[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 153 (2007), Part 16]
[Senate]
[Pages 22828-22830]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                             SIX POINT PLAN

  Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, 7 months ago I opened this session by 
reminding myself and my colleagues that the work we do and the way we 
do it will be judged not only by the voters but by history.
  Future generations are not likely to remember our names, but they 
will inherit the laws that we pass, the problems we ignore, and the 
solutions we leave behind. So I rise tonight to take stock of how we 
have done, to offer an honest assessment of our work, and to propose a 
course of correction.
  When the gavel fell in January, a new party had taken over. It had a 
simple six-point plan of action involving a list of items that were 
thought to have popular support. As the majority whip put it last fall, 
Democrats did not want to overpromise, so they came up with a list that 
was concise, understandable, and attainable.
  He added that if the Democrats were fortunate enough to win the 
majority, they would be judged primarily on their ability to deliver on 
those six legislative goals. So by the majority's own standard, our 
report card should begin with a so-called 6 for '06. They have had more 
than a half a year to enact them, and so it is fair to ask: How have 
they done?
  We started with lobby reform. As an early gesture of the 
bipartisanship I hoped would mark this session, I cosponsored the bill 
along with the majority leader. But less than 2 weeks into the session, 
the majority decided to cut off debate. It forced an early vote on an 
unfinished bill, and it failed.

