Floor Statements

Mr. President, there is at the desk H.R. 391 which has been received from the House, if I am not mistaken. I would ask for its first reading.

I would ask for its second reading and object to my own request.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that when the Senate completes its business today, it stand adjourned until 9 a.m. on Thursday, January 18; that on Thursday, following the prayer and pledge, the Journal of proceedings be approved to date, the morning hour be deemed expired, the time for the two leaders be reserved for their use later in the day, and there then be a period of morning business with Senators permitted to speak therein for up to 10 minutes each, with the first hour under the control of the majority leader or his designee and the second hour under the control of the Republican leader or his designee.

Mr. President, if I could say a brief word here, I hope the distinguished Republican leader has gotten the information--we tried to do it through staff--that sometime between 3 and 6 tomorrow, we will do a vote on the motion to reconsider that we had on the cloture vote. Then thereafter or sometime during the day tomorrow I will talk to the distinguished Republican leader and find out what happens next. There are a number of alternatives we have as to what we can do on Friday, but I will talk to my friend from Kentucky and try to work something out; otherwise, we will advise him what we are going to do.

If there is no further business to come before the Senate, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate stand in adjournment under the previous order.

Mr. President, the Senate will begin a period of morning business until 1 p.m., with the first hour under the control of the Senator from Oregon, Mr. Wyden, the second hour under the control of the Republicans, and the final hour equally divided and controlled between the two leaders or their designees, with Senators permitted to speak for up to 10 minutes each.

At 1 p.m., we will resume consideration of the ethics legislation. Cloture was filed on amendment No. 4, the so-called corporate jets amendment. Cloture was also filed on the substitute amendment and the bill. First-degree amendments need to be filed at the desk by 10:30 this morning, and any second-degree amendments should be filed by 4:30 p.m. today. There will be three votes starting at 5:30 today: the Durbin second-degree amendment regarding earmarks; the DeMint first- degree amendment regarding earmarks, as amended, if amended; and then the cloture vote on Reid amendment No. 4. Members should plan their schedules accordingly and remember that rollcall votes are 15 minutes, with a 5-minute grace period.

We are going to finish this legislation this week. If we finish it Thursday, we will be through Thursday. If the Republican leader agrees, we will finish it Thursday; otherwise, we will push on until we finish this legislation. I hope we can do it Thursday or Friday, but if we have to be here over the weekend, we are going to do it. We are going to finish this legislation. If cloture is not invoked, we will make a decision at that time as to what we will do with the legislation. We have made a lot of progress. There are still a lot of amendments out there floating around, and we will have to see what the body wants to do with those. That will be determined tonight with the cloture votes.

Mr. President, I note the absence of a quorum.

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

Mr. President, there has been good progress made on ethics and lobbying reform. We have had a good debate. It is time to move to passage of this meritorious legislation.

We will have three votes beginning at 5:30 this afternoon. First we will vote on the Durbin amendment to strengthen the definition of ``targeted tax benefit'' and other aspects of Senator DeMint's earmark disclosure proposal. I appreciate Senator DeMint working with Senator Durbin and others to strengthen his amendment.

Second, we will vote on the underlying DeMint amendment on earmark disclosure.

Finally, we will vote to invoke cloture on an amendment that I offered strengthening the rules on gifts and travel, including travel on private airplanes. Once cloture is invoked on that key amendment, we can move forward to finishing the bill this week. As I announced this morning, we are going to finish the bill this week. If we finish it Thursday at 10 o'clock, we will be finished with votes for the week. If we finish it Saturday at 10 o'clock, we will be finished with votes for the week. But we will finish this legislation.

This ethics reform bill is vitally important to Congress and the American people. Over the past few years, the media has been filled with stories of elected officials who have violated the public trust often in their dealings with lobbyists. Each episode of public corruption contributes to the public's growing cynicism about Congress and other institutions of Government.

First, let me say, lobbyists are not a class who should be denigrated in any way. They render a vital service to their constituents and to Congress. So I want everyone to know we are not trying to berate lobbyists. What we are saying with this legislation is we need to know more about what lobbyists are doing. I think it is going to help them, it will help us, and it will certainly give the American people more confidence in Government.

