[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 160 (2014), Part 8]
[Senate]
[Pages 11561-11562]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                              A FAIR SHOT

  Mr. REID. Mr. President, I love baseball season. I have never had the 
good fortune of having a team I grew up with, as has my colleague, the 
senior Senator from Illinois--Cubs fan, where he lives, White Sox fan--
but I have loved baseball since I was a little boy. I love baseball 
season. I go to games. I think I can go to one this Saturday, unless 
something comes up. But I do go home at night--and I have spoken with 
the Republican leader about the pleasure we get from watching a little 
bit of

[[Page 11562]]

the baseball games every evening. I do enjoy that.
  I have watched over the years these managers. I spent so much time in 
southern Nevada, in Las Vegas. The baseball team most everyone in Las 
Vegas watched and listened to was the Los Angeles Dodgers, and the 
manager for much of that time, after I came back here, was Tommy 
Lasorda, and he was like so many managers, he was a character. He was a 
showman. I assume he picked some of the times to pick a fight with the 
umpire because he was upset with a call, but I think part of it was his 
idea that the team needed something a little extra. Tommy Lasorda would 
go out there, and he was famous for kicking the dirt and yelling loudly 
at the umpire and making sure he used a lot of swear words. That was 
the manager. He wasn't the only one. Tommy Lasorda comes to my mind. 
And, on occasion, he would get thrown out of the game.
  Why did he do this? Was he upset at the call? At times it got real 
ugly, with chest thumping and, as I indicated, kicking dirt. Lou 
Pinella was famous for that. He would kick dirt sometimes on an umpire 
and it usually got him kicked out of the game. As I indicated, they 
tried to keep it clean, but those baseball managers and players 
sometimes have a vocabulary that is for locker rooms and they would say 
mean-spirited things to the umpire, and certainly what they said wasn't 
suitable for children.
  A lot of times they exited the game after being told they were 
ejected to divert attention from what was going on with their team. It 
was a gimmick many times, a distraction meant to sidetrack one side and 
rally the other.
  In the House of Representatives, the Republican leadership is trying 
a similar tactic by threatening to bring a lawsuit against the 
President of the United States. They are searching desperately for 
something--anything--to keep the radicals within their own pockets over 
there happy. That is hard to do, as we have seen. They want to do this 
to divert the American people's attention from their very own inaction.
  The Presiding Officer doesn't have to take my word for it--no one has 
to--because conservative pundits are falling over themselves to 
criticize this ploy. Even last night, Sarah Palin--what did Sarah Palin 
say? She said, ``You don't bring a lawsuit to a gun fight, and there's 
no room for lawyers on our front lines.'' That is Sarah Palin. That is 
what she thinks of the action by the Republican leadership in the 
House. She wants to go even further, whatever that is.
  One Republican pundit said it was political theater. Another called 
the lawsuit feckless.
  However they choose to label it, there is one thing that 
conservatives, liberals, and moderates agree on: This lawsuit is 
nothing more than a political stunt. It is nothing more than kicking 
dirt at the umpire. This feeble attempt to pick a fight with President 
Obama is intended to draw attention away from the House's inertia on 
issues important to the American people, such as immigration. More than 
a year ago we passed immigration and the other House has refused to do 
anything about it, creating lots of problems, and causing this great 
country of ours to go further in debt. One trillion dollars would 
result in reducing our debt if we could pass that legislation. We did 
it; the House should do it.
  All we are asking is that the middle class get a fair shot, whether 
it is raising the minimum wage, whether it is student debt, which is 
stunningly high--the highest debt we have in America today is student 
debt, $1.3 trillion. We need to do something about fair pay for women, 
that they get the same money men get for doing the very same work. A 
fair shot--that is what the American middle class deserves, and the 
House Republicans are refusing to give them any shot at fairness.
  Instead of considering all of these important legislative 
initiatives--I mentioned only a few--the tea party House is content to 
put on a show, to kick a little dirt--a big, expensive show, in many 
instances. Who pays for the charade they are talking about over there? 
The American taxpayers.
  Let me give one example. Benghazi. Benghazi was a tragedy, but there 
is no political conspiracy. Here is what they have done, mostly in the 
House: 13 public hearings, 15 Member and staff briefings, over 25,000 
pages of documents from the White House. Now they are using taxpayer 
money on a large-scale stunt that isn't new for them. They have other 
stunts such as the supposed lawsuit. But they have now set up a 12-
member Benghazi panel they are creating. They intend to spend $3.3 
million this year--this year, which has just a few months left in it--
$3.3 million, as they try once again to turn a real tragedy into some 
kind of a conspiracy.
  To put that number in perspective, think about this: The Benghazi 
panel will outspend the House Committee on Veterans' Affairs. The House 
Committee on Veterans' Affairs has 25 Members of Congress and it has 
about 30 staff members. The Benghazi little program they are putting on 
over there will spend more money than the entire Veterans Affairs' 
Committee in the House.
  We are still waiting for the House to come together with us to do 
something about the veterans emergency we have. They have forgotten 
about what is going on around the country. We need thousands of new 
personnel in the Veterans Affairs Department, and the House refuses to 
complete the conference with Chairman Sanders.
  Much like the other sideshows put on by the Republican-controlled 
House of Representatives, this so-called lawsuit is baseless. When 
Sarah Palin thinks you are going too far, you better take a look at it 
by the tea party-driven House over there. And the House direction of 
the lawsuit--people keep asking the House leadership: On what are you 
going to sue him? They do not know. They are working on it. But they 
are going to have a lawsuit. They are going to kick around a little 
dirt. I am in no position to offer legal guidance, but I have been in 
court a few times. You know your case is in big trouble when you cannot 
specify the reason you are filing the lawsuit.
  So the leadership in the House of Representatives should put aside 
this ill-fated venture and leave the chest-bumping and dirt-kicking 
charade to baseball managers.
  President Obama is doing something to solve problems, and Republicans 
are suing him because they want to do nothing, and that is sad. 
Republicans in the House would be better served spending their efforts 
and resources passing legislation, giving the middle class a fair shot.

                          ____________________