[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 160 (2014), Part 8]
[Senate]
[Page 10701]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




         BIPARTISAN SPORTSMEN'S ACT OF 2014--MOTION TO PROCEED

  Mr. REID. Mr. President, I move to proceed to Calendar No. 384, S. 
2363, the Hagan Sportsmen's Act.
  The PRESIDENT pro tempore. The clerk will report the motion.
  The legislative clerk read as follows:

       Motion to proceed to Calendar No. 384, S. 2363, a bill to 
     protect and enhance opportunities for recreational hunting, 
     fishing, shooting, and for other purposes.


                                Schedule

  Mr. REID. Mr. President, following my remarks and those of the 
Republican leader, the Senate will be in a period of morning business 
until 11 a.m. this morning, with the time equally divided and 
controlled between the two leaders or their designees.
  At 11 a.m. the Senate will proceed to executive session, and we will 
have five rollcall votes which will be to confirm three judges from 
Florida, one from Vermont, and also a very important cloture vote on 
the Rodriguez nomination, to be the Director of U.S. Citizenship and 
Immigration Services at the Department of Homeland Security.


                              Nominations

  Mr. President, it is unfortunate that we still have scores and scores 
of good men and women on the Executive Calendar waiting to be 
confirmed. The delay by the Republicans is untoward. It has never 
happened before, and we are working through these as quickly as we can. 
The judges only take an hour of postcloture time, but the nominations 
take 8 hours of postcloture time. We can yield back 4 hours, which we 
do almost every time, but these stalling tactics by the Republicans 
have added to our doing nothing here in the Senate not by hours or days 
or weeks but by months. It is so unfortunate. We have never had a 
situation such as this before.
  As everyone knows, we changed the rules as they related to judges, 
and thank goodness we did that. Justice can move forward in our country 
without the delay and obstruction that has taken place over the last 
number of years with Republicans holding up judges. We, through the 
chairman of the committee, have moved lots of judges. We now have four 
circuit court judges we have to move toward, and we will do that, even 
though each one of those takes 30 hours. We are nearly caught up with 
district court judges, which speaks well for the Judiciary Committee 
and the Senators who are forwarding names to the President for 
submission to the committee.


                        Workforce Investment Act

  Mr. President, tomorrow we are going to turn to the Workforce 
Investment Act--a nice, important piece of legislation. It is a picture 
of what we should be doing here on legislation in general. The 
Workforce Investment Act is a very complicated piece of legislation. We 
are not going to spend a lot of time on it, but that should not in any 
way take away from the importance of this legislation. It is very 
important legislation. It is an example of how we should be able to get 
done in the Senate.
  I commend Senators Murray, Harkin, and Alexander for working to get 
this bill to us. They have spent untoward hours and hours of time to 
get us here. Everyone knows Lamar Alexander is a peacemaker, and I 
appreciate his work. I was told a few minutes ago that he came to the 
floor and said: Why don't we go ahead on the appropriations bills and 
on amendments that appear to be controversial, and we can have a 60-
vote threshold on those? I suggested the same thing yesterday.
  We voted here approximately 50 times. I have been forced to have, 
because of the McConnell rule, 60 votes on anything that is the least 
bit controversial. Let's move through the appropriations bills. People 
on my side of the aisle want to do this, and I don't know why the 
Republicans would prevent us from doing that, but that is where we are 
now.


                             Voting Rights

  I will talk to the press about the next issue in more detail at a 
subsequent time, but I wish to congratulate Rand Paul, the junior 
Senator from Kentucky.
  About 15 years ago, I offered an amendment on the Senate floor that 
said if someone has been convicted of a crime or felony and completed 
their sentence, if they go to jail, and their probation, if they got 
probation, they should be able to vote, and that is what Rand Paul 
said.
  Rand Paul offered legislation that said if it is a nonviolent crime, 
they should be able to vote when they have completed their time. I went 
a little farther than that with my legislation, but I appreciate his 
suggestion. I will have more to say about that later, and I hope I 
don't get him in trouble with the Republican caucus for congratulating 
him.
  This is something that is long overdue. As a country, we should allow 
people who have served their time and penance, or however you want to 
state it, the ability to vote. I have said it before, and I now have 
said it for a third time. I will have a lot more to say about it later 
today.


                       Reservation of Leader Time

  Will the Chair announce the business of the day?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Booker). Under the previous order, the 
leadership time is reserved.

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