Making Emergency Supplemental Appropriations For Fiscal Year 2010 - Continued

Floor Speech

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Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, this is the fourth time in under 2 weeks that Senator Grassley and I, with a large bipartisan coalition of Senators in the Senate--a coalition that spans the philosophical spectrum of membership in the Senate--has sought to pass this legislation to finally end the stranglehold of secret holds.

The American people want accountability from their elected officials, but there is simply no accountability when the Senate operates in secret. The fact is, this has gone on for years and years, and it has been done on a bipartisan basis. Right now there are scores of qualified nominees for important positions in the administration and the Federal courts who can't get a vote on the Senate floor--and it has also taken place on a bipartisan basis for years and years--as Senator Grassley and I have tried to make the point over this decade that we have been attacking secrecy in the Senate and that this has gone on in a bipartisan fashion.

The fact is a secret hold is one of the most powerful tools a Member of the Senate has today. I would be the first to grant that the American people have no idea what secret holds are. The fact is a secret hold can effectively kill a nomination or piece of legislation, and it can be done without anyone--colleagues in the Senate or the public--knowing who did it or why.

One of the points I also wish to make--and it hasn't been explored in the discussion of secret holds--is a secret hold is a very powerful weapon that is also available to lobbyists. My guess is practically every Senator has gotten a request from a lobbyist asking if the Senator would put a secret hold on a bill or a nomination in order to kill it without getting any public debate and without the lobbyist's fingerprints appearing anywhere. In fact, if you can get a Senator to put an anonymous hold on a bill, it is almost like hitting the lobbyist jackpot. Not only is the Senator protected by a cloak of anonymity but so is the lobbyist. A secret hold can let lobbyists also play both sides of the street and can give lobbyists a victory for their clients without alienating potential future clients. Given the number of instances where I have heard of a lobbyist asking for secret holds, I am of the view that secret holds are a stealth extension of the lobbying world in Washington, DC.

In the Senate there has been an effort to improve the rules and have stricter ethics requirements with respect to lobbyists. It is something of an irony if the Senate--which it has in the past--adopts a variety of changes to curtail lobbying without doing away with what, in my view, is one of the most powerful tools that is available to lobbyists, and that is the secret hold. So what Senator Grassley and I have been working on over the past decade--and with this bipartisan coalition we have been able to assemble in the Senate--is the desire, once and for all, to permanently eliminate the use of secret holds.

I also believe that given the Wall Street reform bill that was just passed in the Senate to bring greater openness and accountability to financial institutions, it seems to me for the Senate to be telling Wall Street it has to operate in a more transparent, open way, this is a pretty darn good time for the Senate to reform the way the Senate does its business. If we are going to set about the task of telling folks on Wall Street to be more open and more accountable, certainly the rules in the Senate ought to be changed to abolish the secret hold.

Under current Senate rules, it is still possible for Senators to use a secret hold to block legislation or a nomination from coming to the floor without having to give any reason. There is no openness or accountability to anybody when a Senator places a secret hold. My view is the Senate shouldn't have a double standard where we are passing laws and rules to require greater openness and accountability of others, and particularly American institutions such as Wall Street, while tolerating a practice that keeps both the public and colleagues in the Senate in the dark without accountability to anyone.

Under the proposal Senator Grassley and I have sought to pass--and I see my good friend from Iowa here, and I noted that this is our fourth such effort in about 2 weeks to finally bring some sunlight to the way the Senate does business--under our proposal, somebody--a Senator--is going to have to own a hold publicly within 2 days. That is a key change because we have looked at the Executive Calendar, we have looked at all of the places where we might see someone actually publicly own up to having a hold, and Senator Grassley and I haven't seen that kind of transparency and accountability.

So under our proposal which we are seeking to pass this morning, every hold--every hold--is going to have to have a public owner within 2 days.

