FISA Modernization

Floor Speech

FISA MODERNIZATION -- (Senate - November 14, 2007)

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Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, I thank my colleague from Colorado. He comes to the Senate with an amazing background. I have sat and talked to him from time to time about his family. Senator Salazar's family came to the United States 400 or 500 years ago. They were some of the earliest settlers of our country, in the southwestern part of the United States. The founding of the city of Santa Fe, NM, his family was directly involved in; the naming of mountain ranges and rivers. They were there long before my ancestors ever had the good fortune to come to these shores.

I have also heard the stories of his youth, how he grew up on a ranch in Colorado with some very difficult circumstances, without the creature comforts many of us in the cities were used to. It is clearly in his blood and in his heart. When he speaks about this farm bill, he is not talking about some academic conversation but, rather, about the reason he came to the Senate, to make sure families such as his would have a voice in so many different areas but particularly when it came to this bill.

This monster of a bill, 1,600 pages, is a bill we take up every 5 years. It is the farm bill. But it includes so much more, as Senator Salazar has told us. It is not just about keeping our farms productive and our ranches profitable, but it is about rural America, small town America, the America of the Senator's youth, and the America I was fortunate enough to represent as a Congressman in downstate Illinois for so long.

His statement on the subject is not just another political speech. I know it came from the heart. I thank him for reminding us about the importance of this bill to small town America, to farmers and ranchers across America, and why these very practical, commonsense, hardheaded folks would find it hard to understand what is happening on the Senate floor over the last week and a half.

You see, for 10 days we have virtually tied up and stopped the Senate in the consideration of this farm bill. It should have been passed a long time ago. When you take a look back at previous farm bills, in 1990 there were 7 days of consideration of the farm bill. Mr. President, 122 amendments were dealt with. There were only 2 that were not relevant to a farm bill--only 2--and 122 were.

In 1996, 4 days were spent on the farm bill, and 24 amendments were considered to the bill. None of them were about anything other than farming and agriculture.

In 2001 and 2002, there were about 16 days of consideration on the farm bill, with 53 amendments. Only one was offered that did not have anything to do with the farm bill, which was offered by Senator Kyl of Arizona on the estate tax. There was one side-by-side amendment offered by Senator Conrad. That was it.

Well, it is a different story today. Senator Salazar has told us. This morning, Senator Reid, the majority leader, the Democratic leader, gave me a list of the Republican amendments they want to call on this farm bill. We have been tied in knots now for almost 10 days in the Senate because the Republicans refuse to come up with a list of amendments we could consider.

They finally came up with this list. When you take a look at the amendments on this list, you can understand what their game plan is. After all the time we spent in preparing this bill, it is very clear they do not want this bill to be called. They do not want us to debate it. They want to talk about everything under the Sun except a farm bill.

Here are a couple examples of things they think should be talked about: Senator Murkowski of Alaska thinks the farm bill is a good time to talk about Exxon Valdez litigation. Senator Kyl of Arizona believes this is the tax bill, so he wants to talk about the alternative minimum tax. In fact, he has filed at least one amendment, maybe more, on the subject. Senator Lott, the Republican whip, thinks this is a good tax bill, too. Let's get into a debate about the alternative minimum tax, an issue which clearly we will debate and will decide before the end of the year.

Senator Coburn believes we should talk about the estate tax. Senator McConnell also wants to talk about the estate tax. He also wants to talk about the alternative minimum tax. Senator Stevens of Alaska wants to talk about protecting kids from online predators. I am all for that. I am trying to figure out what the connection is with the farm bill, though.

Senator Gregg is one of the most prolific when it comes to producing amendments which have little or nothing to do with the farm bill. He wants us to get into a debate on the mortgage crisis in America. It truly is a crisis.

He thinks the farm bill is the place to do it. He wants to talk about immigration, too, while we are on the farm bill--not ag workers and immigrants brought in for that purpose--but the issue of driver's licenses for the undocumented. He also thinks it is important for us to get into an issue of collective bargaining for firefighters. I happen to be a cosponsor of that bill. I never would have dreamed that amendment should be offered on a farm bill. Senator Gregg of New Hampshire--I don't know how many farmers there are in his State. I don't know what they grow; I am sure they are very good people--has decided their interests have to be set aside. He has other things he wants to talk about.

He also has the notion in which he thinks, in addition to immigration, mortgages, firefighters' right to collective bargaining, we should in the farm bill say women who live in rural areas of America will be denied the right to sue doctors guilty of malpractice. Women in rural areas will have a limited legal right to sue doctors guilty of malpractice. Well, I am sure the rural women of America are grateful Senator Gregg wants to make sure they are a special class, unable to use their constitutional legal rights in court if they are injured or a member of their family is killed as a result of medical malpractice. He thinks that belongs on the farm bill. He also has one about the Gulf of Mexico. I will have to dig into that. He has gone far afield. I think he turned his legislative staff loose and said: Got any ideas? Let's put an amendment on the farm bill.

