Amending the Standing Rules and Procedure of the Senate--S. RES. 8, S. RES. 10, S. RES. 21, S. RES. 28, AND S. RES. 29

Floor Speech

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Mr. SCHUMER. Madam President, first I thank both our leader, Harry Reid, and our minority leader, Mitch McConnell, for their leadership and guidance. They are walking out together, and that is a good metaphor for what has happened today. I thank my colleague, Lamar Alexander, as well. Under the two leaders' authorization, we talked and, of course, in constant touch with them, worked out this agreement.

I rise to speak in support of the bipartisan agreement on Senate rules reform. It is an important step forward in changing the way we do business in the Senate.

Last year, the Rules Committee held six hearings on the filibuster. We heard about the history of the filibuster and what happened and how it had gone out of control.

Those hearings were requested, actually, by a member of the Rules Committee, Tom Udall, the Senator from New Mexico, and it is why we embarked on the hearings. And I very much appreciate his suggestion that we do that.

At the hearings, Democrats brought up that the majority was no longer able to move forward to consider bills by filibusters on motions to proceed, and Republicans argued that they were too often blocked from offering amendments by the majority filling the tree. Both sides had legitimate complaints. What couldn't be disputed was that, in many ways, the Senate was broken. It had become harder and harder for the body to consider, debate, and decide on legislation and nominations that it is supposed to take care of.

It is true what Senator McConnell said--that we had a very productive session. But that doesn't gainsay the fact that there were 74 filibusters and that many issues that should have been decided weren't decided, and that the Senate, to many, may not be functioning in the way it used to, with debate being stifled by both the majority and the minority, and so we resolved this.

When I first came to the Senate 12 years ago, a senior Senator pulled me aside and said the role of the majority is to set the agenda. They put bills on the floor and they are debated. And the role of the minority is to offer amendments to change the legislation. We are not doing that much anymore. What usually happens is we offer a bill, and the minority says, we don't want it. They may say, we don't want it because Democrats have refused to allow unlimited amendments; whereas we think they do not want it because they may just want to gum up the Senate. But whatever the reason, both sides have legitimate complaints here and we are trying to resolve some of those. So clearly, the time for change has come. I believe the reforms we are adopting today give us a very good chance to go back to the way of operating where we had real debate on bills and amendments and votes on bills and amendments.

This won't happen overnight, and both sides will still use the procedural tools available to them on the most important issues. But we hope it will work well enough to get us back on track. Leaders Reid and McConnell in the colloquy they will put forward--which Senator Alexander and I participated in framing--will do two things, in addition to the changes that we will make. One, each will say we should use the motion to proceed to block bills from coming to the floor infrequently, and the majority will say we should use filling the tree to block amendments that might come forward on those bills infrequently.

Obviously, we are going to have to watch to see how this works over the next several months. And, obviously, there will be times when each side decides they have to use the right that the Senate gives them to block things. But the presumption will be that in the usual course of business we will not do that; that they will be the exception, not the rule.

A second thing that will be stated by both leaders is whoever is in the majority next Congress will not try to change the rules by simple majority it this Congress or next. Some on our side were worried if we didn't try to invoke the constitutional option, should the other side get the majority--and I don't personally think we have to worry about that or that it will happen anyway, but should that happen, then they might invoke it and do something else, so why not do it now? Well, both leaders have agreed they will not do that. Without leader support, it is virtually impossible for it to get done.

So that is a significant change, and when the colloquy is presented in the Record, we will see both leaders have agreed to that. I want to thank them for providing strong leadership and guidance throughout this process.

I became convinced, working with my good friend, the Senator from Tennessee, and having plenty of conversations with my friend and Leader Harry Reid, and a few with Senator McConnell, that everybody wanted to come to an agreement here. Everyone wanted to see the Senate work better, and that made me feel pretty good regarding what we did here.

Second, I want to recognize the many Senators from my party who worked tirelessly to identify the momentum for change, and at the head of the list, of course, are Tom Udall, Jeff Merkley, and Tom Harkin. They worked very hard on these issues. Two of them are newer in the Senate--freshmen--and one has much more experience than I do in the Senate, Senator Harkin, and they all worked hard to see that we changed the rules.

