Floor Statements

Madam President, I move to proceed to Calendar No. 442.

Madam President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Madam President, the schedule here this morning is that the first hour will be equally divided and controlled between the two leaders or their designees, the majority controlling the first half and the Republicans the final half.

Yesterday cloture was filed on the motion to proceed to the Bring Jobs Home Act. Unless an agreement is reached, this vote will occur tomorrow morning.

Measure Placed on the Calendar--S. 3393

Madam President, I am told S. 3393 is at the desk and due for a second reading.

Madam President, I object to any further proceedings on this bill at this time.

Madam President, if you want to do business in America today, your goal should be to make a profit. There is nothing wrong with that. That is good. Millions of hard-working American entrepreneurs are the backbone of our economy. And if your company boosts profits by sending jobs overseas, that is your right as a business owner. But American taxpayers shouldn't subsidize your business decision to outsource jobs, especially when there are millions of people in this country looking for work.

Over the last 10 years, about 2\1/2\ million jobs in call centers, sales centers, financial firms, and factories were shipped overseas, and American taxpayers helped foot the bill for sending those jobs overseas. Every time U.S. companies ship jobs or facilities overseas, American taxpayers help cover the moving costs. The Bring Jobs Home Act will end these disgraceful subsidies for outsourcing and would give a 20-percent tax break to cover the cost of moving those jobs back to the United States.

But Republicans are filibustering this commonsense legislation. It is no surprise Republicans are on the side of corporations--corporations making big

bucks--sending American jobs to China, India, and other places. After all, their Presidential nominee, Mitt Romney, made a fortune in outsourcing jobs also. So Republicans are once again putting tax breaks for big corporations and multimillionaires ahead of the needs of ordinary Americans.

What most Americans need is a good job--a job here at home--and the assurance their taxes won't go up on January 1. Democrats, Republicans, and Independents across the country agree with our plan. It is only Republicans in Congress who disagree. Yet Republicans here in the Senate are filibustering legislation to bring jobs back to America. They have twice blocked a vote on legislation to keep taxes low for 98 percent of American families.

It was Republicans who asked for a vote on the plan to raise taxes for 25 million families and a vote on our plan to keep taxes low for 135 million American taxpayers. So we offered them what they wanted. We offered them up-or-down votes on both proposals--no procedural hoops, no delay tactics, just a simple majority vote on our plan and theirs. And they refused.

Maybe Republicans refused our offer because they don't have the votes for their plan to raise taxes on 25 million Americans or maybe they have refused it because the majority of Americans support our plan to keep taxes low for 98 percent of families, while asking only the top 2 percent to contribute a little bit more to reduce the deficit. Everyone across America--the majority of Republicans--supports our plan. Yet, still, Republicans here in the Senate are holding hostage tax cuts for nearly every American family to extort more budget-busting giveaways to millionaires and billionaires.

For a year, the budget deficit was all Republicans wanted to talk about. They were willing to end Medicare as we know it, slash funding for nursing homes for seniors, investments in education, and raise taxes on the middle class all in the name of deficit reduction. But now that Democrats have a plan to reduce the deficit by almost $1 trillion simply by ending wasteful tax breaks, Republicans have given up fiscal responsibility.

So I say this to my Republican friends: You can't have it both ways. You can't call yourself a deficit hawk and fight for more tax breaks for millionaires and billionaires while the deficit increases. You can't call yourself a fiscal conservative and fight to protect tax breaks for companies that outsource jobs to India and China.

Recognition of the Minority Leader

Madam President, through the Chair, I would answer my friend the Republican leader, as I have said here on the floor. I believe what took place at the beginning of this Congress was something that was very important for this body. It was led by Senator Udall of New Mexico and Senator Merkley of Oregon. They had been here a little while and they thought the Senate was dysfunctional. Well, they hadn't been here a long time, and I was still willing to go along at that time with the traditional view of let's not rock the boat here. But that was with the hope, and I thought the assurance of my Republican colleagues, that we would not have these continual, nonsensical motions to proceed filibustered, taking a week to get through that before finally moving to a piece of legislation.