Let me give an example of how this would work. Let's say a Senator objects to bringing up a nomination on behalf of a colleague. If the Senator behind the hold who, in effect, is kind of the culprit in all of this secrecy doesn't go public by putting a notice in the Congressional Record within 2 days, then the Senator who objected on the floor on behalf of this culprit is going to be listed in the Executive Calendar as having placed the hold. The Senator who is in effect covering up for the colleague will get the blame if the real culprit--the real Senator who is trying to protect secrecy--would not come clean.

So, in effect, what Senator Grassley and I are seeking to do is put public pressure and peer pressure to get Senators to reveal their hold. If Senators keep objecting to legislation or nominations on behalf of other colleagues, pretty soon that Senator can get identified as responsible for dozens of holds. We think--Senator Grassley and I and Senators Inhofe, Collins, Udall, Bennet and Merkley, a big group that is involved in this on a bipartisan basis--with this approach we are going to create public pressure because nobody here in the Senate is going to want to go down in history as being ``Senator hold.''

In my view, it will also create peer pressure on Senators to come clean about their holds. Let's say Senator Grassley is on the floor or I am on the floor when a unanimous consent is made and one of us has to object on behalf of a colleague. We will go tell that colleague that he or she better come clean because we are not interested in having our names put on the Executive Calendar as the one who is supporting this secret hold.

I also believe the Grassley-Wyden approach cures other problems with the current holds policy by shortening the time period before a hold must be made public from the current 6 session days to 2 days. Our view is that 2 days is plenty of time for a Senator to determine whether to continue objecting and make the objection public or to withdraw the objection.

Our bipartisan proposal also includes reforms that make it harder for Senators to place revolving holds on a nomination or bill. Senator Grassley and I have seen this problem, over this decade we have been involved in this. Senator Grassley mentioned the fact that we have always said this is being done in a bipartisan way that there is a very serious problem of revolving holds, where in effect a hold is passed on to another Member of the Senate. First, we eliminate the ability of a Senator to lift a hold before the current 6-day period expires and never has to disclose it. Under our proposal, if a Senator places a hold--even for 1 day, even for just a minute--that hold would have to be disclosed. Second, by shortening the time period, it will be even more difficult to keep finding new Senators to place new holds every 48 hours.

I want to close by expressing my appreciation to Senator Grassley, Senators Inhofe, Collins, and others on the other side who have worked for this badly needed reform, to bring sunshine to the Senate. Senator Grassley and I have put more than a decade into this effort.

I also thank my colleagues on this side of the aisle, particularly Senators Bennet, Udall, and McCaskill, who have brought a tremendous amount of new energy and passion to this cause.

Finally, after all this time, let us eliminate secret holds. Let's require public disclosure of all holds and ensure that there will be consequences if the Senator fails to disclose secret holds. I ask for our colleagues' support. It is a bipartisan effort that Senator Grassley and I have pursued for many years to bring greater transparency and accountability to the Senate by eliminating secret holds once and for all.

With that, I yield the floor.

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Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, I think the Senator and I are making some progress because I was about to pose almost the same question to my colleague.

I believe the Senator from South Carolina is talking about the Coburn-McCaskill proposal To make sure Senators have actually read legislation. I have already indicated to Senators Coburn and McCaskill that I am interested in being a cosponsor of this legislation. I think it is a constructive idea.

In effect, we are asking each other the same questions. I think the measure the Senator from South Carolina is talking about, the Coburn-McCaskill measure, is an important one. I have indicated I will be a cosponsor.

By way of saving some time, would my colleague be willing now to let Senator Grassley and me advance our proposal to eliminate secret holds today, given the fact that we have gotten more than a decade's worth of work, now that I have publicly acknowledged that I think the point the Senator from South Carolina has made, which is very much in line with the Coburn-McCaskill measure, is a valid one? My hope would be that, after putting more than a decade into this effort, the Senator from South Carolina would let us finally get a vote on this bipartisan effort to eliminate secret holds, with this public acknowledgment, at least on my part, that I think the Senator's point is valid with respect to Senators reading bills and I intend to be a cosponsor of the Coburn-McCaskill legislation.

