[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 160 (2014), Part 1]
[Senate]
[Pages 486-499]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




           EMERGENCY UNEMPLOYMENT COMPENSATION EXTENSION ACT

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order, the Senate will 
resume consideration of S. 1845, which the clerk will report.
  The legislative clerk read as follows:

       A bill (S. 1845) to provide for the extension of certain 
     unemployment benefits, and for other purposes.

  Pending:

       Reid (for Reed) amendment No. 2631, relating to extension 
     and modification of emergency unemployment compensation 
     program.
       Reid amendment No. 2632 (to amendment No. 2631), to change 
     the enactment date.
       Reid motion to commit the bill to the Committee on Finance, 
     with instructions, Reid amendment No. 2633, to change the 
     enactment date.
       Reid amendment No. 2634 (to (the instructions) amendment 
     No. 2633) of a perfecting nature.
       Reid amendment No. 2635 (to amendment No. 2634), of a 
     perfecting nature.

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Iowa.


                         Restoring Deliberation

  Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, Senator McConnell has made a very 
important call to restore the Senate as the great deliberative body it 
was intended to be. I would like to continue to add my voice to that 
call. In fact, I am going to expand on some observations I made 
previously before the Senate, I believe in the month of December last 
year.
  The Senate is a unique body designed with a very unique purpose in 
mind. In the Federalist Paper 62, attributed to the father of the 
Constitution James Madison, the unique role of the Senate is explained 
this way:

       The necessity of a Senate is not less indicated by the 
     propensity of all single and numerous assemblies to yield to 
     the impulse of sudden and violent passions, and to be seduced 
     by factious leaders into intemperate and pernicious 
     resolutions.

  When Madison talks about ``factious leaders'' and ``intemperate and 
pernicious resolutions,'' he basically means what we call partisanship 
and the ``my way or the highway'' approach to legislating all too 
common these days.
  What might come as a shock to anyone who has followed the Senate 
lately is the fact that the Senate was specifically designed to check 
partisan passions and ensure that Americans of all stripes are fairly 
represented through a deliberative process. Clearly, the Senate is not 
fulfilling the role the Framers of the Constitution intended, in recent 
years.
  To find out what went wrong, we first have to examine how the Senate 
was

[[Page 487]]

supposed to function. About this propensity of legislatures to be 
dominated by factious leaders acting intemperately, Madison goes on to 
say:

       Examples on this subject might be cited without number; and 
     from proceedings within the United States, as well as from 
     history of other nations.

  Note that in advocating for the creation of a Senate to counter this 
negative tendency, Madison references examples from proceedings within 
the United States. Many State legislatures in the early days of our 
Republic were unicameral, with frequent elections and weak executives. 
This led to many instances where a temporary majority faction would 
gain control and quickly pass legislation that advantaged the majority 
at the expense of the minority.
  The Senate has been called the greatest deliberative body in the 
world because it was specifically designed to proceed at a measured 
pace and to guarantee that the rights of the minority party be 
protected.
  James Madison wrote in Federalist Paper No. 10:

       Complaints are everywhere heard from our most considerate 
     and virtuous citizens, equally the friends of public and 
     private faith, and of public and personal liberty, that our 
     governments are too unstable, that the public good is 
     disregarded in the conflicts of rival parties, and that 
     measures are too often decided, not according to the rules of 
     justice and the rights of the minority party, but by the 
     superior force of an interested and overbearing majority.

  What is unique about the Senate is that the rules and traditions 
force Senators to work together to prevent Madison's ``overbearing 
majority'' from steamrolling the minority party. Because the rules of 
the Senate are built around consensus, as opposed to the House of 
Representatives where the majority party dominates, it forces Senators 
of all parties to listen to each other and to work together. While that 
was true most of my time in the Senate, it has changed in recent years. 
If anyone wonders why the tone in Washington has become so heated 
recently, the loss of the Senate as a deliberative body is certainly a 
big factor.
  There is an apocryphal story which may or may not be historically 
accurate but which certainly depicts how the Senate was intended to 
function. The story goes that when Jefferson returned from France, 
where he was serving during the Constitutional Convention, he asked 
George Washington why the Senate had been created. Washington 
supposedly replied by asking Jefferson, ``Why did you pour that tea 
into your saucer?''
  ``To cool it,'' Jefferson said.
  Washington responded, ``Even so, we pour legislation into the 
senatorial saucer to cool it.''
  In the House of Representatives, the Rules Committee sets out the 
terms of debate for each bill. If you want to offer an amendment in the 
House, you have to go hat in hand to the Rules Committee and ask their 
permission. If the House leadership doesn't like your amendment, you 
are out of luck.
  By contrast, the Senate has a tradition of allowing extensive debate 
and amendments by any Senator without prior approval from anybody. 
However, that tradition has gone out the window under the current 
majority leadership. We have seen an unprecedented abuse of cloture 
motions to cut off the deliberative process paired with a tactic called 
filling the tree--blocking amendments from being considered. The Senate 
majority leader has effectively become a one-man version of the House 
Rules Committee, dictating which amendments will be debated and which 
ones will never see the light of day. He has done so again on the 
unemployment bill currently before this Senate. In fact, he has been 
quite unashamed about saying he is not going to allow any amendments. 
This strips the ability of individual Senators to effectively represent 
their State, regardless of political party. Blocking amendments also 
virtually guarantees that any legislation the Senate votes on will be 
more partisan in nature, violating the very purpose of the Senate 
according to James Madison.
  By empowering the majority leader at the expense of individual 
Senators, the people of the 50 States lose their voice in the Senate 
and party leaders get their way instead. The people of Iowa sent me to 
the Senate to represent them, not to simply vote up or down on a purely 
partisan agenda dictated by the majority leader.
  Everyone complains about the lack of bipartisanship these days, but 
there is no opportunity for individual Senators to work together across 
the aisle when legislation is drafted on a partisan basis and 
amendments are blocked.
  Bipartisanship requires giving individual Senators a voice, 
regardless of party. That is the only way to get things done in the 
Senate. In the last decade, when I was chairman of the Finance 
Committee and Republicans controlled the Senate, we wanted to actually 
get things done. In order for that to happen, we knew we had to 
accommodate the minority, we had to have patience and humility and 
respect for that minority--attributes that do not exist on the other 
side anymore. We had some major bipartisan accomplishments, from the 
largest tax cut in history to the Medicare prescription drug program, 
to numerous trade agreements. Those kinds of major bills do not seem to 
happen anymore.
  The Senate rules provide that any Senator may offer an amendment 
regardless of party affiliation. Each Senator represents hundreds of 
thousands to, in the case of California, 36 million Americans, and each 
has an individual right to offer amendments for consideration. The 
principle here is not about political parties having their say but duly 
elected Senators participating in the legislative process.
  Again, as part of our duty to represent the citizens of our 
respective States, each Senator has an individual right to offer 
amendments. This right cannot be outsourced to party leaders. The 
longstanding tradition of the Senate is that Members of the minority 
party as well as rank-and-file Members of the majority party have an 
opportunity to offer amendments and get votes in the Senate.
  The now-routine practice of filling the tree to block amendments has 
been a major factor in the destruction of the Senate as a deliberative 
body. This is usually combined with filing cloture to cut off further 
consideration of a bill, which has occurred to a truly unprecedented 
extent. In a deliberative body, debates and amendments are essential, 
so cloture should be rare. Abuse of cloture strikes to the very heart 
of how the Senate is intended to work.
  It is important to note the majority leader has tried to pass off the 
cloture motions he has filed, which are attempts by the majority party 
to silence the minority party, as nothing but Republican filibusters. 
There seems to have been a concerted attempt to confuse cloture motions 
with filibusters. But the Washington Post fact checker has caught the 
majority leader in this distortion, giving his claim of unprecedented 
Republican filibusters two Pinocchios. In fact, a report by the 
nonpartisan Congressional Research Service called ``Cloture Attempts on 
Nominations: Data and Historical Development,'' written by Richard S. 
Beth, contains an entire section entitled ``Cloture Motions Do Not 
Correspond With Filibusters.''
  The abuse of cloture, often combined with the blocking of amendments, 
prevents all Senators from doing what they were sent to do--not just 
Members of the minority party. It has even gotten worse. Even where the 
majority leader has decided he is going to be open to amendments, he 
has created out of whole cloth new restrictions to limit Senators' 
rights.
  First, he normally only opens the amendment process if there is an 
agreement to limit amendments. This is usually only a handful or so of 
amendments. Then he has magically determined that only germane or 
relevant amendments can be considered. Of course, nowhere do the Senate 
rules require amendments to be germane, other than postcloture. 
Senators elected in the last few years appear to be ignorant of that 
fact. We will hear some of my colleagues argue against an amendment 
saying it is nongermane or nonrelevant. They have fallen totally for 
the majority leader's creative rulemaking, thus giving up one of their

[[Page 488]]

