[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 158 (2012), Part 11]
[Senate]
[Pages 15404-15410]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                         CHANGING SENATE RULES

  Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, I would like to turn to another issue 
that does not grab as many headlines as these others we have been 
focused on these last few days but which is critically important since 
it relates to the mortal threat that has been quietly gathering against 
one of the most cherished safeguards of our government.
  I am referring to the latest effort by some on the other side, most 
of whom have never served a day in the minority, to force a change in 
Senate rules at the beginning of the new year that would fundamentally 
change the character of the Senate. This is no exaggeration.
  What these Democrats have in mind is a fundamental change to the way 
the Senate operates for the purpose of consolidating their own power 
and further marginalizing the minority voice the Senate was built to 
protect.
  In the name of efficiency, their plan is to use a heavy-handed tactic 
that would poison party relations even more. In the name of efficiency, 
they would prevent the very possibility of compromise and threaten to 
make the disputes of the past few years mere pillow fights. To 
understand why, let me explain in a little more detail what is being 
proposed.
  What this small group of primarily Senate sophomores is now proposing 
is that when the Senate gavels in at the beginning of the new Congress, 
a bare majority of Senators can disregard the rule that says changes to 
the Senate rules can only be approved on the same broad bipartisan 
basis we reserve for approving treaties and overriding Presidential 
vetoes, a supermajority plus.
  Lyndon Johnson once said of the 67-vote threshold for changes to the 
rules that it ``preserves indisputably the character of the Senate as 
the one continuing body in our policy making process.''
  Senator Reid himself once described changing the Senate procedure by 
majority fiat as ``breaking the rules to change the rules.''
  What is being proposed now would undermine the very purpose of the 
Senate as the one place in our system where minority views and opinions 
have been respected and heard and, in most cases, incorporated into 
law.
  Until now, you could say that protecting the rights of a political 
minority has always been the defining characteristic of the Senate. 
That is why Members of both parties have always defended it whether 
they were in the majority or minority, because they knew the Senate was 
the last legislative check against the kind of raw exercise of power 
majority parties have always been tempted to wield.
  The Congressional Record contains literally mountains of reverential 
statements by Republicans and Democrats extolling the near-sacred 
character of the Senate as the one legislative body on Earth that 
protects minority views from majority rule, and it requires 
supermajorities for anything significant to become law.
  Why is that? So that majorities can't simply roll over those who 
disagree with them, and, just as important, so majority parties are 
forced to resolve the great issues of the moment in the middle, 
ensuring their stability and their permanence. It is this mechanism 
that has so frustrated majority parties over the years but which has 
ensured, at least most of the time, that our laws are stable and not 
subject to change every time the parties change power. This is what 
makes the Senate different. This is what makes this body great.
  Up until recently many of those who now want to change these rules 
agreed with what I just said. Just a few years ago, as I have already 
indicated, the majority leader was one of the staunchest defenders of 
the Senate's protection of minority rights for all of the reasons I 
have mentioned. Yet now he finds himself frustrated with those rules he 
once championed. He is prepared to recklessly throw those rules away 
and his own solemn pledges to defend them.
  On December 8, 2006, the majority leader made a public pledge to 
fight all efforts to change all rules protecting the minority once he 
became the majority leader. It is a pledge he repeated

[[Page 15405]]

during another proposed rules change 2 years ago. I wish to quote in 
full what the majority leader said that day because in light of his 
words, it is hard to believe what he is proposing to do now.
  Here is what he said:

       As Majority Leader, I intend to run the Senate with respect 
     for the rules and for the minority rights the rules protect. 
     The Senate was not established to be efficient. Sometimes the 
     rules get in the way of efficiency. The Senate was 
     established to make sure that minorities are protected. 
     Majorities can always protect themselves, but minorities 
     cannot. That is what the Senate is all about. For more than 
     200 years the rules of the Senate have protected the American 
     people, and rightfully so. The need to muster 60 votes in 
     order to terminate Senate debate naturally frustrates the 
     majority and oftentimes the minority. I am sure it will 
     frustrate me when I assume the office of majority leader in a 
     few weeks, but I recognize this requirement is a tool that 
     serves the long-term interest of the Senate and the American 
     people and our country. It is often said that the laws are 
     ``the system of wise restraints that set men free.'' The same 
     might be said of the Senate rules. I will do my part as 
     majority leader to foster respect for the rules and 
     traditions of our great institution. I say on this floor that 
     I love so much that I believe in the Golden Rule. I am going 
     to treat my Republican colleagues the way that I expect to be 
     treated. There is no ``I've got you,'' no get even. I am 
     going to do everything I can to preserve the traditions and 
     rules of this institution that I love.

