Floor Statements

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 President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

I ask unanimous consent to speak as in morning business.

Mr. President, there are many issues that are pending on this bill that we are currently considering; unfortunately, many of them that we will not get to. But I did want to take a minute to sound the alarm about a very important topic that is, in all likelihood, not going to get addressed but something that everyone needs to be aware of because it is a subprime mess in the making. That is the area of reverse mortgages.

You cannot turn on TV these days without seeing an advertisement from someone about an important government benefit that you should take advantage of, get cash out of your home now and participate in a reverse mortgage.

Senator Kohl has been great to work with on the Committee on Aging. We had an oversight hearing on reverse mortgages. In fact, we conducted one of them in St. Louis. These are tricky financial vehicles.

Keep in mind to whom these are being marketed. They are being marketed to seniors. So seniors are being told: Enter into a reverse mortgage and you can get all of the money out of your house, and you never have to worry about paying it back and everything is great.

The problem is, they are very expensive and not everyone is well suited for a reverse mortgage. In some instances, a reverse mortgage might be appropriate. But, frankly, they are certainly not appropriate if someone is selling you a reserve mortgage when you are 80 years old and turns around and sells you an annuity in the same sales pitch.

Believe it or not, we had testimony from families saying that is exactly what had happened to them. There is not enough consumer protection in the area of reverse mortgages.

Here is the other shoe that is going to drop. Unlike the subprime mess which occurred because people were selling mortgages to people who were not suited for them, and they were trying to sell them because they had no skin in the game, they did not care if they were ever paid back, they were making money by selling the mortgages and had no risk if the loans were not paid back. Guess what. Same thing. The people selling these mortgages have no risk. Now, in the subprime mess, the risk was transferred to all of these financial institutions that sliced and diced these mortgages and securitized them and sold them short, sold them long.

Guess who takes the risk in a reverse mortgage, every stinking dime. The Federal Government, which is shorthand for the taxpayers of this great country. So if someone does a phony appraisal on a reverse mortgage and says the property is worth more than it is, and they get the money out of there or if property values were to drop again in 15 or 20 years when these mortgages came due, guess what happens. The Federal Government and the Federal taxpayers get left holding the bag for every darn dime.

Clearly, this is a problem. The amendment I had was going to address some of the deficiencies in this area as it relates to consumer protection and would put in a suitability standard.

Here is the other scary part about this cautionary tale. They have started securitizing reverse mortgages. Securitizing is the process that we saw in subprime where they gathered all of those subprime mortgages together and said: OK, let's slice them all up, and we will do it at levels. This top level is not very risky, and we will slap a AAA on that. Then we will slap another AAA on the second tranche, and maybe down here at the bottom we will get a AA.

Then the different tranches will pay different rates. Guess what is happening now to reverse mortgages because that market has dried up because

of the subprime mess. All of a sudden we are seeing an explosion in the securitization of reverse mortgages.

In the security market for these mortgages, in the past year, the security market for reverse mortgages went--in 1 year--from $1.5 billion to $13 billion--in the last 12 months. In 1 year. That gives you some indication of what is happening.

I know we may not be the brightest lights in the marquis sometimes around here, and I know sometimes we may not get it. But, goodness gracious, that ought to set off some alarm bells somewhere. So I urge my colleagues to take a look at the reverse mortgage problem.

I urge them to convey to their seniors in their States, through the senior centers and other ways that you can communicate with your constituents, to be careful of reverse mortgages. They are very expensive.

I did not really make a true confession, and I probably ought to do that. There is a reason this place likes reverse mortgages. We are busy trying to find pay-fors in our budget. We are busy trying to find ways to pay for things. Well, guess who gets a cut of the initial fees on a reverse mortgage. The Federal Government.

So one part of this place loves the idea that more reverse mortgages are occurring. In fact, we took the cap off how many could occur for this year because we can count that money and spend it in the appropriations process, just hoping that maybe we are not around when we have to pay the piper at the end of the rainbow when perhaps the value of that home is not sufficient when sold to pay off the loan.

So I am disappointed it appears that we are not going to get to this amendment. I will continue to work on this issue. I urge my colleagues to continue to work on this issue. I will say this: If this body tries to lift the cap--the cap will go back on in September--if this body tries to lift the cap and allow unlimited reverse mortgages out there this year, under the guise of, oh, we need to be doing this because it helps the economy, or it is going to help the--no. No. No. No. I say no.

We need to go back to a cap on reverse mortgages so we have a firm handle on what potential liabilities down the road could be to the taxpayers of the country for this program.

I yield the floor, and I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, I wish to be recorded as opposing the Ensign amendment. Whether I have been speaking to community banks, consumer advocates, or businesses, I have been clear that the purpose of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau would be to ensure that everyone plays by the same rules. I said I would not support carve- outs. It was clear from the initial drafts of the Ensign amendment that this was intended to exempt certain lending by casinos from the jurisdiction of the bureau. The underlying bill already clearly exempts sellers of nonfinancial products who offer financing in support of those sales. It is my belief that the Ensign amendment could undermine that goal and I therefore oppose it.

Mr. President, today I commemorate the work and commitment of the Pujols Family Foundation. We all know Albert Pujols as one of today's most notable baseball players and, of course, the first baseman for my home team, the St. Louis Cardinals. However, in addition to his commitments as a professional athlete, Albert has chosen to invest his time and compassion for the past 5 years in the Pujols Family Foundation. In its efforts to provide education, medical relief, and supplies to impoverished children, the Pujols Family Foundation has funded Haitian disaster relief, family-oriented events in St. Louis, and mission trips to the Dominican Republic. Through their efforts and service, the Pujols Family Foundation has become a saving grace for families living with Down's syndrome, disabilities, and life-threatening illnesses without means to afford many of the necessities we take for granted.

Albert Pujols also uses baseball as a way to bring new joy and relief to children in the Dominican Republic. Batey Baseball is a new joint venture for 2010 and is spearheaded by Albert Pujols, the Pujols Family Foundation, and Compassion International. Its mission is to teach responsibility, teamwork, and leadership to young men in the Dominican Republic through the sport of baseball. Set to launch in the summer of 2010, this program will bring joy and hope to many young baseball enthusiasts in the Dominican Republic.

It is a welcome occurrence when I have the honor to come before this body and acknowledge the selfless and tireless work done by Missourians on behalf of those less fortunate.

On behalf of myself and the people of Missouri, I would like to recognize and congratulate Albert Pujols, his wife Derdre, and the Pujols Family Foundation on their 5 years of service to the people of St. Louis, MO, and the world.

Mr. President, is there still a unanimous-consent request pending that the Senator from Connecticut made some while back that there was never an objection heard on?

OK. So based on that consent request, I would like to talk about amendment No. 4072, the Grassley-McCaskill IG amendment. This amendment is about having a cop on the beat. We have talked a lot about a cop on the beat as it relates to a consumer agency. But in internal workings of these agencies, there are people who are very special in our government who have eyes and ears inside agencies who can find problems, who in fact are our inspectors general.

This amendment will strengthen the independence and the working role of the inspectors general in these agencies that have such an important power over our financial sector. In fact, it was the failure, in some ways, of appropriate oversight that got us into this mess in the first place.

Senator Grassley has been a champion of inspectors general for many years, and since I came to the Senate, I have tried to focus on this because I came here from being a government auditor. For 8 years, I did nothing but government auditing, and I have deep and abiding respect for the professional auditors in our Federal Government who are the watchdogs for taxpayers inside the halls of our government.

This amendment will do a couple of important things.

One, it is going to create a council of inspectors general in the financial sector, the SEC and the CFTC and the FDIC, and they will have to meet four times a year. At that meeting, they are going to have a forced opportunity to compare notes, to talk about the investigations they are doing, to make sure

they are not duplicating each other's work, and, most importantly, to talk about systemic risk and are they getting at it in a collective way. It does not cost anything. It is just smart. That is one part of this amendment.

The other part of the amendment has to do with how these inspectors general are selected. There are different kinds of inspectors general in our government. Some are appointed by the President. Some are appointed by the agencies. I will say that anybody who thinks those appointed by the President are the most independent is wrong. Anybody who thinks those appointed by the agencies is the most independent is wrong.

I believe the independence of inspectors general has everything to do with whether someone is selected who is professional and who is going to be independent of any influence.

