[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 145 (1999), Part 12]
[Senate]
[Pages 17603-17617]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]



         RESTORATION OF THE ENFORCEMENT OF RULE XVI--Continued

  Mr. REID. Mr. President, we are here today talking about the change 
in rule XVI. We are also talking about the minority leader's effort to 
change rule XXVIII.
  The minority today wants to talk about how we are being treated like 
the House of Representatives. In fact, if the majority were consistent 
and they were going to vote without any question to change rule XVI, 
they would also vote to change rule XXVIII, which in effect says you 
can't go outside the scope of the conference as the conference 
committees have done, especially in the appropriations field.
  I am happy to see my friend from North Dakota here, the chairman of 
the Democratic Policy Committee, who is in effect the educational arm 
for the minority.
  Is the Senator ready to proceed?
  Mr. DORGAN. Yes.
  Mr. REID. Mr. President, I yield 10 minutes to the Senator from North 
Dakota.
  Mr. DORGAN addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from North Dakota.
  Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, the vote that has been called on this 
issue, I assume, is a vote that will come to the Senate because some 
are inconvenienced or upset by amendments that have been offered by 
those on the Democratic side of the aisle. These amendments have dealt 
with a range of issues we think are very important: Education, health 
care, agriculture--a whole series of issues we think need to be 
addressed. Because we have not been able to address them on 
authorization bills, we have offered amendments on appropriations 
bills.
  As the Presiding Officer and my colleagues know, the precedent 
stemming back from a vote some while ago in the Senate allows us to do 
that. That might be inconvenient for the majority because it allows us, 
then, on an appropriations bill, to offer an amendment and have a 
debate on the Patients' Bill of Rights, for example. Or it may allow 
for us to have a debate on the agriculture disaster relief bill. They 
may not want to do that, but they cannot deny the members of the 
Democratic minority in the Senate the right to amend an appropriations 
bill. So the proposal is to change the rules back to where they used to 
be in order to prevent amendments of the type I have just described 
from being offered to the appropriations bills.
  I thought it would be useful today to just go through a list of bills 
that describe the way the Senate has been operating in recent years and 
describe why many of us have felt it necessary to try to add 
legislation to appropriations bills. Let me just go through a list 
going back to 1997 and 1998.
  The Family Friendly Workplace Act, S. 4. This bill, as it was 
described on the floor of the Senate, sought to give employees more 
flexibility with their work hours. Senator Patty Murray sought to 
propose an amendment to give employees 24 hours a year of current 
family medical leave so they could take time off to go to school 
conferences and other things. But cloture was filed so that amendments 
could be offered. The purpose of the majority was to say: We want to 
debate S. 4. It is our bill. We want to debate it and we do not want 
the inconvenience of having amendments that we believe are not 
appropriate or germane to the bill. So what we want to do is put the 
bill on the floor and file cloture and prevent the Democrats from 
offering amendments.
  On the Education Savings Act for public and private schools, they had 
the same approach: Bring the bill out here, file cloture and say: We 
want to debate this bill. It is our agenda. But we do not want you to 
be able to offer the amendments you want to offer.
  The Federal Vacancies Reform Act, the same thing; Child Custody 
Protection Act, same thing. If we go through a list of these, we see 
what has happened is the majority leader has set himself up, it seems 
to me, as a kind of House Rules Committee in the Senate, saying I am 
going to bring a bill to the floor, and I am going to fill the 
legislative tree, as they call it, and create a mechanism by which no 
one else can move. It is a legislative straitjacket. No one else will 
be able to offer amendments.
  Then the majority leader has said to us, on occasion: All right, I 
have a bill. I have filled the tree, come to me with your amendments, 
and if I approve and think we ought to debate them, I will allow you to 
debate them; if I don't, I will not.
  That is not the way the Senate works. The Senate is a very 
inconvenient place and not a very effective or efficient place in the 
way it disposes of legislation. But that happens to be the way George 
Washington and Thomas Jefferson and Ben Franklin and Mason and Madison 
anticipated this place should work.
  Remember the description about the Senate being the saucer that cools 
the coffee? They did not intend the Senate to work the way the House 
works, to have a Rules Committee to mandate that only certain 
amendments will be allowed, and then there will only be a certain 
amount of debate allowed, and it will all go very efficiently. That is 
not the way they intended the Senate to work. Yet that is exactly the 
way the majority leader has anticipated the Senate should work now for 
some long while.
  If we had this rule in place last year, for example, the Senator from 
Nevada knows we would not have been able to offer the agriculture 
relief package we offered and got attached to the agriculture 
appropriations bill. The first portion of the farm crisis relief 
package was done in the Senate as an amendment that I and Senator 
Conrad offered to the agriculture appropriations bill. It would not be 
allowed under the rule change that is now being proposed by the 
majority leader.
  So we have a circumstance where the majority has decided that it 
really wants to debate its agenda. I understand that. If I were on 
their side, I would want to debate their agenda. They have a right to 
do that; that is their right. I will vote every day to support their 
right to do that. But then they say: Not only do we want to debate our 
agenda, we want to prevent the other side from offering amendments that 
relate to their agenda.
  That is not appropriate. It is not the way the Senate should work. 
The reason we have had to offer amendments to appropriations bills is 
because authorization bills have not been passed. When they do come to 
the floor, the majority leader decides he does not want amendments 
offered to authorization bills.
  Let me give one example, if I might. Does anybody know anything about 
the Federal Aviation Administration Reauthorization bill? That is an 
important bill. It describes how we run the airways in this country--
the control towers, the safety of air transportation. Do you know we 
just passed the other night, by unanimous consent, a 2-

[[Page 17604]]

month extension of the FAA bill? I will bet there are not 10 Senators 
who know we passed, by unanimous consent, a 2-month extension. Why did 
we pass a 2-month extension? Because we should have passed an FAA 
reauthorization bill in the last Congress and it did not get done 
because we have a huge fight going on.
  Mr. REID. Mr. President, I would like to ask the Senator from North 
Dakota a question. The Senator from North Dakota served in the House of 
Representatives how many years?
  Mr. DORGAN. I was in the House of Representatives 12 years.
  Mr. REID. It is true that it is a very large body, 435 Members. Over 
the years they have developed certain rules to move legislation because 
it is a large body?
  Mr. DORGAN. That is correct.
  Mr. REID. Every bill that comes to the House floor has a rule placed 
on it--how long it can be debated, what amendments can be debated. My 
colleague recalls those days, as do I, being a former House Member?
  Mr. DORGAN. The Senator from Nevada is absolutely correct about the 
procedures of the House.
  Mr. REID. I say to my friend, isn't his memory of how the House 
operates simply how the majority is now trying to operate the Senate? 
The leadership in the majority is trying to make it the same, is that 
not true?
  Mr. DORGAN. That is exactly what is happening in the Senate, and it 
causes some heartburn for many people who understand how the Senate has 
traditionally worked and ought to work. This is not the House. We do 
not have a Rules Committee which decides what amendments should be 
offered. I know some want to change this into a body that operates 
identically to the House of Representatives, but it is not the way the 
Framers of this Government decided how it should work.
  I want to go back for a moment to this issue of the FAA 
reauthorization bill. It describes our problems. We are not passing 
authorization bills. They are all hung up with big disputes here and 
there, and when one does come to the floor, the folks who bring it to 
the floor fill up the legislative tree and decide they do not want the 
rest of us to be able to offer amendments. That is a big problem. If 
the Senate were operating the way it should, I do not think there would 
be any concern about whether or not you could legislate on an 
appropriations bill. But because the Senate is not operating the way it 
should, the Democrats are largely prevented from offering amendments in 
most cases.
  And motions to shut off debate before debate starts, or even before 
the first amendment is offered, have now become routine. Think of that 
again. The filing of motions to shut off debate, even before the first 
amendment is filed, has become routine in the Senate.
  If you went back to that little room in Philadelphia where they wrote 
this Constitution, I will bet they would be aghast at that. When Mason 
and Madison and Franklin and George Washington, talked about what kind 
of a framework they wanted to describe for governance of this country, 
they created a Senate that was deliberately inefficient. It required 
things to slow down a bit and that there to be a lengthy public debate 
about what ought to happen and what is good and what is not good public 
policy. They did that deliberately.
  Now we have all these folks who say we do not want the Senate to be 
able to consider, for any length of time, these issues. We do not want 
amendments to be offered; we want this place to be kind of a slam-dunk, 
highly efficient mirror image of the U.S. House of Representatives. 
That is not what it ought to be.
  I know outside this Chamber this notion of rule changes and rule XVI 
sounds like a foreign language.
  I ask unanimous consent for 2 additional minutes.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Roberts). Without objection, it is so 
ordered.
  Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, this must sound like a foreign language to 
people--rule XVI, legislating on appropriations bills, germane. It is 
not a foreign language. It is about whether folks have the right to 
stand at these desks and engage in debate and offer amendments.
  This desk I am standing at is the desk that was sat in by Robert La 
Follette, the great, popular Senator from Wisconsin. In fact, I am told 
on May 29, 1908, they tried to poison Robert La Follette at this very 
desk. The Senate historian sent me information about that. He had been 
filibustering and had been on his feet for some 8 hours or so, and he 
put a glass of eggnog to his lips and spat the eggnog and claimed he 
had been poisoned. There is a lot of mystery about that circumstance. 
It was at this desk in 1908 that a great, popular Senator in the middle 
of a filibuster suffered that indignity.
  Having heard that story now and seen the evidence from the Senate 
historian, I am probably not likely to filibuster anytime soon. At 
least if I do, I will not from this desk.
  The point is, back in the old days, the way the Senate used to work, 
and the not so old days even going back 10, 20, 30 years, the Senate 
was a deliberative body. Its ability to debate was not choked by 
someone filing cloture motions before anyone else had the opportunity 
even to offer an amendment. That is not the way the Senate should work.
  The change in rule XVI allowed us to offer legislative amendments on 
appropriations bills. That is necessary only because the Senate is now 
being operated in a way that, in my judgment, was not intended at all 
by the framers of the Constitution and certainly was not the way it was 
run for the first 180 years or so of its existence.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator's time has expired.
  Mr. DORGAN. I yield the floor.
  Mr. REID. I yield 10 minutes to the Senator from Iowa.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The distinguished Senator from Iowa is 
recognized.
  Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Nevada for giving 
me this time.
  I listened with great interest and confusion--I guess a little bit--
to what the Senator from North Dakota was saying. He is right on 
target. I served 10 years in the House of Representatives before I came 
to the Senate. We were always a little frustrated at that time, I 
remember, by the Rules Committee because they would set up the rules by 
which we could debate. We only had 5 minutes in the House. You could 
speak 5 minutes, and that was it. Once in a while, you were lucky to 
get consent to speak for 7 or 8 minutes.
  We always knew that if the majority party or minority party or 
interested people could not get an amendment up because of the Rules 
Committee, it could always be done in the Senate. I cannot think of any 
time since I came to the Senate in 1975 when an issue we wanted to 
debate in the House but were prevented from doing so by the action of 
the Rules Committee was not then later followed up with full debate on 
the Senate floor.
  That is as the framers of our Constitution envisioned. The Senator 
from North Dakota is right, and the Senator from Nevada is right. With 
435 Members in the House, there is no way it could function if it 
functioned under the same rules as the Senate, so they have to have a 
Rules Committee. I understand that.
  In the Senate, as envisioned by the framers of our Constitution, we 
are to have open and deliberative debate about the great issues of the 
day, and it is to be just that, deliberative.
  Mr. REID. Will my friend yield for a question?
  Mr. HARKIN. I am delighted to yield to the Senator.
  Mr. REID. I reminded my friend from Iowa just the other day of one of 
the first legislative sessions I attended while in the Senate. The 
Senator from Iowa came to the Senate a couple years prior to this 
Senator. It was 2:30 in the morning. We were debating an issue, and the 
Senator from Iowa felt very strongly about aid to the contras in 
Central America. Even though it was inconvenient, even though it was 
2:30 in the morning, and even though most of us wished the Senator had 
not offered an amendment, the Senator from

[[Page 17605]]

