[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 158 (2012), Part 13]
[Senate]
[Pages 18646-18647]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                     EXTENSION OF MORNING BUSINESS

  Mr. UDALL of New Mexico. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that 
morning business be extended until 5 p.m., with all other provisions 
remaining in effect.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.


                             RULES CHANGES

  Mr. UDALL of New Mexico. I will finish by thanking my friend, a very 
close colleague on this particular issue, the Senator from Oregon. I 
know he has worked diligently on framing the talking filibuster, trying 
to bring it open, and make it the public process that will work for the 
whole Senate. He has been a key player in all the other rules reform, 
especially those two packages we put forward in the last Congress. I 
thank the Senator from Oregon and I thank the Senator from Maryland.
  I now see on the floor the Senator from Illinois, who also has been 
here for a significant period of time. He has watched the rules 
operate, and I think he believes there has been a lot of abuse and we 
need to get down to the business of reforming these rules in a way that 
is going to work for the minority, because we know we will be in the 
minority sometime and work for the majority, so we can do the work of 
the American people.
  I yield for the Senator from Illinois.
  Mr. DURBIN. I thank the Senator from New Mexico and the Presiding 
Officer, the Senator from Oregon, for their leadership in talking about 
rules reform. They are relatively new to the Senate. I have been here a 
few years and I have seen a dramatic change, and it is not for the 
better.
  I can recall when I came here fresh from the House of 
Representatives, as the Senator from New Mexico did, and I had my first 
amendment on the floor. A lady named Lula, who was the floor manager on 
the Democratic side, came up to help me, this brandnew freshman, with 
this first amendment. She said to me: So let me explain that you have 1 
hour and then the Senator on the Republican side will have 1 hour.
  I said: Well, is that equally divided?
  She said: No, you have an hour.
  To say to a Member of the House ``you have an hour'' is just 
unthinkable. You get an hour for a special order at 11 o'clock at 
night; otherwise, 60 seconds is considered to be a luxury in the House. 
I didn't know what to do with an hour and I certainly didn't use it 
all. But it is an example of a time when amendments came to the floor 
with real debate, and there was a Senator from South Carolina who 
opposed my amendment on the floor as well.
  I can also remember coming to the floor and offering amendments 
literally on the spur of the moment on something I thought was worthy. 
I didn't always win, but that wasn't the point. I wanted to have debate 
and then a vote and it happened. Now that is almost unheard of. We go 
through these vote-athons, where we have these long series of 
amendments with 60 seconds of debate before the vote. It troubles me 
because that isn't what the Senate is supposed to be about.
  I had a friend of mine in the House--the Senator from New Mexico 
probably heard of him--Mike Synar of Oklahoma. Mike Synar used to 
listen to Members of the House of Representatives whining and crying 
about the controversial amendments they were forced to vote on. Mike 
Synar, who was rather candid in his comments, said: If you don't want 
to fight fires, don't be a firefighter. If you don't want to vote on 
controversial amendments, don't run for the House of Representatives. 
That is what we are here for.
  I tend to take the same point of view, maybe because after a few 
years a Senator votes on everything at least once.
  But we have to get back to where we aren't just lurching, as we are 
now, from one quorum call to another, an empty Senate Chamber, waiting 
for something to happen. There is a lot out there for us to talk about, 
and we should. I think the American people would feel a little better 
about us if we sat down and at least honestly debated an issue and 
voted with some frequency.
  What we are trying to do now is to stop what I consider to be the 
gross abuse of the filibuster. What we have been through here has 
destroyed the functionality of the Senate. To think any person can come 
to the floor and basically bring this place to a halt not just for an 
hour or a day but maybe 1 week, that goes way beyond what I believe was 
the intent of creating this body. We wanted to be here in those 
historic moments of titanic debates over issues that changed the course 
of history and to reflect and respect the rights of the minority. But 
now it has become one sad example of obstructionism after another.
  I think the Senator from New Mexico is moving in the right direction. 
I am not sure we will achieve exactly what he wants, but I can say we 
wouldn't have this conversation unless the Senator from New Mexico and 
Senator Merkley had shown such initiative for years--they have been at 
this for years, if I am not mistaken--and I do believe it is going to 
end up in changes to Senate procedure, which I support, that will try 
to make people stay on the floor.
  I have one example. The Senator from New Mexico may remember when a 
Senator from Kentucky, now retired, Senator Jim Bunning, objected to 
the extension of unemployment benefits. We wanted to extend them for 
literally

[[Page 18647]]

millions of Americans, and he stood up at his desk on the Republican 
side and said, ``I object,'' and then sat down. That was the end of the 
story. That was really the end of the debate.
  So I went to the floor, and I said: I just want to give notice to the 
Senator from Kentucky I am going to renew that request every half hour, 
so you better return to the floor--because he has to object every time. 
This was late at night.
  We mobilized a number of people in the cloakroom, and we came to the 
floor and we kept it going. Finally, he got up and complained he was 
missing the University of Kentucky basketball game on television 
because of this. I thought: Several million people are missing 
unemployment benefits because of this too.
  So that is in the nature of what the Senator is trying to achieve. If 
there is something important enough to stop the course of the Senate 
activity, to stop the business of the Senate, then you should be 
prepared to be on the Senate floor and argue your case and bring your 
allies with you. If they will join you, then perhaps you will have a 
debate that is worthy of this body.
  Unfortunately, we now have Members who make their objection and leave 
for dinner or for the weekend or to attend a wedding, which happened 
once, and you do not see them again, and the Senate waits and waits and 
waits. That does have to come to an end.
  I thank the Senator for his leadership on this important issue. I do 
not know that we will take it up tomorrow, but I think we will take it 
up very soon, and we should.
  I thank both Senators.

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