  That is the end of the quote from my friend, the majority leader, 
just a few years ago. He acknowledged that ``the Senate was not 
established to be efficient,'' but rather ``to make sure that 
minorities are protected.'' With this fundamental purpose of the Senate 
in mind, he pledged he would do everything he could to preserve the 
traditions and rules of this institution that he loves.
  It is hard to imagine a clearer pledge than that, and I am afraid 
that going back on it now would have such a corrosive effect on comity 
that it would threaten our ability to get anything accomplished around 
here.
  Let's be clear: The rules change that is being proposed is not an 
affront to me or to the Republican Party. It is an affront to the 
American people. It is an affront to the people who sent me and the 
other 46 Republicans here to represent them in the Senate, but these 
voices would be shut out if the majority leader and this cohort of 
shortsighted Senate sophomores have their way and permanently change 
this body.
  At the moment Republicans represent the voters of 31 States, 
representing a total population of more than 180 million Americans. 
Shutting off our right to express the views of our constituents, as is 
being proposed, would effectively shut these people out of the process. 
What the majority leader and his cohort of Senators, who don't seem to 
understand what the Senate was intended for, are proposing would 
guarantee that the one sure means our constituents now have of being 
heard in Washington would be gone.
  If a bare majority can proceed to any bill it chooses, and once on 
that bill the majority leader, all by himself, can shut out all 
amendments that aren't to his liking, then those who elected us to 
advocate for their views will have lost their voice in this legislative 
process. This is something the majority leader used to understand. He 
used to understand that protecting the rights of the minority party 
meant protecting the rights of the people who sent us here to be heard 
in Washington. He understood the importance of defending the minority 
view when he was in the minority. Now that he has been in the majority 
he seems to have conveniently forgotten all of that.
  The people of Kentucky elected two Republican leaders to the Senate. 
Does the majority leader think the views of the people of Kentucky 
shouldn't be heard? Does he think Nevadans who sent Senator Heller to 
the Senate shouldn't be heard? Does he believe that on the day he finds 
himself in the minority once again that he should no longer be heard? 
Or does he think that Democrats will remain in the majority from now 
until the end of time?
  For the past several years many of us on the Republican side have 
raised loud objection to the diminished rights of the minority to 
participate in the legislative process around here. Democratic leaders 
have tried in more ways than one to silence those with whom they 
disagree. They have blocked Members, including their own committee 
chairmen, from expressing themselves in committee through unprecedented 
use of Senate rule XIV, which allows them to bypass committees 
altogether.
  They have blocked Members from expressing themselves through an 
unprecedented use of filling the amendment tree, which prevents the 
Senate from considering amendments the majority leader doesn't like. No 
amendments in committee, no amendments on the floor.
  The majority leader made this clear to Senator McCain in a remarkable 
moment of candor when he bragged that the ``amendment days are over.'' 
He has preferred to write legislation in the confines of his conference 
room rather than in the public eye, as he did most famously with the 
drafting of ObamaCare.
  I say to everyone: If you want more legislation around here the way 
that bill was crafted, then you ought to be pretty enthusiastic about 
what the majority leader is proposing because that is where this is 
headed, more authoritarianism, more secrecy, and even less input from 
rank-and-file Members on both sides of the aisle.
  As I said, we have protested all of this and have spoken out loudly 
against the abuses of the Senate. But now the majority leader wants to 
go even further. He doesn't propose to simply abuse the rules, he wants 
to break the rules and his own very public pledge to defend those rules 
at all costs. Make no mistake, what the majority leader is proposing is 
a Senate where the only rule is his whim; where the rest of us are 
bystanders, including the Members of his own party.
  Do the Democrats really want to go down this road? Do they really 
think they are going to be in the majority forever? We have Members 
from both parties who used to serve in the House of Representatives, 
Democrats and Republicans, who said to me they thought the Senate was 
different.
  I don't care whether you are a Republican or whether you are a 
Democrat, you came to the Senate because you knew that here you could 
make a difference for your constituents; here you would be heard; here 
you could offer amendments; here the minority was protected; here the 
majority leader had to work with the other side.
  What even Senate Democrats have discovered over the past few years is 
a very different place--a place where committees no longer matter, 
where Members of both parties are shut out of the debate and where 
bills are drafted behind closed doors, where politicians trade favors 
in secret instead of exchanging ideas in public just to get legislation 
across the finish line.
  When I come to the Senate every day I know I work in a body of people 
who have different views than I do about the role of government and the 
best solutions to the problems we face. But I know the price of 
belonging to this place is having to hear them out and to vote on their 
ideas, and the price of belonging here is that they have to do the 
same.
  The American people need to know what is going on here, and that is 
why I hope Republicans and many Democrats who care about this 
institution, rather than some temporary exercise of raw partisan 
political power, will come forward over the next few weeks and speak 
out against this naked power grab. When they do, I hope they will be 
guided by the words of another former Democratic Senator who said the 
following about the Senate and its uniqueness. This is what this former 
Democratic Senator said:

       The American people sent us here to be their voice. They 
     understand that those voices can at times become loud and 
     argumentative, but they also hope we can disagree without 
     being disagreeable. At the end of the day, they expect both 
     parties to work together to get the people's business done. 
     What they do not expect is for one party, be it Republican or 
     Democrat, to change the rules in the middle of the game so 
     they can make all the decisions while the other party is told 
     to sit down and keep quiet. The American people want less 
     partnership in this town, but everyone in this chamber knows

[[Page 15406]]

     that if the majority chooses to end the filibuster, if they 
     choose to change the rules and put an end to democratic 
     debate, then the fighting, the bitterness, and the gridlock 
     will only get worse.