So I said here in the Senate a few months ago that I was wrong. It is hard to acknowledge you are wrong. It is difficult for any of us to do, especially in front of so many people. But I said I think they were right and I was wrong, and I stick by that. I think what has happened the last few years of changing the basic rules of the Senate where we require not 50 votes to pass something but 60 votes on everything is wrong. I think we waste weeks and weeks on motions to proceed.

I had a conversation with a real traditionalist last evening--Carl Levin, the Senator from Michigan--where we talked about this at some length. He acknowledges the motion to proceed is a real problem here but he disagrees with me. Others can talk to him personally, but that is the way I understood him. But I am convinced something must change, unless there is an agreement to change how we focus on the motion to proceed.

I will try to end this quickly, but I think the leader deserves a full explanation. The filibuster was originally devised--it is not in the Constitution--to help legislation get passed. That is the reason they changed the rules here to do that. Now it is being used to stop legislation from passing, and so we have to change things because this place is becoming inoperable.

Madam President, that is an easy question to answer. We already have a budget. We passed, in August of last year, a budget that took effect for the last fiscal year and this fiscal year. It set numbers--302(b) numbers, in effect. There was no need for a budget this year. We already had one.

So the hue and cry of my Republicans friends that we need to have a budget is just a lot of talk. We already have a budget.

That also is an easy question to answer. The Republicans in the House--and this is a bicameral legislature--have reneged on the law that was passed last August where it set numbers. Their appropriations bills have artificially lowered the numbers and violated the law, in effect, here in this Congress. As a result, Senator Inouye has marked up his bill--subcommittee bills.

But I would also say the House is not serious about what they do. Energy and Water used to be one of the most important subcommittees-- the most popular, I should say, in addition to being important--in this body. I was fortunate to serve on that subcommittee for more than a quarter of a century under great leaders--Domenici, Bennett, Johnson, and the committee chairs switched back and forth. But the House sent over here an Energy and Water Subcommittee appropriations bill that has more than 30 riders directed toward EPA-type functions alone. I mean, they are not serious about doing legislation. They are serious about satisfying their tea party and the ridiculous messages they are trying to send.

I would also say one of the other problems we have is we have to fight to get to anything--any legislation. We have to fight to get that done. As you know, we have wasted--I said weeks earlier--months trying to get legislation on the floor. So appropriations bills, I want to get these done. I am an appropriator. But it has been unrealistic with the actions of the House.

The answer is pretty simple there too: We have spent the last many weeks working through procedural matters on bills the Republicans have held up.

We are now in a cloture situation. I spoke to Senator Levin last night about that. He is the chairman of that committee. I have spoken to John McCain several times on this matter. I know how important they feel this legislation is, and I think it is important also. But we can only do what we have to do.

One of the things I have an obligation for our country to get to is cybersecurity. I was asked to visit with General Petraeus. I did that a day or two ago. And we don't have to have a briefing by General Petraeus to understand how important it is to do something about cybersecurity. There are people out there making threats on this country every day, and we have been fortunate in being able to stop a number of them. So we are going to have to get to cybersecurity before we get to the Defense authorization bill because on the relative merits of the two, cybersecurity is more important. They are both important, but I believe that one is more important than the other.

Madam President, the Republican leader has asked a few questions, so I will proceed to answer.

I can remember reading with great interest George Orwell's ``1984'' book where, as you know, it came out that up was down and down was up. The Republican leader is living in a fantasy world if he believes what he said, and I assume he does. That is why two scholars, Mann and Ornstein, a couple months ago wrote a book. They have been watching Washington for three or four decades, and they said they have over the years been like a lot of people

who are writers--Democrats did this, Republicans did this--but their conclusion was that what has happened in recent years is the Republicans have stopped this body from working by all of their shenanigans on these motions to proceed, creating 60 votes where it never existed before.

Robert Caro, who is writing the definitive work on Lyndon Johnson, one of my predecessors, said that I had a very difficult job based on how the Senate has changed with what the Republicans are doing.

Now, we have tried mightily. We have gotten a few things done. Whenever there is a decision made that they want to help a bill get passed, we get it done--for example, the highway bill. That bill took so long to get done. We had one major piece of legislation that we waited 4 weeks before they could get it out of their system that instead of doing highways, we should be doing birth control, determining what birth control women should be entitled to. All of these extraneous issues--important legislation held up. One of the Republicans over here decides they are a better Secretary of State than Hillary Clinton, holding up major pieces of legislation.

