[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 148 (2002), Part 14]
[Senate]
[Page 18883]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                    BLOCKING THE WORK OF THE SENATE

  Mr. REID. Mr. President, I want to comment on two subject matters 
today. The first is some of the statements made by my friend, my 
counterpart, the distinguished Senator from Oklahoma, when he said he 
was disturbed we were not doing anything in the Senate. He talked about 
we had not passed any appropriations bills, and went through a list of 
things we had not done.
  But I say, with all due respect to my good friend, the Senator from 
Oklahoma, we have not done these things because the minority won't let 
us do them. We have been here reporting for duty. Senator Byrd and 
Senator Stevens, on the appropriations bills, reported every one of 
them out of committee before the August recess. But a decision has been 
made by the minority not to let us move on any.
  That is why we have been on the Interior appropriations bill. This 
has been the fifth week. So I appreciate the efforts by the minority to 
make this fact, that we have done nothing in the Senate, our fault, but 
the American public knows.
  We have stated here many times that we are willing to do terrorism 
insurance, election reform, Patients' Bill of Rights, generic drugs, 
bankruptcy--all these things that are stuck in conference. We are 
willing to do every one of the appropriations bills. But they won't let 
us.
  Now, people say: What do you mean, ``they won't let us''? That is the 
way it is in the Senate, a simple majority does not do the trick in the 
Senate. You need 60 votes. They have 49. We cannot get up to 60. So you 
can clearly see what the next 5 weeks are going to be like in the 
States where there are serious Senate races. What you are going to see 
there is: The Democrats control the Senate, and they have not been able 
to get anything accomplished.
  But the American people know we may not have been able to accomplish 
a lot because they would not let us, but we have been able to stop a 
lot of things that would have occurred had we not been here. And I 
think when those chapters of history are written about this Congress, 
that is what the big headlines will be: The stuff we were able to stop. 
We were a check and balance on a ramrod, and we were able to stop 
things from happening.

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