[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 155 (2009), Part 19]
[Senate]
[Pages 26328-26329]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                           STOPPING PROGRESS

  Mr. REID. Mr. President, I wish to shift gears a little bit here this 
morning and focus on a problem we have here in the Senate. The problem 
is caused by our Republican colleagues.
  The Republicans have become the party of no. What we want to question 
is this: We have back here the breakdown of the 85 times they have 
stopped progress in America today, some in the form of filibusters, 
others in the form of various ways of objecting to things--just 
objecting to things. For example, with health care, there is an article 
in the New York Times today where one Senator said his main goal is to 
defeat health care. One Republican Senator said they want health care 
to be President Obama's Waterloo. Eighty-five times, taking not hours 
of the Senate's time but weeks and months, the American taxpayers' 
money being wasted.
  I came to the floor yesterday and talked about what has happened with 
nominations. Every one of these nominees is a human being, a person who 
has decided to devote their life to public service.
  Yesterday, I came to the floor and talked about Dr. Benjamin, a woman 
who is a medical doctor from Alabama who has devoted her life to taking 
care of the poor and the oppressed. President Obama selected her to be 
Surgeon General of the United States a long time ago. It wasn't until 
last night, after months, that somebody decided over here: Well, maybe 
that is a little too much. We have an emergency declared with the swine 
flu. Maybe we should let her go.
  I received a call Monday from the Secretary of Homeland Security, 
Janet Napolitano, indicating that a woman by the name of Jeanne 
O'Toole--I ran through her resume yesterday. There might be somebody 
better educated than she and who has written more on matters relating 
to what Janet Napolitano knows is needed, but I don't know who it would 
be. Dr. O'Toole is a well-educated medical doctor, having written 
numerous pieces on bioterrorism, all kinds of weapons of mass 
destruction, Anthrax, the plague. She has written about all that in 
some detail. Janet Napolitano said the Department of Homeland Security 
needs someone as Under Secretary to work on bioterrorism, to work on 
the swine flu that is sweeping the country.
  No, it is held up. We were told yesterday, when I offered her name, 
by the Republican leader that we need to work on this a little longer. 
What is going on here in the Senate some day will be written about--a 
time like no other time in the history of the Senate. A minority party 
has held up progress for so long for so many unnecessary reasons. In 
fact, there are no reasons, except--I guess I have to change that a 
little bit. One of the important nominees of President Obama being held 
up is someone to be a Trade Representative. We have all kinds of 
problems dealing with trade around the world. There is a hold on that. 
We know that the hold isn't based on a law that one of the Republican 
Senators doesn't like; it is not a law being discussed in the House of 
Representatives here. It is not a law being discussed in the Senate or 
in one of our capitals around the country; it is a law dealing with 
tobacco that is being discussed in Canada. He is holding up this 
important job for a person waiting to go to work, who served in two 
Republican administrations, one Democratic administration previously, 
and he is being held up because of a tobacco debate taking place in 
Canada. We have no control over that.
  We have the General Services Administration. They take care of all 
Federal property. This is the Administrator. That name has been 
submitted by President Obama, and it is being held up over a building 
in Kansas City--somebody wants a building built in Kansas City, one of 
the Republican Senators. He is holding up this nominee.
  There is a hold on two State Department officials, who are extremely 
important. One is to be the person working with Secretary Clinton to 
take care of Mexico, Central America, and South America. That will be 
his responsibility someday--if he can ever get cleared. It is being 
held up because they don't like what is going on in Honduras. I guess 
they will be really upset today, because the problem has been solved. 
What they want over there is the international community, which is 
totally against the coup having taken place in Honduras--one took place 
and they say it was the right thing to do, even though the Organization 
of American States and the whole international community opposes what 
has taken place. I guess they are going to be upset now because the 
problem was solved last night. That person who was illegally taken from 
that country was brought back--he has been in hiding in the Swiss 
Embassy for more than a month--and he is now going to take office 
again. We have the person who is going to be handling Central America 
being held up, in addition to an Ambassador to one of those countries 
down there, for the same reason.
  This isn't a single problem. Take, for example, President Bush--the 
second President Bush. At this time during his Presidency, there were 
five nominees on the Senate calendar. One had been reported out of 
committee in September, and four were reported out in October. We are 
still in October. They had five. President Obama has 52 nominees on the 
Senate calendar and another 175 pending in committee. That is 52 
compared to 5. Some of these have been out for a long time. Some have 
been reported out in March, May, June, July, and August. They are being 
held up for reasons about as ridiculous as I have told you already.
  Sadly, many of these holds are women and minorities. Republicans have 
been stalling President Obama's nominees for months on end. There is a 
backlog of good, qualified nominees who are awaiting confirmation. 
These are people who have decided they are going to spend time in the 
Federal Government, giving up, in many instances, professorships at 
major universities, leaving law firms and accounting firms, medical 
schools, giving

[[Page 26329]]

up private practice, and they are waiting, waiting until the 
Republicans decide they are going to let them through.
  Some may say, why don't you move forward on them? Let me give those 
within the sound of my voice a little explanation. We have had to file 
cloture motions on nominees to stop filibusters. During the same time 
during President Bush's Presidency, not a single one. We have had eight 
or nine now. Each one of those takes a long time. You move to it, you 
wait 2 days, and there is 30 hours, and then 2 more days, 30 hours. 
With these 53 they have held up here, there aren't enough hours in the 
day to do this--working weekends and all night. It is a real 
disappointment.
  We have a situation here where the only response we have from the 
minority is to stop everything. They have become the party of no. If 
that is what they feel they should be known as, that is what it is 
going to be. We are going to remind the American people what is taking 
place here. This never happened before, where they are opposed to 
everything, whether it is somebody who has an unfortunate situation in 
their life where they can't work because there is no job--150,000 
people have been deprived, by their stalling, of a simple check to pay 
their rent, or to make a payment on their car.
  I hope that Republicans around the country--and there are so many 
people of good will who are Republicans around the country, just like 
Democrats and Independents. I have a little bit of experience. When I 
came to the Senate, I didn't know how things worked. It has only gotten 
this way this Congress, to the degree that it has. When I came here, we 
had so many moderate Republican Senators who would work with us and we 
would work with them--Hatfield, Packwood, Danforth, Heinz from 
Pennsylvania, D'Amato from New York, and Senator Warner from Virginia 
was always somebody who would work with us. There were lots of 
different Senators. But I am sad to say we don't have that now. They 
are going to have to sell themselves to the country as the party of no. 
That is not the party I know in Nevada and around the country. 
Republicans are good, law-abiding people, who believe in good 
government. They have a political philosophy that is not in keeping 
with the Democrats, but that is OK. We work together on issues. I hope 
they will see the light and become the party of working with us. That 
is what they should be--not the Senate Grand Old Party, the party of 
no.

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