A resolution to establish as a standing order of the Senate that a Senator publicly disclose a notice of intent to objecting to any measure or matter.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.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

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.

Madam President, I wish to thank the Senator from New York, the Senators from New Mexico and Oregon, and Senator Harkin of Iowa for their efforts--some over many years--to achieve two goals: to help make the Senate a place that is better able to deal with the serious business that comes before us, and second, to preserve the Senate as a unique forum--unique in the world, really--as a legislative body that protects minority rights.

This is an important step forward--the reform of the Senate--but the reform the Senate needs is a change in behavior, not in its rules. These rules move us in the right direction, but the behavior that the Senator from New York spoke about and that the majority leader and the minority leader spoke about is what, in the end, will make the most difference.

I have talked with many Senators on both sides of the aisle. We have done a lot of talking both on the floor here and off the floor about where the Senate is today, and a great many of us feel the Senate is a shadow of its former self in terms of its ability to function as a truly deliberative body.

It is hard to see how the majority can complain after a legislative session where they passed health care legislation, financial reform legislation, and other legislation that may have even resulted in the diminishing of their numbers. They had a productive session, from their point of view. But the truth is, on both sides of the aisle--on both sides of the aisle--we wish to see the Senate function in a different way.

The majority leader and the Republican leader have put out in a colloquy what that way is, and that will govern what we do. But basically, I believe it is this: We want the same thing--a Senate where most bills are considered by committee, where most bills come to the floor as a result of bipartisan cooperation, where most bills are then

debated and amended and then voted upon.

To someone who may have just tuned into the Senate, they may say: Well, that is a very simple solution. I thought that is what the Senate was supposed to be. It is what the Senate is supposed to be. It wasn't so long ago that it was the standard operating procedure. Senator McConnell said it was just a few years ago. He and Senator Reid have both been here a number of years.

I remember watching the Senate--and I have mentioned this before in this debate--between 1977 and 1985, when Howard Baker of Tennessee and Robert Byrd of West Virginia were the Republican and Democratic leaders. I had worked for Senator Baker before that as a legislative assistant. I knew Senator Byrd. Here is what went on then, and here is what could go on today: Most pieces of legislation that came to the floor started in committee. That gave us a chance to see what they did and to improve them and to hear from voices from all over the country. That legislation then came to the floor.

During Senator Baker's day, when he was the majority leader, he would rarely bring a bill to the floor unless both the Republican chairman and the Democratic ranking member supported it because he didn't want to waste the Senate's time. He knew that the Senate's 60-vote requirement forces consensus.

People talk about the filibuster. But what we have is a requirement that most important bills get 60 votes. If you are sitting with 53 Democrats and 47 Republicans, you don't have to have an advanced degree in mathematics to figure out if you don't have some Democrats and some Republicans, you don't get to 60.

So Senator Baker was saying back in the 1980s, bring the bill to the floor if it has the Republican chairman and the Democratic ranking member's support. Then the call would go out for amendments, and sometimes there would be 300 amendments filed.

The Senator from North Carolina or Tennessee might file 40. And no one said: Whoa, stop. You cannot do that. Instead, they said: Bring them on in. Sometimes there would be 300 amendments. Then Senator Baker or Senator Byrd would ask for unanimous consent to close off amendments. Well, I guess because the Senators by that time were exhausted from writing amendments, they all agreed to it, and then they started voting.

Now, it got to be Wednesday or Thursday, and the party secretaries would go to the Senators and they would say: I notice you still have 30 amendments waiting. Maybe you would only like to offer 15. It might get to Friday, and they would say: I notice you have five left. Maybe you would only like to have one. But if they had one they wanted to get, they almost always got the amendment. That is what the real importance of this agreement is today.

The difference of opinion we have had that has caused us to degenerate, in some cases, to a body that has not functioned as well as it should has been because on that side of the aisle--the majority-- people did not want to vote. It is like joining the Grand Ole Opry and saying: I do not want to sing. Some Republican Senator might offer an amendment that side does not want to vote on, and they say, well, we do not want to vote or they say, well, we do not want to work on Friday. So they go home. And they put pressure on the majority leader to use a procedure called filling the tree which cuts off votes and the right to amend. The majority leader used that power to cut off all amendments and debate 44 times. That's more than the last 6 majority leaders combined. Then what happens over here? Well, then Republican Senators, now in the minority, say: Well, we are not going to get amendments; we are going to start objecting. So we have what is called a lot of filibusters. We say: You are counting filibusters when you cut off our right to offer amendments. They say: You guys over there are keeping us from doing our business. On both sides, there is some truth to what has been said.

