Stakeout with Senator Mitch McConnell (R-KY) Following Senate Republican Policy Committee Meeting

Statement

SEN. MCCONNELL: Okay. Good afternoon, everyone. We're going to touch on several different topics today.

First, let me say, with regard to the housing issue, we did have a vote last week on a proposal apparently concocted by the majority leader without going through the regular process. And that's okay, from time to time, to do that. But if we turn back to the issue of housing, our side felt that that bill was fatally flawed because of the so-called cramdown provisions, which would have raised interest rates for virtually every mortage-holder, interest-rate-payer in the country. So we thought that was a bad idea.

Having said that, I have met with the Republican members of the Banking Committee, which has jurisdiction over housing -- Senator Grassley, Senator Bond. We're in the process of putting together a Republican alternative so that if we turn back to the housing issue, we will have a different proposal to offer, that would give the Senate a choice as to which direction we ought to take on the housing issue.

Of course, the large issue before us next week will be the budget. And I've asked Senator Gregg, the ranking member of the Budget Committee, to give you his take on where we're headed, in terms of both the action within the budget committee this week and then on the floor of the Senate next week.

SEN. MCCONNELL: Okay, we'll take a few questions, if there are any.

Q Can you give us an update on judicial nominations, whether you're making any progress -- (off mike)? Are you afraid that Democrats might just run the clock and not do anything?

SEN. MCCONNELL: Well, Senator Specter addressed that issue on the floor of the Senate yesterday. The question was about judges. The record so far is pretty bad. At the beginning of this Congress -- and I'll give the majority leader credit; I really believe that he felt we ought to meet the standard, and let me tell you what the standard was.

Each of the last three presidents have ended their tenures in office with the Senate being controlled by the opposition party. The average number of circuit judges confirmed in those last two years of each of the last three presidents was 17. The lowest number was President Clinton, with 15. So far we've confirmed only six.

I believe that Senator Reid -- you can ask him -- thought, as he said at the beginning of this Congress, that we ought to meet the average standard, or at the very worst do as well as the Republican Senate did for Senator -- for President Clinton in his last two years in office. We're a long way from getting there. We've only had one hearing on a circuit judge candidate since last September, and that one, interestingly enough, was a couple of weeks ago during the recess. There are a number of circuit judges who are not controversial, who are extraordinarily well-qualified.

I haven't given up yet, but we've got a long way to go to get from the six that we've currently confirmed in this Congress up to 15, the standard in the last two years of the Clinton administration.

So I haven't given up, but we've got a long way to go. And by not doing as many as we should have done last year, we've shoved all these into the election year, which makes it, some would argue, even more challenging to get the result that we ought to get.

Q Senator, one of your colleagues plans to offer an amendment next week in the budget resolution that would propose a one-year ban on earmarks. What is your position on that? I mean the leadership position on that.

SEN. MCCONNELL: You know, I appointed -- didn't get a whole lot of press, but I appointed a committee of five of our Republican colleagues with, a report date of March the 15th, to see if we could work out a consensus on the earmark issue, which has, as you all know, been a divisive issue within our conference.

I appointed Chairman -- former Foreign Relations Committee chairman Senator Lugar to chair the committee. I figured this would be a place where diplomacy and the skills that he's demonstrated in that area in the past would be useful. I appointed Senator Cochran and Senator Coburn, and I appointed Senator Isakson and Senator Crapo. They have been meeting regularly over the last three weeks. I expect them to report back only if they can reach a consensus. We are not interested in having a report with a majority report and a minority report; we're looking for a consensus.

The report date is March 15th, which happens to be a weekend, but I don't know whether they'll finish their job before then.

So we haven't given up on the prospect of having some kind of consensus within our conference on how to go forward on the earmark issue. I can't tell you what that is yet, but we'll see what they come up with.

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Q Senator McConnell, you disputed Senator Reid's assertion that you -- that Republicans have filibustered 72 times here in the Senate. How many times do you think Republicans have filibustered?

SEN. MCCONNELL: I addressed that on floor yesterday. I don't have my cheat sheet in front of me, but we went down sort of vote by vote and analyzed the proposal. The suggestion the majority leader made that we had engaged in filibusters, I think at the time he made the speech it was 72 times -- it is patently not accurate. I'm going to use a nice word for it.

But on frequent occasions, you had Democratic filibusters. You had Republicans and Democrats voting to invoke cloture in order to advance legislation, not to kill legislation. And if you're interested in the subject, I would encourage you to actually look at the votes which we have compiled. And I know Sue can give them to you and find out who's telling the truth here.

But the truth is, there haven't been 72 occasions upon which Republicans were trying to prevent legislation from going forward at all. There have been a few occasions when we have tried to do that. An example of that would be the effort on the part of the majority to get rid of the secret ballot in labor union elections, something that 80 percent of union members think is a bad idea. Yeah, we stopped that and would stop it again if it came up.

Q Senator McConnell, can you talk --

Q (Off mike) -- on the Air Force's award of the contract --

SEN. MCCONNELL: On what?

Q On the Air Force award of the flying tanker contract to Northrop Grumman, do you think that that is the final word in this, or should Congress have a final say about to whom that contract should go or what the terms should be?

SEN. MCCONNELL: I'm not conversant enough with that issue to respond to it. I don't know if anybody else is.

Thanks.

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