Think what this country has gone through. For the first time in 131 years, a person working in the White House is indicted. That trial is starting today. In addition to that, a person the President appointed to handle Government contracts involving billions of dollars, Mr. Safavian, was led away from his office in handcuffs and has been convicted.

Two former Members of the House of Representatives are now in prison for selling legislative favors--in prison. A third Member of the House of Representatives, one who has served as the second highest official in the House of Representatives, was forced to resign from Congress because he was indicted. There are other investigations going on as we speak. If there were ever a time when Congress and the executive branch needed to take dramatic action to show the American people we are serious about restoring public trust in Government, this is the time. That is what we have tried to do.

That is what I tried to do with this legislation. In order to send a message about the importance of ethics reform, I designated the bill as S. 1 and brought it to the floor on the first day of legislative activity, meaning that it is an extremely important piece of legislation in the minds of the country, the Congress, the Democrats, and the Republicans. I say the Republicans because I asked the minority leader to cosponsor S. 1 with me, something that hadn't been done for more than 30 years. I did this because I wanted to show this issue transcends partisan politics.

The bill I introduced with Senator McConnell on the first day of the 110th Congress is a very strong piece of legislation. It is based on the text of the bill that passed the Senate last year.

What does it do? It prohibits lobbyists from giving gifts to lawmakers and their staffs. It prohibits lobbyists from paying for trips or taking part in privately funded congressional travel. It requires public disclosure of earmarks. It slows the revolving door by extending to 2 years the ban on lobbying by former Members of Congress.

It makes pay-to-play schemes such as the ``K Street project'' a violation of Senate rules.

It makes lobbying more transparent by doubling the frequency of reporting and requiring a searchable electronic database.

The K Street project. What was that all about? What it was all about is that lobbyists met with Members of Congress--initially they even met here in the Capitol, and then they moved the meetings downtown at a later time. They would discuss what job openings there were and, of course, the only people who were eligible for hire were Republicans and, in fact, companies actually got in trouble with the K Street project, members of the Majority party at the time, for hiring Democrats. That is what part of this legislation is going to prevent.

This bill we have introduced, S. 1, would require for the first time the disclosure of shadowy business coalitions that engage in the so- called ``astroturf'' lobbying campaigns. What does this mean? It means these grassroots campaigns will be able to continue, but there will have to be disclosure of paid campaigns that are, in effect, financing these so-called grassroots campaigns. The American people should know why, suddenly showing up here in Washington or the State capital or one of the other States, these groups are trying to affect legislation, and they wonder why they are trying to do it. The fact is it is because we have lobbyists representing different organizations paying for all this. This would be prevented.

Even though S. 1 is an extremely sound, strong piece of legislation, I wanted to show that we heard the electorate loudly and clearly. So the minority leader and I offered a substitute amendment to make the bill even stronger. Not only did Senator McConnell and I, for the first time in three decades, cosponsor legislation which is the first bill to come before the Senate, but we moved even farther to include new protections to prevent dead-of-night additions to conference reports, to add new rules to say that Members may not engage in job negotiations with industries they regulate, to require fuller disclosure by lobbyists, to ensure proper valuation of tickets to sporting events, to make sure that the Senate gift and travel rules are enforceable against lobbyists, and we toughened criminal penalties for corrupt violations of the Lobbying Disclosure Act.

Senator McConnell and I offered the substitute amendment at the start of the debate, and it remains pending. Since then, we have had a debate in the Senate that strengthened the bill even more. The Senate has adopted other amendments on a bipartisan basis, including Senator Kerry's amendment to strip pensions from Members convicted of corruption, Senator Salazar's amendment to ensure public access to committee proceedings, and two amendments by Senator Vitter to strengthen enforcement of ethics rules.