rights as a Senator with which to represent their State.
  I cannot count how many nongermane or nonrelevant amendments I had to 
allow votes on when I processed bills when Republicans were in charge. 
They were usually tough political votes. But we took them because we 
wanted to get things done and that is the way the Senate operated. You 
do not see that nowadays. The current majority avoids tough votes at 
all costs. If you wonder why things do not get done around here in the 
Senate, that is one of the reasons they do not get done.
  The American people sent us to get the work done and to represent our 
constituents and that means voting, not avoiding tough votes. We 
sometimes hear this is a question of majority rule versus minority 
obstruction. Again, that ignores that each Senator is elected to 
represent their State, not simply to be an agent of one of the 
political parties. There are policies that have majority support in the 
Senate that have been denied a vote. Understand, we have been denied 
votes on amendments that even a majority of this Senate supports.
  What happened during debate on a budget resolution proves my point. 
The special rules of the budget resolution limit debate so it cannot be 
filibustered, but it also allows for an unlimited number of amendments. 
A Republican amendment to the Senate Budget Committee in support of 
repealing the tax on lifesaving medical devices in President Obama's 
health care law passed by an overwhelming 79-to-20 vote, with more than 
half of the Democrats voting with the Republicans rather than their 
party leader.
  We also had a Republican amendment in support of the approval of the 
Keystone XL Pipeline to bring oil from Canada, and that passed 62 to 
37. Votes such as these that split the Democrats and hand a win to 
Republicans are exactly what the majority leader has been trying to 
avoid by blocking those very same amendments on legislation. Of course, 
that is probably the explanation of why we did not take up a budget 
resolution for more than 3 years prior to this year.
  Until we put an end to the abuse of cloture and the blocking of 
amendments, the Senate cannot function as James Madison and the Framers 
of the Constitution intended. We must bring back the Senate as a 
deliberative body. Our politics today desperately need the cooling 
saucer of the Senate, as George Washington described the Senate to 
Jefferson. The action by the majority leader to make it easier to 
consider nominations on a purely partisan basis went in the wrong 
direction. In the face of bipartisan opposition and with no Republican 
votes, the so-called nuclear option established a precedent, 
effectively overruling the rules on the books. A better move would be 
for the Senate to establish the precedent that filling the tree and 
abusing cloture to block a full amendment process is illegitimate.
  It is time to restore the Senate so it can fulfill its constitutional 
role. Senator McConnell has made a thoughtful and well-reasoned appeal. 
I hope my colleagues will listen for the sake of this institution, for 
the good of the country as a whole, and out of respect for the Framers 
of the Constitution who set up the Senate as a unique deliberative 
body.
  I yield the floor.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, last week I said on the Senate floor 
that serving in the Senate is becoming like being asked to join the 
Grand Ole Opry and not being allowed to sing. Here is what I meant by 
that. Take last week. The Democratic majority leader from Nevada 
brought up unemployment compensation.
  How do we help unemployed Americans go to work? I can't think of an 
issue more important to our country. All of us have ideas about how to 
do this, but he brought up his idea. It hasn't been considered by a 
committee. When he put it on the floor, he cut off amendments, he cut 
off debate, and he cut off votes.
  Soon we will be discussing minimum wage. How to increase family 
incomes in America is the foremost issue facing our country. We all 
have ideas about that.
  We were elected to deal with it. We have been in a long period of 
unemployment. We believe the economy is bad for a variety of reasons. 
We--on this side--believe a big, wet blanket of rules and regulations 
have been increased by the Obama administration. We want to debate 
that. We want to talk about it. We don't believe the old idea of a 
minimum wage is the solution. We are for maximum new jobs and maximum 
job training and learning opportunities so people can get those jobs. 
We want the economy to grow. We should be debating that. That is why we 
are here. But the Senator from Iowa, my good friend and the 
distinguished chairman of the Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions 
Committee, said, No, we won't hear this in committee. There might be 
embarrassing amendments. So, unfortunately, insofar as the way the 
Senate functions, this year is beginning just as last year ended, and 
Republicans objected to this.
  Some of the news outlets wrote down--I read some of the stories this 
morning--and they said, After a while, the Senate will begin to debate 
internal procedure and process. Sometimes process is important. We have 
something called the U.S. Constitution. It is kind of old-fashioned. It 
has a lot of process in it. In fact, it has a checks-and-balances 
system in it that is envied by the world. There are citizens all over 
the world who would like to have a government that functions in the way 
ours has for over two centuries. Process can be very important. In this 
case, as the Republican leader often says, process and procedure are 
substance, because when we are not able to talk about unemployment 
compensation, when we are not able to offer our ideas about how to help 
unemployed Americans go back to work, that is substance.
  That is a central issue facing our country. We think we have better 
ideas than the idea the majority leader put on the floor and we would 
like to present those ideas on behalf of the people who elected us. We 
are not the important ones. We are all political accidents here--all 
100 of us. We all know that. We worked pretty hard to get here and we 
had some luck to go along with it. What does that give us? Not just a 
chance to have our say, but to have a say on behalf of the people of 
Tennessee, in my case. They want me to weigh in on the big issues 
before our country.
  ObamaCare is one of the reasons so many people are unemployed. I am 
sure the other side doesn't want to talk about that. I wouldn't if I 
voted for it. But I was in a room with the chief executive officer of a 
major restaurant company who told me that because of the new costs of 
ObamaCare on his large company, they were going to start running their 
restaurants with 75 employees instead of 90 employees. That doesn't 
sound like more jobs to me; that doesn't sound like help for unemployed 
Americans.
  This is the forum in which we debate these issues. So I suppose it 
might be embarrassing for our friends on the other side to debate these 
issues, but it shouldn't be. If they believe in them, they should want 
to stand up and defend the issues, just as strongly as we want to say 
our point of view. I suspect there are a good number of my Democratic 
friends who have amendments they would like to offer on putting 
unemployed Americans to work. They might wonder, How did I ever get to 
a U.S. Senate where I can't do that, just as someone might wonder in 
Nashville, why did I join the Grand Ole Opry if they won't let me sing?
  The majority leader's actions go to the very heart of our government. 
It is not about internal procedure, it is not about process. It is 
about the major issues facing our country.

[[Page 489]]

  Tennesseans didn't send me to Washington to rubberstamp the majority 
leader's ideas--not this majority leader or any majority leader. 
Tennesseans sent me here to represent them and to advocate their point 
of view and to give them a say on ObamaCare, on balancing the budget, 
on fixing the deficit, on helping unemployed Americans find jobs, on 
dealing with wages, on raising family incomes. That is why I am here. 
That is my job. And they expect me to have a chance to have not my say 
but their say on the issues that face the American people. By his 
actions, the majority leader is destroying the Senate, which was once 
described as ``the one touch of authentic genius in the American 
political system.''
  There is a new book out which I mentioned on the floor the other day. 
My guess is it will become the leading history of this body. It is 
written by the former Senate Historian, Richard Baker, and the late 
Neil MacNeil, who wrote what many consider to be the best history of 
the House of Representatives. They say in the book that the genius I 
just talked about--``the authentic touch of genius that is the 
Senate''--the major reason for that is the opportunity for extended 
debate.
  They point out, as I think any of us would, that there have been 
abuses with the filibuster, more delays than are necessary; that the 
Senate doesn't work as well as it should not just over the last few 
years but over a long period of time. But the fact is, in this body, 
which is virtually unique in the world in requiring that 60 of 100 
Members must agree before we cut off debate, that helps forge 
consensus. That helps forge consensus, as we did on the student loan 
agreement earlier this year. There is a good example of a good debate, 
of different opinions on both sides of the aisle, of Democrats and 
Republicans working together. When we finally got to 60 or 65, we got a 
result with the Republican House of Representatives and the Democratic 
President going along with us, and it was a victory for the students of 
this country. We cut in half the interest rates they pay and took the 
whole argument out of a political football.
  The Senate was created for three reasons. The first is to encourage 
and forge consensus. We govern a complex society with consensus, not 
with ramrodding partisan ideas through one body or the other. We have a 
body for that; it is called the House of Representatives. Win it by one 
vote--the Rules Committee has two times as many members of the majority 
as the minority, and the majority can pass anything they want to pass. 
Send it over here, and the tradition has been to slow it down and cool 
it off. We take a second look.
  The passions of the democracy--what de Touqueville called in his trip 
across America in the early 1800s--the great danger he saw to our 
country was the tyranny of the majority. He saw that as one of the two 
great dangers to the American democracy. And the Senate has been, 
through all that period of time, the guardian--the guardian of minority 
rights, the guardian against the excesses of the Executive, which in 
our country is the President. The Founders didn't want a king, so they 
set up this elaborate system of checks and balances, and the Senate is 
the key to that.
  What is different about the Senate is the opportunity for extended 
debate. But, the Majority Leader now brings up a bill--one Senator's 
idea--cuts off debate, cuts off amendments, cuts off votes, that is it. 
That is not the way to govern our country, particularly on an issue of 
how do we put unemployed Americans back to work.
  The Senate is losing its capacity to do the things it was created to 
do in the following ways: No. 1, less advice and consent. On November 
21, the Democratic majority decided 60 votes are no longer needed to 
cut off debate on most Presidential nominees. So try asking a nominee: 
Will the National Security Agency stop monitoring the Pope? Now there 
will be no response, because the majority can ram through nominees.
  The Senator from Nevada, the distinguished majority leader, said in 
2006--I heard him and he put it in his book--that cutting off--allowing 
the majority to cut off debate would be the end of the Senate. The end 
of the Senate. Apparently, he changed his mind.
  Operating without rules. The distinguished Senator from Michigan, 
Senator Levin, said on November 21: ``A Senate in which a majority can 
change the rules at any time is a Senate without rules.'' It is as if 
the Red Sox, finding themselves behind in the ninth inning in the World 
Series, added a couple of innings to make sure they won. When he wrote 
the Senate rules, Thomas Jefferson said it is not so important what the 
rule is, but that there be a rule.
  Ignoring Executive orders. While it ignores its own rules, the Senate 
meekly watches as the Obama administration changes the health care law, 
suspends immigration laws, and rewrites labor laws.
  Tolerating more czars. President Obama has appointed more czars than 
the Romanovs did. In both Russia and the United States, czars don't 
report to elected representatives.
  Not passing appropriations bills. Hopefully, that is going to change. 
But the Senate's repeated failure to pass appropriations bills canceled 
the Senate's check on the Executive's power to spend.
  Illegal recess appointments. That is being debated today in the 
Supreme Court. The majority acquiesced when President Obama used his 
recess appointment to appoint members to the National Labor Relations 
Board when the Senate was not in recess. Fortunately, three appellate 
courts disagreed with the President and the Supreme Court will decide. 
Hopefully, the Supreme Court agrees with the appellate courts. 
Otherwise, the Senate might go out for lunch and return and find that 
we have a new Supreme Court Justice.
  There is blame to go around, and I am sure any of my friends on the 
other side who are listening would be quick to point that out. Baker 
and MacNeil pointed that out in their book. There have been abuses of 
the filibuster. It is true that some Republicans have unduly delayed 
nominations and unduly delayed legislation. And that is not new. I have 
seen it in other years. I have pointed out on this floor how Senator 
Allen from Alabama, in the 1970s and 1980s, would tie the Senate into 
knots with his knowledge of the rules. Senator Metzenbaum from Ohio 
would sit right down there on the front row and if a Senator wanted to 
pass a bill, that Senator had to go see him, and if the Senator didn't 
amend his bill to do what Senator Metzenbaum wanted done, he would use 
Senate rules to block it.
  So this has never been an easy place to get something done, but it 
wasn't ever supposed to be. It was supposed to be a place where every 
single Senator is an equal, where every Senator's voice is not his or 
her voice but the voice of people that Senator represents. It is 
supposed to be a place of extended debate where almost any amendment 
can be discussed for almost any length of time, and usually the clock 
is all that would cut the debate off. But there has been a procedure by 
which a consensus can cut it off, and when we reach that consensus, we 
usually reach a result that can even pass unanimously after it has been 
massaged and changed and worked through and considered.
  I think of the legislation we just passed on compounding pharmacies 
and making drugs more safely; making drugs more safe, 4 billion 
prescriptions a year. It went through the committee process, through 
both Houses, and eventually passed unanimously because we reached a 
consensus.
  The delays that have occurred on nominations because, so-called, of 
the changes in rules on November 21 are hardly a crisis. Nonjudicial 
Presidential nominees have almost never been denied their seats by a 
filibuster. Before the November rules change, there were two for 
President Obama, three for President Bush, two for President Clinton, 
and none before that, in history. That is seven. Only seven nonjudicial 
Presidential nominees, in the history of the Senate, had ever been 
denied their seats by a filibuster. Maybe it takes a while, but that is 
so we can ask questions.

