A resolution to amend the Standing Rules of the Senate to provide procedures for extended debate.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Madam President, exactly 16 years ago, in January of 1995, for the first time in 8 years I found myself as a member of the minority party here in the Senate. At the beginning of that Congress, Republicans outnumbered Democrats 53 to 47; the exact same majority-to- minority ratio that exists today, just in reverse order. Yet even though I was opposed at that time to the majority party's agenda, I introduced legislation to change the Senate rules regarding the filibuster.

My plan would have ensured ample debate and deliberation, which I always hear is the stated purpose of the filibuster, but would also have allowed a bill or a nominee to eventually receive a yes-or-no vote. Again, my proposal didn't pass.

I first proposed this at a conference of our Democratic Senators that was held in 1994, because at that time I saw and I predicted--and it is in the Congressional Record that I had predicted this at that time-- there was an escalating use of the filibuster that was being used not for debate purposes, not just to slow things down, but to actually provide for a veto of pending legislation by the minority.

I predicted, at that time, if this arms race were not nipped in the bud, it would escalate because it had been escalating since the 1980s. Democrats were in power. Republicans would have X number of filibusters, and then when the Republicans were in power, the Democrats would do the same to the Republicans. Then the Republicans would come back in power and the Democrats would do the same to them and back and forth, but each time it escalated--an escalating arms race.

I predicted, at that time, if we did not do something about it, it was going to get worse. Unfortunately, my prediction became all too true. In the intervening years, because of the extraordinary use of the filibuster, the ability of our government to legislate and to address the critical problems has been severely jeopardized.

Sixteen years after I first introduced my proposal, it is even more apparent that for our government to properly function, we must reform the use of the filibuster. There are those who have criticized me and argued that Senator Harkin would not be doing this if he were in the minority. Well, again, that is not true. I repeat. In 1995, when I was a member of the minority party, I first introduced my proposal.

The truth is, in the future, whether the Chamber is controlled by Democrats or Republicans, I will continue to work to accomplish a couple things. One, to provide that if there is going to be a filibuster, that it is a real filibuster; that the filibuster is used to slow down processes, to give the minority ample time to debate and discuss and to amend, but in the end the majority rule must come to the Senate.

I thank Senator Schumer and Senator Alexander for the effort they made to negotiate a package of badly needed reforms. Of course, eliminating secret holds is long overdue. It is wrong that not only can the minority block the majority from acting, but, too often, it does it secretly and without any public accountability. So eliminating that and eliminating the confirmations of many low-level executive branch nominees I think is meaningful movement in the right direction.

While I fully support these steps, they are far from the meaningful reforms that I think are essential to make the Senate a properly functioning legislative body. Keep in mind, we are a legislative body. The filibuster was once an extraordinary tool, used in the rarest of instances. Across the entire 19th century, there were only 23 filibusters. From 1917, when the Senate first adopted rules on this until 1969, there were fewer than 50 in that whole timespan--less than one a year.

During the 104th Congress, in 1995, when I first introduced my resolution, there were 82 filibusters. But it was not until the 110th and 111th Congresses that the abuse of the filibuster would spin wildly out of control. In the 110th Congress, there were an astonishing 139 motions to end filibusters. In the 111th Congress just ended, there were 136. That is 275 filibusters in just over 4 years. It has spun out of control.

This is not just a cold statistic of 275 filibusters. It means the filibuster, instead of a rare tool to slow things down, has become an everyday weapon of obstruction, of veto. On almost a daily basis, one Senator is able to use just the threat of a filibuster to stop bills from even coming to the floor for debate and amendment, let alone a final vote.

In the last Congress, the filibuster was used to kill many pieces of legislation that enjoyed majority and often bipartisan support. The reality is, because of the way the filibuster is abused today, the minority--the minority--has unchecked veto power over public policy. When I say minority, I do not say Republicans, I say the minority. It could be the Democrats, it could be the Republicans.

Think about this. We are a legislative body, elected by the voters of this country every 6 years to legislate, to pass legislation with the House, to send it to the President or to defeat legislation, one way or the other, through our votes.

But it would seem to me that reason alone--reason alone--would suffice to

say that legislation should be able to be passed with a majority vote. But that is not what has happened in the Senate. The power to pass legislation has been given to the minority. Reason alone would dictate there is something inherently wrong and inherently unconstitutional about this.

As James Madison noted when rejecting a supermajority requirement to pass legislation, here is what James Madison said: ``It would no longer be the majority that would rule: the power would be transferred to the minority.''

Unfortunately, Madison's prediction has come true. We are the only democratic body in the world--and I challenge anyone, I challenge anyone, to contradict me on this with proof--we are the only democratic body in the world where the minority, not the majority, controls.

In today's Senate, democracy, of which we all claim to be such strong supporters, democracy is turned on its head. The minority rules; the majority is blocked. The majority has responsibility and accountability but lacks the power to govern. The minority has power but lacks accountability or responsibility.

This means, as we have seen recently, that the minority can block bills that would improve the economy, create jobs, and then turn around and blame the majority for not fixing the economy. The minority can block popular legislation, then accuse the majority of being ineffective.

Again, I wish to note that when I refer to the minority, I am not saying Republicans, I am saying the minority. Both parties have abused the filibuster in the past and both will, absent real reform, abuse the filibuster in the future. Although Republicans are currently in the minority, there is no question that control of this body will change again at some point, as it always does periodically.

Some have argued that filibuster reform is nothing more than a ``power grab'' by a Democratic Senator reacting to the recent elections in which his party lost seats. I have heard that said. Well, it is true it is now harder for either party to obtain the 60 votes needed to pass legislation. But I wish to make clear that the reforms I advocate are not about one party or one agenda gaining an unfair advantage, it is about the Senate, as an institution, operating more fairly, effectively, and democratically.

I wish to repeat, I first introduced this in 1995 when I was in the minority. So as we say in law school, in the court of equity, I come with clean hands. The truth is, as it is situated right now with Republicans controlling the House, any final legislation will need to be bipartisan, with or without a filibuster.

Let me also say, again, that for a bill to become law, it has to be passed by the House and the Senate in the same form--in the same form. Then it must go to the President. The President can veto it and then it takes a two-thirds vote to override a veto. There are a lot of checks and balances out there. So the need for the check on legislation by the minority with the ultimate power to veto that is not needed--not needed; in fact, inimical to a democratic institution.

It was former majority leader Bill Frist who said, when he normally shut down the body over the use of filibusters to block a handful of judges, again by Democrats, ``This filibuster is nothing less than a formula for tyranny by the minority.''

Further, I wish to make it clear it is not those of us who seek reform who are engaged in a power grab. It is those who insist on hanging on to an antiquated rule who are grabbing for power. It is those who have taken an extraordinary tool, once used sparingly, to ensure ample debate and deliberation and turned it into a monstrosity, destroying the power of the majority to govern, turning over effective control of the Senate to the party that failed to elect a majority of Senators.

That is the real power grab. That is the real power grab. Moreover, despite the dire predictions of opponents of reform, filibuster reform does not mean the end of minority rights in the Senate. Senators of all parties will continue to have ample time to make arguments, attempt to persuade the public or a majority of their colleagues.

The reform proposals that are being considered fully protect the rights of the minority to full and vigorous debate and deliberation, maintaining the hallmark of the Senate.

Presently, Republicans have stated the filibusters were necessary because Democrats employed a procedural maneuver to deprive them of the right to offer amendments, the so-called filling of the tree. Well, notwithstanding the rejoinder that Republican abuse amendments, such as offering amendments totally unrelated to the pending matter--and there again this is where you get into the chicken and egg, who did it first to whom? Nonetheless, I am sympathetic to the argument that the minority ought to have the right to be able to offer amendments. That is why I have included in my resolution guaranteed rights to offer germane amendments--germane amendments, not an amendment dealing with something totally unrelated to the legislation on the floor--to offer legitimate, germane amendments which the minority feels would improve or change, to the minority's liking, whatever legislation, amendment or bill might be on the floor.

Too many people, I believe, confuse minority rights with minority winning. Having the right to debate and to deliberate and to offer amendments does not mean you have the right to get your way. Being allowed to vote on your amendment does not mean you have a right to win the vote. The minority does not deserve the right to prevail in every instance.

The minority obviously can convince some of the majority to join them. Then they become the majority on a given issue or given amendment. That used to happen all the time around here. There is nothing wrong with that. But the minority, I submit, does not deserve the right, under our Constitution, nor under any reasonable interpretation of a Democratic legislative body--they do not have the right to systematically block action by the majority and to veto, to have veto power, over what can even be considered on the floor of the Senate.

The fact is, provided that the minority is vested with ample protections, as it is in my proposal, at the end of ample debate, the majority should be allowed to act. What is so radical? What is so strange about the notion that in a legislative body, the peoples' representatives should vote up or down on legislation or a nominee?

As Senator Henry Cabot Lodge stated many years ago: ``To vote without debating is perilous, but to debate and never vote is imbecile.''

I think at the heart of this debate is a central question that we are not coming to grips with. Do we truly believe in democracy? Do we truly believe the issues of public policy should be decided at the ballot box and not by the manipulation of archaic procedural rules? I think the truth is, both parties appear to be afraid of majority rule, afraid of allowing a majority of Senators to work their will.

At its heart, those who hang on to this outdated rule, those who vigorously oppose the majority having the ability to govern fear the American people. They fear that the people's choices and wishes will be translated into action here in Washington.

The central question for this body is clear: Do we or do we not believe in democracy and majority rule? Elections should have consequences. After ample protections for minority rights, the majority party in the Senate, whether Democratic or Republican, duly elected by the American people, should be allowed to carry out their agenda and be allowed to govern.

Should I be opposed to reform of the filibuster because I am afraid Republicans someday will become the majority party in the Senate and proceed to enact their agenda? No. I believe in democracy for Republicans and Democrats alike. I believe in majority rule for Republicans and Democrats alike.

The distinguished minority leader said recently in regard to this proposal that Democrats ought to be concerned because a couple years from now Republicans might take over this place and would be able to undo a lot of the things we did--fear that somehow the Republicans will get the majority and be able to enact their agenda. I say to my friends, God bless them. If they win the election and become the majority party, they ought to govern. What are

the checks and balances? We don't know whether the President will be a Democrat or a Republican. We don't know what the House is going to be. There are still a lot of internal checks and balances in the committee structure.

The minority, under my proposal, can still slow things down. I read in the paper that one Senator said it ought to be the right of the minority to slow things down. I believe that. I believe that in the Senate the minority ought to have the right to slow things down. That is why my proposal provides for that. There is ample opportunity to slow things down, throw some sand in the gearbox of the majority. But in my proposal, at the end of a period of time of 8 days, the majority can govern. So one can slow it down--slow down everything, every amendment, every bill--so compromise negotiations would still go on.

I hear from my side: What if the tea party gains a majority in the Senate? We will need to filibuster to stop them. I say to my friends on this side and others, it is a sad day in America when the only way we can stop the tea party or any other extreme group is through subterfuge, through filibusters, secret holds, and parliamentary trickery. We have to have a fundamental confidence in democracy and the good sense of the American people. We have to have confidence in our ability to make our case to the American people and to prevail at the ballot box. We must not be afraid of the American people. We must not be afraid of how they cast their votes or for whom. I am not afraid of the will of the people expressed at the ballot box. That is what sent me to this Chamber. I should note, that used to be the operating principle of this body, but over the years, especially recently, it has become grossly distorted.

We all have our views on the recent election and what the American people said. Everybody has a view on that. I will say what my view is. The American people spoke loudly that they are fed up and angry with Washington, with government, and with Congress. They want change, and they want an end to the dysfunction in this city. In too many critical areas--job creation, energy, the economy--people see a Congress that is unable to respond effectively to the urgent challenges of our time.

My proposal is basically the same as I offered 16 years ago. It would amend the Standing Rules of the Senate to permit a decreasing majority of Senators over a period of 8 days to invoke cloture on a given matter. A determined minority could slow things down for 8 days. Senators would have ample time to make arguments and attempt to persuade the public and a majority of their colleagues. This protects the right of the minority to full and vigorous debate and deliberation, again maintaining the hallmark of the Senate. At the end of ample debate, however, there would be an up-or-down vote on an amendment, a bill, a nominee. My proposal would restore a basic and essential principle of representative democracy: majority rule in a legislative body.

I also think there is another advantage--that it would lead to greater compromise. Many have argued that it is the filibuster that forces compromise and collaboration. I disagree. The fact is, right now the minority has no real incentive to compromise. Why should they if they can totally block something and then go out and campaign on a message that the majority just couldn't get anything done? Again, the minority has a great deal of power but zero incentive on compromise.

