Nominations

Floor Speech

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. HATCH. Madam President, last month I spoke here about the confirmation process and how the majority was committing filibuster fraud.

The leaders on the other side of the aisle, including the majority leader and the majority whip, voted for judicial filibusters more than 20 times by this point in the previous administration.

They succeeded. There were five times as many judicial filibusters at that time during the Bush administration as there have been today. Looking at executive branch nominations, those same Democratic leaders voted to filibuster President Bush's nominees to be Assistant Secretary of Defense and EPA Administrator, and twice voted to filibuster his nominee to be U.N. Ambassador. They must have thought very differently then about whether the President deserves his team. Their actions then spoke more loudly than their words do today whether they think all nominees do deserve an up-or-down vote.

The Senate recently confirmed the Directors of OMB and the CIA, the U.S. Trade Representative, the Secretaries of Energy, Interior, Treasury, State, Transportation, and Commerce this year by a collective vote of 816 to 61. That does not sound like a Senate that is in jeopardy or trouble. In fact, it does not sound like they even have a case to make to do what they have alleged they are going to do.

The Congressional Research Service says the Senate is considering President Obama's executive nominees faster than during President Bush's second term, but none of that is good enough for this majority. They not only want more, but it appears they are willing to get it by any means necessary.

According to media reports, the majority leader is being pushed by political interests to use a parliamentary gimmick to limit or abolish filibusters. In other words, his political base, especially Big Labor, wants him to put short-term partisan politics ahead of the integrity and tradition of the Senate itself. If simply saying that is not enough to show how dangerous it is, we are in more trouble than I thought.

Thomas Jefferson called the Capitol the first temple to the sovereignty of the American people. The people established our Constitution with its separation of powers. They designed the legislative branch with an action-oriented House and a deliberation-oriented Senate. We call ours a system of government because it includes all of these parts designed to be different and yet to work together.

Many people bemoan the division and conflict in Congress, the partisanship and on and on. Yes, there will be conflict over the important issues facing our country. Men and women of different perspectives, views and ideologies and serving different States serve in Congress. But I always thought we should be of one mind about the long-term integrity of the system of our institutions.

For more than two centuries, the Senate has been designed to play its own particular part in the legislative process. Form follows function, they say. So our rules reflect our role. For more than two centuries the minority has had some basic rights in this body, including the right to debate. That right has always annoyed the majority and empowered the minority. I know that from experience, as I have been among the annoyed, just as today I am among the empowered.

The majority knows it too. A decade ago when they were in the minority they began for a time using that right to debate to defeat judicial nominees who otherwise would have been confirmed. Now back in the majority, they want to ban the very tools they found so useful just a few years ago. Now that the majority leader is done using the opportunity for extended debate, he wants to make sure no one else can use it.

Why? For one simple reason. Because they want their way every time. They think they are entitled to it, and if they cannot get it the old-fashioned way, by persuading their colleagues and the American people, then they will simply rig the rules.

This short-term power grab, however, will cause long-term damage to the Senate and to the system of government of which it is such a vital part. Do not think just because they say they are limiting it to the executive branch appointments, excluding judges, do not think that is not going to lead to all kinds of other obnoxious approaches toward the Senate.

A little dose of history provides a big dose of clarity for this debate. For more than a century the right to keep debate going belonged to each individual Senator. There was no rule at all for ending debate. A single Senator could prevent bills from passing by preventing debate from ending.

We have had a rule for ending debate for nearly a century. Today it is easier to end a debate than at any time since the turn of the 19th century--not the 20th century, the 19th century. Not only that, but the majority is using that rule more effectively today to prevent filibusters than the rule has been

[Page: S5642]
used in the past. It is all there in the public record. When we vote to end debate, we prevent a filibuster. A higher percentage of votes to end debate has succeeded in recent Congresses than in the past.
To top it off, just a few months ago, the Senate overwhelmingly adopted two new standing orders and two new standing rules giving the majority even more power considering nominations and legislation. But using the rules to their advantage is not enough for the majority. Gaining even more power through those new orders and rules is not enough. Now the majority threatens to use a parliamentary maneuver to weaken or abolish the right to debate itself.

But as I said, the Senate rules reflect the Senate's role. Changing those rules, especially in the way the majority is talking about, means changing the Senate's role in our system of government. A few partisan victories simply cannot be enough to justify that.

The minority leader has faithfully reminded us of the majority leader's past promises not to change the Senate's rules or procedures except through the process provided for in the rules. On January 27, 2011, the majority leader said: ``I will oppose any effort in this Congress or the next to change the Senate's rules other than through the regular order.'' My question is this: When the majority leader said: ``I will oppose,'' did he really mean ``I will lead''?

The integrity of this institution and the system with which it is a part should matter more than the politics of the moment. If our commitment to this institution and to keeping our word no longer matter, we will be breaking the trust of the American people and failing in our duty to them.

This must not happen. The Senate is a venerable institution. If the majority continues to go down the road they are going down, it is going to be much less venerable, and it is going to be a broken institution. Keep in mind, their decision, if they do choose to do this, will work against them someday.

I have to say that I am very concerned because I believe that not only is it wrong, what they are going to do, but it is based upon false premises. When the majority leader says we have filibustered hundreds of times, that is totally inaccurate, especially when the leader calls up a bill and files cloture immediately just to make it look like we are filibustering. We are fast moving away from being the most deliberative body in the world to one that is just run by the majority, similar to the House of Representatives.

I hope some of the wiser Senators on the Democratic side will prevail. Right now it does not look like they will. But I will tell you this, if we go down the road that the majority leader is talking about, this institution is going to be dramatically changed for the worse.

I yield the floor.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source