[[Page 490]]

  The day before the rules were changed, I looked at the Executive 
Calendar--this calendar we have on our desks. It includes every single 
nomination that can be brought to the floor. If I have my numbers about 
right, there were not many people on the calendar. Half of them have 
been held up by the Senator from South Carolina who is trying to get 
some answers on Benghazi. That has happened many times in this body. If 
Senators want an answer, they do that to make the Executive tell them 
what is going on. There were only 8 nominees, I believe, who had been 
on the calendar for more than 9 weeks and only 16 others who have been 
on for more than 3 weeks.
  So there were not very many people on the Executive Calendar, and we 
had changed the rules to make it easier to confirm them, anyway. There 
were 13 district judges, so the majority leader could bring them up on 
Thursday--Friday is the intervening day--and Monday there could be 2 
hours of debate on each judge, and we could confirm four or five by 
doing it over the weekend in that way. But, no, we had to change the 
rules in the way that it was done.
  The Senate does not need a change of rules; it needs a change in 
behavior. The current majority leader, I would respectfully suggest, 
could start by following the example of Majority Leaders Robert Byrd, a 
Democrat, and Howard Baker, a Republican, during the 1970s and 1980s. 
Here is how they would do things, and this is the way the Senate ran 
until 5 or 6 years ago. Baker and Byrd would bring legislation to the 
floor. Usually they would go to a committee and say to a chairman: We 
will put it on the floor if you and your ranking member of the other 
party agree. So you would have two Members--a chairman and a Republican 
ranking member; not the leaders--standing up there at the two desks. 
They would put the bill on the floor that already had gotten a 
consensus in the committee. Then, the majority leader would ask for 
amendments to the bill, and sometimes he would get 300--300. Then, he 
would ask consent to cut off the offering of amendments and to consider 
voting on them in an orderly way, all of which was written out in the 
unanimous consent agreement. Of course, he would get the unanimous 
consent to do that because everybody who wanted to offer an amendment 
could.
  Then they would go to work. They would start on Mondays, and they 
would work into Monday night and on Tuesday and on Wednesday. They 
would table many of the amendments. That does not take long: 10 minutes 
of debate and table it with 51 votes.
  Senator Byrd said in his book that when the Panama Canal Treaty came 
up at a time when he was the majority leader and Baker was the 
Republican leader, they had 192 amendments and reservations--many of 
them killer amendments--but he allowed every one of them, and he 
defeated every killer amendment. But he said: If we had not allowed 
them, we never would have gotten the ratification of the Panama Canal 
Treaty. The Senators had their say on the Panama Canal Treaty.
  So after a while, those 300 amendments that might have been offered 
on Monday are whittled away. Some are accepted, some are dropped, some 
are voted on, some are tabled, and by about Thursday--the majority 
leader has said at the beginning of the week: We are going to finish 
the bill this week--people are ready to go home. Then they begin to 
think more carefully about whether their amendment is really that 
important. So they vote Thursday night, and they maybe vote Friday, and 
if they have to, they vote Saturday. But most of the time they finish 
their work on Friday.
  They were not afraid, those majority leaders, to allow amendments. 
They were not afraid to defeat amendments. I believe if the majority 
leader would allow the Senate to work in this way, he would not have 
any problem on this side of the aisle with efforts to keep bills from 
coming to the floor. Almost all of the effort to keep bills from coming 
to the floor has to do with minority Members not being allowed to have 
the say of the people who elected them to serve.
  Instead, the majority leader has set records for bringing legislation 
to the floor without committee approval, cutting off amendments, and 
records for cutting off debate. So there are no votes on reforming 
military sexual assaults, completing Yucca Mountain, sanctioning Iran, 
and other vital concerns, no votes on unemployment compensation or how 
to put unemployed America to work.
  The Senate has become a Tuesday-Thursday club run by one Senator and 
orchestrated by the White House. One reason this is tolerated is that 
43 Senators are in their first term--43 Senators are in their first 
term--most of them in the majority. They have never served in the 
minority. They have never seen the Senate function properly, the way it 
functioned for most of its 200-plus year history.
  Most importantly, those Senators in their first term may not have 
heard Senator Byrd's final address when, among other things, he said 
that any majority leader could run the Senate under the then-existing 
rules. I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record, following 
my remarks, an article from the Wall Street Journal from last Friday on 
this subject.
  In an important address last week, Mr. McConnell, the Senator from 
Kentucky, the Republican leader, described three ways to restore the 
Senate: full committee consideration of bills; bills thoroughly 
debated, with robust amendments on the floor; and a decent week's work. 
We might work Monday through Friday instead of Tuesday through 
Thursday.
  The Senate could change overnight. It does not need a change of 
rules. The Senator from Kentucky did not say that it has always been 
easy to navigate the Senate. The ideal regular order never has and 
never will be without exceptions. But what we call the regular order 
has become the exception rather than the rule.
  I would hope we do not wait until November or the next year to 
restore the Senate to its proper place as the authentic piece of genius 
in the American government--the unique body, the unique Senate in the 
world because of the opportunity for extended debate. It could change 
overnight by considering bills most of the time that went through 
committee, most of the time having a robust amendment process and 
debate on those bills, and vote on them. If it took Monday through 
Friday to get that work done, then we should do it. Otherwise, the 
great issues facing our country--what kind of health care system do we 
have? How do we help unemployed Americans go to work? How do we improve 
learning opportunities in this new America, where so much is 
decentralized and so much is on social media?
  These are very exciting times. Daniel Boorstin, the former historian 
of the United States and Librarian of Congress, in his wonderful books 
on America, used to talk about verges, that when America was at a 
verge--and we have been there many times in our history--that we were 
more open to innovation, that we were more self-aware of where we were, 
that we tended to rely on each other, and that we changed our country 
for the better.
  That is where we are today. We want better learning opportunities, 
better job training, better health care. Washington is in the way of 
much of that, and we need to debate how to change that.
  So I would hope my friend, the distinguished majority leader, will 
listen to what the Republican leader had to say and reflect on the many 
years he has served here and realize all we are saying is we would like 
to have a say on behalf of the people who elected us on the great 
issues facing our country. Bring a bill through committee, bring it to 
the floor, let us have debate--defeat our amendments; you should be 
able to with a tabling motion--and then let's come to a result.
  I think the American people would gain much more confidence in the 
Senate because it would deserve more confidence if it conducted issues 
in that way. But this diminishing of the Senate is tragic for a country 
with large problems to solve and whose system of checks and balances 
has been envied around the world.

[[Page 491]]

  I thank the Presiding Officer.
  I yield the floor.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

             [From the Wall Street Journal, Jan. 10, 2014]

                      Harry Reid's Senate Shutdown

                       (By Kimberley A. Strassel)

       The popular judgment that Washington's dysfunction is the 
     result of ``partisanship'' misses a crucial point. Washington 
     is currently gridlocked because of the particular 
     partisanship of one man: Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. 
     And Republicans are warming to the power of making that case 
     to voters.
       It's often said the 113th Congress is on track to become 
     the ``least productive'' in history--but that tagline 
     obscures crucial details. The Republican House in fact passed 
     more than 200 bills in 2013. Some were minor, and others drew 
     only GOP votes. But nearly a dozen were bipartisan pieces of 
     legislation that drew more than 250 Republicans and Democrats 
     to tackle pressing issues--jobs bills, protections against 
     cyberattack, patent reform, prioritizing funding for 
     pediatric research, and streamlining regulations for 
     pipelines.
       These laws all went to die in Mr. Reid's Senate graveyard. 
     Not that the Senate was too busy to take them up. It passed 
     an immigration and a farm bill. Yet beyond those, and a few 
     items Mr. Reid was pressed to pass--the end-year sequester 
     accord; Hurricane Sandy relief--the Senate sat silent. It 
     passed not a single appropriations bill and not a single jobs 
     bill. Of the 72 (mostly token) bills President Obama signed 
     in 2013, 56 came from the House; 16 came from the chamber 
     held by his own party.
       This is the norm in Mr. Reid's Senate, and for years he has 
     been vocally and cleverly blaming the chamber's uselessness 
     on Republican filibusters. This is a joke, as evidenced by 
     recent history. Mr. Reid took over the Senate in early 2007, 
     and it functioned just fine in the last two years of the Bush 
     administration. It didn't suddenly break overnight.
       What did happen is the Senate Democrats' filibuster-proof 
     majority in the first years of the Obama administration--when 
     Mr. Reid got a taste for unfettered power--and then the GOP 
     takeover of the House in 2011. That is when the Senate broke, 
     as it was the point at which Mr. Reid chose to subvert its 
     entire glorious history to two of his own partisan aims: 
     Protecting his majority and acting as gatekeeper for the 
     White House.
       Determined to protect his vulnerable members from tough 
     votes, the majority leader has unilaterally killed the right 
     to offer amendments. Since July, Republicans have been 
     allowed to offer . . . four. Determined to shield the 
     administration from legislation the president opposes, Mr. 
     Reid has unilaterally killed committee work, since it might 
     produce bipartisan bills. Similarly, he's refused to take up 
     bills that have bipartisan support like approving the 
     Keystone XL Pipeline, repealing ObamaCare's medical-device 
     tax, and passing new Iran sanctions.
       Here's how the Senate ``works'' these days. Mr. Reid writes 
     the legislation himself, thereby shutting Republicans out of 
     the committee drafting. Then he outlaws amendments.
       So yes, there are filibusters. They have become the GOP's 
     only means of protesting Mr. Reid's total control over what 
     is meant to be a democratic body. It isn't that the Senate 
     can't work; it's that Sen. Reid won't let it.
       Pushed over the brink by Mr. Reid's November power play--
     scrapping the filibuster for Obama nominees--Senate Minority 
     Leader Mitch McConnell began 2014 with a rip-roaring Senate-
     floor speech. On Wednesday he set the record straight on the 
     Reid tactics that have created Senate dysfunction. He then 
     outlined how a GOP majority would restore regular order and 
     get Washington working. This is a ``debate that should be of 
     grave importance to us all,'' he said.
       It's of growing importance to Republicans, who are taking 
     up this theme in speeches and media briefings--putting 
     greater attention on Mr. Reid's singular role in Washington 
     paralysis. Asked this week whether the GOP would be allowed 
     to amend an unemployment-benefits bill, Sen. John McCain 
     quipped: ``you'll have to go ask the dictator.'' Speaker John 
     Boehner, at a recent news conference, lamented the ``dozens'' 
     of House bills that ``await action in the Senate,'' while 
     Majority Leader Eric Cantor berated Mr. Reid for sitting on 
     ``bipartisan'' jobs legislation.
       This brings to mind Republican Sen. John Thune's 2004 
     defeat of South Dakota's Tom Daschle, which he did partly by 
     highlighting Mr. Daschle's obstructionist majority-leader 
     record. The comparison isn't perfect, since Mr. Daschle was 
     up for re-election (Mr. Reid is not) and since the 
     obstructionism was more noticeable at a time when the GOP ran 
     both the House and White House. Then again, the Reid theme is 
     the sort that will resonate with the GOP grass roots, 
     refocusing their efforts on a Senate victory.
       In an election that is going to be about ObamaCare, 
     Republican Senate candidates are already reminding voters 
     that it was Mr. Reid's Senate abuse that created the law. And 
     in the wake of the shutdown and endless government-created 
     ``crises,'' more Americans are worried about the state of 
     Washington institutions, and eager for change.
       ``Process'' arguments are hard to make to voters, but Mr. 
     Reid is a face for the process problem. Demoting Harry Reid 
     won't in itself fix Washington. But it would be a grand 
     start--and that alone makes it a potentially powerful 
     campaign theme.