Iowa had the right at 2:30 in the morning to offer an amendment on a 
bill that was before the Senate. There were no rules on that bill, and 
the Senator offered an amendment on aid to the contras because the 
Senator from Iowa felt strongly about that and he had a right to offer 
it. Does the Senator remember that?
  Mr. HARKIN. I do remember that, I tell the Senator. I remember it 
very well, as a matter of fact.
  Mr. REID. Mr. President, I say to my friend, we are a better country, 
no matter how one felt about aid to the contras--I happened to agree 
with my friend from Iowa--for having been able to debate that issue in 
the light of day.
  Mr. HARKIN. I say to the Senator, he is absolutely right. I remember 
that time. I remember some of the great debates we had. I say to my 
friend from Nevada, when I came to the Senate, the Republicans were in 
charge, and then the Democrats were in charge, and then it went back to 
the Republicans again. In all those years--first it was under Senator 
Dole, then Senator Byrd, Senator Mitchell, Senator Dole again--in all 
that time, we had free and open debate in the Senate. Once in a while, 
the majority would try to skirt it a little bit, but that was used very 
rarely. The general rule in the Senate was that we had authorizing 
bills, we offered our amendments, and we debated them fully. Sometimes 
they lasted until 2:30 or 3 in the morning--not often, but once in a 
while when it was an important issue of the day, when those who felt 
strongly about those issues thought it needed a full airing.
  I do not remember at any time during that period that anything got 
held up, that this body came to a screeching, grinding halt. We had our 
say. We had good deliberations. That is gone now. We do not have that 
any longer. We do not have a free-flowing debate in the Senate any 
longer. A person gets up, gives a speech, and leaves the floor. Why? 
Because the way things are being structured now does not really allow 
for the free-flowing, deliberative debate we have had in the past.
  When we changed rule XVI in 1995, when the then-new Republican 
majority voted to change rule XVI, I was opposed to that. I thought we 
should continue to operate as we had been operating. But since 1995, 
what has happened is, under the new leadership in the Senate, we have a 
structure that does not allow for that kind of debate and deliberation 
on authorizing bills. It has been common now for the majority to take 
the position that we do not have any regular debate on controversial 
subjects. We are not allowed the orderly amendment process to be 
considered in the Senate.
  We are all products of our backgrounds, our upbringing, what we 
learned earlier in life. I know the distinguished majority leader--who 
is a fine man, and I have the greatest amount of respect for him--in 
his tenure in the House served on the Rules Committee. I am openly 
wondering whether or not the Senate majority leader's tenure on the 
House Rules Committee is somehow affecting his leadership in the 
Senate. Is the Senate majority leader trying to run the Senate the way 
the House Rules Committee runs the House? It seems to me that is what 
is happening, moving the Senate toward House procedures.
  The pattern has become clear. The Republican leader decides on a 
particular measure; they move to consider it in a process where no 
amendments can be offered or only a limited number of predetermined 
amendments may be offered.
  Again, the argument of limited time is often suggested as a reason--
we do not have all this time--but that is clearly a veil that hides 
nothing.
  Several days are spent working out the details of what may be allowed 
instead of proceeding to the bill and allowing us to debate.
  How many days, I ask my friend from Nevada, have we spent on the 
floor with nobody here, quorum call after quorum call, simply because 
the majority leader does not want to have a measure on the floor to 
which we can add our amendments and openly debate them?
  The reason given is that, well, it will take too much time if Senator 
Harkin or Senator Reid or Senator Johnson or Senator Dorgan get up and 
start offering their amendments and debate them. Yet we spend the 
entire week in quorum calls while they try to work out the details of 
some agreement on how to proceed.
  The Patients' Bill of Rights is a great example. We passed that in 
our committee, the committee on which I serve, last spring. We wanted 
to bring it out on the floor for debate. The majority leader would not 
allow it: Oh, it would take too much time, don't you see.
  What were we forced to do? We were forced to offer it on the 
agriculture appropriations bill. It should not have been there. We 
should have had open and free debate. That brought the ag 
appropriations bill to a standstill.
  Then they tried to work out how we were going to do this. Finally, 
there was a unanimous consent agreement that established a very tight 
rule, similar to the House Rules Committee, in order for us to bring up 
the Patients' Bill of Rights. Why didn't we bring it up in the first 
place a month or two ago and debate it in the orderly process and be 
done with it?
  Another example is the proposed lockbox, a procedure under which 
surpluses could be blocked from being spent year to year. There are a 
variety of ways this could have been accomplished. There are a lot of 
different views on this lockbox and how we are going to proceed on it. 
But look what has happened. Not once, not twice, but three times the 
majority leader moved to invoke cloture to block any amendments from 
being offered to lockbox--three times to shut off any amendments. So we 
still do not have the measure before us. Yet time is consumed, time is 
wasted around here. More time is wasted in the Senate than any place I 
have ever seen. We still have not brought up the lockbox. We could have 
brought it up a month ago and debated it.
  Mr. REID. Would the Senator yield for a question?
  Mr. HARKIN. Yes.
  Mr. REID. It is my understanding that the cloture provision in our 
rules was set up to stop endless debate; is that right?
  Mr. HARKIN. Yes. I say to the Senator, it was to stop endless debate.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator's 10 minutes have expired.
  Mr. REID. I yield 5 additional minutes to the Senator from Iowa.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator has an additional 5 minutes.
  Mr. REID. I say to my friend from Iowa, the lockbox is used as an 
illustration. There has not been a single word of debate on that, has 
there been?
  Mr. HARKIN. Not one word of debate.
  Mr. REID. Why would you want to file cloture when there is no talk, 
no conversation on anything relating to it?
  Mr. HARKIN. That is what I do not understand. The Senator makes my 
point. The majority leader is trying to run the Senate like the Rules 
Committee, saying: We are bringing it up, but we don't want your 
amendments, we don't want you to discuss this.
  The Senate must be an open body. Placing authorizing measures on 
appropriations bills is an imperfect but, under the way the Senate is 
running now, a necessary method of bringing matters to the 
consideration of the Senate.
  In light of the actions by the Republican leader to cut off our 
debate and our ability to have open deliberation, we have been forced 
to use the appropriations bills as a method of doing that.
  These issues should be discussed seriously. I do not know that we 
need to change our rules so much around here as we need to show a 
greater willingness to be open, to allow for the smooth flow of ideas 
and amendments on the floor, rather than gagging Senators, preventing 
them from offering timely amendments.
  I must say, if we do not move toward some accommodation on this, 
parliamentary procedures will be used to deteriorate the ability of the 
Senate to function. The restoration of rule XVI will restrict our 
options on the minority side. But I cannot believe--and I

[[Page 17606]]

say this to my friend from Nevada; I say this to the occupant of the 
Chair--I cannot believe that any serious student of parliamentary 
procedure believes that rule XVI will effectively block Senators from 
eventually getting votes on desired matters. It will happen, but it is 
going to take a terrible toll on this place.
  We should be debating issues such as the minimum wage and fair pay. 
The other day I saw a figure that said, if you took the CEOs of the 
Fortune 500 companies, the CEO pay in 1960 and the minimum wage in 
1960, and you brought them forward to 1999, if the minimum wage had 
gone up at the same rate as CEO pay, the minimum wage today would be 
$40 an hour.
  I would like to debate that on the floor. I would like to debate the 
necessity and the need to raise the minimum wage. Mr. President, 
$10,700 a year, that is what it is right now for people trying to raise 
their families. We need a full deliberation on this. It is an important 
issue. Yet we are choked off and gagged from even doing so.
  I can assure the majority that this can only escalate. The 
reimposition of rule XVI will invite the use of alternative, more 
disruptive parliamentary methods in order for the minority to raise 
these important issues for the benefit of the American people. 
Furthermore, I believe that this, then, will cause further erosion of 
the good will of this body in the smooth consideration of legislation.
  We had 48 cloture votes in the last Congress. We have already had 17 
this session. As the Senator from Nevada said, it is laid down 
immediately, not after we have debated it for some time; and the 
majority, exercising its right to bring debate to a close, files 
cloture. No. It is done right in the beginning before one amendment is 
offered, before one word is even uttered on the issue before us.
  So I say to the majority, do not escalate, because one escalation 
leads to another. The reimposition of rule XVI will lead to some other 
action taken on this side for the minority to exercise its rights. Then 
there will be another escalation on the other side, and then in the end 
the Senate will be the loser, our Government will be the loser, and the 
American people will lose.
  Let us not overturn the 1995 precedent on rule XVI. Let us, instead, 
have a substantive series of discussions to work out the necessary 
adjustments to the way we operate so that we can, once again, as we had 
until recent times, have open and fair deliberation of the major issues 
before this body.
  I thank the Senator for yielding me time.
  Mr. REID. Mr. President, I appreciate the Senator from Iowa for his 
statement.
  I now yield 10 minutes to the Senator from South Dakota.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The distinguished Senator from South Dakota is 
recognized.
  Mr. JOHNSON. Mr. President, I thank my colleague from Nevada. I 
associate myself with the remarks of my friend and colleague from Iowa, 
Senator Harkin, on this issue.
  Today the Senate is considering the reinstatement of rule XVI, the 
Senate rule preventing authorizing legislation from being included on 
appropriations bills.
  The reason the Senate is forced today to consider the reinstatement 
of rule XVI is because the Republican majority overturned the ruling of 
the Chair in 1995. Prior to 1995, it always was the rule that no 
authorizing language could be added to an appropriations bill.
  Having had several years of experience under this new regime, the 
majority comes back with a proposal now to go back to that old rule, 
whereby authorizing language way not be added to an appropriations 
bill. If debate were being brought forward on the floor of the Senate 
in the way that it had over most of the history of this institution, I 
do not think there would be very much resistance to going back to rule 
XVI.
  But what needs to be pointed out is the context we find ourselves in 
post-1995, the way in which, frankly, the current majority party seems 
to be bringing legislation to the floor, and the fact that this process 
has changed radically, and for the worse, not only for the minority 
party but for the American people.
  If debate on amendments were brought forward in a fair fashion, with 
the majority party and the minority party being allowed to bring 
amendments and legislation to the floor, to have a reasonable 
discussion of those issues--whether it be about HMO managed care 
reform, whether it be about campaign finance reform, whether it be 
about minimum wage, whether it be about farm disaster legislation--
regardless of what it might be, I do not think there would be any 
opposition to bringing those amendments up outside the context of an 
appropriations bill.
  In recent years, it has become common practice, in fact the usual 
practice, for authorizing legislation, when it is brought to the floor 
of the Senate, to be brought with what amounts to a gag order on the 
minority party. By a gag order, I mean legislation is frequently now 
brought to the floor by our majority leader with the amendment tree 
filled, meaning that no minority amendments are permitted whatsoever to 
authorizing legislation, allowing for no additional amendments to be 
offered. Then cloture is filed before there is any debate on anything 
relative to the amendments the minority party ordinarily is allowed to 
bring.
  What does the majority fear? Why is there this concern? Is it really 
a matter of saving time? As my colleague from Iowa has noted, we go 
days at a time around this place with no constructive legislative 
progress being made on the floor of the Senate, with a quorum call in 
progress, with no one here. Is it really to save time or is it, in 
fact, a concern on the part of the majority that the American people 
should not be allowed to share the discussion and debate on the floor 
about key issues that ought to be before the American public, about 
where this country ought to be going relative to its domestic and 
international agendas. Is there a gag rule for some reason other than 
saving time? One would have to conclude that, yes, that is the case; 
that apparently the majority finds it embarrassing to have Members of 
this body discussing an agenda that is not being addressed by the 
Senate.
  All of this really amounts to the minority party being shut out of 
the process, being denied the right to amend legislation when that 
legislation comes to the floor.
  An example, Mr. President, is when legislation to create a so-called 
lockbox for the Social Security trust fund was brought to the floor on 
several occasions earlier this year. Grossly inadequate lockbox 
legislation was being brought to the floor. It belied what most people 
would think of when they think of a lockbox. But there was no 
opportunity for amendments to be offered or even considered.
  The minority party understands it is the minority party. It may lose 
a vote on a proposed amendment. But that party ought to be allowed the 
opportunity to point out the deficiencies of legislation and to have a 
fair up-or-down vote. There are times when Democrats will vote with 
Republicans, and Republicans will vote with Democrats. That is the way 
the process ought to work. Yet that opportunity is being denied this 
body.
  The question for all of us to consider, again, is, What is the 
majority afraid of? Do they not believe Senators in the minority have 
the right to offer amendments, or that any Senator in the majority 
might from time to time vote with the minority? It is a sad commentary 
about the bipartisan politics of this body if that, indeed, is the 
case.
  I had the honor of serving in the other Chamber for a number of 
years. Over there, where they have 435 Representatives, there is a 
Rules Committee that decides which amendments will be considered and 
when, and how that legislation is brought to the floor. In the other 
body, that process is sometimes abused but probably is necessary, given 
the sheer size of the body. The possibility of 435 Members offering 
multiple amendments obviously boggles the mind and could, indeed, slow 
down the process.
  But one of the great strengths of the Senate has been, because of our 
smaller