Here is my reason for supporting this amendment so fully. It is a bad idea to change right now how these inspectors general are selected. We need continuity right now. We need consistency. What we have done in this amendment is change it so these inspectors general will now report to the entire boards they serve and not to just the head of the agency. That is where you can get the cozy relationship and get into trouble. That is why, in fact, this amendment is needed.

It also requires that two-thirds of these boards will be required to fire an inspector general. So this amendment will, in fact, make sure we have continuity, we have a cop on the beat in terms of these inspectors general right now and going forward, and it strengthens their independence and their ability to work with each other.

I will say we have lots of nominations pending, and the notion that we would decide we need five more nominations pending with, I am afraid, secret holds that might come about--we have one inspector general who has a secret hold now--I certainly do not want the inspectors general for these agencies to be held up with secret holds over the next couple years and us have a lack of continuity and certainty in terms of leadership at these important organizations as we move forward to clean up this mess that has occurred in our financial sector.

So I urge my colleagues to support the Grassley-McCaskill amendment, amendment No. 4072.

I yield the floor.

Madam President, first, let me say how grateful I am to Senator Cornyn for his patience. I will try to be very brief because I know he is waiting to address the underlying bill.

I think everything that needs to be said has been said. I will be interested in this vote because there is a group of people right now who voted for a rule that simply said: You have to disclose your secret holds if a certain procedure takes place. There are a bunch of people who voted for that who are not doing it. I do not know how that computes in the mind of a U.S. Senator. I do not know how you vote for a rule that requires you to disclose and then you knowingly continue to keep a hold secret.

I had a colleague tell me the other day they had talked with a colleague across the aisle about a couple of judges they desperately wanted to get released from the land of secret holds. This colleague visited with a Republican about it, and the Republican told her: The leader says he has to get something for it. You have to get something for it? Have we come to that, that you get to hold on to someone whose life is in limbo to be a U.S. district judge until you get something for it? That is not the way the American people want us to operate around here.

I know Senator Grassley and Senator Wyden have toiled in this field for a long time. I appreciate their efforts. I thank all my colleagues who have been helpful in us bringing this to the attention of the American people. We now have 60 Senators who have signed a letter saying they will never engage in secret holds and they want them completely abolished. The Wyden-Grassley approach is almost as good as

never. It is a very limited window, and I pray that it will work. I had been wildly optimistic it would work right after I voted for the rule back in 2007. I thought, this is all it is going to take. I am not as optimistic, frankly, right now. Games may still be played. I think we have to get to 67 names on that letter.

The American people have to rise with their pitch forks, the way they are in so many other ways, and say: Enough already. Stop this incredibly bad habit of thinking you can hold up nominations just because you feel like it and never have to own it.

I encourage everyone to vote for the Wyden-Grassley amendment. I appreciate Senator Cornyn's patience with us this morning. I look forward to a vote on this amendment. I really want to find out who is secretly holding right now, who votes for this amendment, and how they reconcile those two things.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak as in morning business.

Mr. President, I know someone is going to be able to use the figleaf and stand behind the argument that the amendment that was offered at the very last moment this afternoon was about something they cared about and something we need to vote on. It is a subject matter we care about that we need to work on. But really? It is pretty transparent what is going on here: that at the very last moment, when all of a sudden we were this close for everyone having to go on record about secret holds, that someone shot it out of the sky like a clay pigeon. That is what this amendment did.

So the argument is: Well, the Wyden-Grassley amendment on secret holds is not really about the financial reform bill. Why does it get a chance to be voted on? It is very simple. The reason the Wyden-Grassley amendment should be considered germane to every bill we debate in this body is because it is about the way we do business. Every day that goes by that we do not try to reform this nasty habit of secret holds, we diminish the shine and the glory that is our democracy. We diminish what this body should stand for and what our priorities should be. Every day we allow the secret hold process to continue to take root and grow and flourish, we are failing in our job as Senators who are here to do the public's business.

We are not here to go in back rooms and get something for our secret hold. We are not here to go in back rooms and leverage our secret hold for something else we want. We are not here to go in back rooms and have secret holds to keep this administration from succeeding or filling the jobs that need to be filled. We are here to be accountable.

Of all the amendments out there that can be second degreed, this amendment that would reform our process is selected to slow it down and obviously, hopefully, kill it. Well, I have bad news for my friends across the aisle who want to kill the longstanding attempts of Senators Wyden and Grassley at reform, and my recent attempts, along with Senator Bennet, Senator Whitehouse, Senator Udall, Senator Warner, and others who have come to the floor and spoken on secret holds: We are not going anywhere. It is probably a fault I have, but I am pretty darn stubborn. In fact, I am probably stubborn to a fault. I think this is something we all ought to be stubborn about.

We have different kinds of Senators. We have some who are kind of feeling as though they are being marched to the gallows as they grudgingly support cleaning up secret holds. We have others who want to pound their chests and shout from the rooftops about trying

to get rid of secret holds. And we have others who are hiding in the crevices, the little, bitty, tiny dark places, who are trying to keep secret holds without anybody knowing who they are.

I will say this. One can make the assumption that whoever offered this amendment to try to kill this amendment probably is a big fan of secret holds. Because it seems to me if they wanted this amendment to pass, they would have at least talked to the sponsors before they offered the second-degree amendment. That is the common courtesy around here; they would have at least given everyone some notice. But they saw this amendment speeding toward the finish line. They realized they were going to be called for the yeas and nays on reforming the Senate, and they decided to take the path of least resistance and that is try to kill the bill another way.

But along with my colleague and mentor on this subject, Senator Wyden, and Senator Grassley, whom I have met with a number of times over the last week, we are going to stay with it. I know I speak for my colleagues who have been here 4 years or less, the freshmen and sophomores in this body. I know how strongly we feel about this.

I wish to remind my colleagues, if I am wrong about you, if you are against secret holds, the letter is still open. We have 60 Members who have signed the letter. Sixty Members of this body, all of the Democrats but one, both of the Independents, and now two Republicans have signed the letter saying we will not exercise a secret hold and we want to abolish secret holds. I look forward to seeing my colleagues on the other side of the aisle, more Republicans joining in the signing of this letter. It is available. I hope they will contact us. Senator Warner, Senator Whitehouse, and I are the lead signators on this letter. But it is time for everyone--by the way, if we get to 67 signatures, guess what we can do. We can amend the standing rules of this place. We could say that an objection will not be in order if it is anonymous. We could do that with 67 votes. What a great day that would be. Wouldn't that be a wake-up call to the American people that maybe we get it. Maybe we get why our approval ratings of Congress are near historic lows for all the nonsense, ridiculous games that get played around here.

Let's do the public's business and let's do it in public and let's end the secret holds, the nasty habit we can no longer afford.

I will look forward to visiting with my colleagues on the other side of the aisle and see if we can prevail upon them to withdraw their second-degree amendment so we can go forward or find some other way forward. But make no mistake, we will find a way forward and we will end the secret hold. I am confident it will happen. So you can fight as long and as hard as you want, but we are not going to give up.

Thank you, Mr. President.

Mr. President, I rise this morning in the cause of common sense in how the Senate works. We have had so many delays on nominations this year. Just as a quick review of where we stand, we have had over 51 rollcall votes on President Obama's nominations to serve in government under his Presidency. Of those 51 votes, over 80 percent of them were confirmed by overwhelming margins. Yet they sat on the calendar for more than 3 months, on average--overwhelming support, sitting on the calendar for 3 months, on average.

Just for some comparison, at the similar point in the Bush administration, there were eight nominees on the calendar. Right now, we have 107 nominees on the calendar. As I look at the list, I am confused because, as to most of the people on the list, we do not know why they are sitting there. We do not even know who is making them sit there. Enter stage left the anonymous hold--or as I like to call it: Nobody can blame me because they don't know who I am.

There is a law we passed that has a rule in it--very plain language, very easy to understand--that once a Senator makes a unanimous consent request to confirm a nominee, then you have to come out in the sunlight. After 6 session days, after those requests are made in terms of a unanimous consent for their confirmation, then the rule says you must notify your party leader of your hold that you have on the nomination, and it has to be published in the Congressional Record.

So last week I came to the floor and made 74 unanimous consent requests on nominations. Who were those 74? This is the amazing part. This is very amazing. Not one of the nominations I made a unanimous consent request on last week had any opposition in committee--none--not a voice vote ``no.'' No one spoke out and said: I have a problem. They flew out of committee--all 74 of them. But no one knows why they are sitting there or who has put a hold on them.