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Utah.
  Mr. HATCH. Mr. President, we are currently debating yet another 
extension to the emergency unemployment compensation program. While 
there are differences of opinion in this Chamber about this particular 
program, I think we would all agree that the fact we are even having 
this debate is unfortunate.
  Make no mistake, our Nation continues to face difficulties when it 
comes to job growth, labor force participation, and long-term 
unemployment, as has been the case throughout the Obama administration. 
Under this administration, it has been harder to find a job than at any 
other point in our Nation's recent history.
  But let's be clear about something. The plight of the long-term 
unemployed is not the major problem facing America today. It is, 
instead, just a symptom of a much larger problem.
  That larger problem is the fact that despite the efforts of many of 
us here in Congress, our government has not done enough to promote 
economic growth in this country. Far too often, our government has 
interfered in ways that have stunted growth and prevented a robust 
recovery from taking place.
  Five years into his Presidency, it is clear that President Obama does 
not have a plan to address these problems. Surely, he has a list of 
ways that he would like to expand the government and redistribute 
income but nothing resembling a plan to promote private-sector job 
growth. Instead, he has a political plan of attack, and this debate 
over unemployment insurance is part of that attack plan.
  Over the last 5 years we have seen a series of big-government 
``solutions'' that have all failed to produce real economic results.
  The administration pushed through the supposed temporary stimulus, 
which ended up being little more than a laundry list of longtime 
Democratic Party policy priorities that had little or nothing to do 
with actually stimulating the economy. The administration also decided 
to devote its attention to expanding the alphabet soup of financial 
regulators, while failing to address factors that were at the heart of 
the recent financial crisis.
  Lacking ideas of its own, the Obama administration created and turned 
to a Jobs Council to try to understand private job creation, only to 
later dissolve the council while not having instituted any meaningful 
policies to create jobs.
  The largest and most intrusive big-government edict we received from 
the administration and its allies in Congress is, of course, ObamaCare. 
On a daily basis, the American people continue to suffer from the 
impact of this very misguided law.
  People have lost their jobs or have been moved into part-time work. 
People have been forced off their health care plans. People have been 
forced, under fear of penalty, to purchase insurance coverage they do 
not want or need. People have had their private and financial 
information put at risk thanks to the lack of security in the ObamaCare 
exchanges, and perhaps worst of all, people have seen the cost of their 
health care go up across the board.
  ObamaCare is the worst in a series of bad economic policies we have 
seen since this President came into office.
  The results speak for themselves. At the beginning of a new year, we 
see very clearly what the President and his Democratic allies in 
Congress plan to do about all of this. The answer is nothing. Instead 
of working with us to enact projob and progrowth policies, they are 
picking fights with Republicans on issues such as unemployment 
insurance. Instead of trying to root out the causes of our economic 
problems, they are giving speeches vilifying anyone who might have a 
different view on these issues.
  As I said, President Obama and the Senate Democrats have no economic

[[Page 492]]

plan, only a political plan of attack. Let's consider this debate on 
unemployment compensation insurance for a moment. I think there are 
many who would question why we did not have this debate about extending 
long-term unemployment benefits sooner. Democrats knew that temporary 
Federal unemployment benefits for the long-term unemployed were 
scheduled to expire at the end of 2013. Yet they did nothing to try to 
extend them before now.
  Contrary to what some of my colleagues on the other side seem to 
believe, Republicans do not run the Senate. We do not control the 
committees. We do not run things on the floor. As we are seeing in the 
current debate over unemployment benefits, we do not even get a chance 
to offer amendments to many major pieces of legislation. Why is that? 
Why is it that the greatest deliberative body in the world can no 
longer offer amendments? It comes down to one thing--the Democratic 
leadership. They are afraid we might bring up amendments that are 
difficult for Democrats to vote on. Join the crowd. That has always 
been the case around here before this current leadership took over.
  Every leader has tried to protect their side, but this has gone to 
the point of ridiculousness and the denigration of the Senate itself. 
The Democrats could have offered an extension of Federal unemployment 
benefits at any time before they expired in 2013. We could have debated 
the merits of the emergency unemployment compensation program, 
discussed alternatives, and perhaps even come up with a bipartisan 
compromise to help the long-term unemployed.
  We could have even done that through regular order and using the 
committee process. But instead, Democrats ignored the program for an 
entire year, and in the very last days of the last congressional 
session and after we had adjourned for the year, we finally started 
hearing about the desperate need to protect the long-term unemployed, 
about how it was the highest priority for the President and Democrats 
in Congress to extend these benefits, and about those villainous 
Republicans standing in the way.
  There are only two conclusions to draw from this: Either the 
Democrats forgot about unemployment benefits until the end of the year 
or they calculated it was better suited for their political attack plan 
to let them expire and then debate an extension afterward. I think it 
is pretty clear which conclusion is the correct one, especially since 
they control the Senate and they control the committees. They could 
have done just about anything they wanted.
  So here we are debating another extension of the EUC Program, the 
Emergency Unemployment Compensation Program. We may as well be debating 
the merits of using a bandaid on a broken arm because, as I said, long-
term unemployment is merely a symptom of the failures of the Obama 
economy. However, since the Democrats opted to put off this matter 
until we were actually beyond the last minute, we have not enacted or 
even debated any serious alternatives to Federal unemployment benefits 
and we are left with just another take-it-or-leave-it proposition from 
the majority leader.
  That is what the majority leader seems to be saying to us. In fact, 
that is what he is saying to us in this debate--take it or leave it. 
Why would he do that? Apparently, no Republicans, not even the ones who 
supported cloture on the motion to proceed, will get an opportunity to 
offer amendments. The only amendment we will be voting on is the so-
called compromise amendment the majority leader offered last Thursday. 
Of course, the amendment is not a compromise at all. It is nothing of 
the sort. Similar to the underlying bill it would add significantly to 
the deficit. The supposed pay-fors in the amendment would not even kick 
in under the normal 10-year budget window. Indeed, the Democratic whip 
in the House was voicing concern about using so-called savings from 
extending the sequester outside of the 10-year window asking, 
``Frankly, if you adopt that logic, why don't we extend it until 2054 
and fund everything we want to do?''
  That is a dream some Democrats have. But fortunately there may be 
some people on the other side who realize this is a charade. In short, 
the amendment we will be voting on this afternoon, if we do, is a 
gimmick. It is designed solely to allow the majority to claim they are 
willing to pay for extending unemployment benefits, nothing more, 
nothing less.
  Once again, this is apparently the only amendment we will get a 
chance to vote on when it comes to extending the Emergency Unemployment 
Insurance Compensation Program, which is par for the course under the 
current Senate majority. It is pretty clear what my colleagues in the 
majority want to do. Contrary to their claims, passing this legislation 
and extending unemployment benefits is not their highest priority. 
Their highest priority is to use the long-term unemployed as pawns in 
their political attacks on Republicans who support a different 
approach; one that is paid for, fairly paid for, honestly paid for, and 
understandably paid for.
  If I am wrong and my colleagues on the other side of the aisle are 
serious about wanting to extend this program, why would they not allow 
votes on Republican amendments or even Democratic amendments? There are 
some complaints on the Democratic side--even we the Democrats, they are 
saying, do not have the privilege of bringing up amendments.
  As we continue, the committees are a waste of time under the way the 
Senate is currently being run, because everything is run right out of 
the leader's office. Republicans have offered a number of amendments to 
the underlying legislation. Why not allow them to come up for a vote? 
Are they afraid we might pass some Republican amendments when they have 
55 Democrats in the Senate? If, as the majority leader has claimed, 
none of our ideas is serious enough to warrant consideration, why not 
bring them up and let Democrats who have a majority in the Senate vote 
them down? That could have been done.
  The problem is they know some of these amendments are worthwhile, 
worthy amendments that might pass. It might cause some heartburn to 
some on both sides maybe. I am certainly used to heartburn over the 
years, I will tell you that.
  Republicans have offered a number of amendments to the underlying 
legislation. Why not allow them to come up for a vote? If, as the 
majority leader has claimed, our ideas are not serious enough to 
warrant consideration, why not allow them to be brought up, limit the 
time for the debate, and let the Democrats, who once again have a 
majority in the Senate, vote them down?
  The only conclusion we can draw is that they are afraid, if we held a 
vote, some of our amendments might actually pass, which would distract 
from the political message they want to send with this debate on the 
floor. The minority leader and I have offered such an amendment, one I 
believe would actually pass if it were to receive a vote.
  It is something that makes a lot more sense than what is going on 
here over the last number of days, weeks maybe. I would like to just 
take a few minutes to talk about our amendment, the McConnell-Hatch 
amendment. The McConnell-Hatch amendment would, if enacted, extend the 
Emergency Unemployment Compensation Program for a full year, taking 
unemployment benefits out of the 2014 political equation entirely. I 
would think my colleagues on the other side would jump at that kind of 
opportunity. In addition to this fix on the unemployment insurance 
issue, the McConnell-Hatch amendment would fix the military pension 
problems created under the recent budget agreement which has caused so 
much angst and heartburn among our military, among those who are 
serving our country in that manner.
  There is bipartisan support for this endeavor. I believe we can fix 
it here and now. Best of all, unlike the underlying bill and the 
``compromise'' offered at the end of last week, the McConnell-Hatch 
amendment is fully paid for within the normal 10-year budget window. In 
fact, it reduces the deficit by more than $1 billion over 10 years and 
does it in a fair, honest way.