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size and the historic collegiality that has existed most of the time in 
this body, we don't have that kind of Rules Committee, that kind of 
power. Here we bring these issues to the floor for an open and fair and 
balanced debate; obviously, with the majority and the minority dividing 
the time and proceeding with debate in an orderly, constructive fashion 
but with an opportunity to address the key issues facing the Nation, 
whether brought by the majority or brought by the minority, to have 
that discussion. Unfortunately, the current majority--and this is out 
of precedent going back throughout the history of our country--wants to 
deny Senators in the minority a chance to offer the amendments they 
believe need to be offered.
  I think there would be few Senators on the part of the minority who 
would object to reaching bipartisan agreements on the amount of time to 
be spent on particular legislation or the number of amendments to be 
offered. It is very common that these agreements about numbers of 
amendments and time agreements are reached in a bipartisan fashion so 
that we can continue to proceed in an orderly fashion so that there is 
no real risk of debate on these issues somehow clogging up the process 
and denying the ability of the Senate to move forward with its agenda. 
This is not a tradeoff between orderly development of legislative 
issues and the opportunity for the minority to bring up amendments and 
discuss them in a reasonable manner.
  I think it is important for everyone who is following this debate, 
then, to keep these circumstances in mind, to fully understand what the 
restoration of rule XVI really is all about. It is not about orderly 
progress of legislation. It is not about saving time. It is about 
trying to gag the minority party with no opportunity to bring up 
legislation which the majority party is ignoring. It is a means of 
preventing the minority party from pointing out the deficiencies and 
inadequacies, as they see it, of legislation being offered by the 
majority. It is the majority party's effort to see to it that their own 
Members don't cross the aisle to vote with the minority party on 
selected pieces of legislation and to save themselves from that 
apparent embarrassment.
  I point out another important issue that must be discussed again in 
this context. That is Senator Daschle's amendment to reinstate the 
scope of conference point of order.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The time requested by the distinguished 
Senator has expired.
  Mr. JOHNSON. May I have 1 additional minute?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator is recognized.
  Mr. JOHNSON. Prior to 1996, a point of order could be brought in 
conference committee against an amendment that had not been offered and 
debated in either the House or the Senate but was included in one of 
their versions of the bill. The majority is also overturning that rule, 
meaning they have the opportunity, then, to deny minority amendments on 
the floor of the Senate, but then, when they are in conference 
committee behind closed doors, with no media, no press, the majority 
party can amend legislation any way they wish, without regard to action 
of the House or the Senate on the floor.
  I hope in the context of all of this the Senate will remain 
consistent with precedent in supporting Senator Daschle's effort to 
make sure there is some continuity of action in those conference 
committees. This is particularly important in light of the changes 
being proposed on rule XVI.
  I yield back such time as I have to the Senator from Nevada.
  Mr. REID. Mr. President, I say to my friend from South Dakota, I very 
much appreciate his statement. I also say that the people in South 
Dakota are very fortunate that South Dakota doesn't have a lot of 
people but, through Senators Daschle and Johnson, has great power in 
the Senate. I appreciate very much the Senator's remarks.
  I now yield 10 minutes to the Senator from California, Mrs. Barbara 
Boxer.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from California is recognized for 
10 minutes.
  Mrs. BOXER. Thank you very much, Mr. President. I thank Senator Reid, 
our distinguished minority whip, who has done such a fine job on so 
many issues.
  Mr. President, I say to the public who may be watching this debate, 
it may sound a little arcane, but we are debating the rules of the 
Senate. They will hear about rule XVI, they will hear about rule 
XXVIII, and they will say: What does this have to do with us? What does 
this have to do with my daily life as an American citizen?
  Let me tell you, it has everything to do with the daily lives of the 
American people because this debate is about the power to bring issues 
to the American people by way of the Senate. It is about who has the 
right to bring issues to this floor for debate--issues that really 
matter to people, issues that relate to their jobs, issues that relate 
to their health care, issues that relate to their kids' education, 
issues that relate to how much congestion there is on a freeway or at 
an airport. So the power to bring up issues on the floor of the Senate 
is, in essence, the ability for all of us as Senators to make a 
difference in the lives of the American people.
  If you were to ask me who has the right to bring issues to the Senate 
floor, my answer would be every single Senator, be they Republican, 
Democrat, or Independent. I think it is a very sad day today because, 
very clearly, the way this place has been running there is an attempt 
to shut down all but the Republican Senators. Because the Republican 
Senators control these appropriations bills in the committee, they will 
be able to load them up with all kinds of legislation. But once those 
bills get to the floor, there will be no way for Democratic Senators or 
Independent Senators to add their voices to that legislation.
  There was a time in the Senate when things weren't like this. Perhaps 
they were the golden days of the Senate. When I first got here, we 
worked well--the Democrats did--with the Republicans. In those days, 
the Democrats were in charge. We worked well together. We weren't 
afraid to take the tough votes. We had full debate. Authorization bills 
were brought to the floor of the Senate. There was open debate.
  Now we have a majority leader whom I like very much. Notwithstanding 
that, every chance he gets, his goal is to shut down the debate, to not 
allow a full debate. If he were in a position to open up the debate on 
authorizing bills, I say to the distinguished whip, we would not be 
here today fighting against reinstating rule XVI.
  I want to take a look at how we actually got to this point. Rule XVI 
of the Senate rules prohibits amending appropriations bills. In other 
words, the rationale--which is a very good rationale--is that 
appropriations bills are merely bills that decide how much we spend on 
a particular item, and therefore they should be immune from the larger 
debate about underlying law and changes in underlying law. I always 
thought that was a good rule. We had it in place, as I say, when I got 
here.
  Then, in 1995, the Republicans changed the rule. It came about 
because a Republican Senator wanted to stop the Endangered Species Act 
in its tracks and she wanted to attach an environmental rider to an 
appropriations bill. She needed very much to change rule XVI in order 
to win her point.
  I remember being very upset at that time for two reasons. No. 1, I 
thought it was really bad to change rule XVI because I thought we had 
fair and open debate. Secondly, I thought, here is a major policy 
change, a major change in the law, without going through the 
authorizing committees, no hearings, no witnesses, no real debate in 
the committee.
  The Endangered Species Act has been a great act. Is it perfect? No. 
But it saved the California condor and the bald eagle. Yet we have a 
Senator wanting to throw the whole thing out, essentially, and stop all 
the new listings because she didn't like it. In order to do that, her 
colleagues accommodated her and they went back to allowing legislation 
on appropriations; 54 Republicans voted with her at the time.

[[Page 17608]]

  Now, after several years of seeing some of us move our legislation, 
such as the Patients' Bill of Rights, campaign finance reform, taking a 
page out of the book of the Senator from Texas, they suddenly say in 
the middle of the Congress that they have changed their minds. I know 
why they have changed their minds. They have figured out how to run 
this place similar to the House of Representatives, as my friend, 
Senator Reid, pointed out.
  I served in the House of Representatives for 10 years. That place 
runs very differently from the Senate. They shut you down. They shut 
down debate. How many times have you seen House Members try to deliver 
a whole speech in 30 seconds or a minute? I know because I learned to 
do it over there. The fact is that there are time constraints over 
there. There are so many people over there. The Senate is a different 
place.
  Let me put it in a different way. This used to be a different place. 
I say to my friend--and then I will yield to him--when I was a little 
girl, my father used to tell me, years before I would even dream that I 
would even be in politics, because in those days women were not in 
politics: Honey, I want you to watch the U.S. Senate because that is 
where they really debate everything. The people who are there serve for 
6 years. They are not afraid to take a tough stand, and they are not 
afraid of issues. They are willing to debate them; they are courageous; 
you hear all the different views. It is the greatest deliberative body 
in the world.
  Mr. REID. Will the Senator yield for a question?
  Mrs. BOXER. I am happy to yield.
  Mr. REID. It is my understanding that the State of California has 
about the seventh largest economy in the world. Is that true?
  Mrs. BOXER. That is correct.
  Mr. REID. Is it true that the Senator from California represents over 
30 million people?
  Mrs. BOXER. About 33 million people.
  Mr. REID. I come from the neighboring State of Nevada, which has 
about 2 million people. We have a lot of things we would like to be 
talking about. The Senator talked about environmental issues. Our 
States share beautiful Lake Tahoe. There are environmental issues we 
need to be talking about that would protect that beautiful gem we 
share. We need to talk about minimum wage, fair wages, and the fact 
that women who work comparable jobs should make the same amount of 
money as men. We need to talk about campaign finance reform. I am sure, 
representing 33 million people, the Senator believes--and we came to 
the House of Representatives together in 1982--that we in the Senate 
should act and be treated as Senators, not as Members of the House of 
Representatives. There is nothing wrong with Members of the House of 
Representatives, but that is a large body and they need different rules 
than we do; is that not true?
  Mrs. BOXER. My friend is exactly right. We did serve together in the 
House of Representatives, and it was a thrill to be there for 10 years. 
But there are differences between the two bodies. One of them certainly 
is the breadth and depth of the debate that goes on in the Senate as 
compared to the House. It is a different institution.
  I think it is, in fact, a sad time. What happens when a piece of 
authorizing legislation comes before the Senate? We have the majority 
leader blocking our attempts to amend those pieces of legislation. My 
friend is right.
  When I ran for reelection in the Senate in 1998, there were many 
differences between my opponent and me. It was a very hotly contested 
race. We talked about health care, campaign finance reform, protecting 
children from toxic waste; We talked about raising the minimum wage; We 
talked about more teachers in the classrooms. We talked about fixing 
school infrastructure because we have schools, I say to my friend, that 
are falling down because they are so old; We talked about the 
importance of afterschool programs, preschool, cops on the beat, 
sensible gun laws, and ending violence at women's clinics. These were 
issues of great importance.
  I told my constituents: Look, I don't know if we are going to win on 
all these issues because it could be that when I get back to the 
Senate, the other party will be in control and they are not for raising 
the minimum wage; they are not for campaign finance reform; they are 
not for afterschool programs, and a lot of these things. But I promise 
you one thing: I am going to put up a fight. We are going to have those 
debates.
  So the point is, I say to my colleagues who may be listening today, 
it seems very strange that when a party is in control and they have a 
good number more seats than we do, they should not be so insecure that 
they don't even allow us to offer amendments to authorizing 
legislation; now they have decided to shut us down on appropriations 
bills when they are the ones who fought for that right themselves.
  This is not an arcane debate. This is a very important debate. I 
think you have to put all of this in the context of how the minority 
party has been treated. I love this institution. I agree that we 
shouldn't legislate on appropriations bills. But I say that with a 
caveat--if we are treated fairly on all the other legislative vehicles; 
if we are allowed to offer amendments without having the majority fill 
up the so-called amendment tree and block us out; if we can have bills 
brought to this floor.
  The Senator from North Dakota brought up a very important point. 
Because the majority leader wasn't ready to bring up the FAA 
reauthorization act, we did a 2-month extension. I wonder why. Can it 
be that he doesn't want to bring a piece of authorizing legislation to 
the floor because then he couldn't stop us that easily from bringing up 
our issues?
  I don't know the answer to that. But I do know that I am going to 
join with a vast majority of Democrats to fight for the kind of Senate 
my dad talked to me about when I was a little girl, the kind of Senate 
where, regardless of political party, every single Senator has a right 
to bring an issue important to his or her State to the floor of this 
Senate. I think that is the least we could do.
  I say to my distinguished whip, who does such a fine job in leading 
us on this side, that I really appreciate the fact that he is leading 
this particular effort. I think the issue of rule XXVIII is important 
because if we are going to shut down our ability to amend bills on the 
floor, we ought to shut down the ability of the majority to add 
anything they want in the conference that may not have passed either 
House. I don't know how that can be considered democratic.
  Arcane though this debate might be, I say to the American people who 
may be focusing in on this debate, it is very important to you. If you 
want your Senator, regardless of party, to be able to come to the floor 
of the Senate and bring up issues that are important to you, then you 
ought to work to make sure that this Senate is open and is fair.
  Thank you very much. Mr. President, I thank the distinguished whip.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The distinguished Senator from Wyoming is 
recognized.
  Mr. THOMAS. Mr. President, I assume we are having time to discuss the 
Senate resolution on rule XVI.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator is correct. The majority has 168 
minutes 18 seconds. The minority has 93 minutes 31 seconds.
  Mr. THOMAS. Thank you very much, Mr. President.
  I wanted to talk about this issue because I feel very strongly about 
it. I have not been able to hear everything this morning, but it seems 
we have turned this into a little fairness technique which I have a 
little trouble understanding.
  What we are talking about is whether or not you put authorizing 
legislation on appropriations bills. It seems to have been turned into 
kind of a contest of who is being treated fairly. I don't quite 
understand that, frankly.
  There has been a lot of talk about the House. I served in the House. 
This is a different place. We have different

