Floor Statements

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 President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.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, at 5:30 today, all postcloture time on S. 3525, the Sportsmen's Act, will have expired. There will be two rollcall votes at that time. The first vote will be on a motion to waive the Budget Act. The second will be on passage of the bill, as amended.

Mr. President, in the weeks since our country voted to return President Obama to the White House and a Democratic majority in the Senate, I have spoken often about compromise. I remain optimistic that when it comes to our economy, when it comes to protecting middle- class families from a whopping tax hike come January 1, Republicans and Democrats will be able to find common ground.

President Dwight Eisenhower, a Republican, once said:

People talk about the middle of the road as though it were

unacceptable. . . . There have to be compromises. The middle

of the road is all of the usable surface.

So said Dwight Eisenhower. Too often Republicans and Democrats in Washington face off from our entrenched positions, never realizing the solutions to this country's problems rest not on one side of the aisle or the other but somewhere in the middle.

However, as we continue negotiating a responsible path forward, I remind everyone within the sound of my voice of one fact: This Congress is already one vote away from avoiding the fiscal cliff for middle- class families and small businesses. We could solve the greatest economic emergency facing the Nation today if only the House would consider the Senate-passed bill freezing tax rates for 98 percent of American families and 97 percent of small businesses.

As Thomas Jefferson said, ``We should not put off tomorrow what we can do today.'' Our legislation would give economic certainty to the middle class, protect important tax deductions for families and businesses, and restore

balance by asking the most fortunate among us to pay a little extra to reduce the debt.

It is also the only bill with a chance of being signed into law by President Obama. I was dismayed to hear Speaker Boehner once again urge the Senate to take up the House-passed bill extending more tax breaks for millionaires and billionaires. The Senate has already considered that bill. We rejected it on a bipartisan basis.

So for the Speaker to say, bring it up, we already have. It was voted down in this Congress. The Senate has spoken. President Obama has spoken. He has promised he will not sign any bill that mortgages our future to pay for handouts for the wealthiest 2 percent of Americans.

I only hope the House Republicans have been listening. I also hope my colleagues, Republican and Democratic Members of the House and the Senate, used the Thanksgiving break not only to give thanks but also to reflect on the monumental tasks ahead. I hope they took time to reflect, too, on the effort it will take to complete these tasks.

As President Eisenhower said, there will have to be compromises, and seeking the middle of the road is not just acceptable, it is the only way forward.

Order of Business

Mr. President, let me say a few words about the schedule. Discussions continue on the Defense authorization bill. I just finished a conversation with the chairman of the committee, Senator Levin. Republican Senators have been having disagreements among themselves on what they want to do on the Defense bill. Thus, while these discussions are going on, I intend to move to proceed to the Carcieri decision affecting Native Americans. I will file cloture on the motion to proceed on the motion to invoke cloture on Wednesday.

Tomorrow, I intend to move to proceed to executive session to consider the disability treaty. We will seek a reasonable agreement on amendments to this matter. If on Wednesday cloture is not invoked on the Carcieri matter, I would intend to figure out some way, with the help of Senator McCain and others on the other side, to return to the Defense bill under the tentative agreements we have had on that before. It is up to Senator Levin and Senator McCain to figure out a way forward on that. I am willing to work with them as to what is reasonable this late in the game.

The one thing the Republican leader said that is absolutely true is I follow the Golden Rule, and it is very clear what has happened during this Congress. We can go over all the numbers--and I think they project what has happened--about the hundreds and hundreds of times that we have been forced to file cloture on relatively meaningless things.

My friend the Republican leader claims changing the rule to make the Senate more efficient is an assault on minority rights. In fact, it is a response to the abuse of the filibuster by Senate Republicans. He keeps talking about getting rid of the filibuster. I and no one on the Democratic side have proposed getting rid of the filibuster, but we have proposed making this place more efficient.

We had a run at this 2 years ago. We had a so-called gentleman's agreement that the motion to proceed would be filibustered rarely. We filibustered almost every time a bill came up, so that simply didn't work. I am not proposing that we get rid of the filibuster, just that we do away with filibusters on the motion to proceed, period.