Mr. DeMINT. Mr. President, I thank the Senator for being willing to work with colleagues. It is unfortunate that he has spent a decade on this bill and missed the main point. The main problem is secret bills, not secret holds. But if the Senator is willing to modify his amendment with the Coburn-McCaskill language and if it includes revealing who is trying to pass the bill, along with putting it online with a Congressional Budget Office score, I will be glad to support the Senator's efforts for this amendment. But I will not support the adoption of his amendment a la carte without the language being modified to include the Coburn-McCaskill language and the revealing of whoever is asking that bill be passed.

Again, I will enjoy working with my colleagues if this is important to them to get this amendment adopted. Again, I think there are certainly more pressing issues, but I am not interested in holding anything secretly. If the Senator will work with us on modifying his language, I think we can get this adopted and maybe even by unanimous consent.

Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, will the Senator yield again without giving up his right to the floor?

Mr. DeMINT. Yes, I will.

Mr. WYDEN. My understanding from the sponsors--Senators Coburn and McCaskill is they are not yet ready. In other words, we have been talking with them. I have already indicated to Senator Coburn that I would be a cosponsor of his proposal. We now have what amounts to not just a private acknowledgment that the point of the Senator from South Carolina is valid but a public one on the floor of the Senate.

I say to my colleague, my understanding from the sponsors is that they are not yet ready to bring this before the Senate, and that is why I am hopeful that--given the acknowledgment that the Senator from South Carolina has a valid point with respect to making sure bills are actually read, my hope would be that the Senator from South Carolina would let Senator Grassley and me go forward, finally have that vote, given the fact we have spent more than a decade laying the groundwork, and that we could at least make some progress today in the Senate.

Mr. DeMINT. Mr. President, I thank the Senator. I think if we waited a decade for this amendment, we can spend another day or two to get it right. If the Senator is certainly supportive of their language, I know their legislative staff well enough that we can get this incorporated with the language of the Senator from Oregon probably in a few hours and get this amendment done. I will be happy to help with that effort.

I thank the Senator for his interest in cooperating. I thank the Presiding Officer. I yield the floor.

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Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, let me speak very briefly on secret holds and then make a unanimous-consent request.

I express again my appreciation to the distinguished Senator from Iowa, Mr. Grassley. He very often seems too logical for some of these debates. I very much share his view.

The point is, we do have a great deal of consensus. We have had three Senators, in effect, talking over the last 20 minutes with no substantive disagreement. The reality is, eliminating secret holds and shining some sunlight in the Senate on how we do business, it is ready to go. It has been ready to go now four times in the last 10 days.

I very much appreciate Senator Grassley's comments today. We ought to have a vote on it. I have tried to show my good will, as the distinguished Senator from Iowa has this morning, in saying that we happen to think Senators Coburn and McCaskill and Senator DeMint's comments reflect this--have a very good idea as well. I have told them privately and again I state publicly this morning that it is my intent to be a cosponsor of the legislation. It is not yet ready to go, which is, in effect, what Senator Grassley has touched on.

Efforts to reform the Senate and do our business in public when the American people are as angry as they are at the way Washington, DC, does business--one ought to have, as Senator Grassley says, the guts to go public when one is trying to object to a bill or nomination.

My thanks to Senator Grassley for our decade-long push--10 years-plus in trying to do it--and also for the very constructive way he has tried to reach out to colleagues on both sides of the aisle. That is what I have tried to do again this morning with my comments to Senator DeMint.

I note that the chairman of the Appropriations Committee is also in support of the effort to get rid of secret holds. I thank him for his indulgence and for giving us this opportunity to speak on the floor of the Senate this morning.

Senator Grassley and I are going to come back again and again until this secret hold, which is an indefensible violation of the public's right to know, is finally buried. I thank him.

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