So I can take the criticism the Republican leader has issued. I assume it is constructive criticism, and I accept that. But I would just suggest to my friend that if a Democratic Senator--as the Presiding Officer knows--has a problem about anything going on around here, they talk to me. I don't think there is any reason for them to talk to the Republican leader. But if they do that, more power to them.

There have been volumes of pieces of legislation that have been brought to a standstill here. Why do we now have a rule that every basic piece of legislation has 60 votes?

I had a meeting with Senator Feinstein, Senator Tester, and Senator Lautenberg. In the course of the conversation, Senator Feinstein looked back and said: You know, I had really a controversial amendment dealing with what should happen to assault weapons. That passed on a simple majority vote. No one suggested filibustering that thing to death. That is new. That is new--legislation being used as an excuse to stop things.

Now, I want the record to be very clear--and I have made it all very clear in all of my public statements--about the need to get rid of the motion to proceed. I am not for getting rid of the filibuster rule. It is ``1984'' to suggest that I think the House and the Senate should be the same. But I do believe that when the filibuster came into being, it was to help get legislation passed. I repeat: It is now to stop legislation from passing. That is not appropriate.

So I am convinced that the best thing to do with filibusters is to have filibusters. I have been involved in a couple of them, and I am sure I irritated people on both of them, but I did that. One of them didn't last too long, but the first one lasted 11 or 12 hours. That is what filibusters are supposed to be, not throwing monkey wrenches into decisions we are trying to make and then walking off the floor.

The rules have to be changed. I acknowledge that, and I don't apologize for it for 1 second.

As far as how I attempt to run the Senate, I do the best I can under very difficult circumstances, as indicated by the two writers Mann and Ornstein.

Madam President, I think this best can be answered in my not responding directly but quoting. This is from an op-ed that appeared around the country by Thomas E. Mann and Norman J. Ornstein. ``Let's just say it,'' is the headline, ``The Republicans are the problem.''

I am quoting:

Rep. Allen West, a Florida Republican, was recently

captured on video asserting that there are ``78 to 81''

Democrats in Congress who are members of the Communist Party.

Of course, it's not unusual for some renegade lawmaker from

either side of the aisle to say something outrageous. What

made West's comment--right out of the McCarthyite playbook of

the 1950s--so striking was the almost complete lack of

condemnation from Republican congressional leaders or other

major party figures, including the remaining presidential

candidates.

It's not that the GOP leadership agrees with West; it is

that such extreme remarks and views are now taken for

granted.

Understand, Ornstein works for the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think tank. They go on to say:

The GOP has become an insurgent outlier in American

politics. It is ideologically extreme; scornful of

compromise; unmoved by conventional understanding of facts,

evidence and science; and dismissive of the legitimacy of its

political opposition.

I am a legislator. I have been doing it for 30 years here and for quite a few years in Nevada prior to getting here. I have enjoyed being a legislator. These last few years, because of what we hear from Ornstein and Mann, has made it very unpleasant. For the Republican leader, with a straight face, to come and say: Why aren't we doing the Defense authorization bill? Why aren't we doing appropriations bills, everyone knows why we are not doing them. They have not let us get to virtually anything. To be dismissive of me because I say the Republican leadership in the House has been dismissive of the law we have guiding this country, I think says it all. I recognize we are a bicameral legislature. We have our own things to do. But we have to take this as a whole and look at the record--major pieces of legislation we cannot get to.

For example, we cannot get to something dealing with outsourcing of jobs. We are here filibustering a motion to proceed to that--a motion to proceed to it, not the substance of the legislation, a motion to proceed to it.

The record speaks for itself. The record speaks for itself:

We have been studying Washington politics and Congress for

more than 40 years, and never have we seen them this

dysfunctional. In our past writings, we have criticized both

parties when we believed it was warranted. Today, however, we

have no choice but to acknowledge that the core of the

problem lies with the Republican Party.

The GOP--

The Grand Old Party, the Republican Party--

has become an insurgent outlier in American politics. It is

ideologically extreme; scornful of compromise; unmoved by

conventional understanding of facts, evidence and science;

and dismissive of the legitimacy of its political opposition.

