Marriage Protection Amendment--Motion to Proceed

MARRIAGE PROTECTION AMENDMENT--MOTION TO PROCEED

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Mr. DURBIN. Through the Chair, I ask if the Senator from Nevada is aware that the Gallup organization, which does polling across America, did a poll of 1,000 Americans in April which asked them the following question: What do you think is the most important problem facing America today?

I would like to ask the Senator from Nevada if he knows where the issue of gay marriage came in on this poll of Americans about the most important issues facing America today?

Mr. REID. I really don't know.

Mr. DURBIN. I will alert the Senator from Nevada that it tied for 33rd in the list of priorities for America today.

I ask the Senator from Nevada, since the Republican majority controls the Senate, they set the agenda for things that we debate and vote on; do they not?

Mr. REID. That is right.

Mr. DURBIN. Am I correct that Senator Frist and the Republican majority have decided that instead of the war in Iraq where we continue to lose servicemen, instead of the energy crisis which forced the price of gasoline to record-high levels causing hardship to families and individuals resulting in laying off workers across America, instead of dealing with health care where over 46 million Americans have no health insurance whatsoever and many have health insurance that is totally inadequate, instead of dealing with the cost of higher education where working families are struggling to get their kids through school and children who are accepted at the best schools and universities face a mountain of debt, instead of dealing with those issues which rank in the top 10, is it true that the Republican majority has decided we need to focus this entire week in the Senate on No. 33, issues involving gay marriage?

Mr. REID. I respond to my friend that I am stunned. I am stunned that it has taken weeks, weeks, weeks, and weeks to even be able to deal with money for our troops, the supplemental appropriations bill. I am in a quandary. I am so grateful that I represent the people of Nevada in the Senate. But I want to do things that I can talk to the folks at home about that have relevance to their everyday lives, such as gas prices, sending their kids to school. Many academically talented children are not able to go to school because their parents are not rich.

Mr. DURBIN. If the Senator will yield for an additional question, they say debate on the floor of the Senate is about the ``M'' word, about marriage. It strikes me that it is not about the preservation of marriage, it is about the preservation of the ``majority,'' the Republican majority. That is the ``M'' word behind this debate.

I ask the Senator from Nevada, if this issue is not creating a national problem or crisis, if it ranks so low among the American people, 33rd on the list of the important things facing America, why, I ask the Senator from Nevada, has the Republican majority ignored all the issues that people care about and count on us to do something about? Why are they ignoring all these issues and moving to this issue of gay marriage and proposing a constitutional amendment?

Mr. REID. Mr. President, the chairman of the Judiciary Committee on the floor yesterday said this issue dealing with marriage is a solution in search of a problem. It is being done, I believe, to divert, distort, and confuse Americans as to what the real problems are. Do anything possible, but don't talk about gas prices because if we talk about gas prices, we would have to bring out on the floor that the most oil-friendly Presidency in the history of this country is now at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. The President made his fortune in oil. Vice President Cheney is still making his fortune in oil. He made it with Halliburton. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was on the board of directors of Chevron. They liked her so much they named a tanker after her. The Secretary of Commerce made his fortune in oil. We could go on and on.

If we talk about the issues affecting the American people, then maybe what we would do is Senator Maria Cantwell's price-gouging bill. Exxon made $34 billion in net profit last year, which is the most money a corporation has ever made in the history of America. So, no, the majority doesn't want to talk about these issues, about the tax credit for sending kids to college.

Mr. DURBIN. If the Senator from Nevada will further yield for a question, I ask the Senator, is it not true that the resolution before us would require 67 votes in order to be approved by the Senate?

Mr. REID. That is true.

Mr. DURBIN. And the last time we considered this measure, some 48 Senators voted for it? It fell far short of what it needed.

Mr. REID. Nineteen short.

Mr. DURBIN. So I ask the Senator from Nevada, does he reasonably believe now there are 67 votes or near 67 votes for this resolution?

Mr. REID. Mr. President, the distinguished Senator from Illinois knows, as I know, that there isn't a person in the Senate who thinks this has any chance of passing--no chance of passing. It will get 48, 50, 51 votes. I don't know how many votes it will get. If it were a straight up-or-down vote on an amendment, it would get less than that because some Republicans have said: This is a procedural vote, I am going to vote to allow it to go forward, but if it were here, I probably wouldn't vote for it. So you probably have in the Senate 41 or 42 sound votes for this.