[[Page 17609]]

rules--no question about that. We should have, and we will continue to 
have different rules.
  Since I have been here, I think this leader has been very fair in 
operating to give everyone a chance to speak, as should be the case. On 
the other side of the coin, we haven't heard much about the fact that 
these appropriations bills are amended with things that have nothing to 
do with them, and we lose track of where we are going on these 
appropriations bills.
  I think there is some responsibility on the part of the minority to 
feel that we need to accomplish something in this place other than 
simply introducing amendments that have nothing to do with the bill 
that is being considered. As you can see, I feel fairly strongly about 
that.
  One of the things which I think is important is to separate the idea 
of authorizing committees from appropriations. That is why we have an 
Energy Committee; that is why we have an Armed Services Committee; that 
is why we have an Agriculture Committee--to talk about the policy in 
those particular areas, and to determine what the authorizations are 
going to be and what the role of Government is going to be. Then we 
follow with the appropriations bills, which also, by the way, have a 
great deal of power because, obviously, you can't do a great deal in 
terms of policy unless there are some funds with which to do it.
  But when you do it the other way, as the minority apparently is 
urging, then you avoid hearings and you avoid having any real 
discussion in committees on the issue. They apparently want to just 
come to the floor with the issue having had no background at all. I am 
afraid I don't understand that. It seems to me to be a little naive to 
suggest that we have rules of that type.
  I wanted to talk a little bit about it.
  Mr. REID. Mr. President, will the Senator yield for a question?
  Mr. THOMAS. No. I will continue a little bit, and then I will be 
happy to answer the question when I am finished.
  I think we ought to emphasize this idea of authorizations. I was 
happy to be on the appropriations committee when I was in the Wyoming 
State legislature. So I have had some experience with that.
  The idea that you just simply ignore the authorizing committees and 
begin to do everything on appropriations is wrong, absolutely wrong.
  How we got here I am not sure. The minority whip has been here longer 
than I and I suspect remembers when Democrats were in charge. But I 
think maybe he has forgotten a little bit about the way it operated 
then. As I understand it, when the Senator from Maine was in charge, it 
operated very much the same way. I am not suggesting that should be the 
case, nor am I suggesting it is. It seems to me that there have been 
real efforts to be as fair as we can be, and that should be. We need to 
do that.
  In addition to having the opportunity to put everything on the floor, 
which I agree with, there is also a responsibility on the part of all 
of us to accomplish some things.
  My recollection is that during the last number of months amendments 
that have come from the other side of the aisle have generally been to 
stop anything from happening. There are a good deal of examples of 
that. Frankly, that is very frustrating for me--to bring up something 
and then the bill has to be withdrawn from the floor because we have 
lost completely the direction of things.
  What is this debate about? It is very simple. It simply says that in 
the precedence of the Senate, unless an amendment has to do with the 
same subject as does the appropriations bill, it is not allowed on the 
bill. You can make a point of order. And there has to be a majority 
vote to follow it up. That is pretty simple. I think it is fairly 
reasonable. If you are going to come in through the appropriations bill 
and put an appropriations amendment on it, you can have a point of 
order, have a vote on it, and, if it isn't appropriate, it isn't used. 
I don't find much of a problem with that.
  I think we ought to get to the topic and talk about what it is we are 
doing rather than going through all of these gyrations of fairness, and 
so on, in terms of getting on the floor. If that is a problem, if that 
is a real problem, then we have to resolve that problem. This is not 
the way to resolve that problem.
  We have some things that we have to do. We have to accomplish things 
right now. What do we have, 13 appropriations bills with which we have 
to deal? I think we have dealt with about seven. There are a number of 
examples of how nongermane issues have been raised and have been 
withdrawn. We have to withdraw the topic from the appropriations bill.
  What we are doing is seeking to overturn the ruling of the Chair with 
respect to legislation on appropriations bills.
  If the minority whip would like to make a comment, or ask a question, 
I would be more than happy to respond.
  Mr. REID. Mr. President, I appreciate my friend yielding.
  Rule XVI was changed by virtue of the majority voting to change it.
  I ask my friend this question: The minority leader has filed an 
amendment to change rule XXVIII. Rule XVI would say that there would be 
no legislation on appropriations bills. Rule XXVIII goes one step 
further and says: Fine. If we are not going to legislate on 
appropriations bills, then a conference committee should only be able 
to take up matters in the bill that they are conferencing and that has 
within it confined limits. Will the Senator comment on whether or not 
he believes, if we are going to change rule XVI, we should also change 
rule XXVIII which would mean that a conference committee cannot do 
things outside the scope of the two bills they are dealing with?
  Mr. THOMAS. I can answer that very quickly. Yes, I agree with that. I 
think it is the same concept as coming to the floor with an amendment 
on an issue that has never been discussed, has never been authorized. 
To do that in the conference committee, I believe, is equally wrong.
  Mr. REID. I appreciate that very much. We had here the senior Senator 
from New York who went on at some length, as only he can do, using an 
example of that huge bill last fall which the Senator and I came back 
to vote on--I came back from Nevada and he came back from Wyoming--that 
we had not even seen. I think we would be hard-pressed to say we could 
lift it, much less to have read it. Yet a few people in the conference 
committee, together with the White House, drew this bill. If we were 
working under the confines of rule XXVIII, that would not be possible. 
I appreciate very much the comments of the Senator from Wyoming, 
acknowledging that would also be a good idea.
  Mr. THOMAS. I do think so. I do think it is the same concept there. 
What we want to avoid, in many ways, is putting more authority into 
this Appropriations Committee. It is a very important committee. I 
recognize that. But it ought not be the center of all of our activity, 
and it can be if we are not careful. So I think there is a balance in 
both these areas. I support both the propositions that are here, and I 
hope we have some action that will put them into place.
  Mr. REID. If the Senator will yield just for another comment, I serve 
on the Appropriations Committee. I am very fortunate; I have been able 
to do that since I have been in the Senate. But, having said that, I 
think we need to get a process where we are doing more legislating on 
authorizing legislation than what we are doing. Almost all of our 
attention is now focused on the 13 appropriations bills, and we have 
kind of lost track of the fact that we should be legislators on things 
other than appropriations bills.
  Mr. THOMAS. I have listened just a little bit to the Senator and his 
associates, and I have the feeling you are not for changing the rules?
  Mr. REID. I say to my friend from Wyoming, I think he is going to 
find a protest vote, saying we want a more open debate. We are going to 
support the change in rule XXVIII, and we are confident rule XVI will 
be changed if rule XXVIII were changed in addition

[[Page 17610]]

to that. The minority leader is offering that as an amendment. I think 
it would be a pretty good day for the country.
  But the conversations today on this side of the aisle, I say to my 
friend from Wyoming, have been to the effect we need to do more 
legislating. An example of the lockbox has been used. That is a very 
important concept, that we should lock away enough money from the 
surpluses to protect our Social Security system. But we would like to 
talk about that a little bit. Not talk forever; no one wants to 
filibuster that. That is something we believe in, too. But we may not 
believe in it exactly the way the majority has presented it to us. We 
have had three cloture motions filed on that particular bill and we 
have not been able to say a single word about it. That is what we are 
complaining about.
  Mr. THOMAS. I understand that. I think it was five, but as a sponsor 
of the lockbox, I am very much for it. But in this instance it just 
seems to me that is what I am talking about, simply blocking it. There 
has been much opportunity to talk about lockbox. You can talk about it 
whenever you choose.
  I guess the reason the Senator voted against cloture is because he 
wanted an opportunity to amend.
  Mr. REID. That is right.
  Mr. THOMAS. I do not think anyone could argue against the need for a 
fair process. But I think to talk about all those things with respect 
to rule XVI is inappropriate. I think we very much need this. I urge 
the Senator's support.
  I thank my colleague.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Nevada is recognized.
  Mr. REID. I ask unanimous consent a quorum call be initiated and the 
time be charged equally against both sides.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered. The clerk 
will call the roll.
  The legislative assistant proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. REID. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. REID. Mr. President, I see in the Chamber the distinguished 
Senator from West Virginia, Jay Rockefeller. I yield 10 minutes to the 
Senator.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The distinguished Senator from West Virginia 
is recognized for 10 minutes.
  Mr. ROCKEFELLER. I thank the Presiding Officer, as well as I thank my 
esteemed friend from Nevada.
  Mr. President, I came a bit earlier than was anticipated. I look 
forward to expressing what are some strongly held views on my part.
  In a formal sense, I rise today to object to the reinstatement of 
Senate rule XVI. That is my purpose in being here. Up until 1995, it 
prohibited legislating on appropriations bills. That is the reason I 
formally rise.
  The Republican majority, in fact, is responsible for overturning the 
rule which was designed to keep legislative matters unrelated to 
appropriations bills from bogging down the appropriations process. The 
Republicans themselves were responsible for overturning the 
longstanding Senate precedent by rejecting the ruling of the Chair, 
something that was given little notice and was little commented upon 
but is now of increasing monumental proportions.
  I cannot support returning to the previous order because I respect 
the Senate. It seems to me anybody who has a sense of what the Senate 
was designed for and what the Senate is, what the Senate should be, 
what the American people expect the Senate to be, will vote as I will 
vote because to do otherwise is to diminish this body, which I think 
has been diminished substantially in the last 5 or 6 years in any 
event, in terms of its impact on American debate, its impact on 
discussion, its impact on the intellectual activity of the Senate, and, 
in fact, its impact on American society as a whole.
  I happen to represent steelworkers, farmers, airport managers, 
veterans, rural people, patients, doctors, nurses, just as the 
Presiding Officer does. This Senator may have a few more steelworkers 
in his State than the Senator from Kansas does in his State; otherwise, 
we represent more or less the same people. I do not think these people 
ought to have their business pushed aside, their concerns, their 
worries, what they care about pushed aside in order to make the 
Senate's bill or the Senate's way of working more manageable, more 
efficient, more to the liking of the leadership, more House-like, more 
limiting, less substantial, less interesting, less of scope, less of 
dignity, less of the power of the tradition of the Senate.
  (Mr. THOMAS assumed the chair.)
  Mr. ROCKEFELLER. I believe the majority is interested in controlling 
debate. I have wanted to say this a long time, and I have not found the 
place to do it properly, but I find so today. I believe the majority--
not the Presiding Officer who has changed since I began my remarks, who 
is an entirely different kind of person--the people who run the 
majority, who speak for the majority, who lead the Senate on behalf of 
the majority, are interested in controlling debate, minimizing debate 
in making the Senate more like the House from whence they came and in 
trivializing the Senate. Those are harsh words, but they come from a 
disturbed and unhappy Senator--not disturbed in a psychological sense, 
I point out to the Presiding Officer, but disturbed in the sense of not 
feeling good about the work I am able to do as opposed to the way it 
used to be a number of years ago when I first came to the Senate.
  I wish I could tell my colleagues I believe the Senate is functioning 
in a way that means legislative business can occur on authorizing 
legislation, but I cannot. I wish the Senate would return to a more 
efficient appropriations process that does not deal with extraneous 
legislative matters, but under the Senate's current leadership, Members 
of the majority party have effectively gagged--there is no other word 
for it--the minority from raising policy matters on the Senate floor.
  Every Tuesday, members of both parties have caucuses. Those caucuses, 
in the case of the Democrats, used to deal broadly with issues and with 
functions and divisions of responsibility and debate within the caucus. 
Now, for the most part, they are taken up with, how can we make 
ourselves heard? How is it that we can, by some manipulation or clever 
method, try to work our way through a loophole which allows us to bring 
up an amendment, to speak on behalf of our constituencies?
  In every single caucus there is a question of how the majority is 
diminishing the minority, not in a way which would just be satisfying 
in the sense of a Republican making a Democrat feel less important or 
making a Democrat's role less important in the Senate, but in the sense 
of diminishing honest and open and real debate.
  That is what I came to the Senate for in 1985--honest and real 
debate. I did not expect to win everything. I did not expect to lose 
everything. But I did expect to be able to debate, to be able to make 
my views known, as one can in a committee. All committees are run 
relatively fairly. The Finance Committee, the Commerce Committee, which 
I sit on, are run fairly by their majority leadership. This place is 
not; the floor of the Senate is not. We are gagged, as in the Patients' 
Bill of Rights doctors were gagged. We are not allowed to express our 
views.
  I resent that enormously, I say to the Presiding Officer. It takes a 
lot away from being a Senator. I know no longer the greatness of the 
difference between being a Member of the House and being a Member of 
the Senate. There is, of course, a difference. I stand here and speak, 
and I speak as I choose to speak, and nobody is stopping me, but that 
is because we have this arrangement for this day. For most of the rest 
of the time, morning business has been closed off--or had been--quorum 
calls were not honored, to be able to interrupt them, as this one was 
honored. It is a different body. It is a distressing situation. All of 
us, on both sides, all 100 of us, are diminished by the way this Senate 
is run.
  Let me give an example of a piece of legislation, and it is not even 
the first one on the minds of most, but it is a big one in terms of 
this Senator: This legislative body's failure with respect to the FAA 
and the airport improvement reauthorization bill, which is, for the 
fourth time in less than a year, on the brink of expiring.