So I think most Senators are happy with this result. I think they will be. I hope it works. I mean, the idea would be that the leaders will do their best to see that most bills go to committee, come to the floor, and that when they do, if the Senator from North Carolina has an amendment the Senator from Tennessee would rather not vote on, she offers it anyway if she wants to, or if I have one she would rather not vote on, I may offer it anyway because it is important to the people of my State, even though we might be in a political minority at the moment. I believe that in most cases, if most Senators in the minority have that opportunity, that will help us get back to the kind of Senate we want to see.

I wish to compliment Senator Udall, Senator Merkley, and Senator Harkin. I learned a long time ago in life that if you start out in one direction, you do not always get exactly where you want to go, but you do not get anywhere if you do not start out. I think what they have done with their intelligence and diligence and persistence in this has created a period of time here where the Senate is taking some steps today that will help the people of this country know that serious issues--and we have plenty of them--the debt, for example, where 42 cents out of every dollar we spend is borrowed; jobs, for example, and in my State we have had 24 months of 9-percent unemployment or higher-- these changes will help us deal better with those issues. I will have more opportunity to talk about those after lunch later this afternoon. I want my friends on the other side to have a chance to make their points before we adjourn or take a recess for an hour.

Fundamentally, the steps we are taking make a difference. The one I am especially glad to see is the effort to make it easier for a President--any President--to staff his or her government. One of the problems--and Senator Reid talked about it--is we confirm too many people. It is not necessary for us to confirm the PR officer for a minor department. There is no need for that. The Secretary needs to go ahead and be able to appoint that person. We need to be able to work on more important issues.

Secondly, we have created a phenomenon in this town that I refer to as ``innocent until nominated.'' We have created a situation where any citizen who is invited by the President to serve in his government has to run such a gauntlet that it is almost impossible to get to the end of the gauntlet without being branded as a criminal. The reason is, we have a maze of conflicting forms in the executive branch, plus an IRS audit, and a maze of conflicting forms in the Senate. It not only delays, but it traps people and it tricks people into filling out one definition of ``income'' here and another one there. We all know this is true. We all know it needs to be fixed.

We have tried to fix it before--not just some of us; the majority leader and the Republican leader tried to fix it, and they didn't get it done. Senator Lieberman and Senator Collins tried to fix it, and they could not get it done. And 2 years ago, at a bipartisan breakfast which Senator Lieberman and I hosted, we had a whole group of us who said: Let's try to get this done. We talked to President Obama's administration about it. They said: Sure, go ahead. We would like to see that happen, either for us or for the next President. But we could not get it done because of resistance in this body to giving up any sort of power.

Right now, we have a unique confluence of support for the idea of making it easier for any President to staff his or her government. The majority leader and the Republican leader are solidly behind the effort. Senator Lieberman and Senator Collins are solidly behind the effort. Senator Schumer and I are working on a bill to do that, and we hope we can succeed. This opportunity, this window would not have happened if it had not been for the work of the Senators who have been arguing for reforms.

The other step we are likely to take is abolishing the secret hold. I think that is a good idea. I speak from experience. When I was nominated by the first President Bush to be Education Secretary, a Senator put a hold on my name, and it took 3 months to get it off. I finally found out who it was. I never knew exactly why he did it or why he took it off, but it might have helped if I had known it a little earlier. So I think it is a good idea. The majority leader put a hold on one of my TVA nominees, but he did it publicly. So I put a hold on one of his nominees, and

I did it publicly. And we worked it out. So there is nothing wrong with asserting our rights, but we might as well do it in public. I congratulate the Senators for making that effort. Senator Wyden and Senator Grassley have been working for more than a decade on that, as well as other Senators.

The step that says that if an amendment has been filed and on the Internet for 72 hours, we cannot require the clerks to read it all night long--that is a very commonsense proposal. I know it will be greatly appreciated by the employees of the Senate who have the job of reading the amendment. If they had a chance to vote, this would probably be the resolution on which they would like to have a chance to vote yes.