Senator Dole wants to get into taxes. It goes on and on; page after page of amendments.

Well, clearly, we can't consider those amendments if we are serious about passing a farm bill. So what Senator Reid and Senator Harkin, the chairman of the Agriculture Committee, did was say to the Republican side: Let's get serious. Let's get down to business. Let's cooperate. Let's bring up the amendments that relate to the farm bill, and let's do it on a bipartisan basis.

So this morning Senator Harkin said: How about starting with the amendment of the Senator from North Dakota, Senator Dorgan, cosponsored by Senator Grassley, a Republican of Iowa. Let's have limited time for debate, and then let's vote on it. Well, Senator SAXBY CHAMBLISS of Georgia, the ranking Republican on the Senate Agriculture Committee, objected. He didn't want to bring up a bipartisan amendment to be debated for 60 minutes and vote on it.

Then Senator Harkin said: Well, let's pick another bipartisan amendment, the Lugar-Lautenberg amendment regarding farm program reform, 2 hours of debate and a vote. Senator SAXBY CHAMBLISS, the Republican on the Senate Agriculture Committee, objected.

Senator Harkin, undaunted, then suggested that Senator PAT ROBERTS of Kansas, a man who has an extensive background in the House and Senate on ag programs, be given 90 minutes on his amendment, and then a vote. Senator SAXBY CHAMBLISS, the Republican ranking member on the Senate Agriculture Committee, objected to even calling up his colleague's amendment for a vote. Do you see a pattern emerging? It isn't so much about amendments and votes; it is a matter of stopping the bill.

Senator Harkin, indefatigable, then suggested that Senator Stevens of Alaska--another Republican--be allowed to call up his amendment with 60 minutes of debate and a vote. Senator Chambliss, still stuck on the agenda of stopping this bill, objected.

Then Senator Harkin, showing the magnanimity of a great corn husker from Iowa, suggested we proceed to the amendment by Senator Allard, a Republican from Colorado, 60 minutes of debate and a vote. Senator Chambliss, unmoved by the generosity of Senator Harkin, objected. Five requests, every one of them but one an amendment either sponsored by a Republican or cosponsored by a Republican, and the Republicans objected.

Well, you don't need to be a C-SPAN addict to figure out what is going on. The Republicans don't want us to finish the farm bill. After months and months of hearings, after an elaborate process, after negotiations and compromises on both sides, after a lot of hard work, 1,600 pages of policy are rejected by the Republicans. I am not surprised. This is the party that failed for 6 years--6 straight years--to pass the Water Resources Development Act, a critical bill for farmers in my State. This bill will provide the funds to upgrade the locks and dams so important for ag commerce. It wasn't a major priority for the Republican Congress. For 6 years, they ignored it, failed to pass it. We finally passed it this year, and last week, in a historic Senate vote, overrode the President's veto the 107th time it has occurred on the floor of the Senate. The Republicans, left to their own devices, couldn't pass the bill. When we finally passed it on a bipartisan basis, their President vetoed it, and they joined us in overriding the veto.

Now comes the farm bill, which doesn't come around that often--it has been about 5 years--and they want to stop this one too. They want to stop it by killing it with amendments. Senator Harkin has gone out of his way to give them votes and debate on critical amendments that do relate to the farm bill, but that is not their strategy and that is not their goal. Their goal is to kill the farm bill. I am not sure why.

In my State, I would hazard a guess that there are more Republicans who are farmers than Democrats. It doesn't make much difference from my point of view as a Senator; I am going to help farmers in general, and their political identity is secondary. But why would they turn their backs on so many farmers across America when we have a chance to pass this farm bill?

Why wouldn't they agree to a reasonable number of amendments that stick with the farm bill and what it is all about? Well, because, frankly, they don't want us to achieve the goal of passing the farm bill. It isn't new to many of us. We have seen it happen over and over again.

We have something in the Senate called a filibuster, and a filibuster goes back in history at least 90 years. We said at that time, any Senator can stop any bill from being debated and considered. About 90 years ago, we amended that and said: Well, I will tell you, if 67 Senators step forward and say we want to go to the bill anyway, they can overrule that one Senator who said no--67. That was back 90 years ago. About 40 years ago, that was changed to 60 Senators. So you have a filibuster, which is an attempt to stop the debate, stop the progress of the bill, and if 60 Senators will step forward and say we disagree, then you move forward with the amendment, you move forward with the bill. That is the filibuster in the simplest terms.