I believe my proposal would encourage a more robust spirit of compromise. If the minority knows that at the end of the day, at the end of 8 days, 51 votes will be enough to bring a bill to the floor or to end debate on an amendment or a nominee, it seems they would be more willing to come to the table and compromise. And for the majority, the reason to compromise is because for the majority party in the Senate-- either one, Democratic or Republican--one of the most valuable things is time, allocation of time. The majority always wants to save time. So rather than chew up 8 days on a nominee or an amendment, the majority would like to get it done in a day or so. The minority, knowing that at the end of 8 days, 51 votes can pass something, will say: Maybe we ought to compromise now and get what we can out of it without dragging it out 8 days. Right now, there is literally zero incentive to compromise.

I also strongly encourage colleagues to support the talking filibuster proposal of Senator Merkley. They claim it is about silencing the minority. The fact is, the filibuster has nothing to do with debate and deliberation. It is used to prevent consideration. Rather than serve to ensure the representation of minority views and to foster deliberation, the minority uses the filibuster to prevent debate and deliberation. The filibuster has been used to defeat bills and nominees without their receiving a discussion on the floor. So the world's greatest deliberative body has now become the world's greatest nondeliberative body.

I think a ``yes'' vote today on a vote for reform, for change, and for a government that can effectively address our Nation's challenges is a vote to move ahead. It is a vote for progress--or we can vote for continued gridlock, continued obstruction, and broken government. This body does not function the way it is supposed to.

To be sure, the Founders put in place a system of checks and balances that makes it enormously difficult to enact legislation. It must pass both Houses of Congress. It has to go through committees first. It must pass both Houses of Congress, go to a conference committee, then it goes to the President. He can veto it. And then it can be challenged in court. All are very significant checks.

I often hear opponents of reform claim that what I am proposing would turn the Senate into the House of Representatives because at the end of 8 days, 51 votes could move something. I ask my friends: When did the Senate become defined by Senate rule XXII, which is the filibuster rule? I thought the Senate was defined in the Constitution. Rule XXII, the filibuster rule, is not the essence of the Senate. Regardless, the Senate will continue to be totally different from the House. We have two Senators from small States, two Senators from large States. We are elected every 6 years. We have sole jurisdiction over treaties, impeachments. And the Senate operates, as we know, in so many instances based on unanimous consent. That will continue. So the power of one single Senator remains to object to any unanimous consent request. Eliminating the filibuster will not change the basic nature of this body, nor the constitutional structure of the Senate.

For most of the Senate's history, there were very few filibusters--at most one or two a year. Can someone suggest that the Senate of Henry Clay or Daniel Webster, Lyndon Johnson, Everett Dirksen, that that Senate was the same as the House of Representatives? Even in my short time here--26 years--we used to have amendments on the floor that we would debate and vote, and if you got 51 votes, you won. We don't do that anymore. Under the present structure of the Senate, under the present rule XXII, the way it is being used today, every measure that passes the Senate must have 60 votes. Whatever happened to the idea of majority rule? Now one has to have 60 votes.

I have heard some say that if we have to have 60 votes, this encourages compromise to get to the 60 votes. I am all for compromise. I have brought a lot of legislation to the floor in my time here, and some has been adopted 100 to nothing. Farm bills, appropriations bills, others that I have brought to the floor, both in the majority party and in the minority party as the ranking member on a committee--and we didn't need 60 votes. If someone offered an amendment, they had the right to offer an amendment and get 51 or 52 or 53 votes and win. I have never stood at that desk, either as a committee chair or as ranking member, and insisted that a bill we had on the floor had to have 60 votes in order to pass. But that is what has happened in the Senate now.

Some say that promotes compromise. Anyone who has a bill or an amendment wants to get the most votes possible, right? They want to get more votes. That is the nature of legislation. But sometimes there is a bill or an amendment that does not lend itself to easy compromise. It may be contentious. We may have to take a hard vote. Maybe it only gets 51 votes.

Should that amendment go down to failure because it got 51 or 52 or 53 or 54 or 55 or 58 or 59 votes? Go out and explain that to the American people. Go to the next townhall meeting and say: No matter what happens, you can't pass anything with 51 votes. You have to have 60 votes to pass anything in the Senate. That gives the minority the right to veto anything. See how people react to that. When they understand it, they say: That is nuts.

We all stand for election every 6 years. If we only get 52 percent of the vote, maybe we shouldn't be here because obviously there was no consensus among the people who voted for us that we should represent them if we didn't get 60 percent of the vote. Is that what is coming, that we have to have 60 percent of the vote to even serve in the Senate? I know I am taking it to its extreme. I know no one is suggesting that. But boiled down to its essence, what we are saying is, without adopting reform of the filibuster, yes, we as a U.S. Senate believe a minority has the right to veto anything in this Senate.

I would much rather be on the side that says the minority has a right to slow things down, the minority has the right to debate, the minority has the right to amend, and the minority has a right to win those amendments with 51 votes. But a minority should not have the right to veto and stop legislation.

That is what my proposal does: adequate time for debate, adequate time for amendments, ensuring that the minority can offer an amendment, but, in the end, the majority would rule. It was never intended--never, never intended--that a supermajority of 60 votes would be needed to enact any piece of legislation, any amendment, or confirm a nominee.

Indeed, the Framers of our Constitution were very clear about where a supermajority was required. There were only five to the original Constitution: ratification of a treaty, overriding a veto, votes of impeachment, passage of a constitutional amendment, and expulsion of a Member.

It may come as a shock to many people, but the filibuster is not in the Constitution of the United States. In fact, historically, the first Senate, when it met, included a rule that permitted the majority to end debate and bring a measure to a vote with a majority. It was called ``invoking the previous question.'' But they had the right to do that. It was done away with by Aaron Burr, then-Vice President of the United States. We know what happened to him. But that was done away with.

So the Senate embarked upon a little over 100 years of having no rules. But, then again, the Senate did not do much. They really did not do much. However, in the 21st century, as a major superpower, with things happening with lightning speed around the world, we have to be able to react a little bit more rapidly than how we reacted in the 19th century.

Moreover, reform of filibuster rules stands squarely within a tradition of updating Senate rules as needed to foster an effective government that can respond to the challenges of the day. The Senate has adopted rules that forbid the filibuster in numerous circumstances, such as war powers and the budget. Think about that. For some reason, the Senate, at some point in time, said you cannot filibuster the budget. Imagine that. You can filibuster other things, but you cannot filibuster the budget. How about war powers? What could be more important than whether or not we go to war? It is a power granted to the Congress by the Constitution, but you cannot filibuster it. Think about that.

So we have rules that forbid the filibuster. We have passed four significant reforms of the filibuster since 1917. Today, unfortunately, it has become abundantly clear that we cannot govern a 21st-century superpower when a minority of 41 Senators can dictate action or inaction to a majority of the Senate and a majority of the American people--a majority of the American people.

We had a bill here last year; it was called the DISCLOSE Act. The House passed it twice overwhelmingly. They sent it to the Senate. Now, what did the DISCLOSE Act say? All it did is say the Supreme Court decision in Citizens United, that allowed corporate money to be funneled into campaigns to defeat or support an opponent and did not have to be accounted for, did not have to be made public. Many people suspected there was foreign money coming in through various sources to influence campaigns in the United States because they did not have to report it. So the bill came through that did not overturn the Supreme Court decision. It just said: If you are going to do this, you have to disclose where you got the money.

It passed the House. Polls showed it was supported by well over 80 percent of the people, a majority of Republicans and Democrats around the country. It came to the Senate twice. It got 59 votes. Why isn't it law today? Because you need 60 votes--60 votes. Go back and explain that at your town meetings. Go back and tell them: We don't have that today. We don't have that sunshine law because we need 60 votes, even though we got 59.

This is not the kind of representative democracy the Founders envisioned. It is not the kind of representative democracy that our sons and daughters have fought and died for for over 200 years. How many of our young men and women in uniform today--risking their lives in Afghanistan, Iraq, around the globe--how many of them know they are risking their lives for minority rule--for minority rule, not majority rule--minority rule? Very few, I submit. Very few.

It is time to end the paralysis, the drift, and the decline in the Senate. Yes, let's commit ourselves to debate and deliberation. There is nothing wrong with that, nothing wrong with extended debate. There is nothing wrong with having compromises. There comes a time when maybe a compromise is not in the cards. But should that mean we cannot vote on it, I say to my friends? Should that mean if we cannot get 60 votes, we do not even deserve to have 51 or 52 or 53 votes? Is that what we are saying?

I have heard my friends on the other side--I think I heard; I do not know exactly who it was today--say: Well, the 60 votes promotes compromise. I am all for that. But what if we cannot get the compromise, I say? Then are we saying we cannot have a vote because we cannot get 60 votes? That is, in essence, what they are saying. It is not the bedrock of democratic principle to deny the majority to rule, to finally have a vote.

So there may be a lot of misinterpretations of the amendment I am offering: Oh, it is going to make us like the House. Nonsense. It is going to take away minority rights. Nonsense. It is going to take away the right of the minority to slow things down. Nonsense.

What my amendment does is it says, finally, at some point in time, we are going to exercise our constitutional obligation.

I will close on this: Every 6 years we have an election and we go down here and hold up our right hand and we swear an oath. We swear an oath to uphold and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic, and to bear true faith and allegiance to the same.

I submit we are not living up to our oath of office in terms of bearing true faith and allegiance to the Constitution when, on the other hand, we enact rules that deny the majority the right to govern-- when we deny the majority the right to govern.

So I say every Senator has a lot of power here. The power of a Senator comes not from what we can do but from what we can stop. I have often said that is kind of the dirty little secret of the Senate.

Well, I think it is time for each of us to give up a little bit of our power, to give up a little bit of our power for the good of the country, to give up a little bit of our power of being able to stop something in order that the majority--whomever that majority may be-- can carry out their agenda on behalf of the American people.

I do not fear--I do not fear--the voters. I do not fear the ballot box. What I fear is this Senate will continue to be dysfunctional, it will not be able to act, we will continue to drift, we will not be able to respond to the exigencies of our time, the American people will get more and more frustrated and disappointed in the workings of our government, and the end result will be a decline in America.

Look, I am not Pollyannaish. I know none of these proposals will succeed. It

takes 67 votes, they say, to change the rules of the Senate. I believe that is inherently unconstitutional. Can one Congress bind another? Can one Congress bind all future Congresses? Can one Senate bind all future Senates? Can one Senate in a moment of time say we need 90 votes to pass anything here because 90 Members happen to be of one party, so they enact a rule and they say we have to have 90 votes to change any rule, knowing it will probably never happen again?

As Senator Byrd said one time--I know he is being quoted a lot around here today and when it comes to these debates--we should not be bound by the dead hand of the past--the dead hand of the past.

I believe it is the inherent right of the Senate to change its rules by a majority vote at the beginning of any Congress. That is what it says in the Constitution. Each House shall make its rules. It does not say each House makes its rules and every succeeding House must abide by those rules. It does not say that.

So I think we are left with a situation where the Senate--where the Senate--cannot live up to its constitutional obligation. I think it is almost inherently impossible for the Senate to do so. Therefore, I think we must now have to look to the courts to provide some relief in this matter, just as the Supreme Court decided in Baker v. Carr that legislatures could not reapportion themselves. So, therefore, they found it unconstitutional.

I, quite frankly, think a case can be made to the courts that the Senate rules, as they are now applied with the 67-vote threshold, prevent me, a Senator from Iowa, prevent a Senator from Georgia, prevent a Senator from Oregon from fulfilling his or her constitutional obligations to their constituents, to the people who elected them, to try to get legislation passed on a majority basis.

So, like I said, I am not Pollyannaish. I know where the votes are today. I do not know--I know my proposal will not get many votes. It did not get many in 1995 either. And people say: Well, Harkin, why are you doing this? Why do you do it when you know you do not get many votes? I do it because I believe in it. I believe with all my heart and all my soul that the Senate is not operating constitutionally right now. So I feel this fight must continue.

As I said, I now come to that point in time where I believe that perhaps we must look to the courts for their decision on whether the Senate is capable of fulfilling its constitutional responsibilities and obligations.

So I hope we do not have to go there. I hope we could adopt some of these reforms, such as the Merkley amendment or my proposal. Quite frankly, at the essence of it is the proposal by the Senator from New Mexico. That is the heart of it. Can a majority of the Senate change its rules at the beginning of a Senate? I believe it is constitutionally not only permissible, but I think we are obligated by the Constitution every 2 years to adopt the rules of the Senate by a majority vote and not by 67 votes.

So I close my part of the debate by appealing to the conscience of our Senators to think about majority rule, think about the rights of the minority but think about the rights of the American people to have their voices heard here by a majority vote and not by a supermajority. I believe that is our constitutional obligation.

Madam President, I yield the floor.