So these are important steps in the right direction which we will have a chance to talk about more today as the debate goes on. But I would like to end where I began. What we need most in the Senate is a change in behavior in addition to this change in rules. We need to preserve the Senate as a forum for minority rights. We need to preserve the 60-vote requirement for major votes. That will force consensus. That will cause us to work together. That will build support out in the country for the result of what we do because they can see that both Republicans and Democrats think, for example, that the way we have gone about trying to make Social Security solvent is a good way, rather than one side or the other just jamming through their partisan way.

There is a reason it is a good idea for this not to be a body that operates by a simply majority as the House does. I mean, the House can repeal the health care bill overnight. Bring it over to the Senate, and that side says: Let's stop and think about it. The House, if it is Democratic, can repeal the secret ballot in union elections overnight, and it did with its vote in the last Congress. But when it came over here, the Republican side said: Let's stop and think about it. The American people are better served by having these two different kinds of bodies, and the Senate and the American people will be better served both by the rules changes we are likely to adopt this afternoon and especially by the agreement by the majority leader and the Republican leader, which I feel confident has the backing of almost all of us, that we would like to work in a Senate where most bills are considered by committee, where most bills come to the floor, and where Senators, most of the time, have an opportunity to offer their amendments and debate. To be sure, there will be times when, if it is repeal of health care, that side does everything it can to exercise its rights to stop it, or if it is repeal of the secret ballot in union elections, this side will do everything we can to exercise our rights to stop it. But that will not be the ordinary course of events if this works the way we hope it does.

So I hope my friends on the other side feel good about what they have done. They have not achieved everything they sought to achieve, but we rarely ever do, particularly in a body of 100 that operates by consent of 100. What they have done, I believe, in addition to the rules changes we are likely to adopt, is create a window in which we have had a good, open discussion about the kind of place we want to work, the kind of Senate we hope would serve the American people the best, and we have come to a consensus about a change in behavior, which I believe in the end will be more important than the change in the rules.

I yield the floor.

Madam President, I wish to thank all of the Senators who have come down for this debate. These are just a couple of cleanup, housekeeping things I need to do.

First of all, the charge was made that we are trying to make the Senate like the House. Rather than get in a long debate here, I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record Federalist Paper No. 62 and a letter from a number of scholars who testified before the Rules Committee.

Time and time again last year, during the Rules Committee hearings on rules reform, my Republican colleagues said that any attempt to change the filibuster would make the Senate no different than the House. They said reforming the filibuster would be contrary to our Founders' intent to make the Senate a more deliberative body.

This argument makes little sense to me. The filibuster was never part of the original Senate--the Founders made this body distinct from the House in many ways, but the filibuster is not one of them.

A letter from seven prominent political science scholars, six of whom testified in last year's Rules Committee hearings, states the following:

[T]here is no explicit constitutional right to filibuster.

In fact, there is ample evidence that the framers preferred

majority rather than supermajority voting rules. The framers

knew full well the difficulties posed by supermajority rules,

given their experiences in the Confederation Congress under

the Articles of Confederation (which required a supermajority

vote to pass measures on the most important matters). A

common result was stalemate; legislators frequently found

themselves unable to muster support from a supermajority of

the states for essential matters of governing.

But we do not have to rely on today's scholars to tell us that the Senate's uniqueness is not premised on the filibuster and unlimited debate. Our Founders explained their vision for our Republic in the Federalist Papers, and Federalist No. 62 explained quite clearly the ways the Senate is unique from the House of Representatives.

In Federalist 62, Alexander Hamilton and James Madison wrote the following:

The qualifications proposed for senators, as distinguished

from those of representatives, consist in a more advanced age

and a longer period of citizenship. A senator must be thirty

years of age at least; as a representative must be twenty-

five. And the former must have been a citizen nine years; as

seven years are required for the latter.

They go on to explain about how Representatives will be directly elected by the people, but Senators will be appointed by the State legislatures. This of course was changed in 1913 by the 17th amendment, which established direct election of Senators by popular vote.

This, I would argue, is a far more drastic change to the Senate than anything we could do with rules reform, yet even that change did not turn the Senate into the House.

But perhaps the most important distinction between the bodies is whom we represent.

Federalist 62 explains that the equality of representation in the Senate was the:

result of compromise between the opposite pretensions of the

large and the small States. . . . [T]hat among a people

thoroughly incorporated into one nation, every district ought

to have a proportional share in the government, and that

among independent and sovereign States, bound together by a

simple league, the parties, however unequal in size, ought to

have an equal share in the common councils . . . [and] the

government ought to be founded on a mixture of the principles

of proportional and equal representation.