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After Republicans were allowed to add a vital amendment that protected 
the grassroots organizations from burdensome oversight, we voted again, 
and the bill passed easily 96 to 2.
  Minimum wage was next. Republicans supported an increase that 
included tax relief for the business owners who would have to pay for 
it. At first the majority balked. They wanted a bill without any tax 
relief, without any Republican input. It failed. But when they finally 
agreed to cooperate by including tax relief for small businesses, the 
bill sailed through by a vote of 94 to 3. Four weeks, two 
accomplishments, a good start.
  Then we turned to the 9/11 bill, and here the tide began to turn. 
Republicans supported this bill from the start. We saw it as a welcome 
opportunity to strengthen security, but the majority rejected our 
efforts to improve it with amendments, and then weakened the bill by 
inserting a dangerous provision at the insistence of their labor union 
supporters.
  They wanted to give airport security workers at U.S. airports veto 
power over the Government's rapid response plan to a terrorist attack. 
It was an absurd request.
  Congress rejected a similar provision 5 years earlier on the grounds 
that it threatened national security. The President promised to veto it 
this time around as well. The bill ended up passing the Senate, and the 
provision was ultimately stripped in conference. But by refusing input 
at the start, both parties would have to wait until just last week to 
finish this important bill, and the centerpiece of the Democratic plan 
for improving national security would sit on the shelf literally for 
months.
  Now, there is a pattern here. When the majority has agreed to let 
Republicans participate and shape legislation, we have achieved good 
bipartisan results. When they have blocked that cooperation, they have 
failed. But just like a fly that keeps slamming its head into the same 
windowpane trying to get outside, the Democratic majority has spent 
most of the year since those small, early gestures at cooperation 
trying and failing to advance its agenda by insisting on the path of 
political advantage.
  The problem took root early on. Soon after the 9/11 bill came the 
first attempt to set a timetable for withdrawing U.S. troops from Iraq. 
Our Democratic friends knew it had no chance of passing the Senate, let 
alone being signed into law.
  Two weeks earlier, they had forced a vote on the Petraeus plan for 
securing Baghdad and lost. The President had made clear his opposition 
to timelines, and Republicans insisted that Congress should not be in 
the business of literally micromanaging a war.
  Yet our friends on the other side persisted anyway, and the first 
timeline vote failed. It was followed by 14 more political messaging 
votes on the war, votes that promised to have no practical impact on 
our military conduct. The Senate would spend 2 months debating 
legislation that in every case was bound to fail. For the entire spring 
and summer, the majority insisted on political votes, culminating in 
the theatrical crescendo of an all-night debate that even Democrats 
admitted was a stunt.
  What seems to have happened here is that at some point in February, 
after the minimum wage vote, the political left put a hand on the 
steering wheel, and the unfortunate result was that nearly 5 months 
would pass before a single item on the 6 for '06 agenda would become 
law, and even that had to be tacked on to a must-pass emergency 
spending bill that the Democrats had been slow-rolling for months.
  Now it was during those early months that an alternative, harder 
edged, 6 for '06 agenda seemed to emerge. Indeed, the biggest Senate 
fights this year have not been over the original 6 for '06 at all. They 
revolved around the policy proposals of the far left. Fortunately, 
Republicans have held together to keep these bad ideas from becoming 
law.
  For example, they wanted to eliminate secret ballot elections from 
union drives. They wanted to spend valuable floor time on a nonbinding 
resolution about the Attorney General, despite weeks of print and 
television interviews on the topic already.
  They wanted to revive the so-called fairness doctrine, a kind of 
Federal speech code that was abolished more than two decades ago 
because it violates the first amendment. They even proposed closing the 
terrorist detention facility at Guantanamo Bay and sending the inmates 
to the States.
  Then there were the politically motivated investigations which, 
between the House and Senate, break down to about six hearings a day 
since the first day of the session. Some seemed to see a plot being 
hatched behind every filing cabinet in Washington. Others seem ready to 
hold a White House sofa in contempt for bad fabric. And, of course, 
there was the endless political grandstanding on Iraq that I have 
already mentioned.
  Now, predictably, this alternative agenda went nowhere. In the effort 
to get both, they ended up with neither. Editorial writers started to 
grumble about the lack of achievement. The public took note, too, 
sending the new Congress's approval ratings to new subterranean lows.
  The lesson that emerged was clear. Politics yields headlines; 
cooperation yields results.
  Republicans warned the other side about the consequences of 
unilateralism early on. We argued for months that the majority had been 
engaged in a months-long power play by invoking cloture with 
astonishing frequency. My staff commissioned a CRS study on the issue 
and found that the majority was on pace to shatter the record for 
cloture filings in a single Congress.
  Yet the cloture stories that started to appear argued that record 
cloture filings were somehow the fault of the Republicans, as if we had 
forced the majority to try to cut off debate. This was classic spin, as 
anyone who has been in the Senate for more than a week will tell you. 
The majority knows that more than 40 cloture votes in 6 months is not a 
sign of minority obstruction. It is a sign of a majority that does not 
like the rules.
  The opportunity costs of this failed strategy have been immense. 
Because it has refused to cooperate with the other side, the majority 
hasn't brought a single piece of legislation to the floor that would 
reduce the income tax burden on working Americans. The Senate has not 
done a thing to address entitlements, despite a looming financial 
catastrophe. It has done nothing to address the rising cost of health 
care. Only 1 appropriations bill out of 12 has passed the Senate, and 
none has been signed into law.
  On the first day of the session, the majority whip said the American 
people had put Democrats in the majority to find solutions, not to play 
to a draw with nothing to show for it. Yet at times over the last 7 
months those words have seemed quaint. The Democratic majority had the 
right idea early on. It made an early mistake, in my opinion, by 
succumbing to a round-the-clock political campaign. As any sailor 
knows, a small deviation at the start takes you far off course over 
time.
  Over the last week, we have seen some conspicuous signs of bipartisan 
cooperation, including tonight, when the majority chose the road of 
cooperation to fix a gap in our national intelligence before we left 
for the August recess. Americans are grateful to the majority for 
joining us on this critical issue. Under the leadership of my friend 
the majority leader, Congress has acted on the sound principle that 
cooperation is a better recipe for success than confrontation and 
political theater. All of us should be glad about that.
  We have seen that we can accomplish good things by working together 
and cooperating on legislation that Americans support. Politics 
certainly has its place, but it doesn't steer this ship, at least it 
shouldn't. There is simply too much to be done, and we have seen the 
results when it does.
  So I would not offer a grade for this Congress. Others have already 
done that. But I will say that at the beginning of this session, I 
staked my party to a pledge: When faced with an urgent issue, we would 
act. When faced with a

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problem, we would seek solutions, not mere political advantage. That 
pledge still stands. We have seen what we can do. We have actually seen 
it tonight. And we have reason to hope we will see it still.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. REID. I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call 
be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

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