[[Page 493]]

  One way it pays for the extension is to close the loophole in the law 
that allows people to claim both unemployment insurance and Social 
Security disability insurance. The majority leader claims he wants to 
do this. But our amendment does it in a much more efficient way, 
something that makes economic sense. However, the primary pay-for in 
our amendment, which once again allows us to extend unemployment 
benefits for a full year and fix the military pensions issue is a 1-
year delay in the ObamaCare individual mandate--a 1-year delay. That is 
it.
  I know some of my friends on the other side, including the 
distinguished majority leader, have already deemed this proposal 
controversial. But it should not be. The problems with the 
implementation of ObamaCare have been fully cataloged at length on the 
floor and elsewhere. No one in their right mind would argue that the 
implementation is going well--nobody. It is not going well.
  This would give them a chance to amend this bill over the next year, 
although I do not think we can amend the bill--but at least give them a 
chance to. Sooner or later they are going to have to do it anyway. So 
what do they give up? Members of both parties have come out in support 
of delaying the individual mandate--of both parties, not just 
Republicans but Democrats. They know it is a disaster.
  Regardless of where you stand on ObamaCare, if you support it or if 
you, as I do, want to see it repealed, delaying the mandate is a 
bipartisan idea and it makes sense. What are they afraid of? With a law 
this unpopular and a rollout going this badly, I would think that many 
of my friends on the other side of the aisle would get on board with a 
1-year delay. Once again, such a delay would allow us to pay for a 
less-politicized extension of Federal unemployment benefits as well as 
allow us to fix our military pension problems.
  It is a win-win proposition. It is hard for me to understand why they 
will not do this. As I said, I know the Senate Democratic leadership 
despises this idea. They have already come to the floor and 
mischaracterized it on a number of occasions. However, I believe that 
if this approach, the 1-year extension of unemployment benefits and the 
military pension fix, paid for primarily by a 1-year delay in the 
individual mandate, were brought to a vote in the Senate, Members of 
both parties would support it.
  It would be a bipartisan approach to these things that would be 
worthwhile. The same can be said for any number of amendments my 
colleagues have offered. I may be wrong about that, but I do not think 
I am. If I am wrong, what is the harm in having a vote on the 
McConnell-Hatch amendment? What is the harm in having a vote on any of 
the amendments Republicans have offered? What are my colleagues on the 
other side of the aisle afraid of?
  We have been putting up with this now for too long a time. I remember 
the Senate when both sides worked together all the time. They battled 
even though they differed. They allowed amendments to come up even 
though sometimes it caused some heartburn to people on one side or the 
other. But we did it because this is a legislative body of freedom, 
which it has devolved in a way that there is not freedom. What is the 
harm in having a vote on any of the amendments? Let's have a limited 
number of amendments, not two, three or four. This is an important 
bill. Let's have some amendments that even Republicans can offer.
  There are some Democratic amendments too. I suppose they may have 
some heartburn for Republicans. So what. What are my colleagues on the 
other side of the aisle afraid of? Once again, I do not think the 
Senate Democratic leadership is worried that I am wrong about some 
Democrats supporting the McConnell-Hatch amendment. They are worried I 
might be right. That is why my amendment will not receive a vote.
  That is why as of right now, it appears no Republican amendments will 
receive votes, unless it happens among the few who were willing to 
support the first vote. Even then, I doubt they will have any votes. As 
I said, it seems as though Democrats are far more worried about sending 
a political message about unemployment insurance than they are with 
actually passing an extension. That is unfortunate. It is truly 
shameful.
  However this debate unfolds, one issue is clear: The approach the 
President is taking is not working.
  The economic approach the President is taking is not working. The tax 
approach the President is taking is not working. The so-called 
``Affordable Care Act'' approach the President is taking is fraught 
with problems that could be solved if the Senate is allowed to truly 
work the way the Senate always has in the past. The approach the 
President and the Senate Democratic leadership is taking isn't working.
  We are not creating jobs at a time when Americans need them. 
Americans need jobs, and we are not generating the type of growth that 
will allow for such job creation in the near future.
  As far as I can see, we have two choices. We can either have these 
same fights over and over or we can work together to fix the real 
underlying problems facing our country instead of focusing on the 
symptoms and always playing the ridiculous game of politics.
  I hope we will choose to work together. But if the tactics we have 
seen thus far on unemployment legislation are any indication, I think I 
am likely to end up quite disappointed.
  I am concerned about the Senate. I am concerned about some of the 
very power-striking poses that have been going on around here that do 
not allow the Senate to work its will, do not allow for real 
bipartisanship, do not allow for bringing us together, and do not allow 
for decency on both sides. These are just plain power-seeking 
approaches that do not deserve praise.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Minnesota.
  Mr. FRANKEN. Mr. President, I rise in support of the Emergency 
Unemployment Compensation Extension Act.
  I am pleased a 3-month extension of unemployment insurance for 
millions in Minnesota and across the country was able to clear its 
first hurdle in the Senate, but our work of course is not finished.
  I urge my colleagues in the House and the Senate to pass an extension 
to renew these critical benefits so hard-pressed families in Minnesota 
and across our Nation can keep their heads above water while they 
search for work.
  As I have traveled around Minnesota, I have heard from a lot of 
Minnesotans who wish to work. On Friday I had a roundtable conference. 
There were three women and some workforce professionals. These women 
are looking hard and have been looking. They are part of the long-term 
unemployed. These are women who were working: one is in her forties 
with two kids--one little kid, a 3-year-old child, a single mom; one 
was in her fifties; and one was about my age, in her early sixties.
  While they are looking for jobs--and we had a professional there who 
said one of the hardest jobs is looking for a job. They need the 
unemployment insurance to stay in their homes and to put food on the 
table for their families.
  In the wake of the worst recession since the Great Depression, too 
many people had good jobs and worked their entire lives--all of these 
women who had worked their entire lives had 20-, 30-, and 40-year 
careers and now they are out of work and remain out of work.
  Unemployment remains high, and the long-term unemployment rate among 
workers who have been looking for work for at least 6 months has 
weighed down our economy. Today more then 4 million Americans, 37 
percent of the unemployed, have been out of work for 6 months. This is 
the worst long-term unemployment since the Great Recession. That is why 
we need to extend the emergency unemployment compensation. These 
workers, the millions throughout the country, are worried they will 
lose their ability to pay for a roof over their heads and put food on 
the table for their families, for their children.
  For most Americans, State-funded unemployment insurance runs out

[[Page 494]]

after 26 weeks. Yet the average unemployment spell now lasts over 2\1/
2\ months longer. Emergency unemployment benefits provide for up to an 
additional 47 weeks of unemployment insurance for those Americans who 
need it while they are looking for a job.
  When I talk about high long-term employment, these women, every one 
of them I talked to, were working very hard every day. One woman 
described it as saying: I am looking 24 hours a day. I have my 
smartphone, and I am hoping 24 hours a day that I get something, a 
response, an interview.
  Right now we have three people looking for every job opening, but 
that doesn't mean that when someone applies for a job, there are only 
two other people looking. These women were telling me every time they 
applied for a job there were several hundred people looking. Very often 
they will apply for a job that a company announces, and the company 
will hire someone from inside the company, which is great for that 
person.
  But this is not about people waiting for their unemployment to run 
out and then look for a job. That is not what it is about.
  After Christmas, 1.3 million Americans lost their jobs and who are 
looking for work, including 8,500 Minnesotans. They lost this critical 
lifeline of unemployment compensation.
  Remember, these women I talked about paid in. I am talking about 20 
years of working, 30 years of working, 40 years in the workforce. If we 
don't renew these benefits over the next year, that lifeline will run 
out for another 3.6 million people, including 65,000-plus Minnesotans.
  While Minnesota has been fortunate to have a lower unemployment rate 
than other States, I believe the 65,000 Minnesotans who will lose 
benefits without an extension deserve our support as they are looking 
for work.
  Congress has never allowed special extended unemployment benefits to 
expire when the long-term unemployment rate is as high as it is today. 
In fact, at 2.5 percent, the long-term unemployment rate is nearly 
double the level when previous emergency benefits were allowed to 
expire. The current unemployment rate of 6.7 percent is far above 
nearly all previous rates seen at expiration and is 1.1 percent higher 
than when President George W. Bush signed the current round of benefits 
into law.
  As I said, on Friday I met with several unemployed Minnesotans. Two 
out of the three were affected by our not extending the emergency 
unemployment insurance.
  I wish to share a little bit of their stories but also people who 
have written in, Minnesotans who have reached out to me about how 
failing to extend unemployment insurance will affect them.
  John from Cushing, MN, wrote in December:

       I am a 58 year old sales and marketing professional that 
     was laid off due to a force reduction and have been 
     unemployed for a year. I have not been able to find even part 
     time work. I have exhausted my severance package and most of 
     my liquid savings just to cover financial obligations and 
     essentials such as food and utilities. Additionally, I do not 
     have any health care coverage as my income has been limited 
     to unemployment compensation. Now that the Federal Extension 
     is about to expire, beginning next week I will have zero 
     income and no job offer pending. I would appreciate your 
     support in doing what you can to re-instate the Federal 
     Unemployment Extension in Minnesota as for me personally, it 
     is of extreme need and I would expect many others around the 
     country may also be in such dire straits.

  Almost half--I believe it is the majority of Americans--sometime in 
their lives hit a hard patch and our job is to be there for them.
  Debbie from White Bear Lake wrote:

       There are many of us out here who will run out of benefits 
     next year and are still unable to find a decent job. I have 
     been out of work for over 4 months and am spending at least 
     5-6 hours a day (EVERY day) looking for a job. While this may 
     not seem that long, I am already concerned about my state 
     unemployment running out and having nothing. . . . The people 
     that actually work are the ones that spend money to help the 
     economy.

  She is right. We know from CBO that if we extend unemployment 
insurance these people spend the money and it goes immediately out in 
the economy and actually the CBO says this will sustain about 200,000 
additional jobs. If we don't do this, we will create 200,000 less jobs 
over the next year.
  On Friday I met with Ann from Eden Prairie, who wrote:

       I have unfortunately been unemployed since being downsized 
     from a small consulting organization in April, 2013. . . . I 
     have been extremely active in my job search--

  Boy, has she. I will say all of these women were upgrading their 
skills. Some of them had gone back to school to upgrade their skills 
and are still not being successful in finding work.
  She continues:

       --but have regrettably not found new unemployment. My 
     Minnesota Unemployment Insurance ran out last week and I 
     applied for Federal Emergency Unemployment Compensation just 
     this past week. I understand it's going to expire at the end 
     of the month.

  She wrote to me in December.

       I ask you to please ask yourself what you would do to 
     provide for your family. I have a 9 year old daughter . . . 
     and a three year old son. I am the sole provider for my 
     family. I volunteer extensively at the school and elsewhere 
     in my community. . . .

  She is a volunteer. She does that, but she also volunteers looking 
for a job. She is networking in her volunteer work. She is volunteering 
for her kids' school, for her 9-year-old's school.
  She told me the 3-year-old went to preschool 5 days a week, then 4 
days, then 3 days, then 2 days, and now 1 day a week--and how hard is 
it to look for a job with a 3-year-old.
  She continues: ``I am not looking for a handout, nor do I believe 
that staying on unemployment insurance is in my best interest.''
  But she says it ``will at least allow me to make my mortgage 
payment.''
  Doug, from Bloomington, wrote that he and his family will lose their 
home if we allow benefits to expire.
  He says:

       I unfortunately lost my job due to the economy last March . 
     . . each position that I apply for has at least 500 
     candidates applying for the same position. If the Federal 
     unemployment extension is not approved, my family and I will 
     be homeless within a month! I have even tried to apply for 
     ``temporary positions,'' however, they always reply that I am 
     overly qualified!