It is this fact that makes the Senate very different than the House. As a Senator from New Mexico, I represent just over 2 million people. Senators Feinstein and Boxer represent over 37 million constituents in California. And Senators Barrasso and Enzi, representing Wyoming with a population of just over half a million, actually have fewer constituents than members of the House.

Yet we all have the same vote in the Senate. This is what makes this body unique. Our founders did not intend to protect a minority party from being steamrolled by a majority party, but instead to protect small States from being run over by the large States.

Federalist 62 goes on to discuss how the number of Senators, and the duration of their term, is another key distinction between the bodies. Unlike the House, who are always facing reelection less than 2 years away, two-thirds of the Senate is always free from the same worry.

Coupled with the fact that senators were appointed by the State legislatures, the Founders believed that the

Senate would be a check on the House against legislation that was passed too quickly and without sufficient consideration. But they intended the structure of the Senate to make us a more deliberative body, not the rules that govern us.

So whatever changes we might make to our standing rules, whether minor or significant, the Senate will always be distinct from the House of Representatives. The cloture rule was only implemented in 1917--any changes we make to it today cannot destroy the uniquely deliberative nature of this body.

So to speak more generally now, today we come to the floor as a body to debate changes to the rules that guide this institution. All of the proposals we consider today have merit, in my opinion, and all deserve an up-or-down vote by this prestigious body.

Each proposal is important, but as we consider them one-by-one, we must remind ourselves what brought us to this point in the first place.

The reason we are here is simple: This Senate is broken. Because of partisan rancor and our own incapacitating rules, this body is failing to represent the best interests of the American people.

The unprecedented abuse of the filibuster, of secret holds, and of other procedural tactics routinely prevents the Senate from getting its work done. It prevents us from doing the job the American people sent us here to do.

In the Congress that just ended, because of rampant and growing obstruction, not a single appropriations bill was passed. There wasn't a budget bill. Only one authorization bill was approved--and that was only at the very last minute. More than 400 bills on a variety of important issues were sent over from the House. Not a single one was acted upon. Key judicial nominations and executive appointments continue to languish.

The American people are fed up with it. They are fed up with us. And I don't blame them. We need to bring the workings of the Senate out of the shadows and restore its accountability.

That begins with addressing our own dysfunction. Specifically, the source of that dysfunction--the Senate rules.

That is what I--along with my colleagues and friends Senator Merkley of Oregon and Senator Harkin of Iowa--have been trying to do these past weeks. We have been trying to restore the uniquely deliberative nature of this body--while also allowing it to function more efficiently.

On Tuesday, Senator Harkin, Senator Merkley and I each were denied unanimous consent to bring up our resolutions for immediate debate in accordance with article 1, section 5 of the Constitution.

Denying us the ability to debate the important constitutional issue of how this body adopts its rules was unprecedented.

Ten times previous to this--from 1917 to as recently as 1975--the Senate debated reforms to the use of the filibuster, as well as the underlying constitutional issue of adopting reforms by a simple majority at the beginning of a Congress.

The results of these debates varied. But the point I make today is this: each and every time a rules change was proposed, this Senate never denied those Senators the right to debate their proposals through the constitutional option.

During many of these debates, the reform proposal was defeated, often by tabling it--but they had the debate.

1975 was the last time we had a major reform to our filibuster rules.

On three occasions that year, the Senate voted by a simple majority to table points of order against Senator Mondale and Senator Pearson's reform proposal--a proposal that would have amended the cloture threshold from ``two-thirds to three-fifths present and voting.''

It was these votes by a simple majority of the Senate that forced the compromise reform that changed the Senate's cloture threshold to the present rule ``three-fifths duly chosen and sworn.''

We are here today debating the substance of several different proposals, all of which share a goal of restoring debate, deliberation, and transparency to this great body. And this afternoon, we will have votes on these proposals.

But, we will have those votes under thresholds that I strongly believe the Constitution does not require. To deny us the right to have that debate about the constitutional question was unprecedented and, I believe, a mistake.

But, however misguided I believe that decision to be, that decision has been made, and it is one we have to live with.