Madam President, in one committee, the Energy and Water Committee led by Senator Bingaman--that committee alone has had hundreds of pieces of legislation held up. It can't get out of the committee. I am sorry it is an unusual thing to have Ornstein and Mann referred to as liberals, but whatever they are, working for the conservative American Enterprise Institute, one of them at least--it is very clear they view this body as being in deep trouble because of the Republicans being dysfunctional themselves.

I think it is very clear we have a situation--I understand there is a Presidential election going on. I clearly understand that. I know there are efforts to protect their nominee. We do what we can to protect the President of the United States. But that should not prevent us from legislating.

For my friend, who has been on the Appropriations Committee as long as I have, to talk about why aren't we doing appropriations bills--it is obvious. We have 12 or 13 appropriations bills. We have simply not been able to get to the appropriations bills----

Mr. President, I don't think it calls for my being interrupted. I have listened patiently to all his name calling and I do not intend to do that. But I do say this. I have tried to call up lots of things--lots of things, by consent or by filing motions, and virtually everything has been held up. The bills he is talking about, to stand here and boast about passing five pieces of legislation in an entire Congress is not anything any of us should be happy about. We should not be happy about that at all. We should be passing scores of pieces of legislation, as we did in the last Congress.

But, no, the decision was made at the beginning of this Congress--it may not be a direct quote but substantively accurate--my friend the Republican leader said his No. 1 goal is to stop Obama from being reelected, and that is what this legislation we have tried to get forward has had, the barrel we tried to get around continually. We are going to go ahead. We will have cloture tomorrow on another one of our scores of times we have tried to break cloture this Congress and move on to something else. We have had 13 cloture votes on motions to proceed in the second session of the Congress alone--13. Others just went away because we run out of time to do those kinds of things.

As indicated by the Republican leader, we passed five things. That is about one-third of the motions I have had to file to invoke cloture on motions to proceed, not on basic legislation.

Madam President, we are where we are. I think it is very clear from outside sources--take, for example, I repeat what Caro said, writing the definitive work of Lyndon Johnson, about the difficult job I have had because of the way the Senate has changed because of what has taken place in the last couple years. We have had bills we have been able to work things out with, with Republicans. That is pleasant, and I am glad we have been able to do that. Most of the time we cannot do that. We have, for example, one Republican Senator, when we are in tense negotiations with Pakistan on a lot of very sensitive issues, who wants to do something that is outside the scope of rational thinking, which holds up legislation. We have had--we have tried very hard all different ways to move legislation in this body. For the first time in the history of the country, the No. 1 issue in the Senate of the United States has been a procedural matter: How do we get on a bill? A motion to proceed to something--that has taken over the Senate and it needs to go away. We should not have to do that anymore.

I do not have a better friend in this body than the chairman of the Appropriations Committee. I have been one of his big fans. He has been one of my big fans. He, of course, is a national hero, a Medal of Honor winner, and great chairman of the Appropriations Committee. We work hand in glove. Everything I have said about the appropriations process will be underscored, will be and has been, by Senator Inouye. He supports what we are unable to do. He realizes that. He realizes his counterpart in the House has fumbled with the numbers and it makes it extremely difficult to get things done. We understand that.

But the main problem is we cannot get legislation on the floor because the No. 1 issue we have talked about in the Senate this entire Congress is how to get on a bill, and that is why the motion to proceed must go away.

Madam President, one of the most important issues facing America today is jobs being shipped overseas. Whether it is Olympic uniforms being made in China when they could be made by Hickey Freeman in New York and made here in America, outsourcing is an important piece of America that we now have to deal with. And, of course, we have the additional problem that Governor Romney has made a fortune shipping jobs overseas.

The American people care about this issue. We can sit here and point fingers and say: Boy, that is terrible. We are now going to have to deal with outsourcing. We should deal with outsourcing. We should have done it before, but we have had a problem getting legislation on the Senate floor. So I don't apologize to anyone for having the debate on outsourcing. Senator Stabenow has done a wonderful job on that. We couldn't have a better Senator to deal with outsourcing than her. Because of what we did in the stimulus bill, the American Recovery Act directed jobs back to Michigan, Detroit, and other places. With what we did with batteries, billions of dollars were saved. Instead of importing batteries, we are making most of them in America.