  We talked about this in the roundtable. We also had professionals 
there who are professional workforce people and are counselors. These 
people are working it. There was a woman in her fifties who said: They 
will not take me at McDonald's because they figure if I get some other 
job I will leave and it costs to train them.
  It truly troubles me that those who have worked and contributed to 
our society the longest, I am saying 20, 30, 40 years, have been 
particularly hit hard by long-term unemployment; in other words, older 
workers who lose their jobs have experienced longer periods of 
unemployment than younger workers. Part of that is age discrimination. 
That age discrimination has made it more difficult for older workers to 
bounce back when they lose their jobs. According to AARP, 34 percent of 
older workers seeking work reported they had experienced, or know 
someone who has experienced, age discrimination in the past 4 years. 
This was the experience of all three of the women I talked to.
  Extending unemployment insurance isn't just the right thing to do to 
help our fellow Americans who are out of work and searching for a job, 
it is also the smart thing to do for our economy. As I said, in 2011, 
the Congressional Budget Office said that aid to the unemployed is 
among the policies with ``the largest effects on output and employment 
per dollar of budgetary cost.'' CBO estimates that extending benefits 
through 2014 will help expand the economy and contribute to the 
creation of an additional 200,000 jobs. The Council of Economic 
Advisers estimates without a full-year extension, the economy will 
generate 240,000 fewer jobs by the end of 2014.
  We know unemployment benefits work. The Census Bureau estimates that 
unemployment benefits kept 2.5 million people who are trying to stay in 
the workforce out of poverty in 2012 alone and have kept over 11 
million unemployed workers out of poverty since 2008. Countless local 
businesses feel the positive effects when the unemployed

[[Page 495]]

are able to keep buying their basic necessities--food, utilities, gas, 
so they can drive to look for a job.
  Unemployment insurance isn't the only thing we should be doing to 
help the unemployed either. There are lots of things we can and should 
be doing. There are more than 3 million jobs in this country that could 
be filled today if there were workers who had the right skills. With 
too many Americans unemployed, we have to find a way to fill those 
jobs, to train those workers. We should be helping workers get the 
training they need to fill the high-tech jobs that are growing in 
Minnesota and across the country--in Maine, in Alabama, in the State of 
every Senator I talk to in this Chamber when I talk about the skills 
gap and manufacturing returning to this country--but we don't have the 
skilled workers, and this at a time of such high long-term 
unemployment. We need to be training a workforce for the 21st century.
  Sometimes these jobs are in advanced manufacturing. Sometimes this 
training takes 2 years, but we need to do it. We should be helping 
connect these people to educational programs that link them with 
employers, and that is why I have introduced the Community College to 
Career Fund Act. Under this program, businesses and community colleges 
would apply for grants based on how many jobs that partnership would 
create, the value of the jobs to those hired and to the community, and 
how much skin the businesses have in the game.
  There is a lot we should be doing to create jobs. We should be 
addressing our infrastructure deficit. You know, when you don't repair 
our infrastructure, when you don't create new infrastructure, that is a 
deficit too, and we need to get people into work that we need to be 
doing. But failing to extend emergency unemployment doesn't make sense. 
We shouldn't be punishing people such as John and Debbie and Ann and 
Doug who are looking for work and can't find jobs. We shouldn't be 
pulling the rug out from under them and millions of others who support 
the small businesses and local retailers in our cities and our towns. 
Extending these benefits is something we should do now to jump-start 
and to continue this recovery.
  But we shouldn't stop there. I will continue to press this Congress 
to work to create jobs through investments in infrastructure, in 
innovation and education so that the unemployed can get back to work at 
good jobs that sustain long-term economic growth.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. King). The Senator from Alabama.
  Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, this Nation is facing a debt crisis. 
That is fully understood by the American people and experts all over. 
Our total debt is now in excess of $17 trillion.
  The Budget Control Act of 2011 was an important step in reining in 
some of our spending. It reduced the growth of spending from 2012 to 
2022 by $2.1 trillion. That was the agreement. We raised the debt 
ceiling by $2.1 trillion, but we promised the American people we would 
restrain spending over the next decade by that amount.
  The spending baseline for America, as calculated at that time by the 
Congressional Budget Office was expected to see spending increase by 
$10 trillion over the next 10 years over current levels. The Budget 
Control Act, which included the sequester, was to limit that growth to 
$8 trillion instead $10 trillion.
  I wanted to reduce the growth of spending more than that, but the BCA 
levels did provide a cap on spending that was approved by President 
Obama, passed by both Houses of Congress, and signed into law by 
President Obama.
  This year, fiscal year 2014, was the toughest year in terms of being 
able to meet the goals of the 10 years under the BCA and, therefore, we 
blinked, I would say, and there arose the Murray-Ryan bipartisan 
legislation, written not with our Budget Committee members but by these 
two leaders. They agreed we would spend $64 billion more than the BCA 
allowed.
  This was a bitter pill for me, I have to say. I warned this was the 
first real violation of the Budget Control Act spending limits, and 
when I sought some other alternatives, that didn't happen. The 
legislation passed and it spent and agreed to spend more money. But it 
had a good point. It reaffirmed this was all that would be spent above 
the BCA level. It said: We have a tight time now. If you will just 
increase spending for the next 2 years, we will stay fundamentally with 
the BCA levels.
  That was another promise, wasn't it? We promised in 2011 to limit our 
spending, and we come back in December 2013 and we say we can't live 
with our promises any longer. Now we are making these alterations, but 
we are going to stick with this. We are going to stay with this 
promise. If you will just give us this $64 billion extra to spend, we 
will not spend any more than that over the next several years.
  It also left the BCA caps in place for the next 7 years. Unemployment 
compensation is a mandatory entitlement spending program that is before 
us now that Congress would like to spend more on than current law 
allows.
  Of course, it appears that promises made in Washington are made to be 
broken. I sometimes think our colleagues on the Democratic side of the 
aisle see agreements such as Ryan-Murray as steps to advance their 
agenda--just to further the revolution--and not something that should 
be honored. Less than 6 months after this act passed, President Obama 
proposed a budget that would spend $1 trillion more than was agreed to 
in the BCA--a breathtaking violation of the plain law he had signed 6 
months earlier. His plan, fortunately, was rejected, but he filed the 
same new budget in fiscal year 2013 with $1 trillion more in spending. 
All our Senate Democratic colleagues voted for the budget Senator 
Murray moved out of committee, and it would spend $1 trillion more than 
the BCA limits.
  OK. So they said we couldn't live with that. We needed to spend more. 
That is how the Ryan-Murray agreement came about. OK, we will spend 
some more, and we will use this to pay for it, and we will do all this, 
and most of it--too much of it, frankly,--is gimmickry, and it passed--
to spend more. It was to fix the financial pressure we were under. It 
was to fix the tight year or two we have here--the toughest year or two 
in the budget.
  But now, just 4 weeks after that passed, in December--tough 
negotiations and secret talks concluded between Murray and Ryan and 
with the first bill on the floor in this Congress, we have an 
unemployment insurance extension that totally busts those levels. So 
now we are told we don't have to abide by those legal caps, just spend 
more money now, with no corresponding cuts or reductions anywhere to 
pay for it, as required. Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi famously 
said once: ``There is no place left to cut.'' Well, there are places 
left to cut.
  We know we have a lot of people hurting and unemployed today, and 
some sort of compensation is legitimate. But this idea we can waltz in 
here because there is a need in the country that we believe should be 
fulfilled and we can borrow the money and spend for it is not good. It 
is why this Nation is $17 trillion in debt.
  People are angry with Washington. I would say to my colleagues: Why 
shouldn't they be angry? Didn't we promise to stay with the BCA limits? 
Didn't we promise after the Ryan-Murray agreement to spend more but we 
would stay there? Didn't we agree with that? And here we are, the first 
bill of this session, just a few weeks after that passed--Ryan-Murray, 
the ink hardly dry--and we are demanding now a huge new deficit 
spending program.
  Make no mistake, my colleagues, we are in deficit. Any new spending 
over the Budget Control Act entails more borrowing. That is the way it 
works. Section 111 of H.J. Res. 59, the Ryan-Murray spending agreement, 
says this:

       Section 111(a)--Fiscal Year 2014. For the purpose of 
     enforcing the Congressional Budget Act of 1974 for fiscal 
     year 2014, and for enforcing, in the Senate, budgetary points 
     of order . . . the allocations, aggregates, and levels 
     provided for in subsection (b) shall apply.

  What are those levels, you might ask? This is what it says:


[[Page 496]]

       Section 111(b)(2).--. . . committee allocations for--(A) 
     fiscal year 2014; (B) fiscal years 2014 through 2018 . . .; 
     and (C) fiscal years 2014 through 2023; consistent with the 
     May 2013 baseline of the Congressional Budget Office . . .