[[Page 17611]]

  Last fall we threw a 6-month extension into the omnibus 
appropriations bill. When that expired on March 31, we did a 2-month 
extension--embarrassing--until May 31; then a 65-day extension--
embarrassing--through August 6. And now we are close to August 6, and 
we may have to--and probably will--have to do yet another extension. 
All of these short-term extensions may make us feel better temporarily, 
but they are not solutions. They do not obviate the need to take up and 
debate and pass an authorization bill.
  But we cannot debate it. We cannot debate anything on this floor 
except what it is the majority wants to debate. Then they fill up every 
tree, preclude every amendment, and we are all diminished, and the 
public process is diminished at the same time.
  So in the current Senate environment, which I deplore, regret--I like 
the people who lead the Senate on the majority side, but I do not 
respect the way they lead this Senate. I think all of us suffer from 
the way they lead this Senate; that is, to make the Senate more like 
the House--puppets.
  So in this current Senate environment, I am not willing to give up a 
single avenue for getting my work done. I will not support giving the 
majority one more way to cut off debate on important policy issues--
such as aviation or the future of our Nation's steel industry, 
restoring money to Medicare providers who have been too deeply cut. We 
hear more about this than any other subject when we go home. Have we 
discussed it? No. Research and development, lots and lots of other 
things.
  So the arcane rules of the Senate may not be at the forefront of the 
concerns of everyday Americans, but the rules of this Senate guide the 
way our democracy works or fails to work. They guide the way the people 
trust their Government, and they also guide the way people within the 
Government trust the Government within the framework of which they work 
as best as they can.
  The legislative process is honorable. It is time honored. I fear that 
we are dangerously close to the Senate losing its reputation and role 
as a great deliberative body.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator has used 10 minutes.
  Mr. ROCKEFELLER. I recognize my time is up. I hope my colleagues will 
support me in objecting to the reinstatement of Senate rule XVI.
  I thank the Presiding Officer.
  Mr. REID. I say to my friend from West Virginia, through the Chair, 
how much I appreciate him being here today. The people of West Virginia 
are very fortunate to have Senators Byrd and Rockefeller representing 
their interests. I appreciate the Senator's statement today very much. 
Mr. President, I yield 10 minutes to the senior Senator from 
Connecticut, Chris Dodd.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Connecticut.
  Mr. DODD. Mr. President, I thank my colleague from Nevada. And I 
thank my colleagues who have spoken on this issue this morning, an 
issue that may seem to the general public as sort of an arcane debate 
involving the internal machinations of this body. But in my brief 
remarks this afternoon, I would like to suggest that this debate may be 
one of the most significant ones we have in this Congress because it is 
the process and the procedures which determine the ability of a 
minority in this body to be heard.
  If that ability is constrained, is gagged, is muffled, then the 
public is denied the opportunity which the Senate, as a forum, has 
historically provided to the citizenry of this Nation, and that is a 
full airing of the issues that they should hear, that they should be 
aware of, as we deliberate the matters which will affect their lives 
and the lives of their families for years and decades to come.
  So while a procedural debate may sound boring to some and may not 
sound as if it is of terribly great import to others, this is, in 
truth, a significant debate and discussion. Therefore, I add my voice 
to those who have raised concerns about a vote that will occur later 
this afternoon dealing with rule XVI of the Senate.
  I am in somewhat of a unique position. I am standing next to my dear 
friend and colleague from West Virginia, who is recognized by all in 
this Chamber, regardless of party, and those who have come before us, 
as one of the truly great historians of the Senate, arguably the most 
knowledgeable person who has served in this body in its 210-year 
history when it comes to the role of the Senate both in terms of our 
own history as well as the role of senates throughout recorded history.
  I am also in a unique position in that I am the inheritor of the seat 
once held by a distinguished Senator from Connecticut by the name of 
Roger Sherman. Roger Sherman, among other things, was the only Founding 
Father, as they are referred to, to have signed the four cornerstone 
documents, as we call them, of our Nation. He signed the Declaration of 
Independence, the Articles of Confederation, the Constitution of the 
United States, and the Bill of Rights.
  He was from New Haven, CT. I sit in his seat in the Senate, as you 
track a Senate seat from those who first represented the Thirteen 
Original Colonies in the Senate to the modern Senate of today. But 
maybe more importantly than his signature on those four cornerstone 
documents, he was the author of what was called the Connecticut 
Compromise. The Connecticut Compromise produced the Senate of the 
United States as a body.
  There was a crisis, politically, at the time of the debate in the 
constitutional convention between large States and small States about 
where power would reside. Roger Sherman, along with others, proposed 
the Connecticut compromise, which gave birth to the Senate as a place 
where small States would be equally represented by the participation of 
two Senators from each State regardless of the size of the State.
  But more importantly than that debate, it was also designed to be a 
forum wherein the rights of a minority could be heard. The rules of the 
House of Representatives--I served in that body for 6 years--were and 
are specifically designed to guarantee the rights of the majority. 
Majority opinion prevails in the House, and that is how it should be. 
We had come off a system ruled by one individual, a king. We wanted to 
establish a system of government where the majority opinion of the 
American people could be heard and their voices could result in 
opinions being rendered and decisions being made which reflected those 
majority feelings.
  But the Founding Fathers and those who supported them in their wisdom 
understood there could be a tyranny of the majority, that quick 
decisions made rapidly without a great deal of thought or consideration 
could in some instances do more harm than good. So the Senate was 
created as a balance, as a counterweight, in many ways.
  The Senate was designed to be a place where those majority decisions, 
as important as they are, would then have to be brought for further 
consideration in this Chamber where additional consideration and 
thought would be offered, where the views of those who may not have 
been heard in the House of Representatives could be heard, where the 
rights of a minority, including a minority of one Senator, would 
absolutely be guaranteed the right to be heard, as long as that Senator 
could stand on his or her feet and express their opinions--the 
filibuster rule which protects the right of one of us out of 100. 
Ninety-nine people cannot stop one Senator from speaking, once that 
Senator has gained recognition from the Presiding Officer. It is a 
unique set of rules, completely contrary to the rules of the House, 
where one Member of the House cannot command the attention of the 
entire Chamber, or that person is limited to 5 minutes in talking and 
must get unanimous consent to speak for a 6th minute. In the Senate, 
that is not the case. As long as you can stand and be heard, no one can 
interrupt you or break the flow of debate.
  There are many other distinctions which make the Senate unique and 
special, but that is certainly one of them.
  This afternoon we are going to debate and vote on a rule which also 
goes to the very heart of whether or not the Senate is going to 
maintain its unique and distinct role as being sort of the

[[Page 17612]]