To the average American, reforms are just common sense, Mr. President. Americans believe Congress is broken. Once again, the only ones who disagree are Mitch McConnell and Republicans in Congress. The American people know, Democrats and Republicans, that this place isn't working and there needs to be some changes so we can proceed to get some legislation passed. We know that during the same time frame as Lyndon Johnson's 6 years--and I will have 6 years in the same position at the end of this year--I have faced 386 filibusters. It keeps going up because we had a couple more very recently. Lyndon Johnson had one. Today it takes more than a week--in fact, it takes about 10 days--to even begin considering a bill, before we are even on the bill, let alone trying to pass that legislation.

So it is time to get the Senate working again, not for the good of the current Democratic majority or some future Republican majority but for the good of the country. And as for these plaintive cries that we are getting rid of the filibuster, it simply isn't true. I believe in the filibuster. I believe in it. I believe in minority rights. The filibuster is not part of the Constitution. It is something we developed here to help get legislation passed, but now it is being used to stop legislation from passing.

So we are going to continue moving forward to make the Senate more efficient. Does that mean it will be really efficient? No, because we are changing one aspect of the filibuster rule. And what is that? We are going to change it so that it doesn't take us 10 days to simply get on a bill before we can start legislating. The American people know this is the right way to go. The only people who would think the Senate is working now with its obstruction at every step of the way are the Republicans.

Mr. President, I have said this before: Any change that has been suggested in these rules that we believe need to be changed wouldn't affect me if I were in the minority. I would have many opportunities to take care of the sparsely populated State of Nevada and take care of the other issues I want to defend. But we believe there should be one aspect of the Senate to change, and that is that the motion to proceed should be a nondebatable motion to proceed. It is as simple as that.

The American people agree. I repeat: The only ones who disagree, who think this Senate is working well, are the Republican leader and those Republicans in Congress.

Of course his statement is untrue and I don't accept that.

Mr. President, I had the pleasure of serving with one of the greatest Senators in the history of this country, Daniel Patrick Moynihan of New York. He said people are entitled to their own opinions but not their own facts. And that is what my friend the Republican leader now has, his own set of facts which belies the record before the American people.

It is ironic the Republican leader complains about those who want to change the Senate rules. It is ironic because he has been at the forefront of abusing these rules for the past 6 years. It is ironic because when he was in the majority 7 years ago, he sought to change the rules to streamline votes on judicial nominations. He was part of that program. And it is ironic because he is one of a very small group of people who think the Senate is working just fine.

Rules change around here. They change. You know, it used to be to cut off a filibuster it took 67 votes. The Senate changed that because it became too burdensome.

I have said on many occasions, and I will say again here--and I have said this in public gatherings and private gatherings--these minor changes I am suggesting wouldn't affect anyone who had the thought of making America better, even if I were in the minority. To stop a filibuster on a motion to proceed to a bill--to take 10 days to just get on a bill--I don't think is good and we need to change that. So----

I will be happy to in one second.

The Republican leader keeps talking about not following the rules. We are following the Constitution of the United States to make these changes, and that is certainly appropriate.

Your question?

Mr. President----

Sorry.

I think that would be wrong, but we are not trying to get rid of the filibuster. We are changing a tiny aspect of what goes on around here so that people would have to do a couple of things: One is to not filibuster simply getting on a bill. And also, if they want to filibuster, they would have to stand and talk about it and not be in their office someplace.

Senator Durbin just reminded me of one Republican Senator who forced us to be here over the weekend and he then left and went back to a wedding in his State.

I repeat for the third time, the only people who think the Senate is working really well right now are the Republican leader and Republican Senators because it is not working well. They have abused the process. They have abused something that was set up to help legislation get passed--the filibuster. They have abused it and now they filibuster on everything.

They can talk all they want about filling the amendment tree and all that, but that has no bearing on what is going on around here. We have tried to get things done. The Defense bill is a good example. I said, let's move to the Defense bill and they objected to it. They have been talking about it for months. I agreed to move to it, with no preconditions at all.

We have to do other things. We have a very short period of time here now, and everything around here is the bill stall. He talks about getting bills done. In this Congress we have gotten almost nothing done. We struggled through a highway bill that took 6 weeks. We spent months of our time on that dealing with contraception. We were able to work through that. We had a postal bill we spent a lot of time on here, and the House has put that in their garbage pile so that nothing has happened with that; the farm bill, the same thing.