Now we must seize the opportunity that remains, and that opportunity is the chance for the most substantive debate of the Senate rules in 35 years.

I believe this debate is fundamentally important to the health of this institution. Reform is badly needed. We have a responsibility to the American people to come together and fix the Senate.

Whether that is through the constitutional option--as I believe we have the right and the responsibility--or through other means, I welcome the debate.

As I said more than a year ago when I first proposed the constitutional option: It is time for reform. There are many great traditions in this body that should be kept and respected, but stubbornly clinging to ineffective and unproductive procedures should not be one of them.

Mr. President, I want to close by saying this.

Since the beginning of this process, my actions have been guided by the great respect I have for the institution of the U.S. Senate, my reverence for the many great men and women who have served here, and my sincere affection for my colleagues.

That remains true today. I want to thank my colleagues for their consideration of our proposals, for their willingness to listen, and for their friendship.

And I want to make clear to all those who have supported this effort--our work is not complete: our cause endures. History has made clear that substantial rules reform is--more often than not--the work of many Congresses, not just one.

The debate that began in this Congress will serve as a foundation for reform moving forward. And I commit to doing all I can to ensure that the Senate is not a graveyard for good ideas--but instead remains a shining light of Democracy around the world.

So now we come to the concluding point in the debate where I think it is very appropriate to thank staff. My two staff members who have worked the hardest--all my staff have worked very hard on this, but Matt Nelson and Tim Woodbury deserve individual recognition for their tireless work. I know that as a result of this, we put a lot of pressure on the Rules Committee. Jean Boudwich and her whole crew over there have done a great job and the Parliamentarian shop headed by Alan Frumin. We have also had great assistance from them in terms of answering questions and working with them, so I applaud Alan and all of the Parliamentarians.

At several places in the Record, a variety of different items were mentioned. To clarify the Record, I ask unanimous consent to have printed, No. 1, a New York Times editorial from January 25; No. 2 includes quotes from constitutional scholars and conservative scholars on the constitutional option; and No. 3 is an op-ed from the Washington Post entitled ``Fixing a Broken Set of Rules.''

I also commend to my colleagues a Harvard Law and Policy Review article entitled ``The Constitutional Option: Reforming the Rules of the Senate to Restore Accountability and Reduce Gridlock.''

Finally, once again, I wish to thank our leaders. Lamar Alexander and Chuck Schumer, both working on the Rules Committee, have done a remarkable job in terms of negotiating. Leader Reid and Leader McConnell have made a decision which was announced earlier today, and that decision was to change some of the rules, to let us vote on some changes to the rules. And also, I think one of the most significant things--and I know Senator Alexander has mentioned this--is to try to change behavior. More than anything, I think that could be very significant. They talked and decided they would like to do this differently. We would like to get back to the Senate functioning where we bring things up, we debate them, we allow robust debate, we allow the amendment process to work forward. I know Senator Alexander addressed this at one point in his Heritage speech, saying the Senate is a shadow of itself. We want to get back to that Senate with the robust debate and amendment process, and I think both sides have tried to pull that together.

So I very much hope this is a new day in the Senate.

Mr. President, S. Res. 10 does five simple things: limits debate on the motion to proceed to 2 hours; eliminates secret holds; No. 3, guarantees the majority and minority three amendments with a 60-vote threshold; No. 4, institutes a talking filibuster; and, No. 5, shortens postcloture debate on nominations, both executive and judicial, from 30 hours to 2 hours.

I would ask my colleagues to support the resolution. I yield back.

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

Mr. President, I call up S. Res. 28, the Wyden-Grassley- McCaskill resolution to end secret holds.

Mr. President, with the passage of this resolution, no longer will it be possible for a Senator to engage in the unconscionable practice of secretly blocking a piece of legislation that affects millions and millions of Americans.

The fight for more sunshine in the way the Senate does business feels like it has been the longest running battle since the Trojan War. Today, after scores of battles, the cause of open government is going to prevail.

Over the years, Senator Grassley and I, with the strong support of Senator McCaskill, have been able to secure leadership agreements to end secrecy. We have been able to pass amendments to end secrecy and send them to conference committees--where they would then magically disappear. We actually, at one time, got a watered-down version of our law passed. In each case, the defenders of secrecy have found a way to keep sunshine out and obstruct the public interest. When this proposal passes, we believe there will be real change.

There are three reasons why we believe our bipartisan proposal to end secret holds will be different from previous approaches.