antithesis, if you will, the counterweight, as was described by Thomas 
Jefferson when he argued against the creation of the Senate, that this 
would be the saucer in which the coffee or the tea would cool, where 
temperatures could be lowered, the heat of debate would be softened, 
consideration and thought would be given to the decisions that the 
majority had made in the other Chamber.
  I come to this issue with a sense of history about Roger Sherman, in 
whose seat I sit, who authored the creation of the Senate with the 
Connecticut compromise, with a deep sense of appreciation for the role 
of the House, having served there, and also a very strong sense of the 
role that the Senate should play and why this debate on rule XVI is 
more than just an internal discussion, a debate among Senators that has 
little or no impact on the daily lives of the people we seek to 
represent.
  As the ranking member of the Senate Rules Committee, I yield to no 
one except, as I mentioned earlier, the senior Senator from West 
Virginia, in my respect for the standing rules of the Senate, as 
intended by the Founding Fathers. The Senate is respected as the most 
deliberative body in the world. The rules, as I have suggested, of the 
Senate assure that such deliberation can occur, must occur, and that 
the rights of a minority will always be protected.
  We are all familiar with the story of the conversation I mentioned a 
moment ago between Thomas Jefferson and George Washington in which 
Thomas Jefferson questioned the need for the United States Senate. 
Washington reportedly responded to Thomas Jefferson, as Jefferson was 
pouring his tea into a saucer to cool it during the informal discussion 
they were having, so legislation would be poured into the senatorial 
saucer to cool it, Washington suggested to Jefferson, and thus the 
value of the Senate.
  Similarly, as reported by our own historian, Dick Baker, James 
Madison, writing to Thomas Jefferson, explained the Founding Fathers' 
vision of the Senate. Madison reminded Thomas Jefferson that the Senate 
was intended to be the ``anchor'' of the government. According to 
Madison, the Senate was ``a necessary fence against the fickleness and 
passion that tended to influence the attitudes of the general public 
and Members of the House of Representatives.''
  Within the first month of its convening, on March 4, 1789, this 
anchor, the Senate, recognized that to function efficiently rules were 
going to be required. Almost from the beginning there was a recognition 
of the need to separate the authorizing and appropriating functions of 
the Senate, the very matter with which rule XVI is concerned.
  The first Senate rules were adopted on April 16, 1789, and the Senate 
adopted general revisions to those rules seven times over the 210-year 
history of our Nation, including revisions in 1806, 1820, 1828, 1868, 
1877, 1884 and 1979. Although the current language of rule XVI did not 
appear until the 1979 revisions, the prohibition on adding general 
legislation to an appropriations bill had its roots in rule XXX of the 
1868 revisions adopted in the 48th Congress. The 1868 general revisions 
were the ones last proposed by the special committee prior to the 
establishment of the Rules Committee as a standing committee in 1874.
  I ask for an additional 5 minutes, if I may.
  Mr. REID. Three minutes.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Connecticut is recognized for 
an additional 3 minutes.
  Mr. DODD. I thank my distinguished colleague from Nevada.
  The 1877 general revisions expanded the 1868 rules to specifically 
prohibit amending general appropriations bills with general 
legislation, or with amendments not germane or relevant to the subject 
matter of the bill.
  The next set of general revisions to the rules was adopted by the 
Senate during the 48th Congress, on January 11, 1884. These revisions 
renumbered the rules and consolidated the language regarding amendments 
to appropriations bills. The prohibition on including amendments to an 
appropriations bill dealing with general legislation as incorporated 
into Rule XVI.
  Then in 1979, under the leadership of our colleague, Senator Byrd, a 
comprehensive revision of the standing rules of the Senate was adopted. 
These revisions contained the current language of rule XVI and rule 
XVIII, regarding the scope of conference reports.
  I do not wish to belabor the history of the Senate rules with my 
colleagues, but I take this time to stress the historic importance of 
rule XVI in order to put the action of the majority leader in context.
  The prohibition on legislating on appropriations bills has been part 
of the parliamentary fabric of this great deliberative body almost 
since its inception. And that should come as no surprise. The orderly 
consideration of legislation is paramount to the ``cooling'' effect of 
the Senate's deliberations.
  For that reason, under normal circumstances, I would support the 
majority leader in his effort to restore the rule XVI point of order 
against legislating on appropriations bills. Under normal 
circumstances, I would agree that the rules offer Senators ample 
opportunity to engage in debate on legislation. Under normal 
circumstances, I would agree that appropriations bills are too 
important to be the subject of legislative amendments, especially given 
the need to keep the Federal Government running.
  But these are not normal circumstances, Mr. President.
  What brings us to this debate, again, has nothing to do with the 
longstanding notion that legislation ought not to be included on 
appropriations bills. I don't know of anyone who disagrees with that 
longstanding proposal. If taken alone, everything else being equal, if 
all the other rules which guarantee the right of this body to function, 
as intended by the Founding Fathers, then I would stand first and 
foremost in a long line, I presume, of my colleagues in demanding that 
rule XVI be upheld and that legislation be kept off appropriations 
bills. Unfortunately, you cannot look at rule XVI alone today. We have 
watched slowly, some would argue rapidly, over the last several years 
how the rules of the Senate, such as rule XVIII, have been so 
fundamentally altered that today this body de facto functions as a 99-
100 Member reflection, not the antithesis, not the corollary, not the 
counterweight, but as a reflection of the House of Representatives. 
That is not as it should be. This body ought to function very 
differently.
  In the four and one-half years since the Republicans regained the 
majority in this Chamber, we have witnessed a profound and regrettable 
change in the way we do business. Instead of allowing legislation to 
come to the floor for amendment and debate, the majority has seemingly 
used every opportunity to limit the minority's right to offer 
amendments and be heard.
  It is this attempt to silence opposing views that poses the greatest 
threat to the Founding Fathers' vision of the Senate as an anchor for 
our democratic form of Government.
  For example, the majority has repeatedly employed the tactic of 
combining a motion to proceed to a bill with the immediate filing of a 
cloture petition--which, by definition, is designed to limit debate. 
The cloture petition is then used as leverage to obtain a limit on the 
number of amendments and the allotted time for debate on the bill. In 
some cases, the majority has even insisted on approving, in advance, 
the very few amendments that the minority has been allowed to offer.
  My colleagues might be surprised to learn that from 1996 to the 
present, the majority has tried to silence the debate by forcing the 
Senate to vote on 102 cloture petitions. But what is even more 
remarkable is that 33 of these votes--or nearly one in three--involved 
cloture petitions on motions to proceed.
  While the majority are certainly within their rights and consistent 
with the rules to offer so many cloture petitions, it is not the norm. 
In fact, during the 4 years immediately preceding

[[Page 17613]]

the 1994 elections, the Democratic leadership also availed itself of 
the procedural tactic of filing cloture on a motion to proceed--twice, 
on the motor voter bill. In general, Mr. President, cloture petitions 
on motions to proceed have been used by this majority to attempt to 
dictate the terms of debate. It is almost as if the majority does not 
want the American people to hear this deliberative body speak.
  But cloture petitions are not the only silencing tactic employed by 
our friends in the majority. They also rely on the arcane parliamentary 
maneuver known as ``filling the amendment tree.''
  Mr. President, I am willing to bet that only a handful of people in 
the world--most of whom are present in this chamber today--could 
provide a clear explanation of how one ``fills the tree.'' But the 
effect of such a parliamentary maneuver is clear. It is to choke off 
debate by making it impossible for any member to offer amendments that 
have not been approved by the senator who has filled the tree.
  A review of the use of this tactic reveals that since 1995, the 
majority has ``filled the tree'', and thereby restricted debate, a 
total of 9 times. Most recently, this maneuver was used during the 
debate on the social security lockbox legislation and most notably on 
legislation to reform our system of campaign finance, where the tactic 
has been used repeatedly and with great effect to stymie the growing 
calls for reform.
  Again, a comparison of the 4 years of Democratic leadership prior to 
the 1994 elections reveals that Senate Democrats used the parliamentary 
procedure sparingly--at most once. And the sponsor of the amendment at 
the time denied that the amendment tree had been filled.
  Regrettably, Mr. President, since our friends in the Republican 
majority took office in 1994, there has been unprecedented use of 
parliamentary maneuvering to choke off debate and dictate the terms of 
the Senate's business. Under Republican leadership, the rules of the 
Senate no longer ensure the cooling off that was intended to take place 
here. Instead, the rules have become the majority's weapon to prevent 
the very deliberation, and even disagreement, that the Founding Fathers 
intended.
  As we have seen time and again over the last 4 years, the most 
effective means for the minority to ensure that its voice is heard is 
by offering amendments for debate to must-pass legislation, such as the 
appropriations bills. Whether it be debate on raising the minimum wage 
for working Americans, or protecting taxpayers from arbitrary decisions 
by HMOs, the ability to amend appropriations bills has ensured that the 
people's concerns can be heard.
  If the Senate could return to the normal open and deliberative 
process that the founding fathers envisioned for it, I would welcome 
the reinstatement of rule XVI. But until that time comes, I must oppose 
the majority's efforts.
  But if we are going to reform the rules, we should not stop with rule 
XVI. We should also restore rule XVIII to its original intent. Rule 
XVIII establishes a point of order against conference reports which 
contain provisions outside the scope of the conference. Again, under 
this majority, rule XVIII has been overturned so that today, conferees 
may insert any matter into privileged conference reports, even neither 
the Senate nor the House has debated the issue.
  To deny Members the opportunity to be heard, to allow for a 
conference report to include extraneous matter never considered by 
either body, particularly when both Chambers are controlled by one 
party, to rush to cloture petitions with the incredible acceleration 
that the majority has authored over the last 4 or so years, undermines 
the role of this institution. One hundred of us serve in the Senate, 
have an obligation to represent our constituents, have an obligation to 
do the Nation's business. We also bear a collective responsibility, as 
temporary custodians of this valued institution, to see to it that its 
historical role will not be undermined, will not be changed by the 
precedents we establish in the conduct of our business.
  Over the last 4 or so years, regretfully, the majority in this 
Chamber has so warped the rules of the Senate that the minority is 
denied the opportunity to raise critical issues the American public 
wants us to debate and on which they want to have our voices heard.
  Without rule XVI, as presently enforced under the 1995 precedent, 
which allows us to raise the issues that we are denied to bring up 
under normal circumstances, and without rule XXVIII which prohibits 
matters which have not been publicly aired from being included in 
conference reports, it is not just a matter that I am denied the 
opportunity to be heard, it is that my constituents and the American 
public are denied an opportunity to be heard. We are their voices here.
  So, for these reasons I will support the Democratic leader in his 
efforts to restore rule XXVIII to prohibit the majority from adding 
provisions in conference that have not been considered by either the 
House or the Senate. It flies in the face of common fairness to shut 
out the minority's opportunity to be heard on appropriations bills, but 
then allow the majority to have unlimited scope to add any provision to 
a privileged conference report.
  I would urge my colleagues in the majority to think carefully before 
opposing Senator Daschle's amendment. When both the House and the 
Senate are in the hands of the same party, it is tempting to ignore 
rule XXVIII and use highly privileged conference reports to pass 
legislation that the minority in the Senate might otherwise attempt to 
stall by use of the Senate's rules.
  But such a short-term view can come back to haunt a majority if the 
leadership changes in one of the houses of Congress. The tactic the 
majority uses today to shut out dissent and debate and force through 
legislation can just as easily be turned against it tomorrow by an 
opposing party.
  In the end, rule XXVIII maintains the balance between the House and 
the Senate. The rule ensures that neither House, regardless of party, 
has so great a leverage over the other that it can force legislation 
through without debate.
  In conclusion, Mr. President, I want to make it perfectly clear that 
Democrats are not asking for the right to control the Senate. The 
voters determine who is the majority. But as the majority, the 
Republican leadership knows that on any issue it can summon the votes 
to thwart a minority victory. Nonetheless, the constitution provides 
for a body that is intended to engage in full and open debate.
  I urge my colleagues to restore the Senate to its place as the 
deliberative anchor of Government by supporting the Daschle amendment 
and opposing the restoration of rule XVI at this time. And I urge the 
majority, on behalf of history, to modify their behavior in the Senate 
and allow this institution to function as its creators and founders 
intended.
  I thank my colleague from Nevada for the time.
  Mr. REID. Mr. President, I express my appreciation to the ranking 
member of the Rules Committee, Senator Dodd.
  At this time, I yield 25 minutes to the former President pro tempore 
of the Senate, former chairman of the Appropriations Committee, and 
former majority leader, Senator Byrd.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Roberts). The Senator from West Virginia 
is recognized.
  Mr. BYRD. Mr. President, I thank the distinguished Senator.
  We have just witnessed what is wrong with this Senate. I have been 
yielded 25 minutes. We don't have time today to properly discuss one of 
the most fundamental questions that ever comes before this Senate: 
fundamental freedom of speech; freedom of debate; freedom to offer 
amendments.
  I am limited to 25 minutes. Yes, I agreed to this 6-hour rule, but 
you can see how it is playing out. Most of the 3 hours allotted to the 
minority are being played out over here. Nobody is talking on the other 
side. Perhaps one, two, or three Senators will. I think the 
distinguished Senator who now presides over the Senate made some 
remarks earlier. But the point of it is,