Mr. President, this is the same resolution I offered 16 years ago. I continue to offer it. If you believe the minority ought to have the right to slow things down, that is fine. But if you believe the minority should have the right to veto anything that comes on the floor, you don't want to vote for my resolution.

What my resolution says is that basically you need 60 votes. Then, if you don't get it, 3 days later you have another vote, it would be 57 votes; 3 days later, 54 votes; after 8 days, 51 votes could move a nominee, an amendment, or a bill. So it gives the minority the right to slow things down, the right to amend, the right to debate, the right to make their voices heard, but in the end it gives the majority the right to move legislation. We are a legislative body. The majority ought to have the right to move legislation. The minority should not have the right to veto.

Right now in the Senate you have to have 60 votes to pass anything. We used to be able to bring up amendments here and get 51 or 52 votes and pass it. That no longer happens.

If you believe in democracy, trust the American people, trust the ballot box. I am not afraid. I am not afraid of the majority enacting its will as long as I have the right to debate an amendment.

Mr. President, I ask for the yeas and nays.

Madam President, first of all at the beginning, let me thank two of my colleagues who have worked incredibly hard with me on the issue of Senate rules reform--Senator Merkley from Oregon and Senator Tom Harkin from Iowa. Senator Harkin will be joining us at some point.

I also wish to thank the Chair. One of the very early leaders on the constitutional option on Senate reform of the rules was Senator Jeanne Shaheen from New Hampshire. She is in the chair today. I know she cares about this a lot. I know she wants to see this move forward.

What we are trying to do is follow what has been the history in the Senate. At various points in the Senate, there has been respect for each other, the ability to get legislation on the floor, to have debate. With the rules, it is pretty extraordinary when we look at the history.

When we look at the history of the Senate rules, one of the things that is very clear in the movements in the fifties, sixties, and seventies to consider rules reform, both leaders would allow proposals onto the floor, allow these proposals onto the floor to be voted upon.

We have the extraordinary situation today--extraordinary, and we will see when our colleagues show up--where our friends on the other side of the aisle are basically saying: We don't want your rules reform on the floor today. We are not going to allow that to happen.

As everybody in the Senate knows, we have to have unanimous consent to do this. We are not going to get consent today, but we want to lay out for people what it is that could happen if we were able to get something on the floor.

It is my belief, I say to Senator Merkley, that the proposals we make--the proposal Senator Merkley and I are on and the Presiding Officer, Senator Shaheen, and 26 other Senators are on, S. Res. 10, that we filed on January 10, is a reasonable proposal; it is a commonsense proposal. The five proposals that are contained in the resolution have had substantial bipartisan support in the past.

I am going to be asking unanimous consent to put S. Res. 10 onto the floor so we can have a debate on it, so we can move forward. What is, as I said, extraordinary is we are not going to get that consent. Our research indicates--and I know Senator Merkley and his staff worked very hard. They had a chart that was three pages long. In the fifties, sixties, and seventies, these proposals were on the floor. They were debated on the floor. Sometimes there was a motion to table, sometimes there was an up-or-down vote. But we are having great difficulty getting this reasonable, commonsense proposal on the floor.

Let me talk a little bit about S. Res. 10, which 26 other Senators cosponsored on the first day. First of all, it deals with a serious problem. There are five parts to this issue. The first one is debate on motions to proceed. It may

sound a little crazy to people out there, but when we try to get something onto the floor, it does not happen automatically. Actually, what has to happen is if both sides do not agree, the majority leader files what is called a motion to proceed. We can end up on the motion to proceed, going along for 1 week, have to file cloture, which means to cut off debate on the motion to proceed, and then with all the ripening time it takes about 1 week to get through that. We can get to the end of the week, and if we do not get the 60 votes to cut off debate on the motion to proceed, we are back to square one and have wasted a week. That is what we believe is a dilatory tactic. It does not let us get to the point, the people's business.

Senator Merkley hit it on the head. That is a problem, and we have had that consistently in the 2 years that he and I have been here. My understanding is, it happened in many of the years before that time. In fact, Senator Byrd was very upset about the way the motion to proceed was being used. In 1979, he came down to the floor--he was the majority leader--and he did everything he could to change the motion to proceed and try to make sure it was used more rationally and more reasonably.

What our proposal is, I say to Senator Merkley, and other Senators on this resolution know, we are talking 2 hours of debate on the motion to proceed. Rather than wasting a week, if Majority Leader Reid comes down and says we are going to proceed to legislation about jobs and he puts it on the floor, the side over there gets an hour and our side gets an hour and then we are on the legislation, ready to have amendments filed, ready for debate to take place.

We have saved us what we believe would be 1 week of time. That is dealing with the first proposal on the motion to proceed.

The second proposal is very simple, but it is going to move the Senate along in a dramatic way; that is, section 2, eliminating secret holds. I know we have several Senators who have worked for years and years on secret holds. When I talk about the bipartisanship on secret holds, Senator Grassley, Senator Wyden, from Senator Merkley's great State of Oregon, Senator Claire McCaskill of Missouri more recently, have all been working on the issue of secret holds.

We very simply do this in one little section. We say:

No Senator may object on behalf of another Senator without

disclosing the name of that Senator.

That gets right to the heart of secret holds.

One of the things that happens--and we have seen a lot of this--we know some Senator is objecting, for example, to a nomination, a high nomination in an executive department and does it secretly so we do not know on the Senate floor, the press who covers this does not have an idea, and the people do not know. Then, the same Senator goes to the department and negotiates policy, national policy about a particular issue that concerns the whole Nation, all our States, and tries to get an agreement, a backroom deal and an agreement. That is not the way we should be doing business, and that is why this very simple proposal: ``No Senator may object on behalf of another Senator without disclosing the name of the Senator.''

You own the hold.

Then it is transparent, then if you as a Senator on the Klamath Basin want to do something, you can go to that Senator--whoever it is--and say: I have an issue with my State. Can we work together to try to work it out?

Right now the problem we have is that some Senator is putting on a secret hold and we do not know who it is and we do not have the ability to clear that away. This is a good, solid proposal.

I am going to move on to the third section of S. Res. 10, which is the right to offer amendments. As Senator Merkley knows very well and our Presiding Officer, one of the big issues around here--and this is getting into a little bit of the weeds, but one of the big issues that can help us function better is if we just agree, whether we are in the majority or in the minority, that we want both sides to have the opportunity to debate and to offer amendments. And so we are trying to protect that right. Many of us are thinking in terms of these rulings, and we are saying we want them to be fair to both sides. So the provision on the right to offer amendments is in the legislation. It talks about them being majority and minority amendments. It doesn't talk about parties because a lot of the pundits are saying we are going to be in the minority in 2 years, and I think it is only fair in the Senate that we have that kind of relationship.

Senator Merkley.

The fourth provision--and I think the Senator is very right on section 3, but section 4 is the issue of extended debate, and I would like to have the Senator talk about that issue because that is the issue on which you worked the most closely.

The Senator from Oregon has raised the issue of what we have going on right now is what we call a silent debate. It is a silent filibuster. We have people who say they want to filibuster and object, but then they go home or they go on vacation or something like that. So my colleague has drafted a

provision--he is the architect of this provision in S. Res. 10, if he could just go through that and talk about that section on extended debate, what it does and why it is important to what we are dealing with today.

Let me also say one thing about the talking filibuster that hit me, and that is bipartisanship. As we know, both of us, I think, were on the Senate floor when Senator Arlen Specter gave his farewell address. I believe the Presiding Officer was also here. Senator Specter served in the minority for 2 years and then was in the majority for almost 2 years and both times he came forward with a proposal where he was calling for the same thing--a talking filibuster, whether he was on the minority side or the majority side.

So I think, once again, that just demonstrates that each of these provisions has bipartisan support in it.

We don't think this debate is about partisanship. We don't think it is about a power grab. We don't think it is about those kinds of things. It is about, as the Senator has elucidated, making the Senate work better. When we say ``make the Senate work better,'' we are talking about it working better for the American people.

I think if we did the oversight of government when it comes to appropriations bills, a budget, getting the budget out on time, getting appropriations bills done on time, that does a lot to make sure the public's money is well spent, and that is something I hear a lot about back home.

I will ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record a Republican Policy Committee paper titled ``The Constitutional Option: The Senate's Power To Make Procedural Rules by Majority Vote,'' dated April 25, 2005.

We keep hearing that any use of the constitutional option is simply a power grab by Democrats. That is simply not true--and a 2005 Republican Policy Committee memo provides some excellent points to rebut the power grab argument.

Let me read part of the 2005 Republican memo and I will ask that the entire memo be printed in the Record:

This constitutional option is well grounded in the U.S.

Constitution and in Senate history.

The Senate has always had, and repeatedly has exercised,

the constitutional power to change the Senate's procedures

through a majority vote. Majority Leader Robert C. Byrd used

the constitutional option in 1977, 1979, 1980, and 1987 to

establish precedents changing Senate procedures during the

middle of a Congress. And the Senate several times has

changed its Standing Rules after the constitutional option

had been threatened, beginning with the adoption of the first

cloture rule in 1917. Simply put, the constitutional option

itself is a longstanding feature of Senate practice.

The Senate, therefore, has long accepted the legitimacy of

the constitutional option. Through precedent, the option has

been exercised and Senate procedures have been changed. At

other times it has been merely threatened, and Senators

negotiated textual rules changes through the regular order.

But regardless of the outcome, the constitutional option has

played an ongoing and important role.

The memo goes on to address some ``Common Misunderstandings of the Constitutional Option.'' Let me read some of those.

Again, this is a direct quote:

Senate procedures are sacrosanct and cannot be changed by

the constitutional option. This misunderstanding does not

square with history. As discussed, the constitutional option

has been used multiple times to change the Senate's practices

through the creation of new precedents. Also, the Senate has

changed its Standing Rules several times under the threat of

the constitutional option.

The next misunderstanding addressed in the memo is that ``Exercising the constitutional option will destroy the filibuster for legislation.''

The Republican rebuttal is:

The history of the use of the constitutional option

suggests that this concern is grossly overstated. Senators

will only exercise the constitutional option when they are

willing to live with the rule that is created, regardless of

which party controls the body.

And a final misunderstanding in the memo, and one which the Republicans are happy to use now, is that ``the essential character of the Senate will be destroyed if the constitutional option is exercised.''

The memo rebuts this by stating:

When Majority Leader Byrd repeatedly exercised the

constitutional option to correct abuses of Senate rules and

precedents, those illustrative exercises of the option did

little to upset the basic character of the Senate. Indeed,

many observers argue that the Senate minority is stronger

today in a body that still allows for extensive debate, full

consideration, and careful deliberation of all matters with

which it is presented.

I ask unanimous consent that the memo be printed in the Record.

I think this shows this isn't about a power grab; this is about trying to work to make sure the Senate is going to work better for the American people.

The fifth provision of S. Res. 10--and as Senator Merkley knows, we are down here today to try to get S. Res. 10, rules changes, onto the Senate floor, and so we are going to be asking unanimous consent for that. But the fifth provision is called postcloture debate on nominations.

Now, what are we talking about? Well, when we have a nomination that comes to the floor--a judicial nomination, an executive nomination--in the rule nominations have 30 hours of postcloture debate. So when you decide to cut off debate, when you get to the point that you say we are going to cut off debate, that 30 hours is normally used for amendments and to work through the amendment process.

Well, when you have a nomination, you are not amending a nomination. You are trying to either move forward with an up-or-down vote on the nomination--the person is either voted up or down. It makes no sense to have 30 hours. So the other commonsense proposal we have is to shorten that postcloture time to 2 hours, from 30 hours, because there is no reason to amend in that phase.

I know Senator Merkley is also familiar with this provision.

That is correct. So what we are doing today--and I know Senator Merkley has introduced a freestanding proposal on the talking filibuster, and we have joined together; I have also signed on to that--we have S. Res. 10, filed on January 5, which has the five solid provisions for reforming the rules. I think if you look at these in history, they have had broad bipartisan support.

I would at this point recognize our colleague in this rules debate, our partner and hard worker and more senior in experience on these rules matters, who has joined us--Senator Tom Harkin from Iowa. We are in a colloquy situation, so I will yield.

You bet.

Mr. President, I know the Presiding Officer has also been a part of this rules reform effort. We very much appreciate that.

It was mentioned here about Senator Byrd. I think one of the most interesting stories about Senator Byrd, I say to Senator Harkin and Senator Merkley, in 1979 when he came to the floor, he was talking about--and we have used this quote many times--the dead hand of the past, not being ruled by the dead hand of the past.

What was he talking about? He was talking about the idea that one Senate could establish a set of rules and bind future Senates. He gave a passionate speech. We are in the situation that he talked about right now. He said, now we are at the beginning of Congress. This Congress is not obliged to be bound by the dead hand of the past.

