[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 159 (2013), Part 11]
[Senate]
[Pages 16213-16214]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                             THE WORK AHEAD

  Mr. REID. Mr. President, during this 4-week period we are going to do 
a number of things, not necessarily in this order, but we are going to 
consider ENDA, known as the Employment Non-Discrimination Act, which 
would provide basic protections against workplace discrimination on the 
basis of sexual orientation and gender identity. We haven't taken this 
up for a number of years. We tried and failed in the House of 
Representatives before, but we are going to take it up here again.
  We are going to consider a bipartisan bill to make compounding drugs 
safer. As we will recall, there was a terrible tragedy in the 
Northeast, where a number of people died as a result of not compounding 
these products properly. This bipartisan legislation will allow us to 
have safer compounding drugs and track prescription medicines from 
factory to the drug store.
  We are going to consider job creation legislation that will build on 
the economic recovery and strengthen middle-class families, and we are 
going to take up the Defense authorization bill which supports our 
troops and ensures this Nation does everything in its power to keep 
America safe from those who would do us harm.
  Before we debate any of these matters, we must consider a number of 
vital Presidential nominations, including several that have been 
stalled for more than 1 year. One of those is somebody who has been 
wanting to work in the Defense Department, something vitally important 
for the Pentagon, and has been held up for 1 year on an unrelated 
matter. It is too bad, but this has been held up by one Republican 
Senator. So we are going to move forward and do it very quickly.
  It is no secret the Republicans have systemically slow-walked and 
blocked scores of President Obama's judicial and executive branch 
nominations. Pending executive nominations wait an average of 5 months. 
Democrats have broken filibusters of 66 of the President's nominations. 
Republicans have blocked or delayed more than that with secret holds 
and procedural holds.
  As a Senate, we reached an agreement the first of the year to 
consider a number of important nominations that have been stalled for 
months and, in far too many cases, for years. But obstructionism once 
again has reared its ugly head and we have a backlog now. It is time to 
move forward without delay and fill those crucial roles.
  In the wake of a Republican government shutdown, the Nation is 
watching for a sign the Senate can function efficiently and normally. 
It is time to

[[Page 16214]]