[[Page 17614]]

the minority will have said about all it has time to say under this 
agreement, and then its time will have run out. As a consequence, the 
majority will be able to speak during the latter hours or moments, and 
there won't be much time for real debate.
  Mr. President, I am in my 41st year in this body. I was in the other 
body for 6 years. I saw the actions of the other body. When I came to 
the Senate, I wanted to come to the Senate. I wanted to come to a forum 
in which one could speak as long as his feet would hold him, as long as 
he could stand, and the floor could not be taken away from him by the 
Chair, a majority leader, or anybody else. He could speak for as long 
as he wished.
  For all these years, I have talked about this institution, about its 
importance in the constitutional system, about the fact that it is the 
only forum of the States, the only forum in this Government, where 
small States such as West Virginia have the same powers, the same 
prerogatives, the same rights, along with the same responsibilities as 
the States that are great in territory and in population, such as 
California, Texas, Florida, New York, and others. I wanted to be in 
this forum. William Ewart Gladstone referred to the Senate of the 
United States, as ``that remarkable body, the most remarkable of all 
the inventions of modern politics.''
  But it is getting to where this Senate is not so remarkable. There 
are things unique about the Senate that were meant to be unique, that 
were made unique by virtue of the framers of the Constitution. Among 
those, of course, is the responsibility to approve the resolutions of 
ratification of treaties, to approve nominations, and to act as a court 
in the trial of impeachments. But aside from those several unique 
things, the two things in particular that make this body the most 
unique of any upper body in the world, the most unique Senate that has 
ever existed--and there have been many senates--is the fact that this 
Senate has the right to amend bills, and Senators have the right to 
speak and to debate at length.
  The right to debate and the right to amend: The right to amend is 
mentioned in that provision of the Constitution that says revenue bills 
shall originate in the House of Representatives, but the Senate shall 
have the right to amend as in all other bills. So there it is. The 
Senate has the right to amend, and Senators have the right to debate at 
length.
  Now, I have been majority leader. I have been elected to the majority 
leadership three times--twice during the Carter years and once during 
the 100th Congress. When I came to the Senate, Lyndon Johnson was 
majority leader; then there was Mike Mansfield; I was the next majority 
leader; Howard Baker then became majority leader followed by Bob Dole, 
and then, in the 100th Congress, I was majority leader again, George 
Mitchell followed me as majority leader and then Bob Dole became the 
Majority Leader a second time. Mr. Lott is now the majority leader. So 
I have seen several majority leaders operate in this Senate.
  Mr. President, I think the Senate is losing its uniqueness in that we 
are being deprived, in considerable measure, of the right to debate, 
the right to debate at length. If I come up here and want a few minutes 
to speak about the departing of some deceased friend, or some other 
matter--it may not be one of the great moments in history--I can't come 
up here and speak as I used to be able to. I can't get the floor. And 
when I get the floor, I am limited. I don't like that.
  I can understand the importance of having time limitations, and we do 
enter into time limitations. We have always done that, when there is a 
unanimous consent agreement limiting time, or the Senate is operating 
under a cloture motion. Otherwise, there is no limitation on debate and 
there is no germaneness of amendments under the Senate rules, except 
under rule XVI, when appropriation matters are before the Senate and 
also when cloture is invoked. Otherwise, we have freedom of debate.
  Woodrow Wilson said that the information function of the legislative 
branch is as important as the legislative function. It is through 
debate that we inform the American people. It is through debate that we 
better inform ourselves.
  I was in a meeting with the British over the weekend, the British-
American Group. We met in West Virginia at the Greenbrier. Senator Reid 
was there. Senators on both sides of the aisle were there, including 
the Senator from New Mexico, Mr. Domenici. We didn't win or lose. We 
each came away being better informed by the other side. We didn't agree 
with the British point of view on certain issues and they didn't agree 
with ours, but we all came away better informed. We had a better 
understanding of what their viewpoint was and the reasons for it, and, 
hopefully, they have a better viewpoint of our reasoning.
  But here in the Senate, it has become dog-eat-dog. It has become very 
partisan--very partisan. Politics is very important, and political 
party is important. But some things are more important than political 
party. One of those things is the right to debate and the right to 
amend. It isn't for the benefit of the Democratic Party that I want the 
right to amend. It is not for the benefit of the Democratic Party that 
I want the right to debate. It is for the benefit of the American 
people. That is why the Senate is here. There were no political parties 
when this Senate was first created. But it seems that, anymore, the 
idea is that the majority is always to have its way while the minority 
is to be shut out and, in some ways, gagged.
  That approach does not benefit the people of America.
  I say these things with misgivings because I have many friends on the 
other side of the aisle. I think that the Senators in the leadership on 
that side of the aisle are friends of mine. But we are talking about 
the Senate here today and not the party. I don't come to the Senate 
floor today emphasizing party. I am here today because I am seeing the 
right of the minority to engage in free debate and to offer amendments 
shut off in some instances.
  There is a complaint here that too many amendments are offered on 
this side of the aisle to bills. This side of the aisle, as does that 
side of the aisle, has a right to offer whatever amendments they wish 
to offer.
  When I was majority leader, I never said to the minority leader: Now, 
you are going to be limited. You have too many amendments. We are not 
going to take the bill up; or, we will let you have 5 amendments, or no 
more than 10. What are your amendments? I never said that.
  I said to Members on both sides of the aisle: Let us know what your 
amendments are. Let the people at the front table here know what your 
amendments are on both sides. Call the Cloakrooms. Let's find out what 
amendments there are yet outstanding. There might have been 40. There 
might have been 55. There might have been 75. But I didn't go back and 
say: We are going to pull this bill down if you do not cut your 
amendments down to 10. Never did I say that. Never did I say you can 
only call up five, or so, amendments. How many do you have? Then we got 
the list. Then I said: Now, let's try to get a unanimous consent to 
limit the amendments to this number--whatever it was, be it 50 or 60 or 
whatever. Let's try to get an agreement to limit the amendments to this 
list.
  So when we put that word out, other amendments came out of the wall--
another half a dozen and another dozen. They just kept coming.
  But finally we had a list of amendments. We agreed that those then 
would be all. Then we would go to the individual Members on the list 
and say: Are you willing to enter into a time agreement on your 
amendment?
  Sometimes some of the amendments would peel off and we wouldn't end 
up with all that many amendments, or Members would be agreeable to a 
time limit. But never did I attempt to muzzle the minority.
  I took the position, let the minority call up their amendments. We 
can move to table them. Or, in many instances, they insisted on an up-
or-down vote, and we gave them an up-or-down vote. We could defeat the 
amendment, in many instances. But in some instances their amendments 
carried,

[[Page 17615]]

which was all right. That is what the legislative process is all about.
  The majority is not always right as we have often seen throughout the 
course of history. Many times the minority throughout history has been 
right. We are not serving the good interests of the American people 
when we muzzle the ox.
  The Bible says: ``Thou shalt not muzzle the ox that treadeth out the 
corn.'' The Senate is the ox. It is the central pillar of this 
Republic. This isn't a democracy; it is a Republic. The Senate is the 
central pillar. The Senate is where we can debate at length and offer 
amendments.
  As long as there is a Senate and men and women can debate to their 
hearts' content and offer amendments, the people's liberties will be 
secure. But once the Senate is muzzled, the people's liberties are in 
danger.
  The majority is virtually all powerful here. They have the votes, 
which is all right, but they must recognize that the minority has 
rights. That is why the Senate is like it is. That is what it was meant 
to be--a bastion for protection of the minority.
  Many times when I was leader I insisted on the rights of the minority 
on that side of the aisle. I said that there may come a time when we 
Democrats would be in the minority. I say that to the majority today. 
You have been in the minority. There may come a time when you will 
again be in the minority.
  We must be respectful of the constitutional rights of Senators who 
represent the States and the people. We must be respectful of those 
rights. If it takes longer--if it takes longer than three days or a 
week to do the work--then let's do the work. That is why we are sent 
here.
  But we should not forget the reason for the Senate's being. I came 
from the House of Representatives. I never wanted this body to become 
another House of Representatives. The Senate is unique in that respect, 
and we must not give away the uniqueness of this body. This is not a 
second House of Representatives. We ought to understand that. The 
Constitution made the Senate different from the other body, and we 
ought to do our utmost to keep this as an institution where debate is 
unlimited and where Senators have the right to offer non-germane 
amendments.
  I don't enter into these bickerings and these discussions very often. 
I am no longer in the elected leadership. Senators do not hear me 
saying these things often. But I have always been interested in the 
Senate as an institution. If the Senate is not the institution that it 
was meant to be, whose fault is it? The people who make up the Senate--
it is our fault.
  I wanted to speak out on this. I am not interested in who wins on 
every political battle that is fought here. I am not interested from a 
party standpoint always. Party isn't all that important to me. But I am 
interested in the Senate. I want it to remain the institution that it 
was meant to be.
  I wish we would get away from the idea that we ought to make this a 
more efficient institution. The Senate was not meant to be efficient. 
The institution was meant to be a debating forum where ideas would be 
expressed, and through the medium of debate the right consensus would 
be hammered out on the anvil.
  I hear it said: Well, if there are too many amendments, the bill will 
be taken down. I would suggest that if we want to stop so many 
legislative amendments from being offered to appropriations bills, then 
let's call up some of the legislative bills. Let's call up 
authorization bills.
  When I was the majority leader, there were times we had to authorize 
legislation on appropriations bills because the authorizing committees 
sometimes did not do their work. For example, there were years when we 
had to reauthorize State Department legislation on appropriations 
bills, because the authorizing committee simply did not do its work. 
But if bills reported from legislative committees are not called up in 
the Senate, Senators who are interested in amendments to such 
legislation do not have the opportunity to offer their amendments. 
Consequently, when appropriations bills are called up, Senators will 
offer legislation on appropriations bills, because it is their only 
opportunity. They have no other opportunity, no other legislative 
vehicle on which to call their amendments up, so they are forced to 
offer their legislative amendments to appropriations bills. That is why 
we have the problem with appropriations bills that we are having.
  Another problem we are having when we go to conference with the other 
body is that major legislation that has not been before either body is 
added in conference. We talk about the upper House and the lower House. 
There is a Third House. The conference committee has become a Third 
House, where hundreds of millions of dollars, even billions of dollars 
and major legislation are added in conference and come back to each 
body in a conference report. We have no opportunity to amend that 
conference report. Authorizing measures are added in conference that 
have not been before either body. They are stuck in, in conference--in 
the ``Third House,'' as I want to name it.
  Another flaw in that operation is that it gives the executive branch 
too much power, in some instances all power, because, as we saw last 
year when it got down to the conferences on the final appropriations 
bills, eight appropriations bills were wrapped into the conference 
report, one I believe a supplemental, and tax legislation all in that 
conference report. These items had not been properly taken up before 
either body.
  And, as a result, who sat in? Who made the decisions in conference? 
The decisions in conference for the more important legislation were 
made by the Speaker of the House, the majority leader of the Senate--
both of whom were Republican--and the President's agents.
  Who represented the Democrats in the conference? The executive 
branch. We Senate and House Democrats weren't represented in those 
higher echelons. We were left out. The Democratic minority in the House 
and Senate was not represented in the conference. It was the Republican 
leadership of both Houses and the President of the United States, 
through his OMB Director.
  That is not the way it is supposed to be. That galls me, to think 
that in appropriations matters of that kind the executive branch calls 
the shots in many instances and we House and Senate Democrats are not 
even represented. The Democrats in the Senate, the Democrats in the 
House, are left out. That is not the way it ought to be. But that is 
the result of our delaying action on separate appropriations bills. 
Then they are all put into an omnibus bill. At the end, we vote on that 
bill without knowing what is in it. How many hundreds of millions, how 
many billions of dollars may have been added in conference? And we vote 
on the conference report when we really do not know what is in it. That 
galls me.
  I think we ought to reinstitute rule XXVIII. I voted to uphold the 
Chair when rule XVI was changed here, and when the Senate overruled the 
Chair, I voted to uphold the Chair. I favor the reinstitution of rule 
XVI. But because of the muzzling of the minority, because the minority 
is not allowed to offer as many amendments as we need to offer, I am 
going to uphold the Chair's position today.
  Mr. REID. I yield the Senator 5 more minutes.
  Mr. BYRD. I thank the Senator.
  I am not going to vote to go back to rule XVI. I want to go back. I 
do not like the vote I am going to cast. But how else am I going to 
protest?
  I think the minority should have the opportunity to offer its 
amendments, and not jerk a bill down just because amendments are coming 
in from the minority side.
  Another thing: There is no rule of, as I say, germaneness or 
relevancy in the Senate. When we call up bills, except for the two 
instances which I referred to there, cloture and on appropriations 
bills under rule XVI, there is no rule of relevancy to say: Cut down 
your amendments; we will give you 5 amendments or 10 amendments and 
they have to be relevant. Who said they have to

[[Page 17616]]

be relevant? The rules of the Senate don't say they have to be 
relevant. But if an appropriation bill is the only vehicle you are ever 
going to have on which to try to take a shot at something that is not 
relevant, you have to take it. And the minority is being robbed of that 
opportunity. The minority is being placed under the gag rule. It is 
being laid down here: You will do it our way or we will jerk the bill 
down. You have to do it our way. You have to limit your amendments to 5 
or 6 or 8 or 10--no more. That is not in this Senate rule book. That is 
not in this Constitution. And it is not in the best interests of the 
American people that the Senate is being run that way.
  Personally, I have a very high regard for the leadership on the other 
side, for the individuals themselves. I have a high regard for Senators 
on the other side of the aisle. Some of the finest Senators I know sit 
on that side of the aisle. Some of the most knowledgeable Senators I 
know are on that side of the aisle. Some of the smartest Senators are 
on that side of the aisle.
  But, Mr. President, I am talking about the Senate as an institution, 
and I do not want and I do not intend to see us run over continually 
and denied the opportunity to offer amendments, and to debate, without 
a shot being fired.
  I stacked the legislative tree very few times when I was leader. But 
very few times did I resort to that. My rule was one of the basic 
reasons for the Senate to let the minority have their rights, because 
as long as the minority have their rights in this forum, the people's 
liberties will not be taken from them. I want the minority to be given 
their rights.
  Mr. President, I am going to close with the words of Aaron Burr, who 
spoke to the Senate in 1805, on March 5, after presiding over the 
Senate for 4 years. He said:

       This House is a sanctuary; a citadel of law, of order, and 
     of liberty; and it is here--it is here, in this exalted 
     refuge; here, if anywhere, will resistance be made to the 
     storms of political phrensy and the silent arts of 
     corruption; and if the Constitution be destined ever to 
     perish by the sacrilegious hands of the demagogue or the 
     usurper, which God avert, its expiring agonies will be 
     witnessed on this floor.