Mr. DURBIN. If I can ask the Senator from Nevada, how much time do we have? If we take a week and spend it on a gay marriage amendment, and then a week and spend it on a flag amendment, and then another week and spend it on, let's say, repealing the estate tax on the wealthiest people in America, don't we have a lot of time left before the election to consider issues such as the war in Iraq, energy costs, health insurance for all American families, the cost of education, and the appropriations bills? How much time do we have if we take 3 weeks?

Mr. REID. Approximately 45 legislative days, that is all.

Mr. DURBIN. Before the election.

Mr. REID. That is right.

Mr. DURBIN. I ask the Senator from Nevada, he says we have 45 days, and we are going to spend 3 or 4 days this week on an amendment that doesn't have any chance, that ranks 33rd in a Gallup poll when it comes to the interests of the American people--I return to the same basic question: Why? Why are we doing this? Why aren't we focusing on issues that count if we have so little time?

Mr. REID. One of the Democratic Senators spoke with the majority leader. The majority leader said these things need to come up every year or two. That is the reason.

Mr. DURBIN. I ask the Senator from Nevada, it is a shame--I ask him, does he think that perhaps if this should come up every year, even though it doesn't have a chance of passing, whether or not we should consider bringing up every year an effort to make health care more affordable for the American people, whether we ought to consider every year dealing with the war in Iraq that continues to claim American lives, whether we ought to be passing new ethics laws to reform the lobbying system in Washington? I ask the Senator from Nevada, if we are going to have an annual occurrence, if these are, in fact, perennial issues, aren't there some that should be as a matter of course called before the Senate?

Mr. REID. Maybe--I think it has been about a year; I have lost track of the time--maybe what we are going to be coming up with after these, maybe we will have the Schiavo matter come up again. What does the Senator think of that?

Mr. DURBIN. I say to the Senator from Nevada, asking this question, isn't it true the last time the Republican leadership got in trouble in the House, when the majority leader, Tom DeLay, was in his difficulty, that someone brought up the issue of intervening in the tragedy of Terry Schiavo in Florida, injecting the Federal courts into the hospital room when this poor family had spent 15 years, when this young woman was on life support, that all the courts having decided that the family could make the decision, the most intimate personal decision, the Republican leaders in the House and Senate said: No, we are going to have the Federal court step in and make the decision, take the power away from the doctor and the families?

Isn't it interesting, I ask the Senator from Nevada, that when they were facing all this grief over Tom DeLay and ethical questions, they raised the Terry Schiavo issue, and now we find them raising the gay marriage issue because the polls are so low and the election draws near?

Mr. REID. We know, I say to my friend, what can be done in this body if we get a nudge from the President, a little bipartisanship. Look what we did, I say to my friend. We spent several weeks on the Senate floor on a bipartisan basis passing a comprehensive immigration reform bill. Why were we able to do that? Because the President decided to get involved in it. He decided it was time to do comprehensive immigration reform, and I complimented him on that.

Isn't that the way we should be legislating around here, I say to my friend, the distinguished Senator from Illinois?

Shouldn't we be working in conjunction with the White House on these issues, bills that we can pass, something that has some meaning, having the President lead a charge on health care reform, not little specks of things here? How about doing something here to lessen our dependence on foreign oil. We use in America 21 million barrels of oil a day--21 million barrels of oil every day, every day, 66 percent of it is from foreign sources. We have less than 3 percent, counting what is in Alaska, for the United States. We can't drill our way out of our problems. I say to my friend from Illinois, maybe that is what it is all about.

Mr. DURBIN. If I might ask through the Chair the Senator from Nevada, the Democratic leader, did we not attend the State of the Union Address just a few months ago when the President said America was addicted to oil? It was the lead in all the stories the next day: America is addicted to oil. Then we saw the gasoline prices skyrocket causing all these hardships.

I ask the Senator from Nevada: Have we received a proposal from this White House, from this administration since that famous State of the Union Address suggesting how we can change America's energy policies to make us less dependent on foreign oil, to protect American consumers and businesses, to punish profiteering, to promote the kind of energy innovation which will lead to conservation, efficiency, less pollution, and less dependence on foreign oil? Have we heard that kind of leadership from the White House to contrast with what the President called for that we spend this week on a constitutional amendment which has no chance of passing?

Mr. REID. It is a matter of priorities, I say to my friend, a matter of priorities, what is important to this administration. Obviously, it is not gas prices. Obviously, it is not college tax deduction. Obviously, it is not this debt.