In the history of the Senate, the most prolific use of the filibuster to delay votes and kill bills produced 58--58--filibusters over 2 years--58 over 2 years. Well, our colleagues on the Republican side of the aisle are about to break through that record dramatically. Senator Stabenow has created this chart. It shows to date 52 Republican filibusters on motions for cloture--52 this year. We still have another year and 2 months to go. The Republicans have tried to stop legislation on this floor with a filibuster and a motion for cloture 52 times. So this is certainly going to be the Republican Senate on steroids when it comes to filibusters. They are going to bust through the old record, and they are going to stop everything they can, including a bipartisan farm bill.

They accomplished so little when they were in charge and in control that they want to make sure we accomplish as little as possible. That is unfortunate. It is unfortunate because the American people want us to cooperate. They want us to compromise. They want us to try to come up with legislation that solves America's problems, not squabble and fight and exalt our differences.

Luckily, there have been a few things--in fact, a significant number of things--that have been enacted by this Congress, despite 52 filibusters. I think back on passing the increase in the minimum wage, and I think it was the first time in 10 years we finally passed an increase in the Federal minimum wage. We passed historic legislation to provide student loans for students from families with limited means, reducing the cost of those loans and forgiving some of those loans. We passed that. We also managed to pass the Children's Health Insurance Program, a program that would extend coverage to another 4 million uninsured children in America--children who weren't the poorest, because those kids are taken care of in our caring Nation; and not the luckiest, because their parents don't have health insurance--but those caught right in the middle. Mom and dad go to work, no benefits, and we had a program that said let's help them. Let's provide private health insurance for those kids. Well, the President stopped that, vetoed it, and the Republicans refused to override that veto. We passed it, not once but twice, despite the odds against us in passing important legislation.

I think about stem cell research, too--the first President in history to have a Federal prohibition against medical research when it involves stem cells. We passed it with a bipartisan vote to override this prohibition. The President vetoed it.

So time and again, whether it is help for education or health care, we have been up against it: The failure of the Republicans to cooperate and pass the legislation, or the President's veto that they are afraid to override. That, I think, is the story of the Republican strategy of this session. It puzzles me. Do they think this is a winning strategy in America, a party so bereft of ideas and policies that all they can do is stop us?

This bill is not a Democratic bill, this farm bill. I think Senator Chambliss, if he were on the floor today, would readily concede he played a big role in writing this bill. Senator Roberts of Kansas played a major role in writing this bill. Two Republican Senators who were involved in this legislation. Yet when it comes to trying to pass it, unfortunately, Senator Chambliss objected five times in our attempts to bring this bill forward and move it forward.

They don't want this Senate to achieve anything, whether it is a farm bill or whatever it happens to be. But we are not going to quit. We are not going to be discouraged. We can only hope that those who follow this debate will respond. If you live in rural America, small town America, a farm family, a ranching family; if you know the importance of rural electric; if you know what it means to have soil and water conservation programs to protect the area you live in; if you think that bringing broadband Internet to all of America, including small towns and rural areas is important; if you think our Food Stamp Program to make sure the poorest in our country have something to eat is important; if you are worried about school lunch programs and whether they have good quality so our kids get nutritious food; if you happen to believe that the WIC Program, which is a program which helps low-income mothers and their babies is important; if you believe that making certain our farm sector in America can survive difficult times--a bad year--whether it is a drought or a flood, a tornado; if you think it is important we have programs to protect that part of America; if you believe we need to have alternative sources of fuel and not be at the mercy of OPEC and the Middle East sheiks and we should be producing ethanol and other forms of fuel that can help us move toward energy independence; if you think any of those things are important, I encourage you to contact your Senator and tell them to get moving.

Ten days on the farm bill with nothing happening is unacceptable. It is the Senate at its worst. It is the minority with their program at its worst.

We need to have bipartisan cooperation. Senator Harkin tried repeatedly.

We will keep trying. But if the object of the Republicans is to run out the clock, to have us break and go home for Thanksgiving with no farm bill passed, I assume they can achieve that. Boy, talk about bragging rights, going home to your State and saying: We stopped the farm bill. You know, every 5 years, it comes around. We stopped it cold, even though it is a bipartisan bill. That is what they will be able to brag about.

Senator Gregg has told me he has lots of amendments. He is thinking of even more. He is ingenious when it comes to different subjects, and I am sure his staff is busy right now thinking of other amendments they can add to this bill that have nothing to do with the farm bill, and he is going to want to ask that we vote on every single one of them. We could all do that. I guess there would be some personal satisfaction, but at the end of the day, very little legislation and very little to show for our efforts. This list, this three-page list of Republican amendments, is an indication of bad faith. If they are serious about a farm bill--and we should be--let's agree to a reasonable number of germane, relevant amendments that have something to do with the farm bill. Let's not make this a bill for all seasons; let's make this a bill for America's agricultural sector that counts on us.

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