First, now with any hold here in the Senate, there would be a public owner. Every single hold would have a Senator who is going to be held accountable for blocking a piece of legislation.

Second, there will be consequences. In the past, there have never been any consequences for the Senator who objected anonymously. In fact, the individuals who objected would usually send somebody else out to do their objecting for them, and they would be completely anonymous. Essentially, the person who would be doing the objecting would sort of say: I am not involved here. I am doing it for somebody else. So the entire Senate lacked transparency with respect to who was actually responsible.

Third, the Wyden-Grassley-McCaskill proposal would deal with all holds, whether they reach the point of an objection on the floor or are objected to when the bill or nomination is hotlined. Our approach requires objections to a hotline be publicly disclosed, even for bills or nominations that never get called up on the floor. This is a particularly important provision.

Senator Grassley and Senator McCaskill feel very strongly about this as well because most holds never reach the point that there is an objection on the floor, and that is something I think has been lacking in this debate. They hear about discussions of people objecting on the floor. Most holds never reach that point. Typically, what happens is, a Senator who objects to a bill or nomination tells the Senator's leader that the matter should not be allowed to come up for a vote, and then the leader objects to bringing up the bill when it is hotlined. Because of that objection, the bill or nomination never actually gets called up on the floor. That type of hold effectively kills the bill or nomination long before it gets to the point of an objection on the floor. So we want to make it clear this is an important distinction and, for the first time, we would not just be talking about objections that are made on the floor.

I see my friend and colleague, Senator McCaskill, who has crusaded relentlessly for this. Senator Grassley and I--I say to Senator McCaskill we sort of feel like we have been at it as part of the longest running battle since the Trojan War. I say to the Senator, your energy has been absolutely crucial in this fight.

I would also point out--and I think we know--the defenders of secrecy will always try to find a way around anything that passes. We think we have plugged the holes. We think we finally made the crucial differences. But the fact that the Senator has been such a relentless watchdog for the public interest, an opponent of secrecy, has been a tremendous contribution. I thank my colleague from Missouri and welcome her remarks.

Mr. President, I thank our colleague, our invaluable ally in this fight.

Senator Grassley, I believe, is on his way. But the Senator from Tennessee has had many discussions on this topic with me and other Senators, and I wish to thank him for all the time and effort he has put into it. I yield him whatever time he would like.

Mr. President, while we wait for Senator Grassley, who, as Senator Alexander has mentioned, has been relentlessly pursuing this with us for years--again and again, Senator Grassley would come to the floor and make the point that a Senator simply ought to have the guts, just ought to have the guts, to stand and say: Look, this is important to me. I am the individual who ought to be held accountable. Senator Grassley, in that inimitable Midwestern way, always manages to get these issues down to what they are truly all about. It is about accountability and, as Senator Grassley says, it is about guts.

I would also mention, what is striking about the secret hold is this astounding power. I think it is only fair to describe it that way. I know of few powers that an elected official has that resemble the ability to anonymously block a bill or a nomination that affects millions of people. It is an astounding power, and for years and years it has never been written down anywhere.

As part of the ethics legislation that was passed a few years ago, we were able to get a watered-down version of secret holds reform in there. But literally to think that a power such as this--so sweeping, almost unrivaled in terms of the powers an elected official has--could be exercised in secret is something worth reflecting about in and of itself.

I will also tell colleagues that for those who want to get into the history of this, there are all kinds of holds. There was the revolving hold. There were a number of different ones. But my favorite over time was the ``Mae West'' hold, which came to also be known as the ``come look me over'' hold, which was almost as if a Senator was declaring that they were not sure what they wanted to do with their hold, but somebody ought to come up and see them sometime.

It just goes to show you, these kinds of practices--and this is what has been good about the work done by Senator Schumer and Senator Alexander, my friend and colleague from Oregon, Senator Merkley, and Senator Udall, which has been so important--because, for the first time, they have brought out into real debate what these rules are all about. My hope is, this will just be the beginning of the discussion about how, in the days ahead, it will be possible to bring more sunshine and more transparency to the Senate.

But Senator Grassley, who has made this point in the past about doing business in public--that the principle at stake is accountability and transparency--has made the case for a long time and has additionally told Senators that since he--and there have been a number of us who have always put our holds in the Congressional Record; I have not used them very often. Senator Grassley has made the point that colleagues will find, when they do it, it does not hurt at all. In fact, not only do they not suffer any detrimental consequences, but they do it and the public thinks more of them.