Soon we will adopt the Durbin and DeMint amendments to require full and timely disclosure of all earmarks. The Durbin amendment is a necessary addition to the DeMint proposal because it strengthens the definition of tax earmarks and because it requires public disclosure of earmarks before floor debate. In effect, we have combined the best ideas from both sides of the aisle, Democrat and Republican, to establish the strongest possible disclosures rules in this regard. Once we are done, the Senate earmark rules will be even stronger than those recently adopted by the House. That is why I said we need to look at what we are doing. Senator Durbin's amendment gives the DeMint amendment structure that was lacking last week in the original amendment. That is why it didn't pass. Taxes need to be included in detail and now will be when the Durbin amendment passes. So the work done by Senator DeMint and Senator Durbin is noteworthy and very good.

After we vote on the Durbin and DeMint amendments later today, we will vote on whether to invoke cloture on an amendment to strengthen the ban on gift and travel bans in the underlying measure. I recognize Senators Feingold, Obama, and McCain have contributed to this and I appreciate their work for a number of years in regard to airplane travel in this country and other issues. This amendment will profoundly change the rules, banning not only lobbyists but entities that hire lobbyists from providing gifts and travel. Most notably, it will require that when Senators travel on airplanes, they must pay the full charter rate. Last week I modified the amendment to include additional ideas from Senator Inhofe, Feingold and McCain.

Let me say a word about corporate jets. The State of Nevada is very large areawise. The cities of Las Vegas and Reno are separated by about 450 miles. There is good travel between those two cities. But to get around the rest of the State is not easy. When you travel from Las Vegas to Reno, I again say it is easy. But then let's say you want to go to Elko. By Nevada standards, it is a pretty large city. Going on a commercial airplane, it is very, very, very difficult, and to go to Ely is next to impossible. These two cities, both important in their own right, have required on a number of occasions calling upon people you know who have an airplane to take us up there. Under the old rules, you could pay first-class travel. An example of that is Senator Ensign and I, last August, had to go to Ely. It was extremely important. We were working on a piece of legislation that has since passed. We wanted to sit down in person and talk to the people in Ely about what we were doing.

For us to get there was very difficult. The time factor was significant. To drive up and back is 2 days, 1 day up, 1 day back. It was complicated by the fact that Senator Ensign had a longstanding engagement in Reno. To go from Ely to Reno--it is hard to get there. If you drive very fast, you can make it in 6 hours. So I called a friend of mine, Mike Ensign, Senator Ensign's father. This good man has done very well in the business world. He is a man with limited education but a great mind. He started out working in somewhat menial jobs in the gaming industry. He worked his way up. He became a dealer, a pit boss, a shift boss, and then Mike Ensign moved into the corporate world and became an executive and then ultimately started buying hotel properties himself and has done very well. He is the principal officer and owner of Mandalay Bay, a huge company. It is the second largest hotel-casino operator in the country. I called him and I said: Mike, with one of your airplanes, can you fly me and your son to Ely?

He is a wonderful man, just the greatest guy. He said: Sure, I will be happy to do that. And he did that. He is an example of the type of people we have called upon for these airplanes.

I tell this story. I have used these airplanes a lot because I live in Nevada and because of other duties I have here. The reason I tell the Mike Ensign story is because Mike Ensign doesn't want anything from me. There isn't a thing in the world I can give this man. He is famous, he is rich, he has a wonderful family. I can't do anything to help Mike Ensign. He did this because he is my friend.

Most every--I should not say most. For every airplane I fly on, of course I don't have the relationship with them that I have with Mike Ensign, but I want everyone who has allowed me to use their airplanes to know I am not in any way denigrating them. They have done this out of the goodness of their heart. I have never had anyone say: I will give you an airplane ride if you give me something, or, I have a piece of legislation pending, will you help me with that? That has never happened. I want all these people to know that I am certainly not in any way disparaging these good people who have allowed me and others to fly on their airplanes.