We have gotten almost nothing done. Why? Because we have spent weeks--weeks--simply getting on a bill so we can start legislating. So if the Republican leader thinks things are going well here, he is in a distinct minority because things aren't going well around here. And I think an example, I repeat, is Lyndon Johnson's 1 cloture and Harry Reid's 386. That says it all.

Mr. President, the election is over, and the American people listened to what we had to say, and they acknowledged without any question that the message we delivered is valid: The Senate is a dysfunctional body, caused by the Republicans. Democrats picked up seats in this Senate. The President was reelected by 2.5 million votes. We have an obligation to the American people to proceed and to get some things done.

My friend the Republican leader talks about the Golden Rule. I do believe in that. And I believe 2 years ago there were efforts made to change this body so we could get some things done. We were given the assurance that the motion to proceed would not be used in the way it has been used this time.

Any suggestion of changing the rules is within the framework of what we do here in the Senate and our Constitution. We have an obligation to continually update this body so that it becomes more efficient. That is the history of this country. And I think my friend the Republican leader has to acknowledge that things haven't been going very well. He just did that. The election is over. We need to proceed to get things done.

Incendiary moves? I have been facing incendiary moves for 2 years. We can't get anything done around here because of the Republican obstructionism. The American people recognize that. As I have traveled this country, people have said: Do something to change the Senate so we can get things done. And we are making a minor change to stop the motion to proceed that we were told 2 years ago they wouldn't use anymore. So we are going to change this rule so the Senate can become an effective body.

We have a bicameral legislature, and no one should suggest I don't understand that, and no one should suggest I don't understand the filibuster rule. I think I understand as well as anybody who serves in this body and perhaps, with the exception of Senator Byrd, anybody who has served in this body. If Senator Byrd were here, I would suggest to everybody here that Senator Byrd wouldn't like what is going on here, and he would work with us to get these rules changed, and that is why they need to be changed.

We can't continue like this. We took people's word that they would help us get things done here, and they rejected that. It was simply untrue. It was a falsehood. I know what I have said in the past, and I know what I have done in the past, and I think what we are doing is a positive step forward to do away with the motion to proceed so that they can't filibuster a simple motion to proceed, stopping us from getting on a bill, taking us 10 days to do that. That is wrong.

Mr. President, no matter how many times my friend the Republican leader says ``break the rules to change the rules,'' it doesn't make it true because it is not true. We are going to follow the rules.

I would also say this: I was stunned by reading in a couple of the newspapers that a couple of Republican Senators said, paraphrasing: We are going to make things really tough around here. We are going to make things so bad if they take away our motion, causing me to file cloture on a motion to proceed. We are going to make things really difficult.

Really difficult, when the Republican leader said his No. 1 goal in this Congress was to defeat President Obama? And that is how they have legislated. Everything was to the effort of making sure Barack Obama did not serve again. There are a myriad of examples. Take this one. This is great to show how hard they worked to put the country on the right track. With about 1 million firefighters, police officers, and schoolteachers being laid off, we thought: We have had some decent--not wonderful--growth in the private sector and have gotten back millions of jobs. We decided, let's do something in the public sector that would really help stimulate the economy. So we decided to move to a bill that said that what we want to do is rehire those firefighters, police officers, and teachers,

and we are going to pay for it--no more deficit spending--we will pay for it by having a surtax on people who make more than $1 million a year, and that surtax is three-tenths of 1 percent. They stopped it. They stopped it dead in its tracks. Every Republican voted against it. That is the way they have legislated this entire year. And by our getting rid of the motion to proceed, that we are turning the country upside down is ridiculous. It is not true.

They have legislated with the effort to defeat Obama. He won by 2.5 million votes, 327 electoral votes--overwhelmingly--even though they did everything they could to stop him from being reelected. Everyone knows what a failure this Congress has been because of what the Senate has done, and that is nothing. Nothing. No job creation--they didn't want that. If we had had the ability to create jobs, it would have helped Obama and it would have helped the country, but, no, that wasn't what they wanted to do. And a terrible day for them several months ago--can you believe the Supreme Court declared ObamaCare constitutional? I mean, talk about a disappointment. This whole year was a disappointment for them because they weren't able to stop Obama from being reelected even though they did everything they could to prevent him from being reelected, and then ObamaCare was declared constitutional.