Take rule XXXII, which is a different numbered rule today. But, for example, the second paragraph thereof says that: The rules of this Senate shall continue from Congress to Congress until changed in accordance with these rules.

That rule was written in 1959, by the 86th Congress. The 96th Congress is not bound by the dead hand of the 86th Congress. The first Senate--now he talks a little bit about history here, which is very important. The first Senate, which met in 1789, approved 19 rules by a majority vote. First Senate.

Those rules have been changed from time to time, and that portion of the Senate rule XXXII I quoted was instituted in 1959. The members of the Senate who met in 1789 and approved that first body of rules did not for one moment think or believe or pretend that all succeeding Senates would be bound by that Senate. The Senate of the 86th Congress could not pretend to believe that all future Senates would be bound by the rules it had written. It would be just as reasonable to say that one Congress can pass a law providing that all future laws have to be passed by a two-thirds vote.

Any member of this body knows that the next--any member of the body knows that the next Congress would not heed that law and would proceed to change it and would vote to repeal it by a majority vote, no doubt about it.

So he says: I am not going to argue the case any further today except to say that it is my belief, which has been supported by rulings of three Vice Presidents of both parties and by votes of the Senate, in essence upholding this power and the right of a majority of the Senate to change the rules of the Senate at the beginning of a new Congress.

That is the essence of where we are right today--that we are able, if we have a majority, to move forward with adopting our rules that are going to function for this session of Congress. That is why we are in such a battle here to try to get those proposals onto the floor. We want to get S. Res. 10. We want to get the talking filibuster proposal. We want to get those put onto the floor so we can have debate, we can have votes. And our understanding is there is going to be objection from the other side.

As Senator Harkin said earlier, we function here by unanimous consent, and they apparently are not going to give us that consent. I know that Senator Harkin--changing the subject a little bit here--but both Senators Harkin and Merkley mentioned earlier the whole issue of why we want the Senate to function better, that we have pressing national problems and challenges.

I think one of the Senators who said it best made a comment back in 1971. This is Senator Hart, Senator Phil Hart of Michigan. It still resonates decades later.

The apparent inability of the Senate to take action on our

domestic ills, when the needs are so painfully clear, is a

basic cause of unrest and disaffection among the citizenry.

The imperative of change is obligatory if institutions such

as the Senate are to have the capacity to respond well to the

complex array of overlapping domestic and international

issues.

Long ago Thomas Jefferson said: As new discoveries are made and new truths discovered and manner and opinions change with the change of circumstances, institutions must advance also and keep pace with the times. Institutions must advance also and keep pace with the times.

That is why we are here. We have rules that were adopted long ago that are not working today. You and I have talked several times about, if you want your government to spend money wisely, you want it to be efficient, why do we not give them a budget until half way through the fiscal year? It makes absolutely no sense.

That is the situation we are in right now. We hold hearings, we bring the agency in, we think we are going to have an appropriations bill on the floor--by the way, this year we did not have--but last year we did not have a single appropriations bill on the floor. So they think they are going to get one budget. Then when we pass the fiscal year, last October 1, we start the fiscal year, we start into it, we have done a couple of continuing resolutions. A continuing resolution just gives them month-by-month funding. The next continuing resolution does not expire until March. So who would tell any agency, nonprofit government agency, that we are going to give you a budget but we are not going to quite tell you what it is, and maybe go month to

month, and then about halfway through the year we are going to give you the rest of the budget.

That is not the way to take care of the people's money. It is not the way to be efficient. It is not the way to make sure the people's money is very well spent. I think it is important that we do that work, the work of appropriations bills.

Of the Senators who are on the floor right now, Senator Harkin is an appropriator. When you bring an appropriations bill to the floor and have all 100 Senators take a look at the appropriations bill, take a look at what is working in that department and what is not, and how we move down the road with that particular set of policy initiatives and programs, that is something the agency pays tremendous attention to, those amendments that are put in, the arguments that are made. And we are neglecting all of that now.

Last year we did not do a single appropriations bill. In my understanding, the House--and I know we were very frustrated when I was over in the House. We would say: Well, why are we even passing the appropriations bills? The Senate does not do them. We are going to end up, at the end of the year, doing one of these continuing resolutions or an omnibus bill.

For the first time in I do not know how long, last year the House gave up doing appropriations bills. So here, one of our core functions as a legislative body, what we all call the power of the purse, tremendously important, that power of the purse has been emasculated, it has been warped beyond recognition to the point where I think we are dysfunctional, the agencies are dysfunctional, and we have got to get it all back.

I know the chairman of the Judiciary Committee has outlined a number of times--and I find it appalling that we do not have the judicial people in place to do the job for the country. Right now the Federal courts are looking at fraud on Wall Street. They are looking at all sorts of major cases that have to do with financial reform and insider trading and all of those kinds of things.

Guess what. If you do not have judges to hear those cases, then all of that justice is going to be delayed. There is an old saying in the law: Justice delayed is justice denied. Today we have 94 judicial vacancies. The Judicial Conference of the United States has weighed in with the Senate and the House and said: These are judicial emergencies. Of 94 vacancies, 44 of them they consider emergencies. They need somebody in there immediately. Yet, still, because of this constant filibuster we are in--it is a filibuster without real debate--it wastes a lot of time, it prevents our ability to put those judicial nominations on the floor and to get an up-or-down vote.

The same thing is true of the executive branch.

I know Senator Merkley saw the article in the Washington Post which was at the end of the first year of the Obama Presidency. He only had 55 percent of his team in place of the top people in the agencies to run the government. And it is not all our fault. I think they were slow in sending some things up, but it is a pretty appalling number when you think of the job of a President to put his people in place in the agencies so his policies can be carried out. What has happened is that has been delayed and slowed down.

I harken back when I was a youngster here in Washington growing up. I was about 12 years old when my father became Secretary of the Interior. Here you have only half of the people in place in the Federal Government. I remember my dad, as Secretary of the Interior, telling me when I would travel home: Tom, I have my whole team in place, virtually whole team in place in 2 weeks.

So he had his top people. He was ready to carry out policy, ready to move forward with the President's policies at the Department of Interior. I remember, we had holes, we had a variety of things going in the Department of Interior.

We had a very talented woman from New Mexico who was going to become the Solicitor, who had moved her young family to Washington. They had a 3-month hold on her nomination. Nobody could ever figure out why. But she was finally allowed to become the Solicitor of the Interior Department.

With all of these kinds of things, from holds to the constant filibuster without any real debate, have slowed down the government in a significant way and prevented us from doing the important oversight job we need to do.

I know the Senator from Oregon has other comments he would like to make.

Mr. President, I am also waiting. Senator Merkley is waiting to put in his unanimous consent request on the talking filibuster proposal which goes to the heart of the problem we have today. One of the things I have learned the last 2 years in the Senate is that when 41 Senators vote for more debate, that is basically what is happening. When Senators vote for more debate, 41 of them, then we don't get more debate. A lot of times we are in quorum calls. A lot of times if we have a live quorum, we pull 51 Senators over to the floor to try to get through that, there are a series of dilatory motions, and it is very difficult in the modern Senate to keep 51 Senators here surrounding the floor. In the old days, they used to pull out cots and stay through the night so that Senators would be able to sleep someplace to keep that live quorum going. But in the modern Senate, with everything going on, it is a tremendously unfair advantage for one side to have one Senator and the other side have to have 51 in order to try to conduct any business. That is the situation we are in today. That is what the talking filibuster goes to. It goes to dealing with that situation.

How does it deal with it? If 41 Senators request more debate, if they say to the other 59 Senators they want more debate, we very simply say, just as Senator Alexander said, quoting Jimmy Stewart in ``The Right to Talk Your Head Off'' from ``Mr. Smith Goes To Washington,'' then come down and debate. We are going to have a debate period where nothing else is brought up but debate. The job of the Chair, as the Presiding Officer knows, will be in that period to ask the question: Are there any other Senators on the floor who wish to debate?

At that particular point, the American people could look down and be able to make an observation: Is this debate educating the public? Is it moving things forward, or is it just a filibuster to waste time?

One of the old-time Senators from California made a comment about the filibuster wasting time. This is from Senate Republican whip Tom Kuchel of California. He asked the question on the floor: What is a filibuster? My definition would be that it is irrelevant speech making in the Senate designed solely and simply to consume time and thus to prevent a vote from being taken on pending legislation.

He is pretty condemning of that kind of filibuster. But that is a judgment. We don't want to take people's right to debate away. We just want to make sure there is an honest, fair debate on the floor. That is what I compliment Senator Merkley on. He has drafted a proposal, worked long and hard on it. What it ends up doing is, at the end of the debate, when 41 Senators call for debate, we go into a period of extended debate. They talk and they talk. At some point, when the Chair asks: Are any other Senators on the floor who wish to debate, and there is silence, they are then rolled over into what is called postcloture 30 hours.

Mr. President, that is the essence of it. What we have now is Senators leaving. We actually had the case where a Senator wanted the cloture vote to take place but then left and went home. That is a pretty disgraceful situation. I have heard that our good friend, Senator Alexander, is going to join us in a little bit. I know the Senator from Oregon was quoting from a speech he recently gave at the Heritage Foundation on January 4, 2011.

One of the things Senator Alexander said in there that I think we, all three of us, have echoed--Senator Harkin, Senator Merkley, and myself--is:

Now there is no doubt the Senate has been reduced to a

shadow of itself as the world's greatest deliberative body, a

place which, as Sen. Arlen Specter said in his farewell

address, has been distinctive because of ``the ability of any

Senator to offer virtually any amendment at any time.

I say to Senator Harkin, I know he has spoken passionately about the idea of offering amendments, how our democracy has deteriorated in the Senate because it takes now 60 votes--every amendment. I say to the Senator, it did not always used to be like that, did it? I would ask the Senator, did it? The Senator has been here a while. What was the Senate like 10, 15 years ago? Could you get an amendment through with a majority vote?

Of course.

I say to Senator Harkin, one of the things that happened to us right at the end of the Congress was when we had a vote on a piece of legislation called the DREAM Act. I believe the majority had 55 votes for the DREAM Act.

Here is a piece of legislation where we were talking about inmigrant children--through no fault of their own; they were probably brought in as tiny babies--who have grown up in the United States and have reached the age of adulthood and they have a ceiling on them. They cannot go to college. They do not have Social Security numbers. So we were basically trying to give them a dream they could go out and be Americans. They could join the military, and after they did their military service get in line for citizenship. They could go to college, and if they did well, get in line for citizenship.

In any other country, if you had the two legislative bodies--the House passed it by a majority; we passed it by a big majority, 55 votes--you would have a law. The President would be signing it, and it would be law today.

That is what has happened to this filibuster rule. A lot of the steps we are taking do not necessarily get right to the heart of that, but I think the people understand that part of it. When I have gone home, people say: What happened? What is going on? Fifty-five Senators voted for the DREAM Act and it did not become law.

Senator Harkin.

I thank the Senator.

We see our good friend, Senator Alexander from Tennessee, has arrived, and we very much appreciate that.

I say to Senator Alexander, one of the things we have been discussing--and Senator Merkley had a chart and had the history of what had happened as far as rules debates. There have been a lot of rules debates--in the 1950s, 1960s, 1970s, and always--always--the two leaders would allow a rules proposal to be on the Senate floor and be debated and be disposed of.

We now have a situation today where we cannot get our rules proposals onto the floor. Senator Merkley is here with a talking filibuster proposal. I say to the Senator, I believe he has been talking with you. I say to Senator Alexander, you have been very open with us in saying: Let's have discussions. And your theme has really been, like you say in your speech at the Heritage Foundation:

[T]he Senate needs to change its behavior, not to change

its rules.

That has been the Senator's function. But the Senator is also working on rules changes with Senator Schumer, and we very much appreciate that.

But I know Senator Harkin has a proposal. Senator Merkley has a proposal. I have S. Res. 10. I say to the Senator, he was here on the first day of the Senate session on January 5 when we put in, with my two friends, S. Res. 10. We are just trying to get it to the floor, and that is what I am going to ask right now, with my unanimous consent request. We very much appreciate the Senator being here.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of S. Res. 10, a resolution to improve the debate and consideration of legislative matters and nominations in the Senate; that there be 6 hours for debate equally divided and controlled between the two leaders or their designees, with no amendments in order; and that upon the use or yielding back of time, the Senate proceed to vote on adoption of the resolution.

Mr. President, Senator Grassley and Senator Wyden and more recently Senator McCaskill, have pointed out the obvious fact that so-called holds that Members of the Senate place on nominations or legislation should be public. I think that is a good idea. That has bipartisan support. I believe today we will change the rules to make that clear, and I congratulate Senators Wyden, Grassley, and McCaskill for their perseverance and persistence in pushing this ahead.

