Restoring American Financial Stability Act of 2010--Continued

Floor Speech

Mr. BENNET. Mr. President, I will take a couple of minutes. I have been here a smaller amount of time than anybody who is on this floor. The chairman has been here longer than I have been here; Senator Wyden, Senator McCaskill, and others. I have been here about 15 months. What I can tell my colleagues is that this place doesn't operate like any other place in the universe. This secret hold business we are talking about right now, so people understand, allows a Senator to be able to hold up a nomination or a piece of legislation without having to tell anybody who they are. I spent half my career in business. No business I have would have ever tolerated a rule such as that. I have worked in local government. No local government I have ever been part of would have tolerated a rule such as that. There are city councils and State governments, county governments all over this country right now--by the way, they are probably still at work, unlike us, trying to figure out how to balance their budgets in the most savage economy since the Great Depression. They are not using secret holds to stop their ability to respond to the American people, and we shouldn't either.

One of the things I want to say is that Senator Wyden should be congratulated, because this is not a partisan piece of legislation. The No. 1 question I hear from people when I go home is, Why can't you guys work together? We lack confidence in what you are doing. There are Democrats, Republicans, unaffiliated voters who say, Why can't you work together? It looks like a partisan food fight back here because it is, but it is a little more complicated than that. In this case, we have a bipartisan piece of legislation that has broad support in this Chamber, as do the nominees who are being held up whom we have brought forward. We haven't brought forward nominees who got just Democratic votes; they are nominees who were passed out of the relevant committee of jurisdiction on a bipartisan basis, and somebody has decided that they want to hold these people up for reasons that have nothing to do with the quality of the nominees or because they were passed out on a partisan way, which they weren't. They are bipartisan.

So this isn't about everybody on the other side of the aisle holding up this legislation. This is bipartisan legislation. We should be here tonight. It is only 7:30. We should be here tonight debating this amendment, allowing people to come together in a bipartisan way to support the amendment, just as we should allow people to come together in a bipartisan way to support the nominees who have come forward and passed out of committee. There is no difference. The difference is that this rule allows some individuals to bring it to a grinding halt, to create more division rather than less division which, at least in my view, is what we need as a country.

In my State, no matter where I am--in blue parts of the State, in red parts of the State--my sense is that people have a pretty common set of aspirations for our State, for our country, for their kids, for our grandkids. They expect us to act on those aspirations rather than on the divisions that are so easy to create for just political gain. That is what has been happening when it comes to these secret holds. There are other issues as well that relate to the rules of this place that need to be changed, but this is one that is indefensible.

I came to the floor this morning and I said it reminds me a little bit of a car trip with my three little girls who are 10, 9, and 5. It happens every single time we are in the car: The first hour goes great; everybody is fine. But then they start to fret with each other, they get frustrated with each other. You can hear it. Any parent knows, the hair on the back of your neck starts to rise, and you know something bad is about to happen, and it does. Usually somebody slugs somebody else, and then you look behind you and no one will admit what they have done. No one will take responsibility for their bad act. We don't tolerate that in my household, by the way. We try hard to get to the bottom and the truth. We don't always, but we usually do.

This is the same thing. I am not saying people shouldn't be able to hold things up on the merits, but they ought to have to come to the floor and tell the American people who they are and why they are holding it up. They may have good arguments to make. That is what this is about. It is about debate, and that is what we need more of in this country because we are wasting the American people's time. We are wasting the American people's money, and we can't even get a debate on a lot of the issues this country faces.

I am going to try hard to do everything I can to contribute to a civil debate rather than an uncivil debate, and I think getting rid of these holds is going to be one of the ways forward. It is not the only thing we need to do.

I wish to thank Senator Wyden for all of his good work on this issue, and Senator Whitehouse for his good work, and the chairman's indulgence for letting us have this conversation tonight. Thanks for everything you have done to advance Wall Street reform this week.

By the way, on that, the American people should know that this bill, the Wall Street reform bill, is a very good bill. Unlike some other work we have done recently, it actually has the benefit of being worked on in a very bipartisan way, with a lot of amendments from Democrats and Republicans which I think have improved the legislation. I can't predict the future, but my guess is that it is going to pass with broad bipartisan support.

I congratulate Chairman Dodd on his leadership and getting that done in a way that gives the American people confidence that we are actually doing their business.

With that, I yield the floor.

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