No, we are not going to break the rules to change the rules. We are going to follow the rules to make a couple of minor changes to make this place more efficient. That is what the Senate has always been about, is revising itself to become more efficient. And the threats that come from the other side: We are going to make you Democrats suffer more; if you do this, it is going to be terrible--What more could they do to us?

It is pretty simple. The math isn't that difficult. Get the bill on the calendar, file cloture on a Tuesday, have a cloture vote on Thursday. We are finally on the bill. They get 30 hours for that. I maybe exaggerated a day or two, but it puts us way into next week before we even get on the bill.

So we are doing what is right for the country because the American people want us to do what is right for the country. And to do what is right for the country is to change the rules of the Senate a little bit so that we can do something meaningful for the country.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the Reid amendment No. 2878 be withdrawn; that the vote on passage of the bill be vitiated; that the bill be returned to the calendar status quo; further, that at a time to be determined by the majority leader after consultation with the Republican leader, it be in order for the majority leader to resume consideration of the bill.

I now move we proceed to Calendar No. 419, S. 3254.

As I indicated this morning, we are trying to work our way through a number of issues. We thought we were going to be able to move toward the Carcieri matter this evening, but we are still negotiating this matter, so we are going to have to do that at some subsequent time.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. President, I now move to proceed to Calendar No. 419,

Mr. President, the filing deadline for all second-degree amendments to S. 3525, the Sportsmen's Act, is 9:10 a.m. today. At 9:15 a.m., there will be a cloture vote on S. 3525.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that on Monday, November 26, it be in order for Senator Sessions or his designee to be recognized in order to raise a Budget Act point of order against the Reid for Tester amendment No. 2875 and that it be in order for Senator Reid or his designee to make a motion to waive the point of order; further, that at 5:30 p.m. on Monday, November 26, the Senate proceed to vote on the motion to waive, if raised; that if the motion to waive is successful, the Reid amendments Nos. 2876, 2877, 2878, and 2879 be withdrawn en bloc; the Reid for Tester substitute amendment No. 2875 be agreed to; that no further amendments or motions be in order prior to a vote on passage of S. 3525, as amended, with no intervening action or debate; and that if the motion to waive is not successful, Senator Harry Reid be recognized.

Madam President, we have had a number of individuals come to the floor over the last several months and say they want to move to the Defense authorization bill. So yesterday I said: Fine, let's move to it. What Senator Levin and Senator McCain said they wanted are relevant amendments. I said: Fine, we will do it. But my friends can't take ``yes'' for an answer. So we will come back after a recess for Thanksgiving and look at it again, and maybe by then they will take ``yes'' for an answer.

If we are going to move to these bills and have amendments offered-- that is what they want, and that is what I said they could do, so I don't fully understand the problem. But I am not filing cloture on a motion to proceed. I am not going to do that. It is an important bill. But I want the record to be very clear. I am not the cause. We are not the cause of this Defense authorization bill not being brought to the floor. I have agreed to do it, as I was requested to do by both Senator Levin and Senator McCain.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I move to proceed to Calendar No. 419, S. 3254, the Defense Department authorization bill.

Mr. President, the next hour will be equally divided and controlled between the two leaders or their designees, with the majority controlling the first half and the Republicans the second half.

The filing deadline for first-degree amendments to the Sportsmen's bill is 4 o'clock today. We are trying to work on an agreement with the Republicans to vote on the Sportsmen's bill and cyber security and have a path forward on the Defense authorization bill. We hope to have an agreement in the next couple of hours.

Senator Grassley's 11,000th Vote

Mr. President, I rise today to honor my colleague Chuck Grassley on the occasion of his 11,000th vote. Senator Grassley has cast more than 6,400 consecutive votes--more consecutive votes than any Senators currently holding office in the Senate. This is truly a remarkable accomplishment that speaks to his dedication.

I know he considers it a sign of respect for his constituents and for the Senate. Senator Grassley is a farmer, assembly line worker, who served in the Iowa State legislature and was elected to the House of Representatives here in Washington in 1974 and to the Senate in 1980.

Senator Grassley learned the value of hard work early on the family farm. Today his son runs that farm but Chuck still dedicates himself to working on the farm on many occasions, and then after that comes back to Washington.