Governor Romney wanted to just let General Motors and Chrysler go bankrupt. We didn't do that, and as a result, that created almost 200,000 jobs in the automobile industry alone. Outsourcing is important, and it is a debate we are going to have.

Let me remind the Republican leader it wasn't Democrats who threatened to shut down government last year and took most all the time we had. First, it was the debt ceiling, and then after we got through the debt ceiling, then they weren't going to allow us to do anything for getting funding to take us through the end of the fiscal year.

It was the Republican Party last year that threatened to default the debt we have as a country. Now they are holding up tax cuts for 98 percent of the American people in an effort to satisfy this mysterious man I have never met, but he must be a dandy. He has gotten every Republican, with rare exception, to sign a pledge that they are not going to deal with the 98 percent because they have to protect the 2 percent.

We are here dealing with outsourcing because that is what we should be doing.

Reservation of Leadership Time

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 therein for up to 10 minutes each.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Veterans Affairs Committee be discharged from further consideration of H.R. 1627.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Murray substitute amendment, which is at the desk, be agreed to; the bill, as amended, be read three times; and the statutory pay-go statement be read.

The amendment (No. 2559), in the nature of a substitute, was agreed to.

(The amendment is printed in today's Record under `` Text of amendments.'')

The amendment was ordered to be engrossed and the bill to be read a third time.

The bill was read the third time.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent the bill, as amended, be passed; the Murray title amendment, which is at the desk, be agreed to; and the motions to reconsider be laid upon the table, with no intervening action or debate, and any related statements be printed in the Record.

Mr. President, I understand S. 3401 is due for its first reading.

Mr. President, I now ask for a second reading but object to my own request.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that when the Senate completes its business today, it adjourn until 9:30 a.m. on Thursday, July 19; that following the prayer and pledge, the Journal of proceedings be approved to date, the morning hour be deemed to have expired, and the time for the two leaders be reserved for their use later in the day; that the majority leader be recognized and the first hour be equally divided and controlled between the two leaders or their designees, with the Republicans controlling the first half and the majority controlling the final half; further, that the cloture vote on the motion to proceed to S. 3364, the Bring Jobs Home Act, be at 2:15 p.m. tomorrow.

Mr. President, the first vote tomorrow will be at 2:15 p.m. on the motion to invoke cloture on the motion to proceed to the Bring Jobs Home Act.

Mr. President, if there is no further business to come before the Senate, I ask unanimous consent that it adjourn under the previous order.

Mr. President, I now move to proceed to Calendar No. 446,

For the information of all Senators, the time until 12:30 p.m. today will be divided and controlled between the two leaders or their designees, with the Republicans controlling the first 30 minutes and the majority the second 30 minutes.

We will recess from 12:30 p.m. until 2:15 p.m. today to allow for our weekly caucus meetings.

Additionally, the time from 2:15 p.m. until 3 p.m. will be equally divided and controlled. At 3 p.m. there will be a cloture vote on the motion to proceed to the DISCLOSE Act, which was debated last night and will be debated again this morning.

The DISCLOSE Act

Mr. President, the corrosive effect of money on American politics isn't a product of the 21st century. More than 100 years ago, moneyed special interests had already tested the integrity of this country's political system.

In 1899, copper billionaire William Clark was elected to the U.S. Senate by the Montana State legislature. The contest was considered so blatantly swayed by bribery the Senate refused to seat him. Here is how Clark famously responded:

I never bought a man who wasn't for sale.

We in Nevada have some connection with that name because Las Vegas is in Clark County. Clark County was formed in the early part of the 20th century. The largest county in America was Lincoln County and that was divided between Lincoln and Clark Counties, and this character, William Clark, is who that county was named after.

But after Clark made this remark, and people realized he had blatantly swayed the State legislature by bribery, the U.S. Senate refused to seat him. He became a Senator anyway--not for long, but he became a Senator. As I have learned from people who know a lot about Montana history, Clark was very clever. The Governor of the State of Montana went to San Francisco, to the acting governor--the lieutenant governor--after he was denied his seat, and he reappointed him to the Senate. So he got to the U.S. Senate by virtue of the shenanigans that took place. Incensed Montana voters went on to pass the Corrupt Practices Act via a referendum. They voted for it. Less than a decade later, Republican President Theodore Roosevelt reined in unlimited corporate giving to political candidates at the Federal level as well-- not only in Montana but at the Federal level.