While the changes aren't everything they would have liked or I would have liked, certainly the changes we are getting, not insignificant at all, are because Tom Udall started pushing this idea when he got here to the Senate. I think his predecessor, Clinton Anderson, had done some of this, and Jeff Merkley and Tom Harkin joined in the cause early on and actually brought us to the point where the inertia of not doing anything would no longer govern and we would get together to get something done.

There were other Senators who played a very important role: Senator Lautenberg, with his proposals; Michael Bennet, Mark Udall, and Al Franken all had proposals and all played a very significant role here and can feel very good about the changes we have wrought.

I particularly want to thank Senator Klobuchar for leading the working group of Senators who spent hours reviewing and refining. Without all of them, I don't think the agreement would have been possible.

I would make one other point, and this is a disappointment to me, so I will make it for myself. One idea championed by the reform-minded Senators I thought made eminent sense is the talking filibuster. It didn't change the balance in the Senate, it simply said that if you were going to filibuster, you had to stay on the floor and talk. You couldn't just be there and object.

The American public understands when a Senator wants to filibuster a bill, that Senator should be required to stand up and talk on the Senate floor. I strongly support the talking filibuster. We sometimes call it the Jimmy Stewart talking filibuster, because everyone recognizes that from the movie. I believe it would pull back the curtain on the kind of filibusters we have now. We wouldn't change the rule of 60, but the filibustering Senator and his supporters right now don't even have to show up or talk for a vote. This talking filibuster is one change I hope the Senate will adopt in the future because it makes good sense and we should do it.

I don't believe we should eliminate the filibuster altogether, but we need to make it real. The talking filibuster proposals would do that, and I hope someday we will make the talking filibuster part of the Senate rules, and I will vote for that resolution that will be on the floor later today. Of course, it will need two-thirds to pass.

Finally, I wanted to thank Senator Alexander. He and I have been friends before this, but we worked together being here throughout the holidays, vacations, and recesses, and he was creative, he was flexible, as always, he was congenial and, as usual, he was smart. His concern for this institution helped bring the minority and the majority together, and I very much appreciate Senator Alexander's role.

Senator Reid outlined the other parts of the bipartisan proposal--the end to secret holds, which will be done by rule; the end of reading of amendments filed for at least 72 hours, also done by rule; and the third proposal is to limit the number of executive nominations--there are so many. About 30 percent of the total we propose to eliminate. He and I, and Senators Lieberman and Collins, who have the jurisdiction in their committee, will introduce a bill that we hope to move quickly. We have gotten the agreement from the House that they will move the bill, and we should eliminate confirmation on so many of these positions that shouldn't require confirmation, such as members of part-time boards and commissions, officials who handle legislative or public affairs, and things such as that, and I want to thank Senators Lieberman and Collins for that.

Finally, as chairman of the Rules Committee, I believe there is more we can do. I want to see our efforts at reform continue. I wish to continue working on the streamlining of confirmation of nominations, both executive and judicial, and our Rules Committee will continue to look at that.

Change doesn't come often or easily to the Senate, but we are here because many Members worked hard on reform, and both parties, continuing the feeling of bipartisanship that began in the lameduck and I think has continued through the State of the Union speech, are continuing again today. I hope our efforts will make a difference. I hope the Senate will function better, and I am very hopeful that with these changes, both formal and informal, they will.

We know there are still sharp differences within our body on issues, and those won't disappear. On certain bills, both sides will use every procedural tactic that makes the Senate a different body than the House, but hopefully, on most, we won't.

In conclusion, while those of us who wanted reform in the Senate didn't get everything we wanted, the Senate will be a significantly better place for the changes we are enacting. As a result of this agreement, there should be more debate, more votes, fewer items blocked by a single Senator or small minority of Senators. Make no mistake about it, this agreement is not a panacea, but it is a very significant step on the road to making the Senate function in a better, fairer way.

Again, I thank all of my colleagues who participated in this effort.

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