I have always been glad to be public with my holds. I remember when Senator Reid filibustered my TVA nominee by putting a hold on him, so I filibustered one of his Nevada citizens by putting a hold on him. Then we were able to work it out. But Senator Reid and I made our objections public. I knew what he was doing and he knew what I was doing. That is important to build confidence in the Senate.

Senator Grassley is on his way over and he has been the partner with Senator Wyden on reforming holds for some time. I would like to say to Senators Wyden and McCaskill and others--as I have already said to Senators Udall and Merkley--that the efforts they have made to change the rules of the Senate have created a window of opportunity which I believe those of us on both sides of the aisle believe will make the Senate a better functioning forum. These Senators will not succeed in all the changes they are seeking to make but this window of opportunity will allow the Senate to better function as a place to discuss serious issues.

The majority leader and the Republican leader earlier today said they were going to do their best to see that most bills come to the floor after first going to committee. Then once bills get here we will have amendments. I think that is what most of us want. We want a chance to represent the views we have and those we are elected to represent. Sometimes our views are in the minority. Sometimes we are very solitary with our views. Maybe we are the only one who has a particular view. But we want a chance to be heard and a chance to offer amendments to express our views.

I think we are preserving the Senate as a forum in which that can be done, but at the same time we are making it a more effective place in which to do that. I congratulate Senator Wyden and his colleague, Senator Grassley, and others for their efforts.

Mr. President, the Senator from Oregon has talked about the number of nominations that couldn't be considered. I am sure the Senator from Oregon remembers that there cannot be a filibuster on a motion to proceed to a nomination. All the majority leader has to do is bring it up. You can't debate that. If he should bring up the motion to proceed to a nomination, and if a Senator over here or over there objected, then the motion can be put to a simple majority vote. When I was nominated by President George H.W. Bush to be Education Secretary, a secret hold was placed on my nomination. Senator Metzenbaum, as it turned out, had a hold on my nomination for 3 months when all it would have taken for me to be confirmed was for the majority leader to bring my name to the floor. Then if we had gotten 60 votes for it, we could have debated for 30 hours and had a final vote on my nomination.

What would happen during the 30 hours? We don't have Senators going out to dinner except on the other side of the aisle. Because under the current rules, in those 30 hours, one Senator gets 7 hours to speak. We know a Senator can do that because a distinguished Senator from Vermont demonstrated very capably that he was capable of doing that not long ago. He did a great job. People all over the country saw it, wrote him, and he became a little bit of a celebrity for that day. Senators are still capable of that. But if a Senator had wanted to take the whole 30 hours in a postcloture period, he then has to get 23 more Senators to join him in taking an hour of that 30 hours. Without getting into the complications of it, if Senators fail to talk, then the majority leader can say those are dilatory tactics and force any Senator who wants to extend the debate to be very uncomfortable. That Senator would have to get up to 23 Senators to come join him at some time during the speech and take 7 hours himself. The reason why that hasn't been done is because the majority didn't want to do it.

Now I am not just saying that. The master of the Senate rules, Senator Byrd, said it in his last testimony before our Rules Committee last May.

He said this:

Forceful confrontation to a threat to filibuster is

undoubtedly the antidote to the malady.

Senator Byrd was talking about what some considered the abuse of a filibuster. Most recently, before he died, Senator Byrd said:

Senate Majority Leader Reid announced that the Senate would

stay in session around the clock and take all procedural

steps necessary to bring financial reform legislation before

the Senate. As preparations were made and cots rolled out, a

deal was struck within hours and the threat of a filibuster

was withdrawn. I heartily commend the majority leader for

this progress, and I strongly caution my colleagues as some

propose to alter the rules to severely limit the ability of a

minority to conduct a filibuster.

I know what it is to be majority leader, and wake up on a

Wednesday morning in November, and find yourself a minority

leader.

Senator Byrd said the Senate rules provide the means to break a filibuster. He went on to describe that.

Mr. President, I don't want to suggest to the distinguished whip, who knows the rules of the Senate much better than I, or to Harry Reid, the majority leader, how to break a filibuster that he thinks is an abuse. But they know how to do it. That takes a little trouble. You cannot go out to dinner and have a glass of wine, as the Senator from Oregon was talking about. You have to sit on that side of the floor and have 50 Senators ready. You can sit there and say: I would like for the Senator from Tennessee to assert himself. And you can stay all night. I imagine if you do that once or twice, or if we voted on more than zero Fridays, which was the number of Fridays we voted on last year, you could confront filibusters.

After I finish my sentence, I will yield the floor to the Senator from Illinois.

I say to my friends, what we are trying to do today is to move past this time where we point out that the majority leader has cut off our right to amend and debate six times more than recent majority leaders. That is what gets everybody stirred up over here. It is like telling us we can join the Grand Ole Opry, but we can't sing.

We are here to let people know what the people in Tennessee and other States think. We might be in the minority, but we are in the Senate where the minority is supposed to have a voice.

When, time after time, you bring a bill to the floor and cut it off, and you call that a filibuster--that is why we are upset. You are upset because as a result of that you didn't get to bring as many bills to the floor as you would like. We are trying to put that all behind us today. This window of opportunity has produced what I think is important. These rules changes we are going to adopt are good and will move us in the right direction.

The real value of this whole effort has been to cause us to think about how the Senate operates and realize the best way to do it is for most bills to go to committee, come to the floor, and for most Senators to get to offer most of the amendments they want to offer and get them voted on. We might have to vote on a Friday--maybe even a Thursday night or maybe even a Saturday. It might be that the majority has to confront a filibuster by saying: Senator so-and-so, if you are going to slow us down, we are going to make you use that 30 hours. You are going to have to talk your 7 hours and get 23 other Senators, and we are going to be here to see that you do it.

My guess would be that you do that about once, maybe twice, and that would end that particular problem. My real guess is if this general attitude that the majority and minority leaders talked about earlier today occurs, then you will see very few uses of the filibusters you think are inappropriate. The Leaders described an attitude which is that we are going to do our best to see that most bills come to the floor, that most Senators get to offer the amendments they want, and that Senators get the votes on those amendments they want. If you think inappropriate filibusters are occurring, according to Senator Byrd, you have the means to confront them.

My hope is that this whole exercise not only is producing some rules changes that are valuable but a change in behavior on both sides of the aisle which will be valuable. We will wait and see.

I am happy to yield to my friend from Illinois.

Will the Senator yield for a question?

Mr. President, since the distinguished whip has apparently renamed this amendment the ``which side of the aisle goes out to dinner'' amendment, let me ask him this: Isn't it true that if your side didn't go out to dinner--since you asked to be elected to the Senate, you raised a lot of money, and you worked hard and defeated some Republican to get here--if you really think somebody over here is abusing their minority rights by filibustering, then why would you go out to dinner, and why would you not want to be here and hear that person talk and respond to him? Why would you not do that?

Isn't it true that Senator Byrd said that forceful confrontation to the threat of a filibuster is undoubtedly the antidote to the malady? He did not want us tampering with this 60-vote procedure we have that forces consensus.

My question to the majority whip is this: Why did you go out to dinner so often--through the Chair--when instead, you could have been here, under the rules as Senator Byrd suggested, dealing with abuses to the filibuster or what you consider they were?

Madam President, I have already congratulated Senator Udall, Senator Wyden, Senator Merkley, and Senator Harkin for stimulating a good, full discussion about two objectives. No. 1 is, how do we make the Senate the best possible place to deal with serious issues that come before our country, because we have plenty of them right now, starting with our national debt and the high unemployment rates. They have done a good job on that. They have led us today to adopt what I believe are two important steps, one having to do with secret holds and another having to do with taking time away, that might otherwise be better used, by having the clerk read an amendment.

This debate has also produced a couple of other things. One is to create broader support than we have had over a number of years on dealing with the persistent problem of the difficulty a President has in staffing the government. Senator Reid and Senator McConnell, when they were whips, tried to deal with this issue. We had three bipartisan breakfasts on this, working with the White House, 2 years ago. Senator Lieberman and Senator Collins, who are the committee chairs, have tried to deal with this issue. And we have all failed so far.

But Senator Schumer and I will be introducing a bill which we will be discussing with committee chairmen and ranking members especially, and it will have the support of the leaders, Senators McConnell and Reid. It will have the active involvement of Senator Lieberman and Senator Collins. What we hope to do is two things. One is to reduce the number on Senate confirmed positions--Senator Harkin spoke about this a little earlier. He has been a ranking member and a chairman. He basically said that we don't need to spend our time here having Senate confirmation of hundreds of part-time boards and commission members or the public relations official for some department. We should focus our attention on issues that affect the American people such as jobs, debt and terror.

The second thing we should do is to end this practice of making it so that the citizens who are invited by the

President of the United States to serve in our government are innocent until nominated. We drag them through a maze of conflicting forms, many of them created by the executive branch and many of them created by the Senate. These nominees fill out forms that trap them and trick them and embarrass them. It is surprising that anybody will accept the opportunity to serve. I remember majority leader Howard Baker was nominated by President Bush to go to Japan as Ambassador. Everybody in the Senate knew him very well. He was voted ``Most Admired Senator'' by Senators on both sides of the aisle in the 1980s. It cost him $250,000 to fill out the forms so that he could be the Ambassador to Japan. I could give many examples of similar difficulties.

Washington, DC, has become the only place where you hire a lawyer, an accountant, and an ethics officer before you find your house and put your kid in school if you come to work here. We need good people in the government. We need to be able to attract them here. We should fix the current system. I greatly appreciate the work Senators Schumer, Reid, McConnell, Lieberman, Collins and others have done. I hope our colleagues will join us in bringing this forward in an expedited way.

I ask unanimous consent to include at the end of my remarks, remarks I made on March 9, 2009, on the Senate floor entitled ``Innocent Until Nominated.''

Madam President, only two other things.

I wish to congratulate Senator McConnell and Senator Reid for leading us in this way. Changing rules is an important step forward. I do not in any way want to diminish what I believe we are about to do, but we need a change in behavior more than we need a change in rules. This debate has caused us to talk across party lines about what we want, and I think what we want is what Senator Udall said as a whole. We would like most bills to come through committee and then come to the floor. We want to have a chance for most Senators to be able to offer most of their amendments and then to get votes. That is what we should try to do most of the time. Sometimes the Republicans will want to repeal the health care law, and the Democrats will use all of their resources to defeat our efforts. Sometimes the Democrats in the House will send over a bill to repeal the secret ballot in union elections, and Republicans will try to defeat that. We will use all of our resources in those instances. But that won't be most of the time. Most of the time, we will be able to do our jobs better to represent the people who sent us here.

I hope those who have provoked this discussion feel a sense of satisfaction about what they have done, even though I know that in every case they didn't get exactly what they want.

Finally, I ask unanimous consent that a long response to Senator Harkin's excellent comments on his amendment which he has been fighting for for 16 years, be printed in the Record at the conclusion of my remarks.

Senator Harkin is very straightforward about his difference of opinion. He believes we ought to bring every debate eventually to 51 votes. So I would respectfully term his amendment as sort of a ``hang me now or hang me later.'' We know that eventually it is not 60 votes we are going to require, it is 51, and he says that is the way it ought to be. I disagree. So do many others.

I will just cite two distinguished Senators who spoke on the floor of the Senate about 5 years ago when a number of Republicans got it in their minds that they would like to change the filibuster rule as it affects judges. This is what Senator Harry Reid said then:

The filibuster is far from a procedural gimmick. It is part

of the fabric of this institution that we call the Senate.

For 200 years we've had the right to extend the debate. It's

not a procedural gimmick. Some in this Chamber want to throw

out 214 years of Senate history in the quest for absolute

power. They want to do away with Mr. Smith as depicted in

that great movie being able to come to Washington. They want

to do away with the filibuster. They think they are wiser

than our Founding Fathers. I doubt that's true.

The then-Senator from Illinois, Barack Obama, referring then to the Republican majority:

Then if the majority chooses to end the filibuster, if they

choose to change the rules and put an end to Democratic

debate, then the fighting and the bitterness and the gridlock

will only get worse.

I would suggest that, as a result of this discussion, we preserve the Senate as an institution, a forum for deliberation where minority rights are protected.

But we have also taken some important steps forward--or are about to--with rules changes to make them function better. We have reached a consensus among ourselves--informally, anyway--that is represented by the colloquy that will be placed in the Record by Senator Reid and Senator McConnell. They said what we want is an opportunity to represent the American people the way they sent us here to do it, which is to take legislation, bring it through committee, bring it to the floor, and for us to have a chance to amend, debate, and vote. That would be most of the time. Some of the time we will exercise our minority and majority rights to defeat a bill, because that is also what we are sent here to do.

I thank the Senators for this spirited debate. As far as I know, there are no more speakers on the Republican side.