I made the request, and in the intervening week we have had a lot of activity in that regard. The first thing that happened is, my friend from Oklahoma followed the rule. He notified his party leader of the holds he had, and it was published in the Congressional Record. He has a great habit of reading what we are doing around here. When he read the rule, it was obvious to him the rule said, once the request had been made, you say who your holds are. He has never been afraid, my friend from Oklahoma. He has never been afraid to take accountability. I have seen him with great courage enrage this entire room because he had some principles he was standing on. He is a great role model in that regard--his principled stands; and he owns them. That is all we are talking about. We are talking about owning them.

Nobody in America gets why this stuff has to be secret. I know he has an amendment he wants to offer on secret spending, and I would like, on the record, to say I would like to join him in that amendment. The secret spending that goes on through the hotline process, he is absolutely right--publishing this stuff for 72 hours. He is absolutely right.

But this practice is absolutely wrong. Unlike his other colleagues, he stepped out of the dark and into the sunshine. But no one else did.

So now, a week later, we still have 53 of those 74 names for which we have no idea who is holding them or why. Some of them have been confirmed of the 74 since then--a few. I think the Senator from Oklahoma identified a hold on, I believe, six or seven. So now we still have 53 names for which no one knows who is holding them by people who are avoiding the rule.

I had somebody come up to me the other day and say: Well, there is no enforcement. I said: Who would have thought you would have to make it a misdemeanor for a Senator to identify their hold? They voted for the bill. The vote was 96 to 2, so they voted for it. They just do not want to live by it.

Today, I come back to the floor with my colleagues--and there will be a number of us here--to once again try to trigger the rule. The unanimous consent requests will be made. Today, we have 69 names--the 53 from last week that are still out in the dark somewhere--we do not know who is holding them or why--and additional names that have been added to the calendar since then.

Mr. President, 64 of the 69 nominees we will make a motion on today-- 64 of the 69 nominees--had no opposition in committee--none. As we will hear over the next hour or so, these are important jobs: National Traffic Safety Board, the inspector general for the EPA. Can you imagine right now not having an inspector general of the EPA with what is going on in the gulf?

The other good news--let me just briefly talk about this. I am going to yield to my colleague from New Mexico. We have a letter going around, and the letter is very simple. Everyone who signs the letter is taking a pledge--a public pledge--that they will never again participate in a secret hold; and, further, they support abolishing secret holds. If you want to hold somebody, you have to put your name on it.

I am very proud of the fact we now have 59 signatures on that letter, both Republicans--a Republican so far, 2 Independents, and all the Democratic Senators, except 1. I am optimistic we will get the last remaining Democratic Senator, Mr. Byrd, since he cosponsored a resolution in 2003, along with Senator Wyden and Senator Grassley, who have done yeoman's work on this issue for years. Senator Lott and Senator Byrd, along with Senator Grassley and Senator Wyden, sponsored a resolution back in 2003 to try to end secret holds, and here we are 7 years later with 53 nominees in the dark after the rule has been triggered.

So I am optimistic. I certainly am hopeful we will have a lot more Republicans sign on the letter. I think we may. The iceberg is moving. We may actually bust up this thing. I am wildly optimistic--which is an unusual thing around here--about reform. It is hard to change the traditions of the Senate, especially when they are bad habits. Once again, my colleague from Oklahoma and I share the same view on earmarks and have tried from a principled

position to not participate in those. I think that is also a bad habit. Clearly, we have a lot more people agreeing with us on secret holds than we do on earmarks.

I look forward to making these motions today. I look forward to the Senators reading the rule, understanding the plain language, acknowledging they voted for it, and putting their name on these secret holds. Hold a nominee. The Senator from Oklahoma is holding some nominees. He has the right to do that. But the people we work for have the right to know why and who he is. That is all we are asking for today. We are not asking anybody to give up their holds; we are only asking people to identify who they are, to come into the sunshine for the transparency we all want to have as we serve the great people of this Nation.

With that, for the unanimous consent requests, I will yield to my colleague from New Mexico, Senator Udall.

Mr. President, I am confused. This law was passed in the most bipartisan way possible: 96 to 2. Are we going to pretend this law doesn't say what it says?

Let me make sure I put in the Record what it says:

The majority and minority leaders of the Senate or their

designees shall recognize a notice of intent of a Senator who

is a member of their caucus to object to a proceeding or a

measure only if the Senator--

(1) following the objection to a unanimous consent

proceeding submits the notice of intent in writing to the

appropriate leader or their designee; and

(2) not later than 6 session days after the submission

under paragraph (1), submits for inclusion in the

Congressional Record and in the applicable calendar section

described in subsection (b) the following notice:

Mr. President, I listened to my colleague from Oklahoma, and I understand it is difficult to listen to any of us put motives on something when we don't know what the reason is, and ascribing motives is unfair when you don't know. But sometimes my experience as a mother pops up in my brain, and I think of my kids when they were little--and especially as they became teenagers--and I remember one time catching one of my kids. He had sneaked out of the house at night in the dark. I caught him and I said: You know, you are in big trouble, buster. He said: Well, mom, I wasn't doing anything wrong. We just walked around the block. We weren't doing anything you would get mad about. We weren't drinking, we weren't smoking, we weren't chasing down girls. We just walked around the block. I said: Well, you know, if you do it in the dark and you are not willing to tell me about it, then you know what I am going to assume? I am going to assume you are doing something sneaky and underhanded, and you just need to bank on that; that if you think you have to hide something from me, you have to assume I am going to think you are doing something wrong. If you are not willing to talk about it, you are not willing to own it, you are not willing to tell me about it, you are in trouble. End of discussion.

That is why we are ascribing motives. It is only logical to assume. After voting for a bill that clearly says once the unanimous consent motion is made you have to come out of the darkness, you have to explain what you are doing, the fact that these people are not coming forward--I have to tell you, if they were my kids, I would assume this--they are doing something they aren't proud of. I would assume that, if they were doing the sneaky, and that is what this is. This is sneaky, because they are not stepping up--like the Senator from Oklahoma has. Step up, own it, hold for as long as you like. Some of us may agree with your reasons and join you in your hold.

But there are literally names on this list where no one knows why they are being held. The White House does not know, the nominee does not know, maybe Leader McConnell doesn't even know. It is nonsense. It is plain and simple nonsense.

My friend from Oklahoma is absolutely correct, we should not ascribe motives. But it is only human nature, if people are not looking at the plain language of the ethics bill they proudly voted for and doing what the plain language says you are supposed to do, people are going to start thinking something underhanded is happening. The only way to fix that is to step up.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent the Senate proceed to executive session for the purpose of consideration of Calendar No. 648, Michael W. Punke, of Montana, to be a Deputy United States Trade Representative, with the rank of Ambassador; that the nomination be confirmed, the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table, no further motions be in order, the President be immediately notified of the Senate's action, and that any statements relating to the nominee be printed in the appropriate place in the Record.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent the Senate proceed to executive session for the purpose of consideration of Calendar No. 649, Islam A. Siddiqui, of Virginia, to be Chief Agricultural Negotiator, Office of the United States Trade Representative; that the nomination be confirmed, the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table, no further motions be in order, the President be immediately notified of the Senate's action, and that any statements relating to the nominee be printed at the appropriate place in the Record.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent the Senate proceed to executive session for the purpose of consideration of Calendar No. 799, Carolyn Hessler Radelet, of the District of Columbia, to be Deputy Director of the Peace Corps; that the nomination be confirmed, the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table, no further motions be in order, the President be immediately notified of the Senate's action, and that any statements relating to the nominee be printed in the Record.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent the Senate proceed to executive session for the purpose of consideration of Calendar No. 800, Elizabeth L. Littlefield, of the District of Columbia, to be president of the Overseas Private Investment Corporation; that the nomination be confirmed, the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table, no further motions be in order, the President be immediately notified of the Senate's action, and that any statements relating to the nominee be printed in the Record.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent the Senate proceed to executive session for the purpose of consideration of Calendar No. 801, Lana Pollack, of Michigan, to be a Commissioner on the part of the United States on the International Joint Commission, United States and Canada; that the nomination be confirmed, the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table, no further motions be in order, the President be immediately notified of the Senate's action, and that any statements relating to the nominee be printed in the Record.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent the Senate proceed to executive session for the purpose of consideration of Calendar No. 809, Bisa Williams, of New Jersey, a Career Member of the Senior Foreign Service, Class of Counselor, to be Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the United States of

