Restoring American Finacial Stability Act of 2010

Floor Speech

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Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, I thank the chairman of the committee. I intend to be very brief in my comments tonight. I thank the chairman for his indulgence.

I note that Senator Grassley, who is on the floor, and I have prosecuted this cause for more open government in the Senate for over a decade. Senator McCaskill is here. She has tried relentlessly to do the same thing. I think it is very regrettable, because we have seen, once again, tonight, as we did on Thursday, that defenders of secret holds in the Senate continue to pull out all the stops, employ every tool in the toolbox to throw a monkey wrench into the effort to open the Senate to transparency and accountability.

This has been a bipartisan effort. It has always been a bipartisan effort. I particularly credit my friend from Iowa, Senator Grassley, because when we talked about this over a decade, the two of us said we are going to make this bipartisan every step of the way because sometimes in the Senate you are in the minority, sometimes you are in the Senate as part of the majority, but the cause of open and transparent government ought to be available all the time. It should not matter who is in the majority and who is in the minority.

I will say the American people are furious at the way business is done in Washington, DC. The fact that it has been impossible to even get an up-or-down vote on doing Senate business in public is a textbook case of why people are so angry.

It is my intent to come with colleagues to the floor again and again and try to make sure that once and for all we change this pernicious practice, a practice that, in my view, is an indefensible violation of the public's right to know.

At a minimum, every Senator ought to be on record publicly with respect to how they feel about doing the Senate's business in public. That is what this is all about.

This is not complicated. A hold is one of the most powerful tools a Senator has. With a secret hold, one colleague can keep the American people from even getting a peak at important Senate business. That is not right. That is not accountable government. That is not transparent government.

What we ought to do--and I commend particularly Senator Grassley, Senator Inhofe, and Senator Collins on the other side of the aisle; Senator Udall has joined me in this effort, Senator Bennet--we have made this bipartisan every step of the way. It is time for an up-or-down vote in the Senate with respect to ending secret holds.

We have not even been able to get a direct vote, though we have been working now for weeks and weeks on a measure that is bipartisan. The American people want public business done in public, and they certainly want Democrats and Republicans to come together. That is what Senator Grassley and I have sought to do.

It is unfortunate that, once again, there has been an objection tonight to doing public business in public. That is something that ought to change around here. There is a bipartisan group of us who are going to stay with it until it does.

I particularly thank the bipartisan group of colleagues on the floor tonight, led by Senator Grassley and Senator McCaskill. We will be back, and we will be back at it until there is the kind of transparency and openness in the way the Senate does business so, once and for all, every hold in the Senate has a public owner. That is what this is all about. If you want to put a hold on a bill or a measure, as Senator Grassley has said, you ought to have the guts to go public. Every hold ought to have a public owner. We are going to stay with it until that happens.

I express my appreciation again to the chairman of the Banking Committee who has, at a time when he has a very important piece of legislation on the floor, indulged this Senator repeatedly in giving me the opportunity to be on the floor and prosecute this cause for more openness and transparency. I thank my good friend, the chairman of the committee. He has done an excellent job on this bill. I appreciate the time tonight.

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