Exhibit 1

Floor Remarks of U.S. Senator Lamar Alexander (R-TN), ``Innocent Until

Nominated''

(March 9, 2009)

Mr. President, in the midst of much talk about

bipartisanship and not much to show for it, I have a

nomination for an issue upon which we can work together, and

that is this: review the maze of conflicting forms, FBI

investigations, IRS audits, ethics requirements, and

financial disclosures to make it possible for President Obama

and future Presidents to put together promptly a team to help

them solve big problems.

This is an urgent problem today because during the worst

banking crisis since the Great Depression, the man in charge

of fixing the crisis, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner,

apparently is sitting in his office without much help, at

least from any Obama Presidential appointees.

According to news accounts, among the key vacant positions

at the Treasury Department are the Assistant Secretary for

Tax Policy; the Deputy Assistant Secretary for Tax Policy;

the Deputy Assistant Secretary for Tax Analysis; the Deputy

Assistant Secretary for Tax, Trade, and Tariff Policy; and

the Deputy Assistant Secretary for International Tax Affairs.

The first choice for Deputy Secretary of the Treasury appears

to have withdrawn her name from consideration.

Four months after the President's election, according to

TheBigMoney.com, the list of vacancies on the Treasury

Department Web site shows that ``Main Treasury Building is a

lonely place, conjuring up visions of Geithner signing dollar

bills one by one . . ., watering the plants, and answering

the phones when he's not crafting a bank rescue plan.''

Of course, there are the career employees available and at

least one holdover Assistant Secretary and various czars in

the White House--but even one of the czars has expressed

concern about the slow pace of filling Treasury Department

jobs at a critical time.

Part of the problem may be attributed to the Treasury

Secretary's boss, our impressive new President, who is

nevertheless subject to the criticism that he is living over

the store but not minding it.

Presidents have many problems to solve, but no one ever

suggested that the wisest course is to try to solve them all

at once. There is a tradition that Washington, DC, can only

do one thing well at a time. And Presidents are supposed to

exclude from the White House the merely important issues so

they may deal with the truly Presidential problems, which

surely must not include being distracted by debates with

radio talk show hosts.

President Eisenhower, who knew something about leading

complex organizations, said in 1952: ``I will go to Korea.''

The country relaxed and elected him, confident that the

general would end the Korean war.

We need for President Obama to say in Eisenhower fashion

``I will fix the banks''--and then stay home long enough to

do it. Then the country might relax a little and gain some

confidence that this might actually happen, which is the

first step and perhaps the main step in economic recovery.

But the President needs a team at Treasury to help persuade

the American people that he can and will get the job done.

The President has brought on himself some of the difficulty

of putting together a team. In addition to having too many

balls in the air at once, in my opinion, his standards for

hiring sometimes seem to have the effect of disqualifying

people who know something about the problem from being hired

to solve the problem.

But another part of the President's difficulty in filling

jobs--one that has afflicted every President since

Watergate--is the maze of investigations and forms that

prospective senior officials must complete and the risk they

run that they will be trapped and humiliated and disqualified

by an unintentional and relatively harmless mistake.

I voted against the nomination of Secretary Geithner

because I thought it was a bad example for the man in charge

of collecting the taxes not to have paid them. And I thought

his excuse for not paying was not plausible. But that does

not mean that we should disqualify every Presidential nominee

for minor tax discrepancies that result from the complexity

of our Byzantine Tax Code, a Tax Code which has reached 3.7

million words, according to a January report by the National

Taxpayer Advocate, and which is badly in need of reform.

I suspect very few Americans with complex tax returns can

go through a multiple-year audit without finding something

with which the IRS might disagree.

Take the case of former Dallas mayor Ron Kirk, President

Obama's nominee to be U.S. Trade Representative, who

headlines report paid back taxes primarily because he failed

to list as income--and then take a charitable deduction on--

speaking fees that he gave away to charity. Common sense

suggests, and his tax preparer thought, what Mr. Kirk did was

appropriate. After all, he did not keep the money. The IRS

apparently has a more convoluted rule for dealing with such

things. In any event, the matter is so trivial as to be

irrelevant to his suitability to be the trade nominee.

Tax audits are only the beginning. There is the FBI full

field investigation during which friends of the nominee are

asked such questions as: Does he live be and his means?

When I was nominated for Education Secretary a few years

ago, one of my friends replied to the FBI agent: Don't we

all?

There are Federal financial disclosures. Then there is the

White House questionnaire, and, of course, the questions from

the confirming Senate committee. The definition of what

constitutes ``income'' on some forms is different than the

definition of ``income'' on others. It is easy to make a

mistake.

This is not as bad as it could be. We have a Democratic

President and a Democratic Congress with big majorities in

both Chambers. So the nominees have gone through fairly

quickly. But when the Congress is of a different party than

the President, the congressional questionnaires expand and

sometimes delay the nomination for more weeks.

Washington, DC, has become the only place where you hire a

lawyer, an accountant, and an ethics officer before you find

a house and put your kid in school.

The motto around here has become: ``Innocent until

nominated.''

Every legal counsel to every President since Nixon would, I

suspect, agree that in the name of effective government, this

process needs to be changed. Most have tried to change it,

but in Washington style, new regulations pile up on top of

old ones, creating a more bewildering maze. So I have this

suggestion--and one of the Senators to whom I want to make

the suggestion is here today, the Senator from Connecticut. I

suggest Senator Lieberman and Senator Collins, who are the

chairman and ranking member of the committee with

jurisdiction over this mess and who have a tradition of

working well together, should set as a goal to clean it up by

the end of the year. Invite all the former White House

counsels of both parties to give their opinions. Consolidate

and simplify the forms so we learn only what we need to know.

To help with this, I suggest that Senators Lieberman and

Collins form one of those ``gangs'' that we occasionally form

in the Senate, maybe a dozen or more Senators equally divided

among both parties--some from the Homeland Security and

Governmental Affairs Committee and some not--in order to

limit the possibility that everyone will run away from the

final recommendations because they fear someone might think

Senators are not interested in ethical and good government.

Good government right now means fixing the banks and having

the best possible team to do it.

As a Washington Post editorial writer said yesterday of the

President:

As he convened his ``health care summit'' at the White

House . . . the stock market was hitting another 12-year low,

General Motors was again teetering on the brink of insolvency

and the country was still waiting to hear the details of the

Treasury's proposal to bail out banks. Maybe we can make this

grand bargain with our new President: If you will keep your

eye on the ball--in this case, fixing the banks so the

economy will get moving again--we will work in a bipartisan

way to make it easier for you and for future Presidents to

promptly assemble a team and govern us properly.

I thank the Chair. I yield the floor.

Madam President, this amendment puts into effect what the Republicans called in the health care debate the Bunning rule, which is, if it is not on the Internet and not available for 72 hours, it shouldn't be brought up.

We think this is a sensible--I think this is a sensible amendment, and I urge a ``yes'' vote.

Mr. President, this amendment might be called the ``if you are going to hang me later, hang me now'' amendment. This would eliminate the filibuster by making certain that it only took 51 votes, eventually, to pass a bill. This filibuster, according to the current majority leader in 2005, ``is a part of the fabric of this institution we call the Senate.'' Former Senator Obama said in the same year, ``If the majority,'' he then referred to the Republicans, ``chooses to end the filibuster, if they choose to change the rules and put an end to democratic debate, then the fighting and the bitterness and the gridlock will only get worse.''

We have agreements today that will begin to end fighting and gridlock, bring bills to the floor, having more amendments.

I urge a ``no'' vote on the proposal.

Mr. President, in his last appearance before the Rules

Committee, Senator Byrd quoted James Madison's description of this body as a necessary fence against rulers and transient impressions and said the right to filibuster anchors this necessary fence and we must never, ever tear down the only wall, the necessary fence, that the Nation has against these excesses.

This amendment does not tear down that fence, but it seriously weakens it. I recommend a ``no'' vote.

Mr. President, in his last appearance before the Rules Committee, Senator Byrd said:

Forceful confrontation to a threat to filibuster is

undoubtedly the antidote to the malady.

He also said:

I also know that current Senate rules provide the means to

break a filibuster.

If Senator Byrd, who knew the rules better than any of us, thought that, we don't need to change the rules.

I urge a ``no'' vote.

Mr. President, I submit a resolution on behalf of myself and Senator Tom Udall to amend rule XIX and rule XXII of the Standing Rules of the Senate, and I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of the resolution.

Mr. President, for purposes of having the resolution go over, under the rule, I object.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent to speak on the issue of Senate rules. I will be joined by a few colleagues in a few minutes.

Thank you, Madam President.

The reason I am rising to talk about rules is because we are at the start of a new 2-year period for Congress. This is the appropriate time to be considering how well the Senate is working and whether we should amend the rules by which the Senate functions.

The last major debate over many of the rules was in 1975. The reason there was a debate that particular year is that in 1973 and 1974, the Congress preceding, there were 44 filibusters, each eating up about a week of the Senate's time. There was a tremendous amount of frustration over the dysfunction of the Senate. So at the start of the Congress that began in 1975, there was an enormous amount of debate, debate that went on for weeks, with all kinds of motions. The spreadsheet tracking them fills pages. In the end, what this body, the Senate, decided to do was to change the rule that requires 67 Senators to terminate debate and have a final vote on a bill and replace it with the decision to have 60 Senators required to end debate and have a final vote on a bill. This is for the so-called cloture motion.

Now we are in a period immediately preceded by the 2009-2010 Congress. In 2009 and in 2010, we didn't have 44 filibusters, we had 135 filibusters. In other words, the Senate has been three times as dysfunctional as it was preceding the last major debate in this Chamber over rules. Since each filibuster delays the work of the Senate for approximately a week under the rules, if you have 135 objections in a 2-year period, that would be 135 weeks of delay in a 104-week period. Obviously, many things are not going to get done with that type of obstruction. Indeed, during 2010 this Chamber was unable to pass a single appropriations bill of the 13 appropriations bills traditionally taken under consideration, debated on this floor, and sent forward. Why is that important? Because in the appropriations bills, we make decisions about what the most pressing problems in America are and how we are going to allocate resources to address those pressing problems. We didn't fail to do this in one or two areas; we failed to do it in all 13. Furthermore, this body did not pass a budget during the last year, 2010. This body did not proceed to advise and consent on all of the nominations that came before it. In fact, we left over 100 nominations pending.

This merits a little bit further discussion because under the Constitution, it is the Senate, this esteemed Chamber, that weighs in on the President's nominations to fill key executive branch positions. It is this Chamber that weighs in on the President's recommendations to fill judicial positions, to assign judges.

If we never get to the debate on the floor of the Senate, then we have not fulfilled our constitutional responsibility to advise and consent. In fact, we have wounded the executive branch, and we have damaged the judicial branch. Certainly, under our theory of balance of powers, it was never envisioned that the advise-and-consent function of the Senate would be used to damage other branches of government. We have failed in our responsibility.

Furthermore, we have left over 400 House bills lying on the floor, collecting dust, unprocessed, unconsidered. The saying in the House of Representatives is the Senate is where good House bills go to die.

It is appropriate that as we start a new 2-year period, we ask ourselves how we should address this dysfunction. There was a time in which the Senate was called the greatest deliberative body in the world. Unfortunately, today there is very little deliberation in the Senate. No appropriations bills, nominations unprocessed, hundreds of House bills untouched, an incomplete budget. The main culprit in this is the filibuster. A filibuster is kind of street language, if you will, for an objection to the regular order of holding a majority vote and triggering about a week's delay in the Senate's process, and it also triggers a supermajority of 60.

It has gotten to the point that in this constitutional function as a majority body, a body in which we need 51 votes, it is functionally becoming a supermajority body.

The Framers of the Constitution were very clear and they laid out a supermajority required for certain purposes. A supermajority is required to approve treaties or a supermajority is required to impeach but not to pass legislation. That was not the vision.

Today, I rise to say we can do better in the Senate and that we owe it under our constitutional responsibilities to do better.

There are a series of proposals that have been filed. One of my colleagues has arrived, Senator Udall, who has been a key leader, enormously instrumental in this effort to reform the Senate. In a few minutes, I am going to ask unanimous consent for one of these rule changes to be considered on the floor. I will do that when my colleagues across the aisle have arrived. I will go further in discussing how we need to change the Senate.

Before I go further, Senator Udall already asked for a colloquy. I thought I would stop at this moment and see if he wants to jump in and share some general thoughts before we get into the specifics of the various resolutions which we might ask unanimous consent to have considered.

If I may interrupt for a moment, I wish to clarify what the Senator from New Mexico just said, which is, a supermajority of the Senate, after 1 week of debate, is required just to get to the point where we might start debate on the bill, and the Senate wastes weeks and weeks debating whether to debate rather than doing the people's business. That is a problem.