What I am saying, though, is that in this world in which we live, because of all the corruption that has taken place in the last few years here in America, that you not only have to do away with what is wrong but what appears to be wrong. I am confident I have never been influenced by anyone who provided me with the courtesy of a private airplane, but I have come to the realization that this practice presents a major perception problem. It is a major perception problem because the American people have the right to insist that we do what seems right as well as what is right. Does it appear it is OK? For us to fly around in these airplanes doesn't appear to be the right thing, no matter how good-hearted these people

are, just like Mike Ensign. So because a perception isn't right, this amendment is pending, and it means Senators should pay the full fare when they fly on someone's private airplane. This is an important amendment. Any Senator who is serious about ethics reform will vote to invoke cloture so this amendment can be included in the final bill.

In the course of this debate on this bill, the Senate has properly focused on ethics and lobbying reform, not on other matters, such as campaign reform. The Senate has wisely tabled matters dealing primarily with campaign finance issues, but Senator Feinstein has assured the Senate and me that campaign finance reform will be addressed separately and comprehensively in her committee, the Rules Committee.

I have some concern about campaign finance rules. I think we need to have serious public hearings on these issues. We have problems dealing with so-called 527s, their foundations--they are basic campaign finance problems we need to look at, and we need to look at them in detail. Senator Feinstein has said she will do that, and I am grateful to her for doing that.

There will also be separate consideration of the proposal to establish an independent ethics enforcement agency. We debated that proposal last year, and it was defeated resoundingly after a bipartisan group of Senators on and off the Ethics Committee questioned the wisdom of such a proposal. Again, the Rules Committee has said they will take this matter up and look at it very seriously.

Senators Voinovich and Johnson served as chair and vice chair of the Ethics Committee in the last Congress. They both spoke vigorously against a new ethics agency. Senator Johnson, as we know, is recovering from an illness. As a matter of fact, I spoke to his family not long before coming here. He is doing very well. Here is what he said last year, though. I quote Senator Johnson, who is the chair of the Ethics Committee, who said this last year:

The two-tiered ethics process that would be created by this

amendment would undoubtedly slow consideration of ethics

complaints, create more doubt about the process, and make our

colleagues and the public less confident in our ability to

address these issues. . . .[The proposal would leave] open

the possibility that Members will be forced to live under the

cloud of an investigation as a result of every accusation

brought before the Office of Public Integrity, regardless of

its merit--regardless of its merit. Such a situation would

only interject more partisanship into the ethics procession

and create a blunt tool for extreme partisan groups to make

politically based attacks.

Despite the defeat of the proposal last year, it makes sense for the Rules Committee and the Governmental Affairs Committee to hold hearings on ways to strengthen enforcement of the ethics rules. I can assure my colleagues that worthwhile proposals which emerge from these two committees will receive meaningful consideration by the full Senate. I have spoken about this in detail, in fact, in my last conversation with Senator Lieberman this morning.

There are other pending amendments that have nothing to do with ethics and lobbying reform. The line-item veto is a good example. It has no place in this bill. I have great respect for Senator Judd Gregg from New Hampshire. He is a wonderful man and a great Senator. But on this bill is not the place to bring this up. No matter how strongly you feel on this, you should not bring up line-item veto. Should we be debating what is going on in Iraq on this bill? We should not, even though some people believe strongly that we should. But the line-item veto is no different from debating Iraq in this bill. They have no place in this bill, just as there is no place for campaign finance reform in this bill. We are trying to do serious, sound ethics and lobbying earmark reform, and that is what we are doing.

Workable mechanisms for fiscal discipline are certainly important. I hope Senators Conrad and Gregg take a look at this line-item veto issue, which I personally don't support. But whether I support it or not, it should not be a part of this bill, and I hope they would take this up in the budgeting process along with the pay-go rules which I think are so important. This bill is about ethics and lobbying reform, not budgeting.

Let's focus on what we need to do to move forward on the ethics and lobbying reform. We need to adopt the Durbin and DeMint amendments on earmark disclosure. We need to invoke cloture on my gift and travel amendment and then adopt that amendment. Then we need to invoke cloture on the substitute and debate the various germane amendments that will be pending during the 30-hour postcloture period.