One final point as we wait for Senator Grassley is that I am particularly interested in having holds reform enacted as part of our work today because the secret hold is a huge bonanza for the lobbyists. The lobbyists can, as we have seen year after year, go to a Senator and say: It would be a big favor to me if you would put a hold on something so we can get a little more time to have a chance to make our case. Sometimes we have competing lobbyists asking for secret holds, so we have one Senator putting a secret hold on a piece of legislation and making a whole array of lobbyists happy. Sunshine will be good for the Senate, and it will certainly be good because it will shine the hot light on some of these lobbyists' practices that we have been trying to discourage here on the floor of the Senate.

I have just been notified that Senator Grassley is unavoidably detained. He is not going to make it to the floor at this time.

On behalf of myself, Senator Grassley, and Senator McCaskill, at this time I ask for the yeas and nays.

Madam President, as Senator Grassley has said, Senator Grassley, Senator McCaskill, and I have always maintained that there is no legitimate reason for Senators to keep holds they have placed with their leaders secret for any period of time. In fact, for quite some time, we have made a practice of immediately disclosing any hold we place in the Congressional Record, and that has been at the heart of our resolution, in my judgment. Would my friend from Iowa agree?

I thank the Senator because I think that is an important point because the bipartisan resolution clearly establishes the responsibility of all Senators to go public with their holds and the understanding that the leaders will not honor secret holds.

In addition, a concern that has been expressed is the lack of an enforcement mechanism in case there is a breakdown in this process, that it does not work as intended. Will the Senator from Iowa address that point? I believe our resolution addresses that concern as well.

I thank the Senator from Iowa, because with this colloquy he has laid it out very well. The fact is we have been at this so that it sometimes feels as though it has been the longest running battle since the Trojan War, given the fact we have had leadership agreements, we have had amendments, and we have had a watered-down version of the law. Today, we finally have an opportunity to ensure this unconscionable practice of secrecy that keeps the American people, millions of Americans, from learning about who is blocking a bill or a nomination, and that practice is finally eliminated, and I thank my colleague. It has been a long fight and a pleasure to work with my friend from Iowa and to have the energy and enthusiasm of Senator McCaskill, who has given this cause a huge push.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent to add Senator Merkley as a cosponsor to the bipartisan Senate resolution eliminating secret holds.

I appreciate the hard work of the leadership and my partners in this effort, Senator Grassley and Senator McCaskill. We would not be here today without them. We have a strong, bipartisan bill that will bring greater transparency to the process of holds.

There are a few matters that we wanted to clarify to ensure there is no confusion during the implementation. First, subsection (d) notes that when a Senator makes an objection, but within 2 session days, no Senator submits a Notice of Intent to Object to the Record, then the clerk should add to the Notice of Intent to Object calendar the name of the Senator who actually made the objection. Obviously, the calendar should also note the name of the matter actually objected to, as well as the date that the objection was made on the floor. Is that my colleague's understanding, as well?

Yes, the Senator from Iowa makes a good point. Our resolution turns the Notice of Intent to Object calendar into a one- stop shop for recording information about objections made to covered requests. At the same time, some have asked us--what happens if a matter that had been objected to later passes? Shouldn't the clerk just remove the relevant information from the Notice of Intent to Object calendar in that situation? It seems to me that makes sense and such action by the clerk would be keeping with the intent of our resolution.

That seems like a commonsense approach to me. I thank my colleague for his help on secret holds. We are achieving a big victory for transparency at the beginning of this Congress.

Madam President, there has been much discussion about the proposed rules reforms and how far they go. To those who say that this resolution doesn't go far enough, I ask, why have the friends of secrecy fought so hard for so long to allow Senators to anonymously block legislation and nominations?

The fact is this resolution deals with a sweeping, almost unparalleled legislative power--the ability of one Senator to anonymously block a bill or a nomination from going forward. That is not right. Senator Grassley, Senator McCaskill, and I have worked with colleagues on both sides of the aisle to say that if you want to exercise that extraordinary power, you ought to do it in the sunlight. There ought to be public disclosure. There ought to be transparency.

I yield the remainder of our time to Senator Grassley, who has championed this cause along with Senator McCaskill.