Madam President, the Senator from New Mexico is telling me it has become a common practice on the floor of the Senate for an individual Senator who wants to oppose something to not have the courage to stand here and tell the world their position but instead to secretly object to a particular issue being raised. I cannot imagine the American public can believe that Senators do not have the courage of their convictions to come here and say: I am going to hold up this legislation because I disagree with it, and I am going to fight it any way I can. So the public can weigh in if they agree with them or not. They will be accountable to the U.S. citizens.

I wish to note, as Senator Udall observed, Senator Wyden, Senator Grassley, and Senator McCaskill have worked hard on a much more detailed version than we have in S. Res. 10, but the basic notion is the same. If a colleague is going to place a hold, they are going to do so in a public and accountable fashion and that would greatly improve the quality of ballot.

I have been in the position of trying to get help for the Klamath Basin in Oregon because they have had little rainfall. I eventually did find out, but it took me quite a while, asking a lot of questions about who had the hold so I could ask them to release the hold so we would have a chance of moving that assistance for this drought-impacted portion of my State.

With this change, those holding up assistance to Klamath or any other area would have to come to the floor and make clear where they stand.

It is not only secret to the public, it is often secret to fellow Senators, greatly complicating our effort to dialog with fellow Senators as to why we are pursuing something and get their partnership in it.

I want to note this is important to both the majority and the minority. For example, we recently had a bill on the floor of the Senate which was a major bill regarding the compromise struck by President Obama with our Republican colleagues to spend almost $1 trillion. I had an amendment I wanted to present that would have taken some of the money in that bill that was being spent in a fashion which created very few jobs and to spend it in a fashion which would create a lot of jobs. I had another proposal to take money that wasn't being put to good use and to proceed to fill in and support the solvency of Social Security and Medicare.

Now, people can argue about whether these were good ideas, but if I had been able to offer one or both of those amendments, I think it would have improved the debate and dialogue and perhaps have resulted in a better piece of legislation.

Certainly. This provision about a talking filibuster says rather than having a situation where a Senator objects to a majority vote and then we delay the work of the Senate for a week, though nobody is here explaining their position to the American public, instead we would switch to a provision that says if 41 Senators want continued debate on a bill, we will get continued debate on a bill. We will have debate on a bill, not silence.

Currently, we have the hidden or the silent filibuster. With this, we would create the public or the talking filibuster. To give a sense of the numbers on this, these blue bars represent filibusters during the last 2-year period. During the first 6 months 33, 34 in the second 6 months, 36 in the third 6 months, and then 33. I think that is 136 total filibusters in a 2-year period.

This is why we didn't have any appropriations bills. This is why we didn't have a budget. This is why we didn't deal with hundreds of House bills. And this is why we didn't get nominations done and advice and consent on them.

Is this the way the Senate has always operated? Absolutely not. In the last few decades there has been a huge change in how the Senate has functioned. So let's take a look at the average per year.

In the 1900-1970 period, the average was one filibuster per year. In the 1970s, the average was 16 filibusters per year. In the 1980s, 21 filibusters per year, average; in the 1990s, 36 filibusters per year, average; in the 2000s, 2000-2010, 48 filibusters per year; and from 2009 to 2010, this last session, an average of 68. There were 136 total.

So you can see from this chart the growing dysfunction. There was always a social contract that existed in which an individual Senator didn't exercise his or her power to object to a simple majority vote unless they thought it was an issue of huge consequence. Maybe that would occur once or twice in a career, but not routinely week after week. But that social contract has been eliminated. The filibuster was honoring the right of every Senator to be heard; that we were not going to hold a vote until every Senator had his or her say so we could be fully informed and have a full dialogue. It is that reciprocal respect that is being routinely disregarded and abused on the floor of the Senate.

Many of us have an image of the filibuster that comes from the movie, ``Mr. Smith Goes to Washington.'' Here is Jimmy Stewart playing the character of Jefferson Smith, and he comes to defend a corrupt action and to stop it regarding a camp for children. He talks through the night, and there are many forces assaulting him, but Jimmy Stewart is going to stay on the Senate floor and he is going to tell the American people what he is fighting for and why. This is the talking filibuster, where you don't object and go away and leave the Senate suspended. You don't vote for additional debate and then not have that debate. You come to this floor and you hold the floor and you join with other partners to hold the floor in order to explain why you are holding up the Senate and to carry on the debate, to have that additional debate you have voted for.

So the talking filibuster is almost that simple--it replaces the silent filibuster with the talking filibuster. The result is two critical things: First of all, transparency and accountability with the American public. The public can see what you are saying on the floor of the Senate and can say you are a hero or you are a bum. They can agree with you or they can disagree, but it is visible, not hidden.

The second thing is each Senator has to expend time and energy to carry out a filibuster, so this will strip away all these frivolous filibusters that are done for no other reason than to prevent the Senate from being able to carry on with its responsibilities.

I think what the Senator from New Mexico has set forward is that we would save 28 hours on each nomination. If the Senate goes around the clock, that is a bit more than a day. If we are doing 10- hour days, that is almost 3 days. We save 3 days of Senate time that is put to no purpose right now since by the time you have a 60-vote cloture you already have 60 Members saying they are ready to vote and want to go forward.

So letting people wrap up over a couple of hours, restating their key points for other Members, makes sense. That is why the 2 hours are there. But rather 2 hours than 3 days.

I would certainly like to thank Senator Harkin for the many years he has pursued reforming the rules of the Senate, especially from the perspective of being in the minority and then maintaining that same effort in the majority. I believe it is important to recognize that the issues we are presenting and bringing to the floor are to make the Senate work better as a deliberative body for both the minority and majority.

If we were to turn the clock back several decades, we would not be here right now carrying on this colloquy. Instead, there would have been a unanimous consent to put a rule proposal on the floor of the Senate, and we would be debating that proposal. That is the way the Senate worked for most of its first two centuries.

In 1953, Senator Anderson put forward a resolution to adopt new rules at the start of Congress. There was a debate on it. Then, eventually, it was tabled. It was tabled by 51. That is what the rule said--51 could table, they could set it aside. He did not win his debate, but he got it on the floor of the Senate, and it was debated.

The same thing in 1957, and in 1959, he again did this.

In 1961, he did this again, and in that case it was debated on the floor of the Senate. Everyone said: Let's get the rule out there, let's hold a debate. Eventually, they referred it to the Rules Committee. Finally, near the end of the cycle, it was moved out of the Rules Committee, back to the floor, and they held another debate on Senator Anderson's proposal. The result of that debate was that it was tabled, the resolution was tabled. It did not pass. To have the debate is not going to guarantee you are going to win the debate but it is to engage in the deliberation, the exchange of ideas that enables us to capture the challenges we see, the challenges in our country and in this case the challenges with making the Senate function and making things work better.

This goes on. Here we have five times in the course of 12 years that a rule proposal was put on the floor and was debated. It was defeated, but it was put

on the floor under the framework that 51 Members could adopt rules under the Constitution, the constitutional power you have been speaking to so eloquently for Congress to organize itself--for the House of Representatives to organize itself and for the Senate to organize itself.

I wanted to go over a little bit of that history to say the very fact that we are not at this moment debating a rule proposal is a reflection of the dysfunction of the Senate. A debate on the rule to fix the Senate itself reflects the dysfunction of the Senate.

I want to thank you for having engaged in so many years of effort to bring these issues forward. The challenge of fixing the Senate has been engaged in by so many names that I was familiar with growing up, folks such as Senator McGovern, Senator Mondale, Senator Church, Senator Pearson. They all brought their effort to make this body work better. We did have a major reform in 1975.

But as a chart I put up earlier showed, the congestion and the paralysis from the abuse of the privilege of having yourself heard, making yourself heard before your colleagues, has now compromised the ability for us to fulfill our constitutional responsibilities and we need to fight hard to try to fix the broken Senate.

I would be delighted to do so.

Well, certainly I will tell you that Senator Byrd stood on this floor and said the Senate cannot be bound by the dead hand of the past. You can imagine that any particularly bizarre rule that might have been passed by our predecessors that damaged our ability to fulfill our constitutional responsibilities would be inappropriate, and we would need to change it. The Constitution empowers us to change it with a simple majority.

So when the point comes that the Senate is not functioning in the fashion it was constitutionally intended to function--that is, a simple majority to pass legislation--then we certainly have to wrestle with whether we are doing our responsibility if we do not fight to make the Senate work better. We have an obligation to this Chamber, and we have an obligation to our responsibilities under the Constitution.

Mr. President, it is quite a contrast that the Senator is drawing between an era in which in a 2-week period the bulk of the team was in place, ready to do the work they were elected by the people to do--the executive branch, headed by the President, had his Secretaries, and the Secretaries had their teams in place, and they were ready to go forward to make sure they were working hard on the agenda they had laid out during the election cycle.

As my colleague said, elections have consequences. The vision of our Republic is one in which we elect a President, and the President says: Here is my agenda. Then he puts together a team to get it done. It is not in the spirit of our Constitution, it is certainly not in the spirit of our democratic souls, after the people have elected a President, to try to damage and inflict pain and obstruction upon that President. That is essentially saying one does not accept the judgment of U.S. citizens about electing the President.

This process has to change. We have to find a way that folks can be brought to the floor. It is not that this Chamber will approve every single nomination. It is that it will hold a debate and have a vote. If there is no controversy surrounding someone, then that will probably be reduced to a unanimous consent request. Some will be waived through to not take up the time on the floor of the Chamber.

There is more than 1,000 executive branch positions that have to be confirmed under statute. That, too, should be changed. There is far too many positions that are basically set up so that they have to come to this Chamber. That is certainly a subject of conversation. But for those that under the law need to come for advice and consent, then we need to exercise that responsibility in a manner that is consistent with advise and consent but not with attempting to damage the President and his team.

I was looking at a speech by one of my colleagues from Tennessee, Mr. Alexander. He titles it, ``The Filibuster, Democracy's Finest Show, the Right to Talk Your Head Off.'' That quote at the top of his paper is from a speech before the Heritage Foundation and is taken directly from the film ``Mr. Smith Goes to Washington.'' In other words, the premise that my colleague put in his paper is that there needs to be the right of the people elected by the citizens to have their voices heard on the floor of the Senate. That is what the talking filibuster is about. It is about the people being able to see their Senators, when they are saying there needs to be additional debate, to actually debate.

There is a tremendous amount of bipartisan support for this notion that Senators should not hide from the American people, that they should not be engaging in secret holds, but instead, if they are going to place a hold on a piece of legislation, to do it publicly and have accountability. There is tremendous support for the notion that when we proceed to vote that we want additional debate, we are actually going to debate so we utilize the time of the Senate to weigh the pros and cons, to hear all colleagues. Not that folks say: We want additional debate and then go off to dinner. Not that Senators say: We want additional debate and then go off on vacation.

If they ask for additional debate, then we should have additional debate, laying out the pros and cons, arguing the merits, considering amendments--in short, the talking filibuster.

I have a unanimous consent request that I gave notice of half an hour ago. We are standing by waiting for one of our colleagues from the other side to come, extending the courtesy for them to come and object to this request. I am saying this out loud and looking across the aisle and saying we have been waiting half an hour. I think it is time for one of our colleagues who wishes to object to get here on the floor and, just as we have been talking about, make their case visibly in front of the citizens of the United States as to why they wish to object to having a

full debate on the talking filibuster. I know my colleague is waiting to offer a unanimous consent request to have resolution No. 10 considered before this Chamber. I think we have pretty well laid out the reasons we think this debate is important. But we can't get to that debate without putting forward a unanimous consent request and having it concurred in or blocked by objection.

I will see if my colleague from New Mexico wishes to make any more comments. If not, I will offer my unanimous consent request and await our colleagues to come and either endorse or object.

So if I might explain, if there is something critical to my State, the talking filibuster enables me to find a couple of other Senators who share my views. Perhaps they have similar issues in their States.

For example, the citizens of Oregon don't want oil companies drilling off our coast. We have a tremendous business in salmon, in ground fish, rock fish. We have a river economy that depends on the migration of salmon upstream. We have a crab industry. We have a tourist industry, the most spectacular coastline anywhere in the world, the coast of Oregon. The last thing we want is an accident that puts oil all over our beaches and destroys multiple aspects of our economy.

So if there was a bill on the floor that said we are going to drill for oil off the coast of Oregon, and if I believed that was a huge mistake, then I could organize with other Senators and be here day and night to block that misguided legislation. In that sense we are not changing the number. It still takes 60 Members to close debate.

We protect the voice of the minority. We say two Members could continue a debate day and night. For that matter, one could, but eventually one is going to collapse on the floor like Jimmy Stewart did. This is important to note because the talking filibuster is about taking away frivolous obstructions that paralyze the Senate and prevent it from doing its responsibilities on advise and consent and considering regular bills from the House and certainly to be able to get the appropriations bills done, to get the authorization bills done, and so on and so forth.