This is a glidepath to finishing the ethics bill this week so we can move to other vital matters: the minimum wage, the President's new Iraq proposal, funding the Government, fixing the Medicare prescription drug plan, expending opportunities for lifesaving stem cell research, pay-go rules, and other important issues.

Ethics reform is the first step in convincing the American people that we, Democrats and Republicans, are hard at work on their behalf. It seems so important that we complete this legislation and move on to the other matters that are so important. But this is something we need to do to help the American people feel better about their Congress.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, the hour of 9:50 having arrived, I ask unanimous consent that voting commence.

I ask for the yeas and nays.

Madam President, we yield back our time.

Madam President.

I call for the regular order with respect to amendment No. 4.

I send the amendment to the desk for a modification, incorporating the language of the McCain amendment No. 19.

Madam President, I think I have just revised my amendment to the substitute in a number of significant ways. This bill started bipartisanly by introduction. The minority leader and I jointly offered a substitute amendment as well. I want to keep this process bipartisan, so I am adopting a number of changes that reflect input and ideas from the Republicans and Democrats, and that is what is in this modification.

First, I have adopted an idea from the Senator from Oklahoma, Mr. Inhofe, to make sure it is clear that the new rules on private jets do not apply to Members who fly their own planes. Senator Inhofe has flown a one-engine plane all around the world, literally, and he flies back and forth to Oklahoma on a frequent basis. I think this is an important amendment and a fair amendment.

Second, I have adopted an idea from the Senator from Arizona, the senior Senator from Arizona, Mr. McCain, to add a reporting requirement when Senators fly on private jets. Now, when people pay the charter rate, they will have to file that. I think that was the law before, but it really doesn't matter. It is something that I think will make things more clear.

Third, I have adopted an idea from a bipartisan amendment suggested by Senator Feingold that instructs the Legislative Branch Appropriations Subcommittee to review the impact on the new rule on private jets on Members' travel spending. I think that is extremely important because the subcommittee is going to have to take a look at how this impacts States differently. If you are from the State of Rhode Island or Delaware, you don't have much of a problem flying around because you can drive around. But if you are from the State of Alaska, the State of Montana, the State of Nevada, Colorado, some of these very large area Western States, it is a problem. So I commend Senator Feingold for being thoughtful in this regard.

Madam President, on another issue, I also want to say that I have spoken to Senator DeMint on his earmarking proposal. We had a number of good conversations. I have spoken to the Republican leader. We prepared--and I have given a copy of the amendment to Senator DeMint--a second-degree amendment which would strengthen the DeMint amendment that we talked about on the Senate floor yesterday. What our second degree would do would strengthen the definition of targeted tax benefits. Certainly, we want to make it one that is understandable, not rigid and narrow, and I have talked to the Senator from South Carolina about this.

Also, on the same piece of paper I gave the Senator from South Carolina, I have explained to my friend, Senator DeMint, that we want to make sure the Duke Cunningham exception is in place. What Congressman Cunningham did is, he had earmarks in that bill, but he never mentioned the entity that got the money. What we would do is, in this amendment, you can't write your way around it. We think our suggestion to Senator DeMint to strengthen his amendment is certainly something we need to do. You can't write your way around giving money to corporation X. If it limits that, it has to be listed.

Also, importantly, we have added a strengthening provision in the proposed second-degree amendment to list earmarks on the Internet 48 hours before. Now, I have told Senator DeMint if he wants to make this part of his amendment, fine. If he wants us to offer the second degree, we will do that. I told him if he has any suggestions that he feels would improve what we are trying to do, we are agreeable to take a look at that. He has suggested that he wants a vote on that. We also want a recorded vote. I think that is important. So I hope we can work something out.

What I would like to do is have a number of votes set for Tuesday evening. After these agreed-upon votes on amendments, then we would move to invoke cloture on the airplane amendment and then, after that, on the substitute. I hope we can work on a bipartisan basis in the next hour or so to set up some votes that would occur before cloture on those matters about which I have spoken.