America to the Republic of Niger; that the nomination be confirmed, the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table, no further motions be in order, the President be immediately notified of the Senate's action, and that any statements relating to the nominee be printed in the Record.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent the Senate proceed to executive session for the purpose of consideration of Calendar No. 810, Raul Yzaguirre, of Maryland, to be Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the United States of America to the Dominican Republic; that the nomination be confirmed, the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table, no further motions be in order, the President be immediately notified of the Senate's action, and that any statements relating to the nominee be printed in the Record.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent the Senate proceed to executive session for the purpose of consideration of Calendar No. 811, Theodore Sedgwick, of Virginia, to be Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the United States of America to the Slovak Republic; that the nomination be confirmed, the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table, no further motions be in order, the President be immediately notified of the Senate's action, and that any statements relating to the nominee be printed in the Record.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent the Senate proceed to executive session for the purpose of consideration of Calendar No. 812, Robert Stephen Ford, of Maryland, a Career Member of the Senior Foreign Service, Class of Minister-Counselor, to be Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the United States of America to the Syrian Arab Republic; that the nomination be confirmed, the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table, no further motions be in order, the President be immediately notified of the Senate's action, and that any statements relating to the nominee be printed in the Record.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent the Senate proceed to executive session for the purpose of consideration of Calendar No. 824, Dana Katherine Bilyeu, of Nevada, to be a Member of the Federal Retirement Thrift Investment Board; that the nomination be confirmed, the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table, no further motions be in order, the President be immediately notified of the Senate's action, and that any statements relating to the nominee be printed in the Record.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent the Senate proceed to executive session for the purpose of consideration of Calendar No. 826, Michael D. Kennedy, of Georgia, to be a Member of the Federal Retirement Thrift Investment Board; that the nomination be confirmed, the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table, no further motions be in order, the President be immediately notified of the Senate's action, and that any statements relating to the nominee be printed in the Record.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent the Senate proceed to executive session for the purpose of consideration of Calendar No. 827, Dennis P. Walsh, of Maryland, to be Chairman of the Special Panel on Appeals; that the nomination be confirmed, the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table, no further motions be in order, the President be immediately notified of the Senate's action, and that any statements relating to the nominee be printed in the Record.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent the Senate proceed to executive session for the purpose of consideration of Calendar No. 829, Todd E. Edelman, of the District of Columbia, to be an Associate Judge of the Superior Court of the District of Columbia; that the nomination be confirmed, the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table, no further motions be in order, the President be immediately notified of the Senate's action, and that any statements relating to the nominee be printed in the Record.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent the Senate proceed to executive session for the purpose of consideration of Calendar No. 830, Judith Anne Smith, of the District of Columbia, to be an Associate Judge of the Superior Court of the District of Columbia; that the nomination be confirmed, the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table, no further motions be in order, the President be immediately notified of the Senate's action, and that any statements relating to the nominee be printed in the Record.

I ask unanimous consent the Senate proceed to executive session for the purpose of consideration of Calendar No. 832, David B. Fein, to be United States Attorney for the District of Connecticut; the nomination be confirmed--I believe, Mr. President, that the United States Attorney for the District of Connecticut would have jurisdiction over any Federal crimes that may have been committed by the individual who tried to blow up people in Times Square on Saturday night. That man lived in Connecticut. Any activities that he engaged in, in planning this dastardly plot in which, thank God, no one was killed, but we have no U.S. Attorney in Connecticut. That would be the chief law enforcement officer on any Federal crimes that have been committed by this American citizen who has confessed to some of his crimes, but we may not be aware of other crimes that may have been committed.

The nomination of David B. Fein be confirmed to be United States Attorney for the District of Connecticut, the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table, that no further motions be in order, and the President be immediately notified of the Senate's action, and any statements relating to the nominee be printed in the Record.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent the Senate proceed to executive session for the purpose of consideration of Calendar No. 833, Zane David Memeger, to be United States Attorney for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania; that the nomination be confirmed, the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table, no further motions be in order, the President be immediately notified of the Senate's action, and that any statements relating to the nominee be printed in the Record.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent the Senate proceed to executive session for the purpose of consideration of Calendar No. 834, Clifton Timothy Massanelli, to be United States Marshal for the Eastern District of Arkansas; that the nomination be confirmed, the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table, no further motions be in order, the President be immediately notified of the Senate's action, and that any statements relating to the nominee be printed in the Record.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent the Senate proceed to executive session for the purpose of consideration of Calendar No. 835, Paul Ward, to be United States Marshal for the District of North Dakota; that the nomination be confirmed, the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table, no further motions be in order, the President be immediately notified of the Senate's action, and that any statements relating to the nominee be printed in the Record.

Mr. President, there are some nominations on whom the request has not been made. My colleague from Rhode Island has a number of judicial appointments. He will return to the floor to make those unanimous consent requests later--I assume soon. There will be 64 total requests that will be made today that we cannot find opposition for--64 we cannot find opposition.

I am going to now make five requests to which there was opposition. The ones I just made, by the way, the last group I just made, are new. They have been added to the calendar since I made the requests last week. This is going to continue. I am going to do my very best job at impersonating the tenacity of my colleague from Oklahoma. I am going to do my very best job of being a dog with a bone on secret holds. I am not going to give up. I am going to be out here every week, as often as I need to be out here. I am going to get as many colleagues to help me. We now have everybody on this side on board with the exception of Senator Byrd, and I am optimistic we will get Senator Byrd. I am hopeful the next time I will have some of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle, who agree secret holds are wrong, to help make these requests.

The ones I just made were new. As notice to the Senators who may be holding those, they were not made last week. So I urge everyone to check the list and, if they have a hold on them, to notify Leader McConnell and let Leader McConnell know what their objection is and comply with the law they voted on.

Let me make these last ones. I wanted the record to be clear, these are the first ones we made that anybody voiced opposition to--anybody.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent the Senate proceed to executive session for the purpose of consideration of Calendar No. 552, Jane Branstetter Stranch, to be United States Circuit Judge for the Sixth Circuit; the nomination be confirmed, the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid on the table, no further motions be in order, the President be immediately notified of the Senate's action, and any statements relating to the nominee be printed at the appropriate place in the Record.

I might note for the record that this nominee was voted out of committee by a vote of 15 to 4, with three Republican Senators supporting her in committee and four Republican Senators opposing her in the committee. The final vote was 15 to 4.

I ask unanimous consent the Senate proceed to executive session for the purpose of consideration of Calendar No. 588, Philip Coyle, to be Associate Director of the Office of Science and Technology; that the nomination be confirmed, the motions to reconsidered be considered made and laid upon the table, that no further motions be in order, the President be immediately notified of the Senate's action, and that any statements relating to the nominee be printed at the appropriate place in the Record.

On that nominee, the vote out of committee was 19 to 6--19 to 6. Five Republican colleagues supported this nominee and five Republican Senators opposed this nominee. So it was a 5-to-5 split of the Republicans on the committee to that nominee.

I ask unanimous consent the Senate proceed to executive session for purpose of consideration of Calendar No. 703, Benita Y. Pearson, to be United States District Judge for the Northern District of Ohio; that the nomination be confirmed, the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid on the table, no further motions be in order, the President be immediately notified of the Senate's action, and that any statements relating to the nominee be printed at the appropriate place in the Record.

I should note that this is a nominee who--once again, it was a voice vote. Senator Coburn did indicate some concerns with this nominee at the committee level.

We have now gone through the entire list, with the exception of about 10 judicial nominees on whom Senator Whitehouse will be making the requests. I was hopeful that this week we would know who is holding those folks. We still do not know.

If I might make a suggestion, I am not confident it will be accepted, but if the leadership of the Republican caucus wants to hold these nominees, Senator McConnell can put his name on all of them. Then the people of America will know Senator McConnell is holding them and they will see him as the leader of the Republicans and they can judge accordingly. But if Senator McConnell does not have objections to them and is not willing to put his name on them, then the people who have the objections should put their names on the holds. We are going to break this bad habit.

I do want to make a note that there were four judges I made requests on who inadvertently got on the list. They have been confirmed. We will provide for the record those four names so they can be appropriately noted. So instead of doing 69 today, we are only doing 65.

