[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 155 (2009), Part 24]
[Senate]
[Page 33425]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                        SENATE PARLIAMENTARIANS

  Mr. DeMINT. Madam President, one of the important officers in the 
Senate is the Senate Parliamentarian. The Senate rules are arcane and 
often vague, and the Parliamentarian is responsible for making sure 
they are properly applied. Our four Parliamentarians put in long, 
thankless hours in service to their country. They get no glory, no 
public accolades. They rarely get high fives for getting the rulings 
right, but we are always too happy to tell them when we think they got 
it wrong. Often our disagreement is not with the Parliamentarians, but 
with the precedents themselves.
  The Senate often chooses to sidestep its rules, creating precedents 
that become loopholes in the rules, which bind the Parliamentarian in 
the future. We should be careful to avoid these situations because we 
can unwittingly trample on the right of the minority.
  I want to make it clear that while I do have occasional disagreements 
with the Parliamentarian's office, I still believe they are doing their 
best to be fair and to apply the rules and precedents as they see them.

                          ____________________