  The CBO baseline assumes extended unemployment benefits--that we have 
been extending beyond any historical pattern--will expire, as the law 
requires, because that is what Congress wrote into law. The ink is 
barely dry on the December agreement and we are already being pushed to 
violate it. Therefore, if we extend unemployment insurance benefits, it 
will cost us, will it not?Ryan-Murray would assume choices would be 
made between competing expenditure values and that the net spending 
would not increase above the baseline; that out of $3.7 trillion we 
spend a year, we can find the $26 billion necessary for Senator Reed's 
proposal or other proposals which might be less to fund unemployment 
insurance, and we would find that somewhere or we wouldn't do it.
  The Reed amendment before us includes a provision that would extend 
the Budget Control Act sequester for 1 year, to 2024. So he proposes 
that: Well, let's assume it continues, and then we can save money 11 
years or 12 years from now, and then we can pay for that spending 
program today. Isn't that nice?
  I am ashamed to see the Senate's favorite budget gimmick, ``spend now 
and pay later,'' devolved into something almost financially sinister: 
``Spend now and pay way, way, way later.''
  Ten years? We are not honoring the spending limits we agreed to in 
December, and now we are promising: If we are just allowed to spend 
this money, we will cut spending 11 years from now. There will be 5 
different House elections, 5 different Senate elections, 10 different 
budgets written, 10 different appropriations bills written between now 
and then.
  The American people know better. We are not adhering to the 
agreements we made while the ink is still wet. We are going to promise 
to save money out there? It is outrageous.
  This is a legitimate offset. Why don't we do it for 1 year? We can 
extend the budget sequester 2 years--2024, 2025--and save enough money 
so we could give every Federal employee a raise and it wouldn't cost a 
dime. It would all be paid for. Wouldn't it?
  Or how about we extend it 3 years, to 2027, and then we can double 
the highway bill? We would like to spend more money on highways. I 
would. I would like to increase that. We could pretend that we are 
going to extend these limits 13 years, 14 years from now, and that will 
pay for it.
  This kind of gimmickry is how our Nation has gone broke. This is what 
we have been doing year after year--violating even our own generous 
spending limits and pretending we are cutting spending when we are just 
reducing the growth from $10 trillion to $8 trillion. And we think the 
country is going to sink into the ocean if we reduce the growth of 
spending from $10 trillion to $8 trillion.
  One of the most successful parts of the 1996 welfare reform law was 
the work requirements for healthy working-age adults without children. 
The work requirements encouraged millions of Americans to improve their 
lives by working, going to school, or engaging in job training 
programs. However, this administration has granted States the ability 
to suspend the food stamp work requirements since 2012 as part of the 
extension of the emergency unemployment compensation program.
  If the emergency unemployment program is extended again even for 1 
week, the administration will have the authority to waive the work 
requirement for about 40 States for 2015. In other words, the food 
stamp work requirement will be suspended. He is going to do that. If 
this bill passes, it will give him the power to do that. That is going 
to cost hundreds of millions of dollars, too. It is an unexpected, 
unappreciated thing in the bill.
  After analyzing the Reed amendment and the underlying bill before us, 
we have consulted with Senator Murray's staff--the Democratic chair of 
the Budget Committee and a very honorable person--and proposed that 
this proposal violates the Ryan-Murray law, and that several points of 
order apply against the Reed amendment:
  It violates the Senate pay-as-you-go requirement. It increases the 
deficit by more than $10 billion inside the 10-year budget window 
without offsets to pay for the entire cost. It spends way more above 
what the Senate Finance Committee has allowed under the spending deal 
we enforced. And it violates the Budget Committee's own jurisdiction.
  Finally, the amendment isn't paid for inside the budget window as the 
Budget Act requires. Instead, it tries to count savings 11 years out. 
That is not allowed under the Budget Act.
  When I raise these points of order, I would expect that sooner or 
later the majority will move to waive all budget points of order 
against the amendment, and, perhaps, all budget points of order against 
the bill itself. If Senator Leader Reid moves to waive, ignore, spend 
above the budget limits, it requires 60 votes.
  Let me be clear: Senator Murray and her staff have acknowledged this 
does violate the Budget Act, and that a budget point of order--if I or 
others raise it--would be well taken, and it would take 60 votes to 
break it.
  So the question will soon be on us: In the face of a pressing need we 
all believe should be addressed, will 60 of us agree that the best way 
forward is to turn our backs on the Murray-Ryan spending deal that 
Congress passed just 4 weeks ago and President Obama signed just 2 
weeks ago?
  Or will enough of us agree that the best way forward to help the 
unemployed and pay for that assistance is with other savings in the 
Federal budget, so we don't have to blow a hole in our budget agreement 
and our children and grandchildren will be stuck with paying the price?
  Another point: By upholding the new spending arrangement the 
government just entered into, by defending it against even more 
spending, we can also accomplish one other thing--put aside the gag 
rule on amendments enforced by the majority leader.
  We have talked a lot about this: We need to be able to offer 
amendments and have debate on how to make this bill better. If the 
majority makes a successful motion to waive the Budget Act points of 
order, it protects the gag rule, the blocking of amendments, the 
filling of the tree. Members need to have a chance to offer amendments 
to this legislation so improvements can be made, so we can pay for what 
is needed to be spent, and an actual bipartisan bill can emerge from 
the Senate.
  So this is the question before us now: Do we adhere to the spending 
limits Congress passed and promised less than 1 month ago? Or do we 
break the Ryan-Murray limits like we broke the Budget Control Act 
limits? Will we do so in the first bill that comes before Congress this 
year?
  This is not a vote on unemployment benefits when I am able to make 
the budget point of order. And I plan to do so. It is not about 
unemployment benefits when we vote on the budget point of order. It is 
a vote on whether we uphold the spending limits we agreed to, or 
whether we violate those limits in the first spending bill since this 
Congress took session this year. This is about the integrity of this 
institution.
  In 2011, we passed a Budget Control Act and promised to spend a 
certain amount of money, and that amount only. But when the spending 
discipline proved too tough, Congress backed down and agreed to a new, 
looser spending limit under Ryan-Murray. That was a few weeks ago, just 
before Christmas.
  Now here we are, on the first spending bill of the year, and our 
Democratic majority is proposing to bust the Ryan-Murray spending 
limits right out of the chute. How could any voter trust the Senate if 
this body votes today to break these new limits less than 1 month old?
  A vote to uphold budget rules today is simply a vote to say that the 
bill should be paid for. Whatever we decide to do, pay for it. There 
are many ideas for doing so. Congress could easily offset these funds 
if the majority leader

[[Page 497]]

here in the Senate would allow us to propose amendments--which he 
hasn't done.
  So let's uphold the rules of our institution, enforce our budget 
rules, and find a way to pay for this legislation--pay for what we 
intend to spend above the limit. Let's keep our promises to the 
American people.
  I hope my colleagues who voted for the Ryan-Murray bill will not 
renege now. If they break this agreement today, why should any taxpayer 
trust our colleagues' promises in the future?
  I hope all of us, no matter our policy disagreements, can agree to 
uphold Senate rules. I hope we can abide by the promises we made to the 
American people. And I hope we can agree that financial integrity is 
more important than partisan interests.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Florida.
  Mr. NELSON. Mr. President, while my colleague from Alabama is still 
here, I want to talk about a certain national championship game which 
just occurred.
  Before I do, I want to say that a lot of the frustration my colleague 
has expressed is frustration which is shared by this Senator--not the 
specifics, but the fact that the Senate is not working as it should. 
Indeed, the Congress is not working as it should.
  But I would remind anyone who is listening to these words the old 
adage: It takes two to tango. And if anything is going to get done, 
there is going to have to be a meeting of the minds between the 
parties, recognizing that you can't have it all one way--your way.
  There are legitimate grievances in what has led to the dysfunction of 
the U.S. Congress, and we can speak here today with regard to the 
Senate.
  Authorization committees, which have been so important in the history 
of this country and the functioning of the Congress, at times are 
irrelevant in that they have not only been overtaken but the 
appropriations process has been overtaken as well.
  When we cobble together these huge appropriations bills that are 
nothing but a continuation of the previous year's appropriations with 
some tweaks, where is the input of Members? In the past, it has been 
Mount Olympus which has come together at the last minute in an 
emergency situation to cobble together something to keep the government 
functioning.
  That is not rational decisionmaking. It is not what we call around 
here regular order. It certainly isn't the authorization of bills. And 
it certainly isn't appropriations of the government, according to that 
authorization for appropriations.
  As we get on down the line, I want to continue to work with my 
colleague, whom I have had the pleasure and privilege of working with, 
as we have worked on very thorny issues in the past on the Strategic 
Forces Subcommittee of Armed Services on national missile defense. The 
Senator from Alabama and this Senator have been able to come together 
in agreement on those thorny issues years ago.
  But times have changed, and this place is not functioning. It is 
going to take an extra special effort on both sides of that aisle which 
has become too big of a dividing line in our ability to get work done.
  I empathize with the Senator's frustration and let him know there is 
frustration on this Senator's part as well.
  (The further remarks of Mr. Nelson and Mr. Sessions are printed in 
today's Record under ``Morning Business.'')


                            Haiti Earthquake

  Mr. NELSON. Mr. President, yesterday marks the fourth anniversary of 
the devastating earthquake that hit Haiti on January 12, 2010. The U.S. 
Geological Survey said that precisely at 4:53 p.m. local time, the 
Caribbean and North American plates moved, resulting in a major 
earthquake of a 7.0 magnitude, with aftershocks greater than 5.0 that 
continued for months afterward. It has been described as the largest 
urban disaster in modern history because in just 30 seconds more than 
10 million cubic meters of rubble were created, enough to fill dump 
trucks parked bumper to bumper, all the way from Key West, FL, to the 
northern tip of the State of the Presiding Officer, Maine, and then 
back again. That is how much rubble was created.
  We remember today 230,000 victims of the earthquake, one of the 
deadliest in history. The earthquake also resulted in over 300,000 
injuries and left 1\1/2\ million people homeless.
  I went to Haiti immediately after the earthquake. It was a horrifying 
aftermath. During the last 4 years the path to recovery for Haiti has 
been very slow and arduous, particularly because that poor country has 
also faced so many other plagues: Rainstorms, the edges of hurricanes, 
a vicious outbreak of cholera, and many other tropical storms. Long-
term reconstruction and rehabilitation is going to take years, but the 
Haitian government, with the support of the United States and the 
international community, hopefully, is going to keep the country moving 
forward.
  This past year I visited with President Martelly and his officials. 
They are making progress. The international community has stepped up. 
But nobody has stepped up like the United States. We have led an 
unprecedented recovery effort, $3.5 billion for initial humanitarian 
needs and long-term assistance in health, infrastructure, rule of law, 
food, and economic security.
  In this last visit this past August, I saw many of those 
reconstruction efforts already completed and others that are well 
underway, and others that are showing notable progress. But there is so 
much to be done.
  The Haitian people are incredible; they are resilient; they are 
resourceful; they are a proud people; and they have utilized the 
support they have received from around the world, including the Haitian 
Diaspora. A lot of that Diaspora community is in Florida, and they have 
utilized that.
  We all want Haiti to succeed and to continue to rebuild. So 4 years 
after such unbelievable devastation, let's pause to think about Haiti 
and reaffirm our commitment to her. We also congratulate the Haitian 
people as they celebrate their country's 210th anniversary of 
independence that is this year. It is a tough subject. Haiti is the 
poorest country in the entire Western Hemisphere. There is a certain 
special responsibility that those countries, particularly in the 
Western Hemisphere, that are more fortunate--a certain responsibility 
that we have to help that little country rebuild.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Iowa.
  Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, I ask, since I just arrived on the 
Senate floor, is it appropriate for me to speak on the judicial nominee 
we will be voting on.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator may proceed.