I say to my friend, even in our conversation this morning, we haven't talked about the stagnant debt. And remember, in the last 3 years of the Clinton administration, the national debt was paid down by half a trillion dollars approximately. What do we have here? Red ink as far as you can see. Have we heard anything from the President to lower this debt?

Mr. DURBIN. I ask the Senator from Nevada the following question: Is it not true that 5 years ago--6 years now, almost 6 years now when President Bush came to office--that as the Clinton administration left, we had a surplus in the Federal Treasury, that we were taking the surplus revenue collected in America, paying down the long-term debt of Social Security so that it would be strong for years to come? Is it not also true that when President Clinton left office, the entire national debt accumulated over the history of the United States was about $5.7 trillion or $5.8 trillion, and that today the national debt is bumping up against $9 trillion, and in the 6 years since President Bush has been in office, there has been a dramatic increase in this national debt?

Is it not also true that this President, despite a war which saps away $2 billion or more every week, he has called for tax cuts on the wealthiest people in America and continues to call for those tax cuts, despite this deficit? And I ask the Senator from Nevada, is that what fiscal conservatism is all about?

Mr. REID. My only correction of the distinguished Senator is it is $2.5 billion a week the war is costing us, about $10 billion a month. I mentioned, I say to my friend, the definition I got in college about a central hole divided into self-governing parts of the States. I always thought the Republican majority, as it is now, believed in States rights. That is what federalism is all about.

Where in this debate, that shouldn't be taking place on the floor right now, is there any inkling of States rights? None. Forty-five States have already, through statute or constitutional amendment, as in Nevada--Nevada amended its constitution on this issue. But where are my friends, my Republican friends? Where are they on this issue of States rights? This isn't the first time we have brought up issues that have been defeated, defeated, defeated.

Medical malpractice is something the State of Nevada took on on its own, set their own rules. The Governor called a special session of the legislature. We now have rules in the State of Nevada dealing with medical malpractice.

That is not good enough for this Republican majority. We have voted, I believe, three times on a national law dealing with medical malpractice--take the States out of the picture.

So I ask my friend, he being involved in Government in one way or another most of his adult life, does he remember the Republicans at one time standing for States rights?

Mr. DURBIN. In query of the Senator from Nevada, I ask him, I thought I understood the basic difference between Democrats and Republicans, that the so-called Republican conservative philosophy was for fiscal conservatism, avoiding debt. Now we have the largest debt in the history of the United States and getting worse without any effort by the Republicans to deal with it.

Traditionally, the Republicans argue the Government is best that governs least and gives power to the local units of government closest to the people. Now we have with this amendment an attempt to amend the Constitution and to preempt the power of the States to establish standards for marriage.

I ask the Senator from Nevada: Did we not honor States rights with the passage of the Defense of Marriage Act which said that no State shall be compelled to recognize gay marriage if any State should enact such a law, as Massachusetts has?

I ask the Senator from Nevada: Isn't the Defense of Marriage Act consistent with States rights, and isn't the proposed constitutional amendment an assault on the rights of States to establish the standards for marriage which they have throughout our history?

Mr. REID. And I remind my friend, the Defense of Marriage Act passed when we had a Democratic President and a Democratic majority in the House and the Senate. I am quite sure that is right, at least in the Senate; I don't know about the House. We passed it because it was the right thing to do--States rights.

The other point I suggest is that it is a wrong-placed priority doing this resolution and nothing with homeland security. Just last week, the Secretary of Homeland Security decided that New York, for example, would lose $200 million. States all around the country will have less money to protect themselves. I would think that is worth a debate on the Senate floor. Does the Senator from Illinois agree with that--homeland security?

Mr. DURBIN. I respond to the Senator from Nevada and ask a question. I ask the Senator: If someone were to step back at this moment and say the Senate is debating a constitutional amendment, which everyone concedes will not pass, we are going to spend the whole week on it, and this issue ranks 33rd on the list of priorities of the American people, the States are already dealing with it directly, they have spoken to this through a variety of constitutional amendments and referenda in each and every State, virtually every State, I ask the Senator from Nevada, does that lead to the conclusion the cynicism the American people feel toward Congress and the leadership, the Republican leadership, in this Senate has been verified by the agenda we are dealing with this week?

Mr. REID. Our time has expired, and I say yes.

Mr. DURBIN. I yield the floor.

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