  That Senate Democrat was President Obama. I don't often agree with 
President Obama on matters of policy, and the issue he was referring to 
here was different than this one. But the principle he expressed in 
defending his position then is one that I believe in wholeheartedly.
  Let me sum it this way: For the sake of this institution and the 
future of the country, I implore Members on both sides to oppose this 
naked power grab strenuously and loudly. It may be the most important 
thing they ever do because the debates of the moment are passing, but 
the Senate must endure and nothing less is at stake.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The majority leader is recognized.
  Mr. REID. The one thing the Republican leader said that is absolutely 
true is I follow the Golden Rule, and it is very clear what has 
happened during this Congress. We can go over all the numbers--and I 
think they project what has happened--about the hundreds and hundreds 
of times that we have been forced to file cloture on relatively 
meaningless things.
  My friend the Republican leader claims changing the rule to make the 
Senate more efficient is an assault on minority rights. In fact, it is 
a response to the abuse of the filibuster by Senate Republicans. He 
keeps talking about getting rid of the filibuster. I and no one on the 
Democratic side have proposed getting rid of the filibuster, but we 
have proposed making this place more efficient.
  We had a run at this 2 years ago. We had a so-called gentleman's 
agreement that the motion to proceed would be filibustered rarely. We 
filibustered almost every time a bill came up, so that simply didn't 
work. I am not proposing that we get rid of the filibuster, just that 
we do away with filibusters on the motion to proceed, period.
  To the average American, reforms are just common sense, Mr. 
President. Americans believe Congress is broken. Once again, the only 
ones who disagree are Mitch McConnell and Republicans in Congress. The 
American people know, Democrats and Republicans, that this place isn't 
working and there needs to be some changes so we can proceed to get 
some legislation passed. We know that during the same time frame as 
Lyndon Johnson's 6 years--and I will have 6 years in the same position 
at the end of this year--I have faced 386 filibusters. It keeps going 
up because we had a couple more very recently. Lyndon Johnson had one. 
Today it takes more than a week--in fact, it takes about 10 days--to 
even begin considering a bill, before we are even on the bill, let 
alone trying to pass that legislation.
  So it is time to get the Senate working again, not for the good of 
the current Democratic majority or some future Republican majority but 
for the good of the country. And as for these plaintive cries that we 
are getting rid of the filibuster, it simply isn't true. I believe in 
the filibuster. I believe in it. I believe in minority rights. The 
filibuster is not part of the Constitution. It is something we 
developed here to help get legislation passed, but now it is being used 
to stop legislation from passing.
  So we are going to continue moving forward to make the Senate more 
efficient. Does that mean it will be really efficient? No, because we 
are changing one aspect of the filibuster rule. And what is that? We 
are going to change it so that it doesn't take us 10 days to simply get 
on a bill before we can start legislating. The American people know 
this is the right way to go. The only people who would think the Senate 
is working now with its obstruction at every step of the way are the 
Republicans.
  Mr. President, I have said this before: Any change that has been 
suggested in these rules that we believe need to be changed wouldn't 
affect me if I were in the minority. I would have many opportunities to 
take care of the sparsely populated State of Nevada and take care of 
the other issues I want to defend. But we believe there should be one 
aspect of the Senate to change, and that is that the motion to proceed 
should be a nondebatable motion to proceed. It is as simple as that.
  The American people agree. I repeat: The only ones who disagree, who 
think this Senate is working well, are the Republican leader and those 
Republicans in Congress.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Republican leader.
  Mr. McCONNELL. I hope the majority leader will stay on the floor 
here.
  I gather the way the majority leader proposes to effectuate this 
rules change is to violate the current rule of the Senate; in other 
words, to do it with a simple majority. You didn't address that issue.
  Mr. REID. Of course his statement is untrue and I don't accept that.
  Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, I believe I have the floor.
  That is the point. What the majority leader is saying is he will 
break the rules of the Senate in order to change the rules of the 
Senate. It has been the case in the past that it took a supermajority 
of 67, which of course meant most rules changes occurred because the 
two leaders agreed to them and were proposing them jointly. Instead, 
what the majority leader is saying is he will propose to change the 
rules with 51 votes, meaning his side gets to decide what the rules 
are. The danger of that, of course, is let us assume--I know the 
majority leader thinks he is going to be the majority leader forever; 
he isn't. What if it is 2 years from now and what if my Members say, 
well, if 51 Democrats can change the rules of the Senate, why can't the 
Republicans? Why should we have to fiddle with these people in the 
minority?
  What is the point? Why not just change the rules of the Senate and 
turn the Senate into the House?
  That is why Lyndon Johnson felt so strongly that a rules change 
should require a supermajority of 67, not 60, thereby virtually 
guaranteeing that any significant changes in the way the body operates 
are done on a bipartisan basis.
  Further, the majority leader calls anything a filibuster when he 
decides to file a cloture motion, which he routinely does on virtually 
every bill, and then complains because we are reluctant to go to the 
bill without some assurances we are going to be able to offer 
amendments.
  So here is the way it works: The majority leader calls up a bill, he 
files cloture on the motion to proceed, we enter into a discussion in 
order to get some understanding that we are going to have a chance to 
offer any amendments. And the reason we engage in that discussion is 
because throughout the last Congress getting to offer an amendment was 
kind of an unusual thing, because as soon as you get on the bill, the 
majority leader fills up the amendment tree, which means he alone gets 
to decide, he alone, out of 100 of us, gets to decide who gets to offer 
an amendment. In other words, he gets to pick our amendments for us.
  Look, the motion to proceed has been an irritant to the majority 
leader. Had I been in his job, what I would have done is put somebody 
in the Chair, keep the person objecting here up all night and wear them 
down. We are almost never in at night. I can't remember the last time 
we had a vote on a Friday. It is pretty easy working in the Senate 
because we never use the fatigue factor to accomplish things.
  We have actually had some examples, by the way, of doing things the 
right way. We had three bills earlier this year that, believe it or 
not, actually came out of committee, were actually supported by 
Democrats and Republicans in committee, who worked on the bill in 
committee, and they came out on the floor and were open for amendments 
and they actually passed: postal reform, the transportation bill, and 
the farm bill. All were handled in the normal way we used to do 
virtually every bill in the Senate. None of them were written in the 
majority leader's office, as far as I could tell. And the thing they 
all three had in common is they actually passed the Senate and Members 
felt as though they were invested in the process.