There may be those who say we oppose the talking filibuster because it takes away the power of the minority to block legislation. Actually, the talking filibuster doesn't do anything of the kind. It just says that when you block legislation, you have to do it in front of the American people. You have to stand on the floor and make your case.

Well, I say to Senator Harkin, I think that is a tremendous example. I believe we actually had 59 votes twice----

I believe, one vote short needed to close debate on the motion to proceed to get to the DISCLOSE Act. So we could not even get onto the bill.

So here is a Supreme Court decision that allows unlimited-- unlimited--secret foreign donations. I will tell you, as a red-blooded American, the idea of foreign companies secretly influencing American elections is outrageous, and we should have had a debate on that bill. But, instead, we had 41 Senators who said they wanted further debate, and then they were not willing to stand up on the floor to make their case before the American people. And why did they want to hide from the American people? Because the American people do not support secret foreign donations influencing American elections. That is why.

Under the talking filibuster, folks could not have filed an objection and left this Chamber and hid. They would have had to make their case, and the American people could have weighed in and said: You are a hero or you are a bum. In this case certainly most Americans, I believe, would have weighed in and said: Get to that bill. Get to a debate on it and get it done because it is the American tradition for Americans to make their decisions about who they elect, not foreign corporations to secretly spend money on American campaigns.

If the Senator will yield for an observation.

Madam President, I wish to thank my colleagues, Senator Udall of New Mexico and Senator Merkley of Oregon, because they are great leaders on this issue. I think they have brought a breath of fresh air to the Senate in exposing what has become gridlock that has made the Senate almost dysfunctional.

I say to my friend, Senator Udall, especially in focusing on what the Constitution says and doesn't say, I believe--and I am only speaking for myself--that we are not living up to the oath we took as we stood by the well when we were sworn into the Senate. We took an oath that we would uphold and defend the Constitution and that we would bear true faith and allegiance to the same.

Well, quite frankly, the Constitution, I believe, is quite clear in the way it is written, in the verbiage that is used. If you look to what the Founders wanted in the Constitution, they were very clear that but for a few instances, which they clearly spelled out in the Constitution requiring a supermajority of votes--such as treaties, for example, and impeachments, or expelling a Member--everything else is a majority vote.

But the Senate has adopted rules in the past that I believe are, quite frankly, bordering on unconstitutional by requiring that in order to change the rules, it requires a two-thirds vote--67 votes. Well, that might be OK for one Congress, if they wanted to adopt that kind of rule, but how can one Congress bind another? I think it is quite clear from Parliaments of old and other legislative bodies, court rulings in this country, that one legislative body cannot burden a subsequent legislative body. Yet in the Senate, because of a change in the rules that happened some years ago, they say it binds every Senate thereafter.

I believe that is unconstitutional. My friend from New Mexico, Senator Udall, has pointed this out time and time again, that really we have not only a constitutional right but a constitutional obligation that, on the first convening day of the Senate of any Congress, we adopt rules, and we can adopt those rules by majority vote. If the majority wants to adopt a rule that says that for this Congress we have to abide by a certain number, that is OK, but it cannot bind another Congress.

Senator Udall has been quite eloquent on this issue. He has been very forthright and has fought very hard for what is known as the constitutional option. That is just a fancy word for saying ``live up to the Constitution.'' We took an oath to bear true faith and allegiance to the same--the Constitution. Senator Udall is constantly reminding us of what that Constitution says and does not say. As the Senator has pointed out many times, the Constitution says each body shall adopt its rules. So the Senate can adopt its rules. It does not say in the Constitution that each body shall adopt its rules but it requires a two-thirds vote to change those rules. It doesn't say that. It says each body shall adopt the rules, and it does not specify that we have to have a supermajority to do so. I think it only specifies a supermajority, if I am not mistaken, in five cases. Obviously, the Framers of the Constitution were quite clear that each Congress could adopt its rules and it could adopt them by a majority vote. Now we have a situation in the Senate whereby we are throttled by rules that do not permit us to change those rules except by a two-thirds vote.

As I said many times, what if the voters of this country decided to elect 90 Senators from the same party, say, the Republican Party. Could they come in and say: We are going to adopt new rules, and from henceforth it is going to take 90 votes to change those rules, knowing that may never happen again in the history of this country that we would ever have 90 Senators from one party. Could they do that? If you accept the logic of what we are working with right now, the answer is yes, we could do that and bind every Senate from then on in perpetuity that the only way they could change the rules would be with 90 votes. We say that wouldn't happen. Well, what about 67 votes or 75 votes or 78 votes? What is so magic about 67? Where does that magic number come from? It was plucked out of thin air.

That is why I address myself to the issue Senator Udall has worked so hard on; that is, focusing on the constitutional issue.

Senator Merkley, from Oregon, has focused on rule XXII--it is called the filibuster rule--which provides basically that we do not even have to filibuster. In a filibuster, people think they come on the Senate floor, like ``Mr. Smith Goes to Washington,'' and they speak and they hold the floor and they can hold the floor until they drop or, if somebody else wants to speak, they can speak. That is what people

imagine a filibuster to be, and that is what a filibuster used to be. What a filibuster has become is a means whereby the minority can stop us from debating anything. So what has happened to the Senate, supposedly the greatest deliberative body in the world, is we have now become the greatest nondeliberative body because we do not debate because now a minority can decide what we take up and what we do not take up.

Think about it this way. Under rule XXII, as it is now being used, 41 Senators can decide what this body does. They have the veto right--the veto right over anything we bring up, that the majority wants to bring up. Again, when I say ``majority,'' I am not saying Democrats or Republicans; I am saying any majority. That is why I first brought up my proposal in 1995, when we were in the minority, because I wanted to make it clear that this was not a means whereby we were trying to grab power or anything. I said, no, this is for the smooth functioning of this place. I predicted at that time, in 1995, and the record is clear--it is in the Record--I predicted that unless we do something, the number of filibusters would escalate, it would be an arms race, and that is exactly what has happened--135 last year.

So the Senator from Oregon has said that if we are going to have a filibuster, at least people ought to come on the floor and talk. At least, if you are going to filibuster, if you are so opposed to a bill and you have a group who is opposed to it, at least stand out here and speak. They don't have to do that now. They put in quorum calls and walk off the floor, and a minority--41 Senators--decides what we take up. They can stop anything.

Think about it this way. For a bill to become law in this country, it requires that it pass the House and the Senate in the same form, and the President has to sign it. Right now, the way we are constituted and the way we operate in the Senate, 41, a minority in the Senate-- regardless of what the House wants to do, regardless of what the President wants to do, and regardless of what the voters may want--can stop it. That turns the whole concept of democracy on its head. I thought the majority rules, with rights to protect the minority. So the minority can offer amendments. I don't even mind if the minority wants to slow things down. That should be their right, to be able to do that as a minority. They should have the right to offer amendments, to change a bill as they see fit. But I do not believe a minority ought to have the right to absolutely stop and veto a bill or an amendment from coming to the Senate floor. We have a situation where the power resides with the minority.

I heard the distinguished Senator from Kentucky, Mr. McConnell, said the other day that this is a power grab by the Democrats. No, no; the power grab is by the minority, whatever minority. The power grab is by the minority to insist that they have the right to veto anything here. That is the power grab. So now the power lies with the minority, but the responsibility lies with the majority. So the majority in the Senate has the responsibility to act, but we do not have the authority. The minority has the authority, the right to veto things, but they don't have the responsibility. That is why we have such a dysfunctional system. This is what the people of America are opposed to.

I will have more to say about this tomorrow as I think we will get into a longer debate on this issue. I think the people have the right to understand that if a majority of the House and a majority of the Senate pass something and the President agrees, it ought to become law. That is not the way it is. We used to have a system on the Senate floor where, if you offered an amendment and you got 51 votes, you agreed to the amendment. You can't do that anymore. You cannot get an amendment offered on the Senate floor unless you have 60 votes. That is what happened over the last 4 or 5 years. I know I myself tried to get an amendment offered on the financial regulation bill. I thought I had over 51 votes on it. I don't know if I did or not, but I was not able to offer it because there was a 60-vote threshold. I might have had 52 or 53 or 54 or 55, but I did not have 60. Now in the Senate we require a supermajority to do anything because 41 Senators--a minority--have the right to veto anything the majority wants to bring up.

As I said, I will have more to say about this, but it seems to me this stands democracy on its head and the idea of majority rule on its head. I think the majority ought to have the right. Elections ought to have consequences. If people vote for a certain party to be in power, that party, regardless of what it is, ought to have the authority to act. There ought to be rights for the minority to amend, discuss, debate, slow things down--fine. But the minority should not have the absolute power of a veto, and that is what the minority has in the Senate today.

That is the issue Senator Merkley has been going after. At least if you are going to have a filibuster, there ought to be some consequences to it, and the consequences are that you ought to have to be here and talk and not hide behind quorum calls where we sit here for days on end doing nothing because someone has objected to bringing up a bill but they do not have to be here to discuss it.

I thank my two colleagues for their great leadership on this issue. As I said, they brought a breath of fresh air here. The average person out there watching probably thinks: Bring it up for a vote. Things are not quite that simple in the Senate, as we are about to find out. So we are going to do whatever we can to bring this to the forefront, but I daresay that the way the rules are set up right now--requiring a supermajority to change those rules--makes it nearly impossible for a majority of the Senate to act.

Again, I thank my colleagues, Senators Merkley and Udall, for their leadership. I look forward to being in league with them to do whatever we can to make this place function a little bit better and a little bit more in accordance with the principles of democracy, of majority rule, and respecting the rights and wishes of the voters of this country.

I thank my colleague from Oregon for his leadership--I see he is standing there--and I thank my colleague, Senator Udall, for yielding to me.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, would the Senator yield for a question on that point?

The Senator is a student of the Constitution. We have all looked at it. We know what it says. I mentioned earlier about the fact that when we come in here, we take an oath of office to uphold and defend the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic, to bear true faith and allegiance to the same. That is our oath of office, to bear true faith and allegiance to the Constitution.

Is it the Senator's view that perhaps the way the Senate is constructed right now may in some way--I just throw this out--take away my constitutional right to adequately represent my constituents? If it takes a supermajority or if we cannot even change the rules, as the Senator has pointed out, does not this kind of take away some of the constitutional rights and obligations, obligations of a Senator, I ask the Senator?

I thank the Senator for his response on that.

Well, if my friend will yield for a response.

Yes, literally up until 4 or 5 years ago you could offer an amendment on the floor, and if you got 51 votes, you won. That happened for--well, I have been here, what, 25, 26 years I guess now, and that is the way it has always been. Sometimes there were tough amendments. Sometimes there were tough amendments by Democrats; sometimes there were tough amendments by Republicans. It did not make any difference who was in the majority or the minority.

I do not think people elected us just to have an easy time of it here and not to ever cast tough votes. Sometimes these are tough votes. But I think the Senator from New Mexico is right. We always operated under the fact that a Senator could offer an amendment. Usually you would enter a time agreement. You would say: How much time do you want? Well, you would have an hour or an hour and a half or 2 hours, something like that. You would have a reasonable time agreement, and you would have debate and then a vote. Sometimes people would move to table it, and that was fine, but at least 51 votes decided that.

Now, as the Senator pointed out, you have to have 60 votes for any amendment, a supermajority. For any single amendment you want to bring up on the Senate floor, you now have to have 60 votes. I say to my friend, it was not always like that.

That is right.

If the Senator will yield, the Senator is absolutely right. I will give another example. As the Senator knows, the Supreme Court decided a case last year that allows certain entities to contribute money to political campaigns, and they do not even have to disclose who they are or how much they give. It is a Supreme Court decision.

Well, the House passed a bill, and public opinion polls show that 80 percent of the American people were in favor of what we called the DISCLOSE Act. We did not say they could not give the money. We just said they ought to file: Who are you, and how much money are you giving, and where are you getting that money from?

It passed the House. It came to the Senate. I believe we had 57 votes for that, if I am not mistaken. I could be corrected, but I think it was over 55 votes for that. But it did not pass.

The average American out there would say: Wait a minute. I thought if you got 51 votes, you won. No, no, no. Again, we had to have 60 votes in order to pass the DISCLOSE Act. The President would have signed it into law. The House passed it. Eighty percent of the American people were for it. But because there was this 60-vote threshold, we did not get it passed.

I see the Senator from Oregon.

I stand corrected.

I thank the Senator. The Senator pointed out correctly--I was mistaken; I thought it was 57--it was 59 votes. You would think normally that bill would pass and it would go to the President for his signature. It was supported overwhelmingly by the American people, yet thwarted because we have the right--as I said earlier, the minority in the Senate has a right of veto. They can veto whatever they want to bring up. What sense does that make in a democracy?

I thank the Senator and yield the floor.