show the American people how well and how quickly the Senate can work 
when cooperation is present. Likewise, our colleagues in the House of 
Representatives owe the American people to stop wasting time on 
political show votes and start legislating.
  I have enough trouble with my schedule, but I just have to briefly 
comment on the House schedule. They are going to work until noon on 
Wednesday and then they are taking off the next 10 days. From now until 
the first of the year, they have scheduled 18 working days. That is all 
I will say on that.
  Our colleagues in the House owe it to the American people to move 
forward on legislation. On many of the most important issues of the 
day, the Republican leaders have refused to allow the House of 
Representatives to be heard. Some are allowed to be heard, but Speaker 
Boehner has a rule that Democrats don't get to participate unless he 
can first prove there is a majority of the majority to vote on an 
issue. That is not the way it needs to be.
  We are going to have a celebration here tomorrow on the life of Tom 
Foley. I had the good fortune of serving with him in the House. He came 
from a real conservative district in the State of Washington. He served 
for many years. He was the majority leader, he was the Speaker and a 
fine man. He, similar to the other leaders I served with, O'Neill and 
Wright, tried to get 218 votes to pass a measure. They didn't try to 
get 218 from the Democrats. They had plenty of Democrats and could have 
done that. But everyone was allowed to vote. That is the way it should 
be now. It is too bad it isn't. What has happened over there is the 
Republican leadership has refused to allow the whole House of 
Representatives to work its will.
  Immigration reform is one of the most glaring examples of their not 
allowing the body to run as it used to. Last June the Senate passed a 
commonsense bipartisan bill to fix the broken illegal immigration 
system. It would have strengthened our borders, required undocumented 
people to get right with the law, and put them on a path to 
citizenship. There are about 11 million people. But for 4 months--120-
plus days--the House of Representatives has failed to act on 
immigration legislation. If we brought up a bill, the Senate bill would 
pass overwhelmingly. Even many mainstream Republicans believe House 
Republican leadership should allow a vote on the comprehensive plan to 
amend the broken immigration system. I repeat, if the whole House were 
allowed to vote, it would pass.
  The House also failed to take up the Senate's bipartisan agricultural 
jobs bill--the farm bill, as we call it--a bill that cuts the debt by 
$23 billion and supports 16 million American jobs. They have also 
refused to bring up something so common sense.
  The Presiding Officer, before coming here, was Governor of the State 
of Virginia. I am sure the Presiding Officer, as I have, has gone 
through towns and neighborhoods and seen those little strip malls with 
all these places for lease. If we passed in Congress, as we have done 
in the Senate, the so-called Workplace Fairness Act, it would allow 
these small businesses to get back and rent space allowing it to 
survive. Think of the advantages online retailers have. They don't have 
to pay 5 percent, 7 percent of what the others pay. So it is very 
unfair for these brick-and-mortar places to be left to the mercy of 
these big online folks.
  When we brought up this bill, I got a call from one of the major 
online organizations. They said: We will support your legislation if 
you will put a ceiling that we don't have to do anything until there is 
$5 million in sales. They want $5 million in sales and then pay no 
sales tax--a pretty good deal. We passed--rightfully so--a bipartisan 
bill. The House will not take this up. It is too bad.
  So on these and other issues, it is time for reasonable Republicans 
to raise their voice in the Senate and of course in the House of 
Representatives.
  There has been a troubling trend over the last 3 years. I have been 
troubled to watch these so-called mainstream Republicans be 
marginalized by Members of their own party. It is not the marginal 
people who are being marginalized. It is the mainstream Republicans. 
Even more troubling, moderate Republicans have been complicit in 
allowing this disturbing trend to continue. It is no surprise when tea 
party extremists force our economy to the brink of disaster when they 
shut down the government for the sake of ideological stunts. We saw 
what happened. We weren't surprised that the tea party did this, but I 
was surprised that the sensible mainstream Republicans didn't speak 
up--and speak up sooner--and many didn't speak up at all in defense of 
reason and responsibility.
  Think about that. There are 232 Republicans in the House of 
Representatives. On a vote to open the government after 16 days of 
being closed and defaulting on the debt, only 85 of the 232 voted to 
reopen the government and keep us from defaulting on our debt. That is 
a scary number. So the vast majority of the Republicans in the House 
wanted to keep the government closed and to default on the debt.
  Wow, that is spooky.
  As their more radical colleagues drove the nation and the world to 
the brink of economic collapse, most middle-of-the-road Republicans 
said nothing and did nothing to stop it, which was certainly a surprise 
to me. Although I deplore the behavior of the extremists who sparked 
this month's manufactured crisis--and many of the crises over the past 
3 years--I do not blame only them for holding the United States 
Government's full faith and credit hostage. I also blame the so-called 
main stream Republican colleagues who remained silent even as these 
anarchists among us committed political malpractice. They knew better. 
They should have known better. They know the consequence of default, 
and they know the cost of a government shutdown. Yet they allowed 
members of their own party to take the country down a dangerous road, 
doing irreparable harm to the country and, I believe, to the Republican 
Party.
  As a conference committee sits down to negotiate a long-term budget 
agreement and sets a course for fiscal responsibility, reasonable and 
moderate Republicans, main stream Republicans, must not absent 
themselves from these discussions. A significant number of radical 
Republicans have said they would rather risk default than cooperate or 
compromise with Democrats. Sensible Republicans must not allow these 
radicals to rule the day.
  We, the Democrats, are ready to do the difficult work of finding 
common ground for the good of our country. We don't expect radical tea 
party Republicans to join us, but we do hope our mainstream Republican 
colleagues will find their voices, reclaim their party, and work with 
Democrats to govern once again.

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