[[Page 15407]]

  So, look, we don't have a rules problem, we have a behavioral 
problem. When the majority leader believes he gets to decide what 
happens on every bill, that is beyond the purview of the job he holds. 
What we need to do is start operating in a normal fashion which 
respects the views and involvement of all Members of the Senate in both 
parties. Is it a little bit harder to engage in these discussions? Yes, 
it is. It is harder. But to go out and decide to break the rules to 
change the rules because you might have to work a little bit harder to 
get where you are headed strikes me as a disservice to the institution 
and a disservice to the Senate.
  Nobody is going to buy this notion about all these filibusters. He is 
filing cloture on the motion to proceed on day one. And the reason he 
has had to file cloture on the motion to proceed so frequently is 
because we can't get any assurance from the majority leader that we 
were going to be able to offer any amendments. That is the problem. We 
need to behave differently. That is the way to get this place 
functioning again.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The majority leader.
  Mr. REID. Mr. President, I had the pleasure of serving with one of 
the greatest Senators in the history of this country, Daniel Patrick 
Moynihan of New York. He said people are entitled to their own opinions 
but not their own facts. And that is what my friend the Republican 
leader now has, his own set of facts which belies the record before the 
American people.
  It is ironic the Republican leader complains about those who want to 
change the Senate rules. It is ironic because he has been at the 
forefront of abusing these rules for the past 6 years. It is ironic 
because when he was in the majority 7 years ago, he sought to change 
the rules to streamline votes on judicial nominations. He was part of 
that program. And it is ironic because he is one of a very small group 
of people who think the Senate is working just fine.
  Rules change around here. They change. You know, it used to be to cut 
off a filibuster it took 67 votes. The Senate changed that because it 
became too burdensome.
  I have said on many occasions, and I will say again here--and I have 
said this in public gatherings and private gatherings--these minor 
changes I am suggesting wouldn't affect anyone who had the thought of 
making America better, even if I were in the minority. To stop a 
filibuster on a motion to proceed to a bill--to take 10 days to just 
get on a bill--I don't think is good and we need to change that. So----
  Mr. McCONNELL. Will the majority yield on that point for a question?
  Mr. REID. I will be happy to in one second.
  The Republican leader keeps talking about not following the rules. We 
are following the Constitution of the United States to make these 
changes, and that is certainly appropriate.
  Your question?
  Mr. McCONNELL. If this is such a reasonable rule change, why not work 
to try to propose it on a joint basis, subject it to the 61-vote 
threshold? That would honor the tradition that the Senate is a 
continuous body whose rules go from Congress to Congress. I mean, that 
is what has been unique about the way rules changes have been done 
around here.
  Mr. REID. Mr. President----
  Mr. McCONNELL. And one further question, in addition.
  Mr. REID. Sorry.
  Mr. McCONNELL. How would you feel if 2 years from now I have your job 
and my Members say, why don't we get rid of the filibuster with just 51 
votes?
  Mr. REID. I think that would be wrong, but we are not trying to get 
rid of the filibuster. We are changing a tiny aspect of what goes on 
around here so that people would have to do a couple of things: One is 
to not filibuster simply getting on a bill. And also, if they want to 
filibuster, they would have to stand and talk about it and not be in 
their office someplace.
  Senator Durbin just reminded me of one Republican Senator who forced 
us to be here over the weekend and he then left and went back to a 
wedding in his State.
  I repeat for the third time, the only people who think the Senate is 
working really well right now are the Republican leader and Republican 
Senators because it is not working well. They have abused the process. 
They have abused something that was set up to help legislation get 
passed--the filibuster. They have abused it and now they filibuster on 
everything.
  They can talk all they want about filling the amendment tree and all 
that, but that has no bearing on what is going on around here. We have 
tried to get things done. The Defense bill is a good example. I said, 
let's move to the Defense bill and they objected to it. They have been 
talking about it for months. I agreed to move to it, with no 
preconditions at all.
  We have to do other things. We have a very short period of time here 
now, and everything around here is the bill stall. He talks about 
getting bills done. In this Congress we have gotten almost nothing 
done. We struggled through a highway bill that took 6 weeks. We spent 
months of our time on that dealing with contraception. We were able to 
work through that. We had a postal bill we spent a lot of time on here, 
and the House has put that in their garbage pile so that nothing has 
happened with that; the farm bill, the same thing.
  We have gotten almost nothing done. Why? Because we have spent 
weeks--weeks--simply getting on a bill so we can start legislating. So 
if the Republican leader thinks things are going well here, he is in a 
distinct minority because things aren't going well around here. And I 
think an example, I repeat, is Lyndon Johnson's 1 cloture and Harry 
Reid's 386. That says it all.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Republican leader.
  Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, when I quote the Democratic leader, I 
use his exact words--his exact words--which I did throughout my 
comments. Yet he makes up words for me. I have never said the Senate is 
working fine. I think the Senate has been disastrously run for the last 
2 years--disastrously run not because of the rules but because of the 
operation. And it is certainly not the fault of the Republicans.
  Take the budget, for example, which can be done with a simple 
majority. We haven't had a budget in 3 years. The law says we are 
supposed to pass a budget. It doesn't say don't pass the budget if we 
don't want to; don't pass the budget if we might have to offer 
amendments. It doesn't say don't pass a budget if we might have to 
negotiate with the Republican House. It says, pass a budget. We also 
haven't called up a single appropriations bill.
  Look, if one Senator has a problem going to a bill, file cloture on 
the motion to proceed. Had the majority leader done that on the Defense 
bill, it would have been approved overwhelmingly. He could have done 
that on a Friday and it would have been approved on a Monday. The 
obstructionism he complains about is pretty easily overcome if we are 
willing to make the place work a little bit. Most people work Monday to 
Friday. Not us. The Senate used to be a nocturnal place because 
majority leaders of both parties would use the fatigue factor to grind 
down opposition coming from a few people. We almost never do that.
  So don't get me wrong, I say to my friend the majority leader. I am 
not defending the way this place has been run the last 2 years. I think 
it is embarrassing. I have to apologize to my constituents for the way 
the place is run. But we had the same rules in earlier Congresses and 
didn't have the same problem.
  We have always had a few Members on each side who wanted to exercise 
every one of their rights. When I first got here, Senator Metzenbaum 
from Ohio would stay out here on the floor and read every bill. He was 
a big problem. Nobody tried to change the rules. We worked this place.
  What the majority leader conveniently continues to leave out is that 
it is not only the rule he wants to change but the way he wants to 
change it. He wants to establish the precedent that 51 Senators can 
change the rules, anytime they want to, to take away the rights of 
everybody else, which will fundamentally change this institution.