I thank the Senate for its indulgence. I thank Senator Coburn for remaining on the Senate floor. As I said, Senator Whitehouse will be back to make a few more motions. Let's break a bad habit that the people of this country do not agree with.

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

Madam President, I came to the floor of the Senate last Tuesday to make 74 unanimous consent motions to trigger a law this body voted for by a vote of 96 to 2 back in January of 2007, and this law says that once a unanimous consent motion is made for a nomination, that people who are secretly holding the nomination must come out into the sunlight.

The law requires that 6 days after that motion is made, whoever is holding the nominee must identify themselves and, in fact, that must be published in the Congressional Record. Tomorrow would be the day for publication for all the dozens of different nominees being held up by who knows who for who knows what reason.

I wished to make sure the leaders of both parties were aware that this time had run and, today, I will ask unanimous consent that a letter I sent to the minority leader and the majority leader acknowledging that the rule has been triggered, with the list of the various nominees, asking that they make sure the Members of their party have, in fact, come forward and identified themselves for the Record tomorrow.

I ask unanimous consent that the letter I sent to Leader McConnell and Leader Reid be printed in the Record.

Madam President, we have gone back and looked at the Executive Calendar from a historic perspective. At the beginning of this week, we had 84 pending nominations. At the exact same time in President Bush's Presidency, we had eight. That is what we call a lopsided score--84 to 8. Of the 49 nominations we have voted on as a body since President Obama took office, 38 of them were confirmed by more than 70 votes. That is a pretty lopsided margin. Twenty of them were confirmed by more than 90 votes.

I am confident that if we took the time--which I think may be the desire of my friends on the other side--to file cloture and go through individual votes on all these nominees, the vast majority of them would receive those kinds of lopsided confirmations. This is a game we need to quit playing. The secret hold needs to end.

I have written some colleagues of mine, including Senator Mark Warner and Senator Whitehouse, and we have composed a letter--and we asked our colleagues to sign it--saying we will no longer participate in the secret hold. No more secret holds for us. We don't need the law to tell us we only have 6 days to secretly hold. We have asked in the letter that the secret hold be abolished. There is not a good reason for it. There isn't. Why does anything such as that need to be a secret? It is something that needs to be done publicly. The people whom everyone works for need to know why they are holding up a nomination or blocking a bill. The secrecy needs to stop.

You can hold somebody; it is your prerogative as a Senator to hold a nominee. Work against that nomination. Try to defeat them in committee. Keep in mind that all these nominees came out of committee without an objection--no objection in committee. If you want to object, that is your prerogative. Come out and tell the world why this is the wrong person for the job but don't hide. Don't hide.

I will be watching with interest tomorrow the Congressional Record. I am very worried we are going to have the old switcharoo, which means if you withdraw your hold in 6 days, then you can hand it off to somebody else. You can say: I no longer have a secret hold, and then you whisper to your buddy: Why don't you do it now and then we will have 6 more days and then another 6 days.

I wish to serve notice that I will be making these unanimous consent requests every time there is a secret hold, so anybody who does it is only going to have 6 days. Seriously, if we start the switcharoo and continue to go week after week without knowing who is holding these people or why, that is when people should get angry. That means they voted for a law that they had every intention of evading. People are mad enough at us. That is liable to get them over to the ``flat furious'' category if we go into that territory.

I am hopeful this Congress will be the Congress where we end the secret hold. I wish to again acknowledge the work Senator Grassley and Senator Wyden have done for years. They have definitely tilled this ground, and they, in fact, put this in the law that we voted on in 2007. I compliment them for their work on this issue. We are continuing to work together on this issue. Senator Wyden and Senator Grassley are continuing to try to find a way to reform and make this place more open and transparent.

I invite all my colleagues to sign the letter--Republican, Democratic, Independent. Sign the letter. We have 43 signatures. That means we are almost halfway there. If we can get to 60--we can move mountains here when we get that magic 60 number. I hope we can get to 60 by the end of next week. That means we will have more than a majority to say: I don't need a rule or a law; I am willing to make any hold I have open to public inspection.

I wish to also make another unanimous consent request today. We have a very important function in government; that is, investigating accidents. We are getting ready to enter into the travel season. The National Transportation Safety Board is a very important body. In fact, they are going to be considering, in the next week, the ``miracle on the Hudson'' accident and the problem with aviation as it relates to the danger of birds and possible engine failure. In June, they will be investigating the tragic Metro accident here in Washington, when 9 people died. This is one of those boards where a Democrat and a Republican are both appointed. The Democrat has been waiting since last December, ostensibly, for the Republican. Dr. Earl Weener has been on the Executive Calendar for a number of weeks.

Dr. Rosekind and Dr. Weener are needed on the NTSB. If any Member has a reason to recuse themselves, they would not have enough Members to go forward with these investigations. This is the kind of work that needs to be done. This is what people want the government to do. There is a lot of stuff the government does they don't want us doing. They want us to figure out what is going on with accidents in our transportation system and come up with answers so we can avoid these deadly accidents in the future. I think it is important, in light of that, that I go ahead and make another unanimous consent request to try to confirm these two people so they can begin working on the National Transportation Safety Board as we enter into the most heavily traveled period in America--the summer vacation months, when so many more Americans are traveling with their families.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to executive session for the

purpose of the consideration of Calendar No. 592, Mark R. Rosekind, to be a member of the National Transportation Safety Board, and No. 787, Earl F. Weener, to be a member of the National Transportation Safety Board; that the nominations be confirmed en bloc, the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table en bloc; that no further motions be in order; that the President be immediately notified of the Senate's action, and that any statements relating to the nominations be printed in the Record, as if read.

Madam President, if I could inquire of the Senator from Arizona for the purpose of making a clear record.

Madam President, I wish to make sure that the objection--the reason I am asking to inquire is it has to be clear that the objection is being made on behalf of someone else and not on behalf of the Senator from Arizona.

Madam President, let me make a couple comments concerning that.

First, Mr. Weener has been on the Executive Calendar since March 24. So this isn't something that happened in the last couple days.

Second, it was very clear that the Senator from Arizona said he wasn't objecting, so he is objecting for someone else. This notion that this has something to do with the leaders working together, none of these nominees are being held by anybody. This is not about the leader asking for time to clear names. It is not whether somebody can hold. Certainly, somebody can hold. The question is, After they have done it for 6 days, they can't be secret anymore. What I am trying to do--and I know the Senator from Arizona understands this. I am not quarreling with somebody's ability to hold. I just need to know who is holding. It cannot just be that we are working on it and it came over on the hotline and give us a few days. The 6 days are up. The people who are holding these nominees now have to say who they are.

I wished to make it clear that your objection was not your objection to these nominees. In other words, you are not claiming the objection, you are claiming it on behalf of someone else who will not identify themselves. That is the point. Tomorrow is the day that all these people need to be identified as to who is holding them. If it is Senator McConnell holding every one, then he needs to claim them and say: I am holding all the nominees. If it is other Members of the caucus, then they need to claim it. It is the same for any Democrats who are holding. I believe we had two or three nominees being held by Democrats. They need to be published in the Congressional Record tomorrow. But this notion that it is being held up because the two leaders are working together, Senator Reid doesn't have anybody being held. So I wish to make sure we got that clear.

I yield to the Senator from Rhode Island for a question.

I apologize. I didn't mean to intimate that the Senator was saying something he didn't believe. I apologize if that is the way it was taken.

The point is pretty obvious. We have 84 nominees backed up at the train station, compared to 8 under the Bush administration. If anybody can't see what is going on, they need to tune in and pay attention. This is stall and block, stall and block, stall and block. Fine, but own it. If you are going to stall and block, let's see who you are. Claim it. That is all this is about. Claim it.

If you are proud of slowing the process down, we just want to know who you are. To say this is about the two leaders clearing the hotline, that is not what this is about. This is about the law that says you cannot have secret holds once a unanimous consent request is made. I will be here as many times as it takes to reform this process and end the secret hold.

I yield to my colleague from Rhode Island.

Correct.

I believe under the law, those are the only three options available: to either withdraw the hold and let the nomination go forward or claim the hold and publicly identify yourself or evade the law.

To be fair, I know we had 84 pending at the first of the week. I think our raising a ruckus is beginning to have a little bit of an impact because the iceberg moved slightly this week. We may have confirmed 14 this week of the 74, I believe, that I moved by unanimous consent last week.