As ranking member of the Judiciary Committee and past chairman of the Finance Committee, Senator Grassley also takes his constitutional oversight responsibilities very seriously. He has long worked to make the judicial branch more open and transparent. To that end he has sponsored a bill to allow cameras in the courtroom and proposed creating the post of inspector general. He has been one of the most ardent protectors of whistleblowers. As a member of the Agriculture Committee, Senator Grassley brings real-world experience from his Iowa farm to be an advocate for American farmers in Washington.

Even when Senator Grassley and I do not agree on issues, I believe we always have the greatest respect for each other. I know I do for him and I feel confident he does of me. He is a principled, dedicated lawmaker and a genuine person.

One little side note. I came to the Senate and was elected in 1986, so early in 1987 I gave my maiden speech here in the Senate. It was on the Taxpayer Bill of Rights, something I tried to accomplish in the House but, frankly, I did not get to first base. That is an understatement. They paid no attention to

me. So when I came here, that was my speech. I was way back there by the candy drawer.

I gave a speech on the Taxpayer Bill of Rights. The Presiding Officer was David Pryor from Arkansas. He was the chair on the subcommittee dealing with the IRS and finance. Senator Grassley was listening to my speech in his office. Senator Pryor sent me a note when I finished that he had written while he was presiding, saying: I really like your legislation. I want to work with you to get it passed. I was stunned. One of the most senior Members of the Senate was interested in what I had to say. In the House, I repeat, they would not listen to me. I tried to talk to the chairman of that subcommittee. He would not even do a meeting with me. I still remember his name. I am not going to mention it.

Senator Grassley contacted me and said: I want to work on this legislation. They worked with me. My first year in the Senate we passed the historic Taxpayer Bill of Rights to make the taxpayer a little more equal to the tax collector. It was landmark legislation. It would never have happened but for Senator Grassley. So I admire what he has done for America in many different ways but certainly in that manner.

I know my friend, the Republican leader, is going to speak about Senator Grassley. I explained to his staff I have to run to another meeting so I have a couple of minutes of things to say that I think are important.

Rising Above Partisanship

The work before us in these waning days of this Congress represents a test of our character, that of this body, a test of our willingness to rise above partisanship for the good of this great Nation.

Although I was disappointed that the Senate was unable to vote on final passage of Senator Tester's Sportsmen's package, I hold fast to my optimism that we can pass that. We have a great deal to accomplish during the next 6 weeks to safeguard our country's financial health and protect middle-class families. But we will not complete anything without bipartisan cooperation. As Senate Majority Leader George Mitchell once said, ``Bipartisanship means you work together to work it out.''

So I hope to see that type of cooperation on display when the Senate votes to reconsider the stalled cyber security legislation. If we can work together to address these two issues, the Sportsmen's package and cyber security, it will set a tone of cooperation that could characterize the remainder of this Congress and next Congress as well.

National security experts say there is no issue facing this Nation more pressing than the threat of cyber attack on our critical infrastructure. Terrorists bent on harming the United States can all too easily devastate our power grid, our banking system, and our nuclear plants. A bipartisan group of Senators has worked for 3 years to craft legislation that would do just that. Yet Republicans filibustered this worthy measure in July. It is imperative that Democrats and Republicans work together to address what the national security experts have called ``the most serious challenge to our national security since the onset of the nuclear age sixty years ago.''

So I found it encouraging when a number of my Republican colleagues-- Senators McCain, Hutchison, Kyl, Chambliss, Coats, and Blunt--recently wrote President Obama advocating legislative action on cyber security.

They wrote:

An issue as far reaching and complicated as cyber security

requires . . . formal consideration and approval by Congress

. . . Only the legislative process can create the durable and

collaborative public-private partnership we need to enhance

our cyber security.

Senator Lieberman, the chairman, and ranking member Collins have worked their hearts out. They have compromised with these people and many others to have a bill that is now before us. This group of Senators that I have just named say they remain committed to the legislative process. Today they have an opportunity to demonstrate that commitment. On several occasions since Republicans filibustered the cyber security bill this summer, I have asked my colleagues to bring me a list of amendments they wish to debate. As we consider this legislation today, they have yet another opportunity to do so. They can show their commitment to the cyber security threat by advancing this worthy measure and moving forward with a productive debate on the issue. This is yet another opportunity for this Congress to prove it can cooperate and compromise when it matters most. But it will not be our last opportunity.