[[Page 15408]]

  So no Senator should buy the argument that this is just a little 
bitty change about the motion to proceed. This is about the way rules 
will be changed in the Senate. No longer would a 67-vote threshold 
obviously bring the two leaders and their Members together to agree to 
rules changes, but anytime, on any whim, any majority leader wants to 
change the rules, 51 votes. This is no small matter. This is a big 
issue about the future of this country and how this institution ought 
to be operated.
  Being majority leader is a tough job. You have cantankerous Members 
on both sides who want to exercise their rights. It has always been 
that way. But the way you get past it is you work the place, you make 
it function, you talk to people, you treat them with respect. The 
collegiality we used to have in this body has faded--faded because of 
the arrogance of power exercised by some. All of this is correctable 
because we in here are all human beings trying to do our best, trying 
to leverage the place in one way or another to seek some advantage. But 
that is the way the Senate has always been.
  What I think we need is an attitude change. The election is behind 
us. Whatever short-term advantage the majority may have felt it had by 
protecting its Members from voting on almost everything is over. We 
don't need to have a perpetual election in the country. We have huge 
issues before us here at the end of the year, many of which will 
probably carry over into next year. It is a time that we ought to be 
building collegiality and relationships and not making incendiary moves 
that are damaging to the institution and could have serious 
ramifications on our ability to work together here at the end of the 
year.
  So I would encourage my friend the majority leader to think 
thoroughly through whether this is the direction he wants to take this 
body. I believe it is a huge mistake. The American people sent us here 
to solve big problems, and we ought to be concentrating on trying to 
bring everybody together behind an agreement that hopefully could be 
reached before the end of the year to do really important work for the 
American people.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The majority leader.
  Mr. REID. Mr. President, the election is over, and the American 
people listened to what we had to say, and they acknowledged without 
any question that the message we delivered is valid: The Senate is a 
dysfunctional body, caused by the Republicans. Democrats picked up 
seats in this Senate. The President was reelected by 2.5 million votes. 
We have an obligation to the American people to proceed and to get some 
things done.
  My friend the Republican leader talks about the Golden Rule. I do 
believe in that. And I believe 2 years ago there were efforts made to 
change this body so we could get some things done. We were given the 
assurance that the motion to proceed would not be used in the way it 
has been used this time.
  Any suggestion of changing the rules is within the framework of what 
we do here in the Senate and our Constitution. We have an obligation to 
continually update this body so that it becomes more efficient. That is 
the history of this country. And I think my friend the Republican 
leader has to acknowledge that things haven't been going very well. He 
just did that. The election is over. We need to proceed to get things 
done.
  Incendiary moves? I have been facing incendiary moves for 2 years. We 
can't get anything done around here because of the Republican 
obstructionism. The American people recognize that. As I have traveled 
this country, people have said: Do something to change the Senate so we 
can get things done. And we are making a minor change to stop the 
motion to proceed that we were told 2 years ago they wouldn't use 
anymore. So we are going to change this rule so the Senate can become 
an effective body.
  We have a bicameral legislature, and no one should suggest I don't 
understand that, and no one should suggest I don't understand the 
filibuster rule. I think I understand as well as anybody who serves in 
this body and perhaps, with the exception of Senator Byrd, anybody who 
has served in this body. If Senator Byrd were here, I would suggest to 
everybody here that Senator Byrd wouldn't like what is going on here, 
and he would work with us to get these rules changed, and that is why 
they need to be changed.
  We can't continue like this. We took people's word that they would 
help us get things done here, and they rejected that. It was simply 
untrue. It was a falsehood. I know what I have said in the past, and I 
know what I have done in the past, and I think what we are doing is a 
positive step forward to do away with the motion to proceed so that 
they can't filibuster a simple motion to proceed, stopping us from 
getting on a bill, taking us 10 days to do that. That is wrong.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Republican leader.
  Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, it doesn't take 10 days to get on a 
bill. And what the majority leader has repeated now is that he is going 
to break the rules to change the rules, which is a wonderful way to 
start off the new Congress.
  At a time when the American people would like for us to work together 
and to solve the huge issues that lie before us, the majority leader 
has chosen instead to break the rules to change the rules because he 
has had difficulty getting on bills. It is a sad commentary about where 
the Senate stands these days. I had hoped that going into the lameduck 
session, we would have an entirely different view of how to bring this 
place together and begin to solve the problems. So it is a sad day for 
the Senate. We will go forward as best we can under this extraordinary 
set of circumstances.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The majority leader.
  Mr. REID. Mr. President, no matter how many times my friend the 
Republican leader says ``break the rules to change the rules,'' it 
doesn't make it true because it is not true. We are going to follow the 
rules.
  I would also say this: I was stunned by reading in a couple of the 
newspapers that a couple of Republican Senators said, paraphrasing: We 
are going to make things really tough around here. We are going to make 
things so bad if they take away our motion, causing me to file cloture 
on a motion to proceed. We are going to make things really difficult.
  Really difficult, when the Republican leader said his No. 1 goal in 
this Congress was to defeat President Obama? And that is how they have 
legislated. Everything was to the effort of making sure Barack Obama 
did not serve again. There are a myriad of examples. Take this one. 
This is great to show how hard they worked to put the country on the 
right track. With about 1 million firefighters, police officers, and 
schoolteachers being laid off, we thought: We have had some decent--not 
wonderful--growth in the private sector and have gotten back millions 
of jobs. We decided, let's do something in the public sector that would 
really help stimulate the economy. So we decided to move to a bill that 
said that what we want to do is rehire those firefighters, police 
officers, and teachers, and we are going to pay for it--no more deficit 
spending--we will pay for it by having a surtax on people who make more 
than $1 million a year, and that surtax is three-tenths of 1 percent. 
They stopped it. They stopped it dead in its tracks. Every Republican 
voted against it. That is the way they have legislated this entire 
year. And by our getting rid of the motion to proceed, that we are 
turning the country upside down is ridiculous. It is not true.
  They have legislated with the effort to defeat Obama. He won by 2.5 
million votes, 327 electoral votes--overwhelmingly--even though they 
did everything they could to stop him from being reelected. Everyone 
knows what a failure this Congress has been because of what the Senate 
has done, and that is nothing. Nothing. No job creation--they didn't 
want that. If we had had the ability to create jobs, it would have 
helped Obama and it would have helped the country, but, no, that wasn't 
what they wanted to do. And a terrible day for them several months 
ago--can you

[[Page 15409]]