                           Wilkins Nomination

  Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, we are going to vote on the third of 
three nominees to the DC Circuit. Today it will be Judge Robert 
Wilkins. I will oppose the judge's nomination, just as I did when the 
Senate rejected the same nomination in November of last year.
  This circuit, of course, is far and away the least busy in the 
country. This is one of the reasons why the Democrats blocked nominees 
to this very same circuit, based on the very same arguments regarding 
caseload, during the Bush administration. There were only two 
differences between then and now. Back then the caseload was even 
higher, and back then there was a Republican in the White House. Today, 
of course, there is a Democrat in the White House, and also a 
Democratic majority here in the Senate.
  Today, by pushing this nomination for a circuit where there are not 
more judges needed based on caseload, I say that the Senate majority--
meaning the Senate Democrats--do not want to play by the same rules 
they pioneered or by the same standards they established during the 
Bush administration.
  Even though the Senate considered and rejected this nomination just a 
couple of months ago, today once again we will be voting on Judge 
Wilkins' confirmation. We will vote on the judge's nomination today 
because, on November 21, last year, the majority leader and the Senate 
majority invoked the so-called nuclear option. In

[[Page 498]]

one fell swoop, the majority leader did more damage to the institution 
than I have witnessed in more than 3 decades of service here in the 
Senate. In fact, when the majority leader broke the rules to change the 
rules last November and tossed aside two centuries of Senate history 
and precedent, he likely did more damage to this institution than any 
leader who preceded him.
  It was a power grab. Of course it was a power grab. But it was more 
than that. It fundamentally has altered the way the Senate operates. It 
stripped the minority of its rights--under the rules, of course--but it 
was more than that as well. It cheapens the world's greatest 
deliberative body.
  About 2 hours ago I spoke on this subject to the Senate based upon 
what James Madison said was the function of the Senate--to be a 
deliberative body, to bring stability to our political system, not to 
do things the same way the House of Representatives does.
  As a result of the nuclear option, the Senate design has been forever 
altered, and it was done via brute force with zero buy-in from the 
minority. The result, as we have seen over the last 2 months, is less 
cooperation and more partisanship, something the people of this country 
abhor.
  That is before you consider the current state of affairs regarding 
amendments here on the Senate floor. The majority leader routinely 
blocks all Senators from offering amendments by doing what we call 
``filling the tree'' with amendments, and then sets aside his ``blocker 
amendments'' for only those amendments that the leader considers 
appropriate for us to discuss.
  When you take into consideration the inability of Senators to offer 
amendments of their choosing and combine it with the leader's decision 
to strip the minority of their right to extend a debate on nominations, 
it becomes clear why today's Senate operates the way it does. There are 
two great rights Senators have: the right to debate and the right to 
amend. That is what makes us a deliberative body. That is what makes us 
so much different from the House of Representatives. By stripping away, 
on one hand, the right to extend the debate on nominations, and denying 
Senators, on the other hand, the right to offer amendments, the leader 
has taken those two rights and shredded them. It is to a point where 
some Members of this body don't even have a full appreciation for the 
way the institution used to operate.
  Is it any wonder that it is difficult to get things done in today's 
Senate? Is it any wonder Senators don't feel compelled to work and 
consult together?
  Today we will vote on a nomination the Senate rejected a couple of 
months ago. Now--perhaps because the other side is having a bit of 
buyer's remorse--some of my colleagues have been doing their best to 
rewrite history.
  Senate Democrats claim that Republican opposition to the DC Circuit 
nominees was, in their words, unprecedented, but conveniently failed to 
mention that Senate Democrats set the standard during the Bush 
administration when they blocked qualified nominees to the DC Circuit 
based on caseload, which is the same argument I used, but in those days 
the caseload was even heavier than it is today.
  As I have said, back then the caseload was higher. You can't say that 
too often. The fact is that DC is the most underworked circuit in the 
Nation.
  I have given previous speeches on this subject, and I have given a 
lot of statistics, so I won't go through all those statistics again 
today, but with the most recent data released by the nonpartisan 
Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts, the numbers still show the DC 
Circuit has the fewest number of appeals filed and appeals terminated 
among all of the Federal circuit courts.
  On a per-active-judge basis, the DC Circuit now has 111 total appeals 
filed per active judge. The national average is over three times 
higher, at 377. The busiest court, the Eleventh Circuit, comes in at 
over seven times higher than the DC Circuit, at 796. In other words, a 
Federal appellate judge sitting in Florida has a workload seven times 
heavier than the circuit judge sitting here in DC.
  I hope people don't fall for the phony argument that cases in the DC 
Circuit are more complicated. There are other circuits that handle more 
of these so-called complex cases than even DC. The bottom line is the 
empirical data has shown, and continues to show, that these judges 
could have been better used in other circuits. I have a piece of 
legislation that would move these three judges from the DC Circuit to 
other circuits where the caseload is greater.
  To confirm what the statistics show, early last year I decided to go 
straight to the source, the judges who serve in DC on this circuit. 
Before these nominations to the DC Circuit were even made, I submitted 
a questionnaire to each DC Circuit judge asking them about their 
workload. Their responses independently confirmed that the data showed 
that the court is severely underworked.
  One judge responded: ``If any more judges were added now, there 
wouldn't be enough work to go around.'' I hope you understand that the 
vacancies that are being filled are going to cost the taxpayers $1 
million-plus a year forever as long as these seats are filled.
  After looking carefully at the data, and, of course, confirming my 
understanding with the judges themselves, I opposed these nominations 
based, in part, on the same standards established by the Democrats 
during the Bush administration when they blocked nominees to the DC 
Circuit. Then, of course, there was a Republican President, and now we 
have a Democratic President.
  Of course, that wasn't the only reason for opposition to these 
nominees. For instance, gun rights supporters are opposed to Judge 
Wilkins, not based on caseload but because of the Dearth v. Holder case 
where Judge Wilkins held that nonresident U.S. citizens don't have the 
Second Amendment right to purchase a firearm.
  The last nominee we confirmed to the DC Circuit was about the 
farthest thing from a mainstream nominee as you can get. I won't repeat 
everything I said about that nominee in previous speeches or what that 
nominee has said or written, but I will give one example. Consider 
former Professor Pillard's view on religious freedom. She argued that 
the Supreme Court case of Hosanna-Tabor Evangelical Lutheran Church, 
which challenged the so-called ``ministerial exception'' to employment 
discrimination represented--in her words--a ``substantial threat to the 
American rule of law.''
  The Supreme Court, on appeal, rejected her view 9-0, and the Court 
held that ``it is impermissible for the government to contradict a 
church's determination of who can act as its ministers.''
  Think about that. Former Professor Pillard argued the challenge to 
the ministerial exception to employment law represented a ``substantial 
threat to the American rule of law.'' Yet the Court rejected the view 
9-0, and held ``it is impermissible for the government to contradict a 
church's determination of who can act as its ministers.''
  Do my colleagues honestly believe it is within the mainstream to 
argue churches shouldn't be allowed to choose their own ministers? I 
don't believe it is in the mainstream.
  We know these judges aren't needed. Far from it. We know these 
nominations aren't mainstream. Far from it. Then why did our Senate 
Democrats go to such lengths to stack this court? Why go so far as to 
change the Senate rules in order to fill these vacancies? Why go so far 
as to abuse and violate the Senate rules to change the rules? Well, 
because the President and his allies will do whatever it takes to get 
their way even if it means breaking Senate rules, silencing debate, 
circumventing Congress, or stacking the judicial deck in their favor to 
ensure that their executive actions are rubberstamped by the courts.
  It is no secret the President has decided to circumvent Congress by 
relying heavily on Executive orders and regulatory action to carry out 
an unpopular agenda. We all heard the President pledge repeatedly, ``If 
Congress won't act, I will.'' What he means, of course, is that he is 
going to do it all

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by executive action. He won't go to Congress. He won't negotiate. In 
fact, he will go around Congress. He decided he doesn't need 
legislators to make these changes. He will just issue an Executive 
order or issue new agency rules.
  As I have explained before, in effect, the President is saying: If 
the Senate won't confirm who I want, when I want them, then I will 
recess-appoint them when the Senate isn't even in session, or at 
another time, the President would say: If Congress won't pass cap-and-
trade fee increases, then I will go around the Congress and do the same 
thing through administrative action at the Environmental Protection 
Agency or, again, if Congress won't pass gun control legislation, then 
I will issue a series of Executive orders. Quite simply, that is what 
the President means when he says: If Congress won't act, I will.
  But remember. Under our system, it is the courts that provide a check 
on the President's powers. It is the courts that decide whether the 
President is acting unconstitutionally. So the only way the President's 
plan works is if he stacks the deck in his favor. The only way the 
President can successfully bypass Congress is if he stacks the courts 
with ideological allies who will rubberstamp these Executive orders. 
That is why it is so important for the President that he and his Senate 
allies stack the DC Circuit even though the DC Circuit doesn't have 
enough work, and it will be an additional $1 million for each of the 
three judges who are now being stacked into this court.
  As I have said, in the last few weeks the other side has attempted to 
rewrite history in an effort to justify the actions they have taken, 
but the other side's effort to rewrite history isn't limited to the 
history of the DC Circuit in particular. It extends to the number of 
so-called filibusters during the past few years.
  Several times last week the Senate majority claimed that the 
Republicans filibustered 20 of Obama's district court nominees. 
According to their narrative, only 23 nominees have been filibustered 
in the history of the Senate, and 20 occurred in the past 5 years. That 
is not remotely true, and the majority knows that. As near as I can 
tell, this claim is based on the number of times a cloture motion has 
been filed on district court nominees. Of course, everyone knows a 
cloture motion isn't a filibuster. A filibuster is a failure to end 
debate.
  Nonetheless, let's look at those 20 nominees. Seventeen nominees were 
filed at one time back in March of 2012. That maneuver, of course, was 
a transparent effort to manufacture a crisis where no crisis existed. 
Every single one of these cloture motions was later withdrawn. As a 
result, not 1 of those 17 nominees even had a cloture vote, let alone a 
failed cloture vote.
  In fact, of these 20 so-called filibusters of district court judges, 
the Senate held only 1 cloture vote on a district court judge, and that 
cloture vote passed the Senate. Yet the Senate majority still claims we 
filibustered 20 district court nominees. That is revisionist history if 
I have ever seen it.
  Let's review the alleged Republican obstruction of the President's 
nominees. Since President Obama took office, the Senate has approved 
218 of the President's lower court judicial nominees. That is 99 
percent. So we have rejected only two. If the majority leader hadn't 
invoked the nuclear option, the number would have, in fact, been 5 
instead of 2, but not 20, and not 34, as I have heard some claim. It 
would not have even been 10, which was the number the Senate majority 
blocked by the fifth year of President Bush's administration. Five 
nominees.
  At the end of the day, the majority was willing to toss aside two 
centuries of Senate practice and tradition over just five judicial 
nominees. So I continue to oppose this nominee, just as I did when the 
Senate rejected the nomination before the Senate Democrats broke the 
rules to change the rules.
  This judgeship wasn't warranted before the majority leader and the 
Democrats invoked the misguided nuclear option, and it certainly hasn't 
suddenly become warranted in the weeks since that time.
  I yield the floor.
  Mr. REID. I note the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. REID. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. REID. Mr. President, we have a vote scheduled for 5:30; is that 
right?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. That is correct.

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