[Congressional Record Volume 165, Number 5 (Thursday, January 10, 2019)]
[House]
[Pages H363-H364]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                 HOW CLOTURE KILLED THE 115TH CONGRESS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
California (Mr. McClintock) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. McCLINTOCK. Mr. Speaker, 2 weeks after the 2016 election, I 
warned on this floor that the greatest obstacle to the success of the 
Republican Congress and the Trump Presidency was the Senate's cloture 
rule.
  Cloture is the Senate rule that requires 60 votes before a bill can 
be considered. It was originally designed to protect the minority's 
right to debate, but it has now degenerated into a very effective way 
for the minority to prevent any debate. Today, it gives minority 
Democrats in the Senate the power to summarily reject almost every 
measure brought to the Senate.
  In 2016, the American people elected a Republican President and 
Republican majorities in both houses of Congress with a simple plea: 
Make America Great Again. As a practical matter, this meant reviving 
the economy, balancing the budget, securing our borders, and rescuing 
our healthcare system. Having given us all the necessary tools, it had 
every right to expect action.
  If the Republican Congress had proven worthy of this trust, history 
would have looked back on the last 2 years as the turning point when 
America reclaimed its greatness and entered a new era of prosperity, 
solvency, and security. The new 116th Congress would be taking office 
with a clear mandate to build on that success.
  Well, the American people got action from the President. They also 
got action from this House. We sent the Senate over 1,300 bills, 
fulfilling every promise made to the American people. The Senate acted 
on fewer than 300.
  Now, did the Senate, which absurdly boasts to be the greatest 
deliberative body in the world, carefully and meticulously deliberate 
over these measures and ultimately reject them? No. The greatest 
deliberative body in the world never took them up at all--all for lack 
of cloture.
  That is not the fault of Senate Democrats, who radically abused this 
rule as part of the resistance. It is the fault of Senate Republicans 
who let them.
  The only major accomplishments were due to rare instances when 
cloture could be bypassed. The appointments of Neil Gorsuch and Brett 
Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court occurred only after Senate Republicans 
changed this rule, but only for Supreme Court nominations.
  The landmark tax reform bill could be taken up and passed in the 
Senate only by misusing a budget process called reconciliation, which 
avoids the cloture rule.
  Reconciliation is a once-a-year bill designed to control spending. It 
isn't subject to the 60-vote requirement, but it can only change laws 
to conform to spending levels set by the budget.
  Even then, this proved a mixed political blessing for Republicans. 
The limits on deducting State and local taxes were all placed in the 
bill, solely to conform to reconciliation requirements. Republicans got 
clobbered in the high-tax States where these provisions proved so 
unpopular.
  The tax cuts triggered such dramatic economic growth that Federal 
revenues increased, yet the deficit continued to widen. Why? Well, 
spending exploded, in part because House leaders hijacked 
reconciliation, the most potent tool to control spending, in order to 
get around the Senate's cloture rule.
  Cloture turned healthcare from a winning to a losing issue for 
Republicans. House Republicans had proposed comprehensive healthcare 
reforms that rescued Americans from the bureaucratic labyrinth of 
ObamaCare, restored their freedom of choice, protected those with 
preexisting conditions, and provided a supportive tax system to 
guarantee an affordable health plan for every family.
  Yet cloture made a comprehensive bill DOA in the Senate, forcing the 
House to concoct a hodgepodge measure that could fit within the narrow 
rules for budget reconciliation. This mangled product that resulted 
couldn't even muster a Senate majority. Since the replacement bill was 
never enacted, Democrats could portray it any way they wanted. The same 
story can be told of border security and funding for the long-promised 
border wall.

[[Page H364]]

  Though majorities in both houses favored funding, cloture gave Senate 
Democrats the power to run out the clock toward a government shutdown 
and produce the impasse that we now face today.
  Ironically, the political demographics of Senate elections allowed 
Senate Republicans to increase their majority, while voter frustration 
decimated their House colleagues.
  The 115th Congress now passes into history as Democrats take control 
of the House and end any chance to fulfill the hopes of 2016. All that 
is left is Whittier's sad lament: ``Of all sad words of tongue and pen, 
the saddest are these, `It might have been.' ''

                          ____________________