  Mr. President, I think we are seeing something akin to its expiring 
agonies because the Senate is not being allowed to fulfill its purposes 
for being. It is not being allowed to work its will. The people are 
being denied. It is not just the Democrats at this moment who are being 
denied, it is the people who are being denied the right of the minority 
in this Senate to speak their wills, to offer their amendments, to 
fully debate the legislation that is in the interests of the people.
  In the interest of the people, I urge the leadership, I implore the 
leadership to stop thinking so much, as apparently it does, in terms of 
who will win today--``we have to win on this one.'' Let's think of the 
people. Protect the rights of the minority, allow full freedom to 
debate and amend, and the people's rights and the people's liberties 
will be secured.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Thomas). The Senator from Texas.
  Mr. GRAMM. Mr. President, I yield myself 20 minutes.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator is recognized for 20 minutes.
  Mr. GRAMM. Mr. President, Senator Domenici and I are here to talk 
about the tax cut, but I cannot listen to our dear colleague from West 
Virginia without giving a little bit of response.
  First of all, I agree with virtually everything the Senator from West 
Virginia has said. I do believe we tread on our institution and we 
potentially reduce its ability to preserve our freedom and our Republic 
when we engage in partisan politics. I agree with virtually every word 
Senator Byrd said.
  We all know we have used the appropriations process to offer 
amendments that were not part of any national agenda, that did not 
represent any real debate on behalf of causes, but in many cases both 
parties have engaged in the kind of politics where the minority--and 
that minority changes sides from time to time. I hope that will not 
occur in the future, but knowing institutions as I do, I am sure it 
will. What happens is, too often, the minority delays the work of the 
majority, and then at the time for electioneering accuses the majority 
of not getting its work done. If we ought to preserve this great 
institution and all we love about it and all it stands for for America, 
one of the things we have to do is to prevent partisan abuse of the 
system.
  When we voted to overturn the Chair now several years ago, I was very 
reluctant to overturn the Chair. I found myself in a position of having 
a colleague who had offered an amendment with which I strongly agreed 
and who also was in a position where it was critically important to her 
to see the Chair overturned. I knew no good could come out of it. I 
thought it would be easier to fix than it has turned out to be. I 
intend to vote to fix it today.
  I do not believe we ought to be legislating on appropriations bills. 
The distinguished Senator from West Virginia is correct in that it has 
become so easy for the authorization process to be disrupted that we 
have virtually trivialized authorizations. Authorization committees 
often go an entire term without having any kind of authorization bill 
passed. Legislation builds up, we end up putting it on appropriations 
bills, and in doing so, we also hurt the institution.
  I have heard every word our colleague from West Virginia has said. I 
believe we do need to set a threshold for offering legislation on an 
appropriations bill. It can be overcome with 51 votes. But every Member 
has to know that when they do that, when they overrule the Chair, they 
open that avenue for anyone else to do it in the future. In doing so, 
we take down a small shield which I think is as big as it needs to be, 
because there are times when the minority deserves the right to speak, 
and if they feel strongly enough about it and they can convince a 
majority to do it, they have a right to do it.
  I intend to vote today to put rule XVI back into place. I do not 
intend to be in any hurry to see it pulled down again because it is a 
very good and important barrier.
  Mr. REID. Will my friend from Texas yield for a question?
  Mr. GRAMM. I will be happy to yield very briefly.
  Mr. REID. Mr. President, I appreciate the Senator's statement 
regarding Senator Byrd's brilliant statement, but I also say to my 
friend from Texas, there is also going to be an amendment offered by 
the minority leader to change rule XXVIII--Senator Byrd spoke at some 
length about that--to stop the procedure whereby we wind up with an 
appropriations bill that is 1,500 pages long, that has been negotiated 
by two or three people from the House, a couple of people from the 
Senate, the President's emissaries, and we get this big bill. A rule 
XXVIII change would say if you have a bill going to conference, you can 
only deal with the matters brought up in conference. Does my friend 
from Texas also agree with Senator Byrd that it would be a good idea to 
change that?
  Mr. GRAMM. I do not believe I will. It is something that should be 
looked at. I remind our colleague from Nevada that our effort today is 
not to change the rules of the Senate but to put the rules back where 
they were before we overrode the Chair on the endangered species 
provision to an appropriations bill, now several years ago.
  Senator Byrd has raised a critically important issue. Too much work 
is done in conference. Anyone who has ever chaired a conference--and I 
am relatively new at it as a new committee chairman--immediately 
discovers that the only rule of the conference is you have to get a 
majority of the members to sign the conference report. Other than that, 
for all practical purposes, there are no rules.
  This should be looked at, but I am not ready today to change the 
rules of the Senate. I am ready to go back and undo a mistake that we 
made some 4 or 5 years ago. I will be willing to look at this. I will 
be willing to study it, to participate in a discussion about it. We 
ought to hold hearings on it and look at it, but I am not ready to 
overturn the rules of the Senate today.
  Mr. DOMENICI. Will the Senator yield?
  Mr. GRAMM. Yes.

[[Page 17617]]


  Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, first, I did not understand what the 
Senator from Texas said when he talked about 20 minutes and he and I 
being on the floor. Did he intend to share that?
  Mr. GRAMM. I had intended to use less than that. The Senator can get 
any amount of time he wants.
  Mr. DOMENICI. I ask unanimous consent that when the Senator from 
Texas is finished, I be allowed to proceed for up to 20 minutes 
thereafter.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
  Mr. REID. Parliamentary inquiry. Will the Chair state how much time 
the minority has remaining and how much time the majority has 
remaining. I think that will be helpful to the two Senators on the 
other side of the aisle.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The minority has 33 minutes; the majority has 
144 minutes.
  Mr. REID. I will take 1 minute and say to my friend from Texas, the 
activities today on rule XVI are directly related to the rule and the 
same thing on rule XXVIII. All we are trying to do with rule XXVIII is 
to restore it to the way it used to be, just like rule XVI.
  Mr. DOMENICI. I wonder if the Senator will permit me to make an 
observation on my time.
  Mr. GRAMM. Mr. President, he can make it on my time.
  Mr. DOMENICI. I was here, as was the Senator from Texas, when the 
distinguished Senator from West Virginia, Senator Byrd, spoke. What 
kept coming to my mind was: When are Senators from authorizing 
committees expected to bring their bills to the floor and have votes? I 
came up with a very simple conclusion, with which my friend, Senator 
Byrd, will not agree, but I want to state it anyway.
  The problem we find ourselves in where Senators must offer 
authorizing legislation time and time again on appropriations bills 
comes about because this institution, this beloved Senate, insists on 
doing every single appropriations bill every single year. There is no 
time for anything else. That is the real problem. Then we do a budget 
resolution every single year. I believe there is a number around that 
we use up about 67 to 70 percent of the available time of the Senate on 
just those two functions.
  I hope, as we consider trying for 2-year appropriations and 2-year 
budgets, my good friend from West Virginia will be participating. We 
would like to hear his views. But I hope we can make the case that for 
the betterment of this institution, which he expressed my views on 
today when he spoke of how important it is to America, I have learned, 
as he has learned--when I came to the Senate, I was not steeped like 
him, so I did not know about it--it is to be a revered institution, and 
I want to keep it that way.
  My last observation is, I think I might have been able to get up--not 
under your majority leadership, but sometime during my 28 years here, 
most of which was as a minority Member--and make the same speech you 
just made as to the leadership on that side of the aisle when your side 
was in the majority, because when you have what we are having take 
place here with fair regularity, as we try to pass 13 appropriations 
bills, and we hear the other side--not you, Senator--the other side 
say: You will not pass them until we get to take up our agenda--and 
their agenda is not appropriations; it is a list of eight or nine items 
that are their agenda; and in this body they are probably minority 
views, but they want to get them up--then I say that is a challenge to 
the majority leader.
  That is hard stuff, because how do you then get the appropriations 
bills done and not have six of them wrapped up into one, which you just 
talked about, and put everything else in it but the kitchen sink?
  So, frankly, I appreciate your discussion today. Clearly, it is 
intended to help your side of the aisle in a debate on whether or not 
the appropriations bills should have more authorizing amendments on 
them that Senators on your side want to offer. In joining them, I 
commend you. It is pretty obvious to this Senator you have joined them 
so that you can make their case that they ought to be permitted.
  But I also say, if you were in Senator Lott's shoes, or if I were, 
and you were being told on every one of these bills this is another one 
we are going to get something that is the minority agenda, and you will 
have to vote on it or else, I would be looking for ways to get the 
appropriations bills done.
  Mr. BYRD. Would the Senator yield?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The time is under the control of the Senator 
from Texas.
  Mr. GRAMM. I am happy to yield.
  Mr. BYRD. The Senator has asked me a question. He said: If you were 
here and Senators on the other side of the aisle said that----
  Mr. DOMENICI. I did not make it a question. But if you think it is a 
question----
  Mr. BYRD. I thought you said----
  Mr. DOMENICI. I ended with a period; it wasn't a question mark.
  Mr. GRAMM. I yield.
  Mr. DOMENICI. But I will be glad to have your answer.
  Mr. BYRD. The answer to that is, call up authorization bills. Let 
Members on this side offer their nongermane amendments to them. Then 
come to the appropriations bills, and the Senators on this side will 
have already had their chance. Call the legislative bills up. Why not 
have those bills called up? What are we afraid of?
  The numbers are on that side of the aisle. As I said to the 
distinguished majority leader on one occasion: You have the numbers; 
you have the votes. Why not let the Democrats call up their amendments? 
You can beat them. You can reject them. You can table them. But if you 
do not have the votes to defeat them, perhaps that amendment is in the 
best interest of the country. And the Senate will have worked its will.
  May I close by saying this--and I thank you for giving me this 
privilege--reference has been made to the time when I was majority 
leader, very graciously by the distinguished Senator from New Mexico, 
because he stated it was not done during my tenure of leadership while 
he has been here. But over one-third of the Senate today--over one-
third of today's Senators--were not here when I was majority leader of 
the Senate.
  I walked away from that position at the end of 1988 and became 
chairman of the Appropriations Committee in January 1989. More than 
one-third of the Senators were not here when I was majority leader. 
Even the distinguished majority leader, Mr. Lott, was not in this body 
when I was majority leader.
  But when I was majority leader, I say again, I attempted to protect 
the rights of the minority because I saw that as one of the reasons for 
the Senate's being.
  I thank both Senators. Both Senators have been very kind to me and 
very courteous. I think very highly of them both. I respect their 
viewpoints.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Texas.
  Mr. GRAMM. We are always kind to the Senator from West Virginia for 
two reasons: One, we love him; and, two, we know that we had best not 
be unkind to him because we know he is smart and tough.

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