Keep in mind, all 74 I moved last week had been unanimously reported out of committee, with no opposition from the Republican Party in committee. None.

Exactly. In fact, many of them were voice-voted. We even checked to make sure no one said nay at the committee level. These were unanimously agreed to out of committee. There were 74 last week. I made the requests last Tuesday on the 74. The Senator from Rhode Island made a few requests on some that were not in that group that had been unanimously agreed to. I believe this week some of the group--maybe some of the Senator's, maybe some of the ones on which I made unanimous consent requests. I know we had 14 that moved. I think we are around 70 total right now. But of those, 60 of them are in this unanimous-consent category and ones we have no idea who is holding them.

He was held for a long time. And, yes, the Senator is correct, we had to go through all the procedural hoops that take time. Time is money when you are working for the taxpayers. Every hour we spend on something is an hour we cannot spend on something else. Everyone--all the good people who are working in this room, in the cloakrooms, and in all the offices--is paid by the taxpayers. We took time to go through cloture. Then there was not one ``no'' vote. If that is not a great example of obstructionism for the sake of obstructing, I cannot think of a better one--forcing the Senate to take days to confirm unanimously a nominee after they have held for a long period of time.

I don't know about the Senator from Rhode Island, but I would love to know how many people secretly hold a nominee and end up voting yes. Nine times out of ten--I should not say that. I don't know. It is secret. I have to believe that most times people secretly hold a nominee because they want something from an agency. In fact, I had a Member actually acknowledge to me: I don't care what happens to that nominee, but I need something from this agency. It is a leverage: I am going to hold your nominee hostage until this agency gives me what I want.

I think we remember, there was an instance that came out in public that some people were being held for projects in their State.

Right.

Absolutely. If someone is trying to leverage--I do not agree with it, but that is their right as a Senator--if they want to leverage a project in their State by saying to the administration: I won't let you have any nominees to go to work in that agency until that agency gives me what I want--that is their right. People should know about it. I don't think it would be very popular. People might have a problem with that. That is the beauty of the secret hold. They never have to tell that they are leveraging a nominee to get something they want out of an agency. That is why we need to end the secret hold. Simple.

Madam President, I thank my colleague from Rhode Island. There are so many things about the Senate I respect--the traditions, the service. Make no mistake about it, there are so many of my Republican colleagues who serve whom I admire and respect. They care deeply about their country. Sometimes we disagree on issues, but that does not diminish my respect for them as public servants and as people. We all get along better than people probably realize we do. But there are certain traditions around here, frankly, that are more like a bad habit.

The tradition of comity is wonderful. The tradition of debate is wonderful. The tradition of collegiality is wonderful, the tradition of seniority and respecting people who have been here for a great deal of time. So much of it has been built up over the history of this Nation, and I am so proud to be a Member of this body in so many ways.

But there are some bad habits that are traditions of which we should not be proud, and this is one of them. This is a tradition that needs to end. The secret hold is a bad habit. It is a luxury in which we should not indulge as members of a public body to serve the public on behalf of the people for whom we work.

Our work should be open. The word ``secret'' does not have a place of honor in this democracy. Secret, good government, that is a little bit like oil and water. Let's do away with this bad habit. Let's demolish this tradition for all the right reasons and go forward and have a new tradition that from now on, if a Senator feels strongly enough about a nominee to block their nomination, that they come forward, explain their reasoning, and allow the people they work for to judge for themselves whether that is a valid reason to stop a nomination.

In many instances, the people they work for may believe it is a valid reason and may applaud them for it. But if it needs to be secret, I don't know, I bet maybe they might not. Let's end the tradition.

I thank the Senator from Rhode Island. I also, obviously, thank, once again, Senator Grassley. He has so many times been the conscience of this place for so many different reasons, so many different issues. I have greatly admired his work in the inspector general community. He has done so much with inspectors general to strengthen them, make sure they have independence.

He has been a great champion for accountability and transparency in the Senate. I am proud he has worked as long as he has on trying to stop the tradition of secret holds. He and Senator Wyden get the lion's share of the credit that has been done on this issue over the years.

We now have 43 Senators who are willing to say: Enough already. Now if we can just get a few more, we can nail the coffin shut on secret holds once and for all.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I have a favorite President and it is not President Obama. It is, in fact, President Harry Truman. I still cannot quite get over the fact that I am sitting at Harry Truman's desk on the

Senate floor and that I hold the seat in the Senate that Harry Truman held.

Tomorrow, when I attend the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, and as we see a parade of Wall Street executives justifying their behavior, I will be asking questions at the committee that Harry Truman made famous when he took war profiteers to task many years ago.

Harry Truman said:

If you can't convince them, confuse them.

Well, I am confused. I read today that the ranking member, from the Republican Party, of the Banking Committee said the following at a meeting of community bankers. I am quoting exactly what he said:

I think we basically know what went wrong. We had a lot of

hearings. We've been working on it 15, 16 months now.

That is not Chairman Dodd who said: ``I think we basically know what went wrong.'' It is not Chairman Dodd saying: ``We had a lot of hearings.'' It is not Chairman Dodd saying: We've been working on it for 15 or 16 months. It is the Republican ranking member on the Banking Committee.

I am confused. Is it that they do not realize it is a huge problem?

Well, of course they realize it is a huge problem.

Is it that they are not prepared, that they do not have enough information? Well, of course not. Senator Shelby said today: We basically know what went wrong. We have had a lot of hearings. We have been working on it for 15 or 16 months.

Senator Dodd has sat here this evening as many Members of my class and the freshmen class have come to the floor to express regret and confusion about why we cannot debate this bill. It is admirable he has sat and listened to all these speeches tonight. He did not have to. He could have gone home. He is invested in this legislation for all the right reasons: Because he cares deeply about this country. He understands we have an obligation as Senators to address this problem. He sees it as his duty to see this through.

So why--why--did this happen today? Why did we not move forward to debate? It is just politics, raw, bare-knuckled politics--the kind of stuff Americans are so sick of they want to throw up. They are so sick of this game playing, they want to throw everybody out of this place. Frankly, right about now, I do not blame them. What in the Lord's Name are we doing delaying the debate on this bill?

I do believe the leader of the Republican Party thinks his success as a leader can only be defined by my party's failure. It is like it is a football game. I was confused when 41 people signed the letter saying they did not want to go forward. All 41 Republicans signed this letter.

Then I got confused because Senator McConnell came to the floor and said black is white. He literally said that. He said: We cannot be for this bill because we want to stop bailouts. Well, of course this bill is about stopping bailouts. That is why we are doing the bill, to make sure we do not have any more taxpayer bailouts. He knows that. But he honestly, I don't think, believed the American people were paying close enough attention. Then we had the announcement that the SEC had come out of a coma and was going to do something about Goldman Sachs and what had happened. Then, as Senator Dodd said so well on the floor the other day, it is like the rooster taking credit for the morning. They said, Well, we wrote that letter and now we are back at the negotiating table. What hogwash. What hogwash. The negotiating table has always been open. The door has always been open. Senator Dodd has been out working the floor of this building and every building within a mile trying to find Republicans to sit down and negotiate and find what is the problem we need to solve to make sure we never have this kind of financial meltdown again in America.

Here is another thing that is very confusing. It is time for the markup in the Banking Committee. I believe the number is over 400 amendments were filed by the Republicans for the markup. The Friday before the markup, all of these amendments were on file. Many people worked all weekend long getting ready for the markup on Monday, for the markup of this bill. The chairman of the committee, assumed--as anybody would who has spent as many hours working in this august body as he has--that on Monday Republicans were going to offer amendments. In fact, the Democrats worked all the way through the weekend trying to figure out how many amendments filed by the Republicans they could easily accept without any debate or contention.

So what happens when the committee starts? The ranking member on the Republican side says they don't want to offer any amendments. What? Now I am really confused. They don't even want to try to change the bill in committee. They make no effort to offer any substantive changes, and then they all vote no.

If the American people don't realize that a game is being played here, they need to pause for a minute and think about that. Why on Earth would the members of the Banking Committee from the Republican Party fail to offer one amendment to this legislation, unless there was some kind of plan, political plan: Don't participate. Don't vote for it. Stop it. Obstructionism, saying the Democrats are doing something they are not trying to do: taxpayer bailout.

