[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.