[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 160 (2014), Part 12]
[Senate]
[Pages 16620-16621]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                           DIVIDED GOVERNMENT

  Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, I wish to make some very brief remarks 
about divided government.
  Since 1981, there have been more than 25 years in which one party 
controlled the White House while the other party controlled at least 
one Chamber of the Congress. By comparison, there have been fewer than 
9 years in which one party controlled both the Presidency and all of 
Congress. So as we can see, divided government has been the norm and 
unified government--single-party government--the exception.
  The truth is I suspect the American people like divided government 
because they realize it is another layer of checks and balances on what 
happens up here in Washington, DC, which are very important to making 
sure we get things done right and give it the kind of deliberation and 
thoughtful consideration they deserve, particularly if we are talking 
about legislating for a country of about 320 million people or so.
  It also forces us to do something that maybe isn't our first 
instinct; that is, rather than to insist on our way, it forces us to 
build consensus, which is actually a good thing when we are talking 
about the American people.
  So what has it given us in the recent past? It has given us a 
Republican President and a Democratic House that worked together on 
Social Security reform in 1983 and tax reform in 1986. Several years 
ago it was another Republican President and a fully Democratic Congress 
that worked together on landmark disability and environmental laws. In 
the mid-1990s, it was a Democratic President and a Republican Congress 
that worked together on welfare reform and balanced the budget.
  This is what can happen when we have divided government and the 
willingness of the President and the Congress to work together to try 
to solve problems. We can actually do hard things--things that we could 
never do with a purely one-party government or the other.
  Then in 2001 a Republican President and Democratic Senate worked 
together on education reform--No Child Left Behind. I still remember 
when former Governor Bush--then-President Bush as the 43rd President--
worked together with Teddy Kennedy, the liberal lion of the Senate, on 
No Child Left Behind. It raised more than a few eyebrows back home in 
Texas, but that demonstrated what can happen when one side of the aisle 
and the other side of the aisle try to work together in the best 
interests of the American people.
  Here is the short of it: Divided government does not translate into 
gridlock. It doesn't have to. It can, but it doesn't have to. We 
actually have another choice. Each of the four Presidents who came 
directly before President Obama found it possible to sign major 
bipartisan legislation despite having serious philosophical differences 
with Members of the opposing party.
  I remember a conversation I had recently with one of my colleagues 
who was just reelected to the Senate and he is, let's say, from the 
other end of the political spectrum from me. He made the obvious point: 
I am not going to change who I am, I am not going to change what I 
believe in, but I am going to look for ways to legislate in the Senate.
  I thought he stated it very well: I am not going to change who I am 
as a conservative. I am not going to do something which I would view to 
be unprincipled in order to get an outcome. But I do think that leaves 
an awful lot of room for us to work together to try to legislate in the 
center.
  My impression is--from the Presiding Officer and others I have talked 
to and chatted with and seeing their reported comments--there is a big 
appetite on both sides of the aisle to make this place work again. I 
think if there is a single message that I heard from November 4, in 
this last election, it is that people do not want their government to 
not function. They may want it to function more or less or in some

[[Page 16621]]

areas and not the others, but they don't want it to be dysfunctional. 
Indeed, that makes common sense.
  What remains an open question is what path the President is going to 
choose--whether he is actually going to work with the Republican 
majorities in the House and the Senate. I was somewhat encouraged the 
President had a meeting yesterday with the incoming majority leader 
Senator McConnell. It was reported to me they talked about things they 
thought they could work on together. But we have sort of been led down 
this pathway before with happy talk, and then the actions did not 
follow the rhetoric.
  Unfortunately, I think the President started off on a bad foot after 
this election on November 4 by issuing this Executive action order. I 
realize it is very controversial and we can be frustrated at times with 
the slow pace of actually getting things done around here. But I have 
expressed myself previously, and I will say it again: I think the 
President made a serious mistake in doing it the way he did.
  No. 1, I don't think he has the authority to do it, something he 
himself said he didn't have 22 times in published comments, but it 
poisons the well at a time when I think there was a lot of hope that 
maybe we could turn this place around.
  It is not just my view; it is the view of a number of my Democratic 
colleagues too. For example, after the President's Executive action on 
immigration, the senior Senator from Louisiana said:

       We are all frustrated with our broken immigration system, 
     but the way forward is not unilateral action by the 
     President.

  I agree with that comment.
  Her sentiments were also echoed by the junior Senator from Indiana, 
who believes President Obama should not be making what he called 
``significant policy changes'' on his own.
  The senior Senator from Missouri said similarly, ``How this is coming 
about makes me uncomfortable, and I think it probably makes most 
Missourians uncomfortable.''
  The reason they feel uncomfortable is that the President's Executive 
order represents a direct affront to the constitutional separation of 
powers. Even if you agree on the substance of what he did, which itself 
is controversial, how he did it was a direct affront to our 
Constitution and the separation of powers, and it is unsustainable. It 
provokes a response from Congress when it feels left out, and, in fact, 
the President is going to need Congress to work with him to fix our 
broken immigration system because Congress remains the possessor of the 
power of the purse.
  The Senator from Maine put it this way. He said:

       The Framers knew what they were doing, and it doesn't say 
     if the president gets frustrated and Congress doesn't act, he 
     gets to do what he thinks is important for the country [on 
     his own].

  So this is not a partisan issue in the sense that Republicans and 
Democrats see the world through entirely different lenses. Plenty of 
Democrats understand that the President's action has made it 
significantly harder for us to get off on the right foot in the new 
year on a number of issues we already agree on by and large.
  The junior Senator from North Dakota said the immigration order 
``could poison any hope of compromise or bipartisanship in the new 
Senate before it's even started.'' I agree with the sentiment. I hope 
she is wrong, and I hope we can prove that wrong by saying we are not 
going to give up and we are not going to let what the President does 
determine what we do. We have to do our job and we have to function, 
and then we are going to have to work with the President hopefully to 
try to move the country forward in a number of these areas.
  I hope we can find a way to stop the President from acting on his own 
and to recommit ourselves to the rule of law and particularly the 
Constitution and get about the job of addressing our country's biggest 
challenges, such as those outlined in the comments from the senior 
Senator from New York, Mr. Schumer, who gave a very noteworthy speech 
at the National Press Club recently. He mentioned issues we should be 
focused on, such as the needs of the middle class, stagnant wages, mass 
underemployment, and widespread pessimism about the future of the 
American dream. The last thing we need is a protracted constitutional 
crisis, and that is really an unfortunate distraction from what we 
ought to be doing together.
  If we recognize these challenges and the message that was sent on 
November 4, we ought to be working together to address them. Because of 
this crisis, it will be more difficult, but we cannot give up. We need 
to work together to overhaul our job-training programs and give 
American workers relief from the burden of government that does not 
work in their best interests. It will be more difficult for us to pass 
progrowth tax and regulatory reforms, and it will be more difficult for 
us to do what we need to do to shore up and sustain Social Security and 
Medicare before they go bankrupt. We have reached this point because of 
yet another manufactured crisis--a crisis that was completely and 
totally unnecessary.
  I can only hope the President will decide to reverse his desire to do 
everything unilaterally and to work on a more sensible course--one 
where he appreciates the possibilities of divided government. Based on 
the examples I gave earlier, there certainly is reason for hope that 
divided government can work and address some of our urgent needs. 
Unfortunately, given his record, it is hard to be optimistic, but I am 
an optimist by nature, and hope springs eternal.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Ms. Baldwin). The Senator from Delaware.
  Mr. COONS. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent to enter into a 
colloquy with my colleague, the Senator from New Hampshire.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

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