It would be so easy to stand here and say there are ulterior motives about helping big bankers or helping Wall Street and campaign finance issues. I don't know. I just know I am confused. I am confused as to why the Republicans would march lockstep away from the debate on an issue that is of paramount importance to this country. I am confused why the Republicans would fail to offer one amendment at the committee level. I am confused why debating this bill is a problem for them politically. I am confused.

Ronald Reagan is cited for this quote often, but it wasn't Ronald Reagan who first said it, it was Harry Truman: It is amazing what you can accomplish if you don't care who gets the credit. Man, oh, man, do some people need that advice in this body. We need to quit worrying about whether the Democrats are getting credit or the Republicans are getting credit and realize all the American people want us to do is get to work. Get this thing done. Quit fooling around with this game that is being played. Tomorrow I think the leader may have a motion to reconsider. I would implore my colleagues on the other side of the aisle: Reconsider what you are doing. Many of my colleagues are such fine, upstanding people who also care deeply about their country. They are just wrapped up. They have been convinced this is some political Tic-Tac-Toe match and if they hold on for a couple more turns they are going to be able to draw the line through the series of squares.

This is about whether we fix a serious problem. I am a big fan of how hard Senator Dodd has worked. I think he is trying with every bit of intellect and passion he has to get this across the finish line, because he knows we need to do it for the American people. The games need to stop. The American people need to pay attention and realize they have a very good reason to be confused. Let's debate this bill. Let's debate it beginning tomorrow. Let's debate our differences. Let's try to amend it. Let's vote on amendments. Let's agree to disagree on some of it and decide who has the most votes to move forward a piece of legislation, the way our Founding Fathers intended. I guarantee they didn't intend this. They did not intend this, a refusal to even debate.

So let the debate begin. If the Republican Party wants to lockstep and say we don't even get to debate it, then the American people are going to have to draw their own conclusions, and I have a feeling it won't be a good one.

Mr. President, I yield the floor.

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

Mr. President, I came to the floor on Tuesday of this week to do something I do not think had been done before under the rules. We had a new law that went into effect in the early part of 2007 that gave us a mechanism that was supposed to stop secret holds. We are all waiting to see if by moving all of the nominations by unanimous consent, in fact, the owners of the secret holds step forward.

While we wait to see if the rule that was designed and passed into law works, a bunch of us have been talking. The folks who have been talking about this are the newest Members of the

Senate in the Democratic Party. There are 21 of us who have arrived in the Senate sometime between now and January of 2007. It is a pretty big group of Senators.

In discussing the secret holds with my colleagues who have been here for a fairly short period of time, we decided: Why don't we just quit doing them? Let's quit worrying about whether you are identifying yourself in 6 days, whether you are going to play the switcheroo, pull your secret hold and put on another secret hold. Let's just stop it. No more secret holds.

We now have drafted a letter to Leader Reid and Leader McConnell, and we have said: First, we will not do secret holds. We are out of the business of secret holds. We are not going to do them. Second, we want the Senate to pass a rule that prohibits them entirely.

If a Senator wants to hold somebody, fine, but say who they are and why they are doing it. If a Senator wants to vote against somebody, that is their right. But this notion that they can, behind closed doors, do some kind of secret negotiation to get something they want from an agency--let's be honest about it; that is what a lot of this is. It is getting leverage, secretly getting leverage for something they want. Those are not appropriate secrets for the public business.

We have 80 secret holds right now. About 76 of those are Republican secret holds; 4 are Democratic secret holds. By the way, all 80 of the ones on which I made the unanimous consent request came out of committee unanimously. We even checked on the voice votes to make sure no one said no in committee. There were no ``no'' votes. These 80 nominees were completely unopposed out of committee.

They are everything from the Ambassador to Syria to U.S. marshals to U.S. attorneys. These are people who need to get to work. They are going to be confirmed. They are all going to be confirmed. We need to get this done. We need to stop secret holds. We need to get these people confirmed. We need to change the way we do business around here.

I, once again, give a shout-out to Senator Wyden and Senator Grassley who worked on this issue for a number of years. We are going to open this letter to all Members of the Senate and, hopefully, before we find out--we are all waiting to see what happens in the 6 days that are looming for all these secret holds, if people step up into the sunshine. If they do not, in the meantime we, hopefully, will get unanimous support from Senators that secret holds are now out of fashion and no longer going to be tolerated in the Senate.

Mr. President, I yield the floor for my colleague from Colorado, Senator Bennet.

Mr. President, I rise today to talk not about obstructionism but, rather, about transparency and the rules. And the rule I am going to talk about is a rule that, in fact, we embraced in the last Congress. When I first came to the Senate, we embraced this rule by a vote; I think it was 92 to 6. We said we are going to change the way we do business around here when it comes to transparency. I thought it was a great moment. I was excited that we were making these bold changes about the way the Senate works, to open the doors and let the sun shine in.

Imagine my disappointment some 2 years later when I realized that for many Members of this body, that was a meaningless exercise because in the area of secret holds, we are doing no better today than we were before we passed S. 1 in those early weeks of my time in the Senate, in 2007.

Section 512 of that bill deals with secret holds. What we tried to do in that bill was to make sure that if a Senator wanted to oppose somebody, no problem; if he or she wanted to hold somebody, that is their right as a Senator. But own it. Own it. We are not here to be in a back room making a deal to leverage something for some kind of pork we may want in our district. What we are here to do is the people's business. If a Senator has an objection to a nominee, they should tell the public they have an objection and, frankly, they owe the public an explanation as to why. We are here working for them. We are doing the people's business here. We are not doing some backroom deal. We are doing the people's business.

So transparency is what this is about today, and section 512 lays out the exact steps that are necessary in order to make sure all of the holds become public. The process begins pretty simply: by someone making a unanimous consent request to move the nomination. When that motion is made, then the Senator who has the secret hold must submit a notice of intent specifying the reasons for the hold, and within 6 days that must be printed in the Congressional Record.

Why do Senators hold secretly? Well, I can't think of a good reason. I mean, sometimes it is that they want to slow things down, and they do not want to be honest about it. Sometimes it is that they want to leverage it for a deal in their State from that agency, and they do not want to be forthcoming about that. That seems a little unseemly, to say: I am going to block an unrelated nomination in order to get a deal. And that is the kind of stuff people are sick of. That is the kind of stuff they do not want us to do anymore. They want us to be upfront. If a Senator wants to block a nomination in an agency because that agency is not doing their will, then they need to be proud of that.

Here is the tricky part about this rule. Once the motion is made and therefore the clock starts ticking and a Member has to admit they have a secret hold and they have to own that hold, then what they can do is, before the 6 days, they can withdraw their hold, and that is when we start seeing an imitation of the World Wrestling Federation tag-team match. That is when another Senator comes in and tags up and says: Well, I will do a secret hold now. And then a motion is once again made, and guess what. That Senator backs out after 6 days and somebody else takes his or her place with the secret hold. So we get secret holds forever, ad nauseam--secret hold, secret hold, secret hold.

So I come to the floor today to begin the running of the clock. We have over 80 nominations pending. In a comparable time in the Bush administration, we had five. We have around 80. I am now going to begin to make a motion on these 80. Why this particular group? I will tell you why this particular group. No objection has been made to these nominees in committee. Let me say that again. Every single one of the names I am going to move this morning had no objection in committee. So we have literally had every Member of this body on one of these other committees, and nobody objected. Nobody said a word. So right now, it is very difficult for the public to figure out why all these important nominees are not moving forward.

Vote no. I am sure there have been nominees on whom I have voted no. There is a nominee on whom I put a hold. I put a hold on a nominee, but I was very upfront and put in the record at committee why I put a hold. I wrote a letter on why I put a hold. I wanted everyone to know why this nominee was being held. I thought it was an important part of my duty as a Senator to explain why I was doing what I was doing.

So vote no. Hold a nominee. But don't do it under cover of darkness unless you have something to be ashamed of. If a Senator has something to be ashamed of, then they can do the tag team. The law lets them do it. They can just keep playing tag and getting another secret hold and then tag off again and get another secret hold.

If we want to know why the country doesn't trust us, it is because of this kind of nonsense, these kinds of secret hold shenanigans or, as my mother would say, this poodle dog. That is her word for nonsense. I don't think she means to insult all the poodle owners in the world, but it is a good phrase--poodle dog--for what this is. It is nonsense.