believe the Supreme Court declared ObamaCare constitutional? I mean, 
talk about a disappointment. This whole year was a disappointment for 
them because they weren't able to stop Obama from being reelected even 
though they did everything they could to prevent him from being 
reelected, and then ObamaCare was declared constitutional.
  No, we are not going to break the rules to change the rules. We are 
going to follow the rules to make a couple of minor changes to make 
this place more efficient. That is what the Senate has always been 
about, is revising itself to become more efficient. And the threats 
that come from the other side: We are going to make you Democrats 
suffer more; if you do this, it is going to be terrible--What more 
could they do to us?
  It is pretty simple. The math isn't that difficult. Get the bill on 
the calendar, file cloture on a Tuesday, have a cloture vote on 
Thursday. We are finally on the bill. They get 30 hours for that. I 
maybe exaggerated a day or two, but it puts us way into next week 
before we even get on the bill.
  So we are doing what is right for the country because the American 
people want us to do what is right for the country. And to do what is 
right for the country is to change the rules of the Senate a little bit 
so that we can do something meaningful for the country.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Illinois.
  Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, I have listened closely in this debate 
because it literally affects my career, my life, and the lives of all 
the Members of the Senate. It is worth a minute or two to understand 
what we are talking about in the context of history.
  It was President Woodrow Wilson who said to the Congress: We want to 
arm the Merchant Marine of the United States, to put guns on Merchant 
Marine ships, before we were engaged in World War I, to protect those 
ships from being destroyed or sunk by the warring parties in World War 
I. He sent that request to Congress, and it was stopped by one Senator. 
One Senator in those days could stand up and say: I object. End of 
story. But President Wilson said: That is an outrage, that one Senator 
can say that and stop even the consideration of a measure to protect 
American lives and our Merchant Marines. And he created this firestorm 
of public opinion. So they created a Senate rule called the cloture 
rule, and the cloture rule said that if two-thirds of the Senators 
voted in disagreement with that objector, then the Senate would go to 
the measure. So what was originally an objection by one Senator, 
characterized as a filibuster, could be cut off and the Senate could 
resume its activity and its business by a two-thirds vote.
  That was passed by the Senate in 1917, almost 100 years ago. Over the 
span of time since, there have been some changes in that. In the 1960s, 
during the civil rights debate, it was decided to reduce that number 
from two-thirds of the Senate--67 in those days--to 60. So 60 votes 
were needed in order to successfully file a cloture motion to end the 
filibuster. It was an interesting exercise but one that happened very 
rarely. I asked the staff to send me a list of all the cloture motions 
that were filed to stop filibusters since 1917. In the first 50 years 
after 1917, there were about 50 cloture motions--50 years, 50 motions, 
averaged about one a year. What has happened in the most recent years? 
In the 2007-2008 Congress, there were 139 cloture motions in that 2-
year period; the next 2-year period, 2009-2010, 137 cloture motions; 
and in this current session, 2011-2012, 110. So what used to happen 
once a year is now happening over 120 times a year on average. What 
used to be a rare occurrence has become commonplace, and it is 
destroying this institution.
  I am told people across America who have cable television and who 
have C-SPAN of the Senate are calling the cable operators asking for a 
refund because nothing is happening on the Senate channel. They are 
hearing the melodious, mellifluous voice of the great clerk of the 