This Nation has a long history of curtailing the corrupt influence of money in politics. But with the Citizens

United decision, the Supreme Court of our country erased a century of effort to protect the fairness and integrity of American elections. That disastrous decision opened the door for corporations, anonymous billionaires, and foreign interests to spend hundreds of millions of dollars influencing voters.

For anyone who dismisses this change as politics as usual, they should think again. During this year's election, outside spending by GOP shell groups is expected to top $1 billion--that is billion with a ``B.'' The names of these new front groups contain words that are warm and fuzzy, such as ``freedom'' and ``prosperity.'' But make no mistake, there is nothing free about an election purchased by a handful of billionaires for their own self-interest.

Just one of those outside groups--just one of them--backed by wealthy oil interests, has promised to spend $400 million on negative ads filled with half truths and distortions of President Obama's record. By comparison, during the 2008 election--less than 4 years ago--Senator John McCain's Presidential campaign spent $370 million total. That was a huge amount of money in that day, but it is being dwarfed by these outside groups this year. So this year one group's special interest money will dwarf the entire budget of the Republican nominee John McCain in the last Presidential election.

Democrats and the majority of Americans believe these unlimited corporate special interest contributions should be outlawed. But in the post-Citizens United world, the least we should do is require groups spending millions on political attack ads to disclose the donors. We owe it to the voters to let them judge for themselves the attacks and the motivation behind them. But they can only do that if they know who is doing it. The DISCLOSE Act would require political organizations of all stripes, liberal and conservatives alike, to disclose donations in excess of $10,000 if they will be used for campaign purposes.

Safeguarding fair and transparent elections used to be an arena where Democrats and Republicans could find common ground. As far back as 1997, the Republican leader, our friend Senator McConnell, said, ``Disclosure is the best disinfectant.'' In fact, 14 Republicans now serving in the Senate voted to support stronger disclosure laws in the year 2000. Yet last night, those same 14 Republicans did an about-face, and every one of my Republican colleagues voted to block the DISCLOSE Act.

It is obvious the Republican priority is to protect a handful of anonymous billionaires--billionaires willing to contribute hundreds of millions of dollars to change the outcome of elections. But today, again, they will have an opportunity to consider that backwards priority. We are doing that with the motion to reconsider which I announced last night. They will have the opportunity to stand for the average voter instead of these billionaires.

I hope they join Democrats as we work to ensure all Americans--not just the wealthy few--have an equal voice in the political process.

Recognition of the Minority Leader

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent the Committee on Indian Affairs be discharged from further consideration of H.R. 205, and the Senate proceed to its immediate consideration.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the bill be read a third time and passed, the motion to reconsider be laid upon the table, with no intervening action or debate, and any statements related to this matter be printed in the Record.

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

Mr. President, I withdraw my pending motion to proceed.

I move to proceed to Calendar No. 442, S. 3364.

Mr. President, I have a cloture motion at the desk in reference to this legislation.

I ask unanimous consent that the mandatory quorum required under rule XXII be waived.

Mr. President, once again I am disappointed, as I think most people in this country are, on an issue as timely as this, outsourcing jobs, that we once again are being stymied on moving to that legislation. We are going to have a vote. The rules are we cannot have a vote on this until 2 days go by, so that is a vote on Thursday. If cloture is invoked on that, then we are only on the bill, and then to get off of it would take another series of days. I think to get final action on this is going to take a week.

It is so unfortunate that we have to go through this. We have gone through this so many times. There is, I repeat, not an issue more timely than this--outsourcing jobs. Whether it is the Olympic uniforms or the many other jobs that have been lost around the country, the American people are tired of it, but I think it is unfortunate the Republicans are stopping us from being able to start legislating on this bill.

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 suggest the absence of a quorum.

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

Mr. President, I now move to proceed to Calendar No. 446, S. 3369, the DISCLOSE Act.

Mr. President, at 5 p.m., the Senate will proceed to executive session to consider the nomination of Kevin McNulty to be United States District Judge for the District of New Jersey.

