Legislative Transparency And Accountability Act of 2007--Continued
LEGISLATIVE TRANSPARENCY AND ACCOUNTABILITY ACT OF 2007--Continued -- (Senate - January 17, 2007)
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Mr. McCONNELL. Madam President, you are new to the Senate and, therefore, you were not here during this debate last year. But all this sounds quite familiar.
I remember last year we had this very bill on the floor, and our colleagues on the other side were voting against cloture on this very bill last year for the very same reason that we will now vote against cloture on the bill this year, in order to ensure that more amendments are voted upon.
How many times have we heard the distinguished majority leader and the distinguished majority whip remind us that the Senate is not the House. One of the frustrations of being in the majority here is that you have to give the minority votes in order to advance legislation.
No one seriously believes--no one--that Republicans do not want to pass this legislation. That is not credible, I would say to my good friend on the other side of the aisle. We passed it 90 to 8 last year when my party was in the majority. So no amount of spin is going to convince anyone that the Republicans do not want to pass this bill. We do. We want to pass it after a fair process. And having nongermane amendments on legislation in the Senate is about as common as the Sun coming up every 24 hours.
Now, we have been working, in fact, in a bipartisan fashion on this legislation. Our two managers, Senator Bennett and Senator Feinstein, have been working their way through this. We would like to finish the bill. We would like to finish it this week.
With respect to the senior Senator from New Hampshire, he is on the floor and would be glad to describe his amendment and how he believes that it is certainly related to this legislation. In fact, his amendment has been pending, since last Wednesday. A full week in the Senate, he has been waiting to get a vote.
I do not believe that cloture is necessary on this bill, and I am prepared to enter into a unanimous consent agreement which will limit the number of amendments and move us toward completion of the bill. We are not in favor of having an unlimited amount of amendments but a reasonable number. We have had 10 rollcall votes on the bill to this point, not an incredible number. And allowing us to process the remaining amendments is something that simply the minority frequently insists on in the Senate.
Mr. GREGG. Madam President, will the Republican leader yield for a question?
Mr. McCONNELL. I yield for a question.
Mrs. FEINSTEIN addressed the Chair.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from California is recognized.
Mr. McCONNELL. I am sorry, I did not yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. There is a question from the Senator from New Hampshire.
Mr. McCONNELL. I did not yield the floor, Madam President.
Mrs. FEINSTEIN. I beg your pardon. I thought you did.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. I understand.
Mr. McCONNELL. And I yield to the Senator from New Hampshire for a question.
Mr. GREGG. So I can understand the parliamentary situation, I did offer this amendment last Wednesday. It does deal with earmarks. We have, as I understand it, spent 8 days of legislative time on this bill, of which almost 4 days have been consumed in a discussion of earmarks with the majority--not the majority but the plurality of amendments that we have actually voted on dealing with earmarks.
Now, in that context, I guess my question would be this: Why would you have to pull the bill down in order to take this amendment up later?
Why in 15 minutes is it not possible to dispose of this amendment? It requires a supermajority because it is subject to a point of order. That saves the majority leader time wherever he wants to give us time later. Why do you have to pull a bill down to dispose of an amendment which is pretty relevant to what we have been discussing and you can do it in 15 minutes?
Mr. McCONNELL. I say to the Senator from New Hampshire, there is no reason to take this bill down. In fact, Republicans hope the bill will not be taken down. What we are asking for is a vote on the Gregg amendment, not an unreasonable request to the Senate. We see on it virtually every piece of legislation week in and week out.
Mr. GREGG. If I may ask further, this amendment, which I call a second look at waste, and some people have characterized it as enhanced rescission and others have called it the line-item veto, essentially allows the President to send up a package of rescissions, which I presume he would have taken out of omnibus bills, which I presume will be mostly earmarks for us to take a vote on. Isn't that something we have been discussing, this concept of earmarks, throughout the debate on this lobbying bill? And isn't this lobbying bill very much tied into the earmark issue? Isn't one of the real issues of lobbying the ability to establish earmarks by using influence?
Mr. McCONNELL. I say to the Senator from New Hampshire, he is precisely correct. We have spent a substantial amount of time during debate on this bill discussing that very issue.
Mr. GREGG. My final question would be, why don't we just vote on this amendment and get it over with? I presume the good leader from the Democratic Party, who is an exceptional leader and does a great job, will probably beat me on this amendment. It will be over in 15 minutes, because he has kept the votes to 15 minutes. And we can wrap this baby up.
Mr. McCONNELL. I thank my friend.
I repeat, there is no good reason why we couldn't finish this bill tomorrow night. We are in the process now of surveying the number of amendments over here that need to be offered. Obviously, at the top of that list is the Gregg amendment. I would hope we could continue our discussion about how we might wrap this bill up.
I yield the floor.
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Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, reserving the right to object, I might say in response to my good friend, the majority leader, there is no particular reason these votes could not be held in the morning. It is clear we are at an impasse. That frequently happens in the Senate. It is not at all unusual. It is also not at all unusual to have nongermane amendments offered on bills. They are offered on virtually every bill that goes through the Senate. So there is nothing extraordinary happening on this bill that we do not see in the Senate with great repetition on bill after bill after bill after bill.
We have been working in good faith to reach an agreement with respect to Senator Gregg's amendment on enhanced rescission. I wish to thank the Senator from New Hampshire for his patience in that regard. He was here early on this bill. He offered it a week ago--it has now been pending for an entire week--and is prepared for a vote.
Now, the majority leader, to his credit, was attempting to reach an agreement to allow for a vote on this issue at a later date. He mentioned it needed to be sufficiently debated. Of course, at a later date, in the context in which he and I and Senator Gregg were discussing it, there would be plenty of time for debate, adequate time to make the arguments on both sides to fully consider this important measure, with plenty of time for everyone to have their fair say about it.
Unfortunately, the majority leader has an objection on his side, and therefore it appears we will not be able to finish this bill this week. I hope we can continue to work on a path toward finishing the underlying bill. It passed last year 90 to 8, after the then-minority defeated cloture on one occasion in order to do exactly what this minority is going to do to defeat cloture on one occasion, which is to guarantee consideration of additional amendments.
So I would have hoped we could have had these votes in the morning because not much progress will be made tonight in this regard.
Having said that, Mr. President, I yield the floor.
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Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, the minority will hopefully vote against cloture, just like the minority last year voted against cloture on the very same bill, or a very similar bill for the very same reason: to guarantee the opportunity to offer additional amendments. I urge all of our colleagues to vote no.
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