[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 154 (2008), Part 5]
[Senate]
[Page 6844]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                          ALLEGED FILIBUSTERS

  Mr. HATCH. Mr. President, I have a great deal of appreciation for the 
distinguished Senator from Michigan. I know how sincere she is, and I 
know she feels very deeply about what she has just spoken. But this 
business of 68 clotures is hitting below the belt.
  Time after time, the majority leader has filed bills--many of which 
have not even gone through committee, have not had 1 day of hearing, 
some of which have been filed for political purposes just to create 
tough votes--and then filed cloture immediately.
  In the old days--I have been here almost 32 years--nobody did that. 
Then they call it a filibuster when they are the ones who filed cloture 
just for the purpose of being able to say there is a filibuster.
  Almost invariably the bills that are good go through. Republicans 
will object sometimes because we want to be able to offer at least 
germane amendments. In this body, we have, in the past, even been able 
to offer nongermane amendments. But that is a no-no right now because 
the majority is concerned some will bring up amendments that might be 
embarrassing to the majority.
  Well, having talked about ``embarrassing to the majority,'' why do 
you think the Ledbetter case was brought up through this statute? First 
of all, it did not have 1 day of hearings, as far as I know. It 
certainly was not put through a committee. It was brought up under rule 
XIV--which is a right to do--and then the bill itself was classically 
poorly written.
  The fact is, this bill would have done away with the statute of 
limitations and made it almost impossible for any business to defend 
itself even in class action lawsuits. But it was brought primarily 
because the friends in some areas of the plaintiffs' bar wanted it 
brought so they could bring more suits in our society.
  But to basically do away with the statute of limitations so that you 
could bring suits 10, 15, 25 years later, when all of the documentation 
is gone, the witnesses are gone, there is no way the company can defend 
itself, and it is an automatic slam dunk for plaintiffs' lawyers--some 
plaintiffs' lawyers, because most great plaintiffs' lawyers are not 
going to play this game--and then call that a good bill, there is 
something wrong with it.
  With regard to the veterans bill--my goodness gracious. Let's think 
about this. With regard to the veterans bill, we are all for veterans--
every last one of us. But, again, cloture was immediately filed. We 
were not able to bring up amendments. Finally, in the end, what did we 
do? We spent all day yesterday doing nothing in order to accommodate 
two Presidential candidates on the Democratic side. Now, I have no 
problem with that, with that accommodation, but we could have worked 
all day yesterday on the veterans bill and scheduled that vote the same 
time at the end of the day, as we did. But it was basically a wasted 
day in the Senate, other than hearings that might have gone on. To 
waste a whole day and then blame us for it, that is not right.
  We all know why the Ledbetter bill was brought up. In many respects, 
it is just to score political points or it would have gone through the 
committee. Had it gone through the committee, had we done a good 
statute of limitations change, had we made some other changes that make 
sense in the law, I think we would have passed a bill that would have 
made Lilly Ledbetter at least realize that her actions were not in 
vain. But the way it was done looks to me as if it was done for 
political purposes and to score political points. We could have worked 
it out. At least I think we could have worked it out. But there was not 
even a chance to do that.
  Let me just say this: I believe we have too much of this business 
that every time the majority files a bill and then files a cloture 
motion, they then call us filibusterers. That is not right, and it is 
not true. Frankly, we all know it is not true.
  (Ms. STABENOW assumed the chair.)

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