At 5:30 p.m., there will be two rollcall votes. The first vote will be on confirmation of the McNulty nomination. There will then be 10 minutes of debate prior to a cloture vote on the motion to proceed to the DISCLOSE Act.

Measure Placed on the Calendar--H.R. 6079

Mr. President, I am told H.R. 6079 is at the desk and due for a second reading.

I now object to any further proceedings on this matter.

Mr. President, Thomas Jefferson, one of our greatest Presidents, once said,

The end of democracy . . . will occur when government falls

into the hands of lending institutions and moneyed

corporations.

Campaign finance reform protections we have in place--and have had for many years--have solved the problem Jefferson talked about by limiting political spending by corporations. Then out of nowhere came the Supreme Court to issue its Citizens United opinion, rolling back a century of work to make elections transparent and credible.

The result of Citizens United has been a flood of corporate, special- interest campaign spending by shadowy front groups with questionable motives. Not since the days of Teddy Roosevelt, a Republican who put a stop to unlimited corporate donations, has America seen this kind of out-of-control spending to influence elections.

Democrats and the majority of Americans believe the Supreme Court got it very wrong with Citizens United. Anonymous spending by so-called nonprofits, often backed by huge corporate donors or a few wealthy individuals, used to make up 1 percent of election spending. This year it will make up well over half of the spending. There is no question Citizens United opened the door for big corporations and foreign entities to secretly spend hundreds of millions of dollars to influence elections and undermine the fairness and integrity of the process. Let us look at Nevada. Through the first part of this year, more money has been spent per capita on TV ads in Nevada than in any other State in the country. Most of the ads have been funded by anonymous groups flush with cash from these huge oil interests, Wall Street, moneyed interests, foreign gambling interests, and other interests seeking greater influence in Washington.

Voters in Nevada and across the country deserve to know who paid for these ads. We have proven it is possible to remove the veil of secrecy from outside money and make the process more transparent. We have done that before and we need to do it again. We can require large political donors to disclose their identities so voters can at least judge their motivations for themselves.

Requiring large donors to disclose their entities is not a new concept. In fact, my counterpart, Senator McConnell, and many of his Republican colleagues, have supported this in the past. The legislation today before the Senate--the DISCLOSE Act--would require disclosure of donations in excess of $10,000 if they are used for campaign purposes.

The bill treats all political entities equally--whether unions, corporations, business associations, or super PACs. And contrary to Republican claims, this legislation would not require organizations to turn over membership rosters or lists of grassroots donors. Rather, it would prevent corporations and wealthy individuals from using front groups to shield their donations from disclosure.

Yet my Republican colleagues, with rare exception, have lined up against this commonsense legislation. Their newfound opposition to transparency makes one wonder who they are trying to protect. Perhaps Republicans want to shield a handful of billionaires willing to contribute nine figures to sway a close Presidential election.

If this flood of outside money continues, the day after the election 17 angry old White men will wake up and realize they have just bought the country. That is a sad commentary. About 60 percent or more of these outside dollars are coming from these 17 people.

These donors have something in common with their nominee. Like Mitt Romney, they believe they play by their own set of rules. Mitt Romney has refused to release his tax returns. I think everybody in America now knows that. From the one and only return we have seen, we know Mitt Romney pays a lower tax rate than most middle-class families. We know he has a Swiss bank account. We know he takes advantage of tax shelters in the Cayman Islands and tax shelters in Bermuda. But we can only guess what new secrets would be revealed if we could examine a dozen years of his tax returns. His father, George Romney, set the standard for Presidential elections. He released 12 years of tax returns so Americans could evaluate his record for themselves. His son should also let his records out so we can evaluate his record for ourselves.

Even nominees for Cabinet posts are required to release 3 years of tax returns and declare financial holdings worth more than $1,000. Romney's refusal to be open and honest would disqualify him from even being a Cabinet secretary. And his penchant for secrecy makes Americans wonder: What is he hiding?

Thomas Jefferson famously argued: Democracy depends on an informed electorate. If that is true--and I believe it is--it stands to reason disclosure can only strengthen our democracy. But don't take my word for it. As my friend Senator McConnell has said, ``Disclosure is the best disinfectant.''

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