Senate reading Senator Akaka's name every once in a while in a quorum 
call, and they are wondering: Why am I paying a cable TV carrier for 
this? Why isn't the Senate working? Why aren't they doing something?
  It is because we are stuck in a filibuster--time after time after 
time.
  I go home, and I bet the Senator does, too, when he goes home to 
Delaware, and they say: What about that Jimmy Stewart movie, ``Mr. 
Smith Goes To Washington''? I saw that movie. Didn't that poor man have 
to stand at his desk and hold the Senate floor until he crumpled in 
exhaustion? Why don't we see that anymore?
  The honest answer is there was some artistic license in that movie. 
The more honest answer is we have reached the point now with the 
filibuster where one Senator can stand and object to what is about to 
occur in the Senate and stop the Senate from what it is doing for at 
least 30 hours until there is a vote to resume business.
  Let me give two examples in my recent memory of how this played out. 
It was only a couple of years ago when we were closing a weekly session 
and a last-minute request was made to extend unemployment benefits to 
millions of Americans. We thought we had an agreement, Democrats and 
Republicans. We were ready to leave town.
  The junior Senator from Kentucky--not the majority leader, Senator 
Bunning--stood when this measure came up to extend unemployment 
benefits and said ``I object.'' By saying ``I object'' he stopped the 
payment of unemployment benefits to millions of Americans.
  At that point I came to the floor and said: Explain it.
  He said: I just don't think we should do it.
  I said: Shouldn't we just go to a rollcall and you can vote no?
  No, I object to it.
  And they were about to expire over the weekend.
  So I said to the Senator from Kentucky: I am staying on the floor, 
and I am going to keep renewing the request, and you better stay, too, 
because when nobody is here to object we are going to extend those 
unemployment benefits.
  Members came to the floor to support me. At one point, late in the 
evening, the Senator said: It is 10 o'clock. I want to get home and see 
the University of Kentucky Wildcats basketball game. Why do you keep me 
here?
  It is true. Check the Record.
  Another time, a Republican from South Carolina, a Republican Senator, 
said: I object going to a vote on the Senate floor--forcing us to stay 
in session through Friday and vote on Saturday morning. This was 
Thursday night.
  I don't disagree with the Senator from Kentucky. There is nothing 
wrong with our working 6 days a week and working nights too. So we did. 
We stuck around.
  Then came the Saturday vote, and we looked for the objector, and the 
Senator who objected did not return for the vote. He said he had to 
stay home, that there was a wedding he had to attend. So the rest of us 
had to stay and show 60 votes.
  One of the rules changes that Senator Reid is proposing would 
basically eliminate that. Here is what it boils down to: If you think 
it is important enough to stop the business of the Senate, if you think 
your objection is sufficiently serious to stop the business of the 
Senate, park your fanny on the floor of the Senate and object and don't 
get up and go out to dinner, don't get up and go to a basketball game, 
and don't go home for a wedding. Stick around and show us how serious 
you are about this. If it is not worth your time, then it is not worth 
it for the Senate to stop its action and its business.
  The talking filibuster rule says if the majority of the Senators vote 
to go forward with the debate, but it does not hit the 60-vote level, 
then if you are the objector, stay on the floor. If it is important 
enough for you to stop the Senate, stay here or get an ally, a 
colleague, to stay with you to cover the floor because when you leave 
we are going to renew the request to go back to that measure. If it is 
not worth staying on the floor to object, then it is not worth stopping 
the business of the Senate.

