork 
     or the segregationist filibusters of civil rights 
     legislation, the modern Senate has been on a downward spiral 
     for some time, and even current Senate majority leader Mitch 
     McConnell (R-Ky.), the Senate's most able leader of my 
     lifetime, isn't shrewd enough to reverse the trajectory in 
     the public's eyes. After another government shutdown, 
     President Trump and others are pushing hard to make the 
     apparently dysfunctional upper chamber a purely majoritarian 
     place. McConnell resists this, knowing that the rights of the 
     minority party are (or at least used to be) key impediments 
     on the country rushing into dangerous waters.
       What the Senate needs is an overhaul of its rules, one that 
     preserves the rights of the minority in some cases--key 
     legislation, for example, and perhaps appointments to the 
     Supreme Court--while also reflecting the speed at which the 
     world moves today. Simple majorities on appropriations and 
     time limits on debate over minor nominees are two obvious 
     reforms. They could be traded for agreement on the high court 
     vacancies, formalizing the modern precedent established by 
     McConnell of no nominations in an election year but 
     consideration and votes on nominees from the year prior such 
     as Anthony M. Kennedy. The same deal could also include 
     changes to the ``Byrd Rule,'' which gives the Senate 
     parliamentarian broad sway over what is allowed under budget 
     reconciliation--an extraconstitutional expansion of the 
     parliamentarian's powers that makes sense only under a Cubist 
     understanding of how the Senate is supposed to operate.
       Now, with the shock of the shutdown very palpable, 
     McConnell and his minority counterpart, Charles E. Schumer 
     (D-N.Y.), should empower a small group of widely liked and 
     respected members to fashion a package of reforms with the 
     only guarantee being that their work product receive an up-
     or-down vote made effective by a simple majority.
       The Senate's dysfunction is astonishing to Americans who 
     have to make things actually run and who have to do their 
     jobs to keep their jobs. Trump has shrewdly taken aim at the 
     Senate's vulnerability as an issue. It would be best for both 
     parties to head off change imposed from pressure from the 
     outside with change organically orchestrated from within by 
     those with care for the body and its original design.

  Mr. WICKER. Mr. President, we can do more to streamline nominations, 
and we can do more to prevent the next budget stand-off.
  I want to remind my colleagues of the bipartisan work that has been 
done by Senate Appropriations members--Republican and Democratic--in 
just the past year. Eight of the twelve annual appropriations bills 
passed out of committee last year. Most passed unanimously, with 
unanimous votes from Republicans and Democrats in the full 
Appropriations Committee. The remaining four were released as 
chairman's marks.
  Let me recount the work that was done last year.
  On July 13, 2017, the full Appropriations Committee, on a bipartisan 
basis, unanimously approved the fiscal year 2018 Military Construction 
and Veterans Affairs and Related Agencies appropriations bill. The vote 
was 31 to 0.
  On July 20, 2017, the committee unanimously--again by a vote of 31 to 
0--approved the fiscal year 2018 Agriculture, Rural Development, Food 
and Drug Administration, and Related Agencies appropriations bill.
  Also on July 20, the committee approved the fiscal year 2018 Energy 
and Water Development appropriations bill by a vote of 30 to 1--still 
an overwhelming bipartisan vote on the part of the Appropriations 
Committee.
  On July 27, 2017, the Appropriations Committee unanimously, by a vote 
of 31 to 0, approved the fiscal year 2018 Transportation, Housing and 
Urban Development, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act.
  Also on July 27, the Appropriations Committee approved the fiscal 
year 2018 Commerce, Justice, Science, and Related Agencies 
Appropriations Act. That was by a vote of 30 to 1--overwhelmingly 
bipartisan.
  On the same day, July 27, the committee unanimously approved the 
fiscal year 2018 Legislative Branch appropriations bill.
  I could go on and on. Two more:
  In 2017, the full Appropriations Committee approved the Labor, Health 
and Human Services, Education, and Related Agencies appropriations 
Bill. The vote then was a little closer--29 to 2--but still 
overwhelmingly bipartisan by a pretty evenly divided Appropriations 
Committee.
  On September 7--well before the end of the fiscal year--the Senate 
Appropriations Committee unanimously approved the 2018 Department of 
State, Foreign Operations, and Related Programs appropriations bill.
  All of these bills and then four chairman's marks have been available 
to this Senate for consideration, and not a single one of them has been 
brought to the floor. What would be the reason for that? I think 
Members of the majority would say it is because we couldn't get 60 
votes for cloture on a motion to proceed, and realizing that we 
couldn't get the 60 votes, we decided not to burn the time that we 
needed for other considerations, such as nominations or tax reform or 
other legislation that had a chance. Members of the minority party 
would probably say we couldn't get to a realistic caps agreement for 
domestic spending and for defense spending, and so there was no point 
in doing that, so we wouldn't agree to the 60 votes. But for whatever 
reason, citizens should know and Members should know that the 
Appropriations Committee did its work, and they had bills within the 
caps available to them, that were available for consideration. Yet, for 
whatever reason, they were not allowed to come to the floor for a vote.
  Shouldn't we make a commitment to at least bring one bill or at least 
a minibus, combining three bills, to the floor and see if Members can 
work their will during this calendar year of 2018?
  Annual appropriations bills should be passed in committee and then 
should come to the floor for a vote. This is how the spending process 
ought to work. We can do that more easily with a budget deal. We can do 
it with a bipartisan agreement on spending caps, which is the next big 
item to be negotiated. We need to eliminate sequestration, and we need 
to agree to defense and domestic spending levels. As I say, the work is 
already halfway done for us. A parade of weeks- or months-long 
continuing resolutions is not how we should be funding the government, 
and we have a resounding agreement to that statement from Members on 
both sides of the aisle.
  The government shutdown this week was unfortunate, but it does not 
mean we have to continue the Senate's ``downward spiral,'' as Mr. 
Hewitt describes. We now have an opportunity for reform and for 
reflection about how we want to shape the future of this institution. I 
hope my colleagues, with the support of majority and minority Members, 
will seize this opportunity to enact positive change.

[[Page S454]]

  Mr. President, I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Flake). The Senator from Oklahoma.