Mr. President, when I have 1 minute left, if you will notify me, I will begin making the motions on these people whose nominations are being secretly held by Senators and who are not being allowed their time to even respond to whatever might be the secret reason why they are being held.

Nomination of Stuart Gordon Nash to be an Associate Judge of the

Superior Court of the District of Columbia

Mr. President, notwithstanding rule XXII, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to Executive Calendar No. 333; that the nomination be confirmed, the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table, no further motions be in order, the President be immediately notified of the Senate's action, and that any statements relating to the nominee be printed at the appropriate place in the Record.

Mr. President, notwithstanding rule XXII, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to Executive Calendar No. 404, the nomination of Warren Miller, Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management, Department of Energy; that the nomination be confirmed, the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table, no further motions be in order, the President be immediately notified of the Senate's action, and any statements relating to the nominee be printed at the appropriate place in the Record.

Yes, I will.

All of these nominees have secret holds. The purpose of my exercise today is to begin to enforce the rule around here that everybody voted for, with the exception of a handful of people, that we weren't going to do secret holds anymore.

I am certainly aware that the leader supports us doing this; that the secret hold has brought the nomination process not only to a halt but, more importantly, it has done it without the public even understanding why.

That is true.

Mr. President, notwithstanding rule XXII, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to Executive Calendar No. 500, which is the nomination of Julie Reiskin, member of the LSC; that the nomination be confirmed, the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table, no further motions be in order, the President be immediately notified of the Senate's action, and any statements relating to the nominee be printed at the appropriate place in the Record.

I would be happy to----

Regular order, but let me explain how this list was compiled.

By the way, just for the edification of the Senator from Arizona, there is one of these nominees on here who I believe is being secretly held by a Democrat. And by the way, I want to point out that the rule that does try to bring transparency to this process was one that was sponsored by Senator Wyden and Senator Grassley in a bipartisan way. The Wyden-Grassley effort that spanned a number of years was a bipartisan attempt to change and reform the way the Senate worked to provide more transparency. So this is really about transparency and this is about secret holds, and my criticism for secret holds is a bipartisan criticism. I don't think anybody should do a secret hold. I don't care if they are a Republican, a Democrat, an Independent, or any other party label, secret holds have no place in a public body.

Mr. President, notwithstanding rule XXII, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to Executive Calendar No. 501; that the nomination of Gloria Valencia-Weber of New Mexico, Legal Services Corporation, be confirmed, the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table, no further motions be in order, the President be immediately notified of the Senate's action, and any statements related to the nominee be printed at the appropriate place in the Record.

Mr. President, notwithstanding rule XXII, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to Executive Calendar No. 556; that the nomination be confirmed--that is, the nomination of Benjamin Tucker for the Office of National Drug Control Policy--the motion to reconsider be made and laid upon the table, no further motions be in order, the President be immediately notified of the Senate's action, and any statements relating to the nominee be printed at the appropriate place in the Record.

Notwithstanding rule XXII, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to Executive Calendar No. 581, the nomination of John Laub to be Director of the National Institute of Justice; that the nomination be confirmed, the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table, no further motions be in order, the President be immediately notified of the Senate's action, and any statements related to the nominee be printed in the Record at the appropriate place.

Mr. President, notwithstanding rule XXII, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to Executive Calendar No. 589, the nomination of Anthony Coscia; that the nomination be confirmed, the motions to reconsider be made and laid upon the table, no further motions be in order, the President be immediately notified of the Senate's action, and any statements relating to the nominee be printed at the appropriate place in the Record.

Mr. President, notwithstanding rule XXII, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to Executive Calendar No. 590, the nomination of Albert DiClemente, of Delaware, to be a director of the Amtrak board of directors; that the nomination be confirmed, the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table, no further motions be in order, the President be immediately notified of the Senate's action, and that any statements relating to the nominee be printed at the appropriate place in the Record.

Mr. President, notwithstanding rule XXII, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to Executive Calendar No. 592, Mark R. Rosekind, of California, to be a member of the National Transportation Safety Board; that the nomination be confirmed, the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table, no further motions be in order, the President be immediately notified of the Senate's action, and that any statements relating to the nominee be printed at the appropriate place in the Record.

Mr. President, notwithstanding rule XXII, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to Executive Calendar No. 618, P. David Lopez, of Arizona, to be general counsel of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission; that the nomination be confirmed, the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table, no further motions be in order, the President be immediately notified of the Senate's action, and that any statements relating to the nominee be printed at the appropriate place in the Record.

Mr. President, notwithstanding rule XXII, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to Executive Calendar No. 620, Victoria A. Lipnic, of Virginia, to be a member of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission; that the nomination be confirmed, the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table, no further motions be in order, the President be immediately notified of the Senate's action, and that any statements relating to the nominee be printed at the appropriate place in the Record.

Mr. President, notwithstanding rule XXII, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to Executive Calendar No. 628, Jill Long Thompson, of Indiana, to be a member of the Farm Credit Administration Board, Farm Credit Administration; that the nomination be confirmed, the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table, no further motions be in order, the President be immediately notified of the Senate's action, and that any statements relating to the nominee be printed at the appropriate place in the Record.

Mr. President, notwithstanding rule XXII, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to Executive Calendar No. 640, Eric L. Hirschhorn, of Maryland, to be Under Secretary of Commerce for Export Administration; that the nomination be confirmed, the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table, no further motions be in order, the President be immediately notified of the Senate's action, and that any statements relating to the nominee be printed at the appropriate place in the Record.

Mr. President, notwithstanding rule XXII, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to Executive Calendar No. 643, Steven L. Jacques, of Kansas, to be an Assistant Secretary of Housing and Urban Development; that the nomination be confirmed, the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table, no further motions be in order, the President be immediately notified of the Senate's action, and that any statements relating to the nominee be printed at the appropriate place in the Record.

Mr. President, notwithstanding rule XXII, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to Executive Calendar No. 647, Jim R. Esquea, of New York, to be an Assistant Secretary of Health and Human Services; that the nomination be confirmed, the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table, no further motions be in order, the President be immediately notified of the Senate's action, and that any statements relating to the nominee be printed at the appropriate place in the Record.

Mr. President, notwithstanding rule XXII, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to Executive Calendar No. 648, Michael W. Punke, of Montana, to be a Deputy U.S. Trade Representative, with the rank of ambassador; that the nomination be confirmed, the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table, no further motions be in order, the President be immediately notified of the Senate's action, and that any statements relating to the nominee be printed at the appropriate place in the Record.

Mr. President, notwithstanding rule XXII, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to Executive Calendar No. 649, Islam A. Siddiqui, of Virginia, to be Chief Agricultural Negotiator, Office of the U.S. Trade Representative, with the rank of ambassador; that the nomination be confirmed, the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table, no further motions be in order, the President be immediately notified of the Senate's action, and that any statements relating to the nominee be printed at the appropriate place in the Record.

Mr. President, let me just sum up. I had 20 I was going to try to do today. There are 80 of them. I will be back. This is not about trying to rush through nominations, this is about trying to make the rules work the way we wrote them. That means that beginning immediately, all of the motions I just made, the Members who are holding those nominees have an obligation under the law--under the law they have an obligation to ``submit a notice of intent specifying the reasons for his or her objection to a certain nomination,'' and not more than 6 session days after today, that must be printed in the Congressional Record.

These are the first 15 or so. I will continue to get them all on the record, hopefully by the end of the week, so that everyone knows next week, and maybe we will figure out why all these people are being held secretly. This is not about saying you should not vote no on these people. This is not even about not debating these people. This is about transparency and open government. That should be a bipartisan value, an all-American value in which we can all believe.

I saved us a rollcall vote.

Will the Senator yield for a question?

It is my understanding, through the Chair, that there are dozens and dozens of these holds that are secret and nobody knows what demands are being made or why. We do not know.

In this instance, it is my understanding that this Senator has proclaimed publicly why he is holding it. Is my understanding correct about that, I say to the Senator.

That is the part I want to inquire about. Let's just say hypothetically, if the Army Corps of Engineers succumbed to what the Senator is asking and said: OK, you are going to hold up this brave soldier's promotion that he deserves because you want something for your State--if they did that, would that not be illegal?

So what he is saying is, he is asking the Army Corps of Engineers to do something that is illegal, and if they refuse to do something that is illegal, he is going to refuse to allow a soldier's promotion to go through? Am I actually getting that right?