Before the end of the year, we must craft a balanced agreement to reduce the deficit and protect middle-class families from a tax hike. As cyber terrorism represents a serious threat to our national security, so the looming fiscal cliff represents a serious threat to our economic security.

I am heartened to see that a number of Republicans, including a number of prominent conservatives, have opened the door to a balanced agreement. Bill Kristol, a leading conservative commentator, said:

It won't kill the country if we raise taxes a little bit on

millionaires. It really won't.

That is what he said. And Glenn Hubbard, an adviser to the Romney campaign, and an adviser to the last President Bush, conceded that any agreement must include revenue increases.

It is simple math. To protect the middle class, it will be necessary to ask millionaires and billionaires to contribute a little more as we work to reduce the deficit. Democrats understand we will not get everything we want from a bipartisan accord, but Republicans should realize they will not get everything they want either. They should not prevent us, as my esteemed predecessor said, from working together to work it out. That was Senator Mitchell.

Recognition of the Minority Leader

Mr. President, the bill that was, and is, most important to the intelligence community and to the Pentagon was just killed. I am speaking of the cyber security bill.

I have had a number of people come to me during the day and say: Are you going to allow relevant amendments on this? I said: Sure. They said: How about five? I said: Fine. But whatever we do on this bill, it is not enough for the Chamber of Commerce. It is not enough.

So everyone should understand, cyber security is dead for this Congress. What an unfortunate thing. But that is the way it is.

I filed cloture on the Sportsmen's bill yesterday. Unless we can agree to a limited number of amendments, we will have a cloture vote on the bill early tomorrow morning, probably around 9 o'clock. If we get cloture, there will be a potential 30 hours of debate under the rules, as we all know too well. I have been told someone on the other side also plans to make a Budget Act point of order against the Sportsmen's bill.

We have Members representing the States of New York and New Jersey who are going to be in their States tomorrow because of the tremendous damage caused by Sandy, but they will be back here tomorrow evening and we will have a vote in the morning on cloture on the Sportsmen's bill, and then we could have votes later tomorrow or on Friday.

On DOD authorization--Senator Levin is here, Senator McCain was here earlier. I have had conversations with Senator Levin. I haven't spoken to Senator McCain this week but have spoken to him previously on a number of occasions. This is a bill we should get done. It is an important piece of legislation. I know we have the Defense appropriations bill at a later time, but this is something we have to do now because it changes policy toward our fighting men and women around the world. It does a lot of good for them. We need to get this bill done, I repeat.

Probably what we are going to do is move to the bill. I don't know why in the world we have to file cloture on a motion to proceed to it. I don't quite understand that. But I haven't understood that about almost 400 times the last few years. So what we are going to do, and everyone should understand--listen to this, everybody--we are going to move to the bill. If we get permission to go to the bill, we will have an open amendment process on this bill. I have been assured by Senator Levin and Senator McCain, through Senator Levin, that on all these nonrelevant, vexatious amendments they will help us table them or dispose of them in some appropriate manner. And that is how we should legislate around here.

I hope Senator McCain, after speaking to Senator Levin, will agree to move forward on this bill. And that is my proposal. I hope it is something that everyone would agree to. We will start legislating on this bill the day we get back after the Thanksgiving recess.

Yes.

Mr. President, just so everyone listening to my friend understands--and he also has worked so hard on the bill that was just killed--when he says it is not a question of if, it is when, he is not talking about passing this bill, he is talking about a cyber attack, a gargantuan cyber attack on our country.

Here we are in this beautiful Capitol building today, and all around America we have government officials and private sector officials who are trying to thwart the people trying to destroy businesses and parts of our country's infrastructure.

As I have said here so many different times--and Senator Lieberman and Senator Feinstein, the chairman of the Intelligence Committee are on the floor--the record is here. We have told everybody for months and months that something is going to happen. And we have laid the groundwork, I am sorry to say, to blame you guys for not doing something to take care of this issue. It is a big issue and it is an important issue for our country. This should have nothing to do with partisan politics. And why the Chamber of Commerce is doing what they are doing is beyond my ability to comprehend.

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 the Senate proceed to a period of morning business with Senators allowed to speak for up to 10 minutes each.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that Bryan Seeley, a detailee on the Senate Judiciary Committee, be granted floor privileges for the duration of the 112th Congress.