[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 150 (2004), Part 12]
[Senate]
[Pages 16743-16744]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                          THE SENATE SCHEDULE

  Mr. REID. Mr. President, I would like to direct a question through 
the Chair to the distinguished Senator from Illinois, who is on the 
floor.
  Will the Senator from Illinois comment on the Senate schedule? We 
wasted a week, as the Senator may recall, on class action, where 
nothing was done. Then we spent a week on the marriage amendment when 
everyone knew, before it started, there were not enough votes. And then 
so far this week we spent yesterday on a judge. Nothing happened on 
that. The rest of the day we spent on a free-trade agreement with 
Morocco, where the actual time on that bill has been less than an hour 
and a half on actual speeches given. Even though there was 20 hours 
allotted, we were willing to yield back our time from early on in that 
debate. Now we are told we are still not going to go to legislative 
session, that we are going to work on more judges even though we have 
approved almost a record number of judges.
  I ask my friend, does the Senator from Illinois think it is important 
we deal with other issues people in Illinois and Nevada talk to us 
about, such as doing an appropriations bill for homeland security or 
moving to something that is important to the people of Nevada, and that 
is maybe consider raising the minimum wage?
  These are just a couple thoughts that come to the mind of the Senator 
from Nevada. Will the Senator from Illinois comment?
  Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, I would say, in response to my colleague 
from Nevada, I have had a number of jobs in my lifetime, and we are 
fortunate we are on salary on this job because if our pay depended on 
what we did and what we produced, we would not be drawing a paycheck 
around here for weeks at a time. We waste so much time on the floor of 
the Senate, it is hard to imagine.
  We spent a whole week on a class action bill that went nowhere. Then 
we spent a better part of a week on a constitutional amendment on same-
sex marriage that went nowhere. Now we are about to waste a third week 
in a row.
  At the same time, I think there are 12 appropriations bills that have 
not been considered. During this period of time, we had notification 
from Secretary Ridge at the Department of Homeland Security and our FBI 
Director that America was going to face an attack. Most Americans stood 
up and took notice, as they should, and called our offices and said: 
What should we do? And we said: Lead your lives. Keep your eyes open.
  But it is clear what we should do. Take a look at this Calendar. 
Right on the back of our Senate Calendar, the lead items are the 
Homeland Security appropriations bills. These are multibillion-dollar 
bills that will appropriate money to give to State and local 
governments as well as Federal agencies to make America safer--sitting 
on the Calendar for a month, without even being considered.
  We will take a break, at the end of this week, for 6 weeks. We will 
be gone. We will come back, and they will still be sitting on the 
Calendar. God forbid anything happens in America. We are not going to 
do anything to deal with them.
  Then you page through this Calendar and find bills waiting for action 
dealing with security at nuclear powerplants, security at ports across 
America, security at chemical plants, security on rail lines. If we 
paid any attention to Secretary Ridge, as we should, and Director 
Mueller, we would be meeting today with Senators on the Senate floor 
passing this legislation. Instead, we are killing time. We are doing 
nothing.
  Now, it is hard to explain why this do-nothing Congress is wasting 
time when it should be, in fact, doing things to make America safer. I 
do not understand why the leaders in this Congress cannot pick up the 
very Calendar they print every day, turn to the back page and read the 
top line: homeland security. Pretty clear: homeland security. Yet we 
have not passed this legislation.
  Mr. REID. Mr. President, I will direct another question through the 
Chair to my friend from Illinois.
  I am not proud of this, but the State of Nevada is the least insured 
State for medical care in the country. We lead the Nation in uninsured. 
But there are 44 million people in America who have no health 
insurance. Even if we did not pass legislation dealing with the 
calamities facing American families because of no health insurance, 
don't you think we could talk about it? Don't you think we could bring 
something up?
  For example, I know the Senator from Illinois has worked on this, the 
Senator from North Dakota has been a leader on this, as has been the 
Senator from Michigan, Ms. Stabenow: How about making it easy on the 
American people by allowing us to buy the same drugs we pay a fortune 
for here in America cheaper from the country just north of us, Canada? 
Wouldn't that be a good thing to work on?
  Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, I say, in response to the Senator from 
Nevada, he obviously does not understand the world as the folks across 
the aisle from us see it. They believe that families across America get 
up every morning and want to know whether the latest constitutional 
amendment has passed. They think that is what families do--rush to the 
television set, turn it on, and say quickly: Honey, did they pass a 
constitutional amendment?
  That is not what I find. What I find at home is that families get 
together and say: I hope we can keep our job. I hope, for goodness' 
sake, that next year health insurance doesn't cost as much as it did 
last year and cover less.
  That is the reality. That is the reality of life for families across 
America. So you wonder if those of us elected to the Senate really 
represent America and are listening to American families and businesses 
and labor unions, who tell us time and time again: The cost of health 
insurance is killing us. Why don't you do something?
  Instead, the leadership in the Senate, in this do-nothing Congress, 
comes forward and says: We are going to blow off 3 days on the floor of 
the U.S. Senate debating a constitutional amendment about same-sex 
marriage.