[[Page 15410]]

  I think that is pretty reasonable. Yes, I would say to the Senator 
from Kentucky, I would live by that rule in the minority, which would 
mean I would not object unless it really meant something, unless it 
were worth my time and the time of the Senate to stop that action.
  That is what this is about. How mindless it has been to watch this 
Senate lurch from one cloture vote to another, from one filibuster to 
another, 386 times in the last 6 years. What a colossal waste of time 
and energy and talent.
  I am one of those Senators who believes that I came here to debate 
and vote, even to vote on tough amendments. I think that is part of the 
job. I often quote a former Congressman and great friend of mine, Mike 
Synar from Oklahoma, who used to say: If you don't want to fight fires, 
don't be a firefighter; and if you don't want to vote on controversial 
issues, don't run for the Senate.
  That is what this is about. I agree with him. But for goodness' sake, 
lurching from one tedious, mind-numbing filibuster to the next is no 
demonstration of the strength of this Constitution and the value of the 
Senate.
  Yes, we need to change the rules. We need to change the rules so 
there is more accountability, so that those who would stop the Senate 
and force a filibuster would at least have the decency and courtesy to 
stay on the floor and state their case and not believe they can do this 
in absentia. That is what this is about. I think it is important.
  I have a bill called the DREAM Act. Some people have heard of it. I 
introduced it 11 years ago, I say to the Presiding Officer. I think it 
is one of the most important things I have ever tried to do. But I have 
never passed it. I called it two or three times on the floor of the 
Senate. Every time I got a majority, every time I got a majority, 
always a bipartisan majority, but it never passed. Why? It was being 
filibustered. A Republican filibuster required 60 votes. So for 11 
years literally millions of young people across the country have had 
their fate unresolved because of this Senate procedure.
  I think at some point a majority of the Senate should speak on this 
issue and that should decide the law of the land. The House passed it 3 
years ago. We should pass it here too. The filibuster has stopped it 
over and over.
  Let me make one more point. I see two of my colleagues on the Senate 
floor. The Senator from Kentucky came to the floor and talked about the 
deficit that we face and the issues that challenge us with the fiscal 
cliff. I see the Senator from Virginia. Senator Warner and I have spent 
more time together in his office sitting around a bowl of popcorn with 
some Diet Cokes talking about this deficit and what we can do about it 
than I can even total. I have no idea of how many hundreds of hours we 
spent together in a bipartisan meeting, four Democratic Senators, four 
Republican Senators. We have tried to take the Simpson-Bowles 
Commission, on which I served, and their basic idea and turn it into an 
agreement that we can enact into a law to avoid the fiscal cliff.
  We have come close. We have not closed the deal, I am sorry to say. 
We have come close. There is a feeling on both sides, as the Simpson-
Bowles Commission said:

       Everything should be on the table, revenue, taxes--I can 
     say taxes; they can't say that on the other side of the 
     aisle--revenue, taxes. That accounted for 40 percent of 
     deficit reduction in Simpson-Bowles--40 percent. What we are 
     talking about is making sure any deficit reduction package 
     going forward has a substantial portion of revenue and taxes 
     in it. But we cannot tax the wealthiest people in America and 
     balance the budget. I know that is true. There have to be 
     spending cuts. There also have to be changes in entitlement 
     programs.

  I happen to agree with the majority leader. Social Security does not 
add a penny to the deficit--not one penny. It is a separate trust fund. 
But it only has about 22 years of life left in it. That is pretty good 
by Washington standards, but we can do better.
  I think many of us agree on a bipartisan basis we should make some 
small changes in Social Security today to guarantee it will be here for 
50 years or 75 years. We can do that, but that is a separate debate. 
The debate on the fiscal cliff is about entitlement programs.
  I watched some of my friends on the left, on the Democratic side, 
say: Don't touch the entitlement programs. They are ignoring the 
obvious. Medicare untouched, unchanged, unamended, runs out of money in 
12 years. I plan on being around for 12 years. A lot of folks who are 
seniors do too, and a lot of folks who anticipate retirement expect it 
to be there beyond 12 years. We have to do something. To say we are not 
going to touch Medicare is to ignore the obvious.
  I don't want to go the Paul Ryan voucher route, voucherizing it, 
making it so expensive seniors cannot pay for it. But if we do not put 
our best talents together and make Medicare a program that lasts more 
than 12 years, we are not meeting our obligation to the offices for 
which we ran.
  The last point: Medicaid. What is Medicaid? Insurance, health 
insurance for the poor. One out of three children in the State of 
Illinois, their only health insurance is Medicaid. For more than half 
of the births in Illinois the prenatal care and well-baby care is all 
paid for by Medicaid. But that is not the majority of what Medicaid is 
spent on in my State. Sixty percent is spent on the frail elderly and 
those with mental and physical disabilities who are in institutional 
settings and they are broke. They have Social Security, Medicare, and 
Medicaid to keep them alive.
  When the Paul Ryan budget suggested cutting 37 percent out of 
Medicaid, my question to him is, Which group are you going to cut, 
Paul? The children, the mothers having babies, or the frail elderly?
  Yes, we have to look at this program and find ways to save money so 
it is there when we need it--and we do need it. That needs to be part 
of this discussion.
  I was heartened over the weekend--I will close with this--on a 
television show with Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina who said 
publicly: Regardless of this Grover Norquist pledge, my pledge is to 
the people--I am paraphrasing--my pledge is to the people of America. 
We are going to solve this problem. We need more on both sides of the 
aisle to step up in that spirit to avoid this fiscal cliff. We can. 
With the President's leadership and the cooperation of the Speaker, we 
can get it done.
  For 10 days not much has happened. There has been a big Thanksgiving 
break, a lot of turkey and stuffing, but now let's get back to 
business. We are back in session, House and Senate. Let's roll up our 
sleeves. Let's get it done. We can address this fiscal cliff and set up 
a plan with the President that is reasonable. We need to do that on a 
bipartisan basis.
  I yield the floor.

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