Yesterday was a rather difficult day, as some days are. There was a lot of confusion as to what people were trying to accomplish. I think that perhaps we should have given a little more time for explanations. We tend to get in a hurry sometimes when we shouldn't be. We tend to spend a lot of time doing things that accomplish nothing, and a lot of times limit time on things that do matter. So, personally, for the majority, we probably could have done a little better job of giving opportunities for people to speak. No one came forward wanting to speak, so that is a pretty good sign that people are ready to vote. But I think realistically maybe they were not.

But regardless of that, we are where we are, and we are going to try to move forward in a reasonable manner in the next 2 hours and complete this bill some time next week, we hope.

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

Mr. President, as soon as we resume S. 1 in a few minutes, there will be a limited period of debate on two amendments--the Kerry amendment No. 1 relating to congressional pensions and the Vitter amendment No. 10 regarding civil penalties. These two amendments will be debated concurrently until 9:50 a.m.

The first rollcall vote will start at 9:50. We will have two rollcall votes this morning. If Members are interested in offering amendments today, I would suggest they talk to the bill managers during these votes, or Senator McConnell.

I remind everyone Monday is a holiday. We will have our first vote Tuesday at 5:30. It appears at this time there will be a series of votes at 5:30. So I hope we can move on down the road on this matter this morning. I am going to have some consultations with the Republican leader in a few minutes to see if we can figure out a way to end this matter as quickly as possible.

Mr. President, I concur with the remarks of the Republican leader. The baseline was not reduced for Democratic staff in the 108th Congress. This agreement allows for that same accommodation for the Republican side in the 110th, if that money is available. Further, since additional funds may not be available, we have agreed that each ranking member will be allocated the amount mentioned above, if they so request, and those funds will be made available from existing funds provided by the Rules Committee.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that a letter signed by the two leaders be printed in the Record.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the consideration of S. Res. 27, which is at the desk; that the resolution be agreed to and the motion to reconsider be laid upon the table.

Mr. President, in accordance with the provisions of S. Res. 445 of the 108th Congress, I designate Senator Jay Rockefeller as chairman of the Select Committee on Intelligence.

Mr. President, we have done this very quickly, but it is extremely important that we have been able to accomplish this. There has been a lot of cooperation on both sides. It puts us on the path to get some things done with the committees. I think the chairman and ranking members are happy, as we have learned today.

Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that on Tuesday, January 16, at 5:30 p.m., the Senate proceed to a vote on or in relation to the Durbin amendment No. 44, to be followed by a vote on or in relation to the DeMint amendment No. 11, as amended, if amended, and then without further intervening action or debate, the Senate proceed to a vote on the motion to invoke cloture on amendment No. 14; that if the Durbin amendment is not modified to Senator DeMint's satisfaction, then the agreement with respect to a vote with respect to the two amendments be vitiated.

Mr. President, I would like to spread on the Record the fact that we have had long conversations with Senator DeMint and Senator Durbin. I have spoken personally with Senator DeMint on several occasions. We appreciate his cooperation. I believe what we have done here preserves what he wanted to do and more. So this should make everyone happy on Tuesday. We hope this will be an overwhelmingly positive vote.

I also note that staff, during this evening and during Tuesday, is also going to continue to work on other matters to see if there are other items on which we can vote.

Amendment No. 4

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that my amendment No. 4 be the pending business.

Mr. President, I send a cloture motion to the desk with respect to this amendment.

Mr. President, I now send to the desk a cloture motion on the substitute amendment, amendment No. 3.

Mr. President, finally, I send to the desk a cloture motion on the bill.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the live quorum with respect to each cloture motion be waived and that Monday, January 15, count as the intervening day with respect to the cloture motion on amendment No. 4.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the pending amendment be set aside, and I ask that it be in order to call up amendments on behalf of other Senators en bloc, and that after reporting they be laid aside:

Amendment No. 54 to amendment No. 3 for Senator Feingold; amendment No. 43 to amendment No. 3 for Senator Lieberman; and amendment No. 56 to amendment No. 3 for Mr. Casey.

I understand that H.R. 3 is at the desk and ready for its second reading.

I object to any further proceedings at this time.