[[Page 16744]]

  Well, my wife and I have been married for 37 years. We believe in 
traditional marriage. But, for goodness' sake, why do you need to amend 
the Constitution--in a Presidential election year, I might add--instead 
of talking about the cost of health insurance and making it more 
affordable and more accessible for people across America? That is a 
real issue, and it is an issue that has been really avoided by the 
leadership in this Senate.
  Mr. REID. Mr. President, I direct another question to my 
distinguished friend.
  About 6 weeks ago, I asked all 17 superintendents of school districts 
in Nevada to meet with me. We have 17 counties in Nevada. Each county 
has a superintendent of schools. The largest school district has about 
300,000 students; the smallest, Esmeralda County, with 88 students. I 
don't know what their political affiliation is, but I will bet a lot 
more are Republicans.
  We met for a couple hours. They were all asked the question: How is 
the Leave No Child Behind Act treating you in your school district? 
Without exception, every one of the superintendents said: The Leave No 
Child Behind Act is leaving children of Nevada behind, without 
exception. They said: Please change this. Give us some resources.
  I say to my friend, education is important in Nevada. The Leave No 
Child Behind Act has been a disaster for Nevada. Shouldn't we be 
spending some time talking about education in the U.S. Senate rather 
than class action, marriage, and a few judges. We have approved more 
than 100. They want to defer attention away from the real issues of 
this country, so we are spending days of our existence on the Senate 
floor talking about judges. Shouldn't we be dealing with education?
  Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, I agree with the Senator from Nevada. In 
response, I would say, the reason why the Senate does not talk about 
education is because the President's education bill, No Child Left 
Behind, has been underfunded by $20 billion. We put Federal mandates on 
school districts that cost them enormous sums of money, which changed 
the way teachers teach in a classroom.
  This administration--the President and his followers in Congress--has 
refused to send the money to help kids who are not scoring well on 
tests, kids who need someone to sit next to them and help them read, 
someone to help them understand basic math, someone to be there after 
school to sit down and work with them on their homework, someone to be 
with them in the summer months so they can do something and not lose 
all the knowledge they gained in the previous school year.
  It takes people--dedicated men and women--who are teachers. It takes 
money. This administration says the money should go for tax cuts for 
wealthy people; it should not go for education. We should continue to 
spend $1.5 billion a week in Iraq, with no end in sight. That is why we 
don't talk about education.
  This administration will not budget the money to pay for the Federal 
mandates the President included in No Child Left Behind. Ask any school 
district--in Nevada, Illinois, across America--what do you think of No 
Child Left Behind? We like accountability, but where is the promised 
money the President said would come to the school district to help us 
improve test scores? It is not there. That is why this do-nothing 
Congress avoids the issue of education, like the issue of helping 
families and businesses pay for health insurance.
  Mr. REID. Mr. President, I believe our time has expired.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator has 30 seconds.
  Mr. REID. I thank the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Georgia.
  Mr. CHAMBLISS. Mr. President, it is interesting to listen to my 
friends on the other side of the aisle this morning talk about any 
number of issues, in particular what we have been doing over the last 
several weeks--really the last several months--relative to the 
legislative agenda in the Senate. This is the only legislative body, I 
am sure, anywhere in the world that, because it is the most 
deliberative body in the world, allows the minority to in effect set 
the agenda because they have the ability to stop any legislation or 
debate or control the debate on any legislation unless the majority can 
obtain 60 votes to bring the debate to an end.
  Here we have folks standing up this morning being critical of the 
leadership on this side of the aisle for not moving forward with a 
legislative agenda when, for the first time in the history of our great 
country, certainly the first time in the history of this great 
deliberative body, we have the folks on the other side of the aisle 
filibustering circuit court judge nominees of the President of the 
United States. That has never happened before.
  There is one simple reason it is happening now. That is, in spite of 
this body approving hundreds of more liberal-leaning judges during the 
8 years of the previous administration, the Democrats in the Senate 
refuse to allow more conservative judges to be appointed and confirmed 
by this President. We had another yesterday relative to another judge 
that is now being filibustered. That takes time.
  In addition, the folks on the other side of the aisle are doing 
something I have never heard of in my 10 years of service on Capitol 
Hill; that is, they are demanding that before we go to conference on 
any bill, the end result of that conference be deemed to be so-and-so, 
which is to their way of liking, before they will agree to appoint 
conferees. That is not the way the legislative process works. The 
American people select the majority party in the Senate and the House 
to pass legislation. The majority should control, but, unfortunately, 
it does not.
  Lastly, I am a big supporter of the No Child Left Behind program. I 
am a huge supporter of public education. It is the foundation of the 
future of America. I am happy to be the husband of a 30-year former 
schoolteacher. My daughter starts next week teaching in the public 
schools in my home county. My mother was a public school teacher. My 
brother is a public school teacher. I am a huge fan.
  In spite of what I have just heard, I have yet to meet a teacher 
anywhere in America who doesn't say: I love the idea of providing 
accountability to the American people for the quality of education that 
I am providing to the children I teach. That is the basic concept of No 
Child Left Behind.
  Sure, we have had problems with No Child Left Behind. Every major 
reform is going to have bumps in the road. I did four hearings in my 
State, invited every single school superintendent in all 159 counties, 
plus the city schools in my State to get together to bring their 
administrative personnel, but primarily bring me your teachers. I 
wanted to hear from them what complaints they had. They had serious 
complaints that were discussed with representatives of the U.S. 
Department of Education and the Georgia Department of Education. We 
resolved--we didn't resolve all of them, but we went to work and we got 
their complaints answered. We made changes in the regulations. All I 
heard this morning is: Well, No Child Left Behind doesn't work. 
Everybody is upset.
  Everybody is not upset with it. I assure my colleagues, there has 
been no legislation coming forward from the other side of the aisle to 
try to correct it. It is simply a political year. It is unbelievable 
what we hear on the floor of the Senate these days. That is not what I 
got up here to talk about this morning, but I couldn't listen to that 
and not comment on it.

                          ____________________