Agriculture Reform, Food, and Jobs Act of 2012--Motion to Proceed--Resumed

Floor Speech

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Mr. SCHUMER. Madam President, I rise in support of the words of the majority leader and the majority whip. Many of us have been frustrated lately by the glacial pace of activity in the House of Representatives. The Senate is supposed to be the cooling saucer, but, these days, the House is where jobs bills and other important measures go to die.

They are dragging out negotiations on a highway bill that would put millions to work. They refuse to even allow a conference on a bipartisan Violence Against Women Act reauthorization, even though the Senate produced a bill with 68 votes. They have refused to act at all on a bipartisan bill that cracks down on China's unfair currency practices--something which their own party's nominee for President claims to support.

Why the stalling? Well, we got our answer in the pages of Politico 2 days ago.

Eric Cantor, who controls the floor schedule in the House, has decided to forgo legislating in favor of politicking full time.

Despite all the major challenges this Congress faces--despite the crisis of confidence that may hit our markets in the fall due to uncertainty over the looming fiscal cliff--Eric Cantor has declared a moratorium on any serious legislating until after the fall elections.

The House of Representatives is like a computer that has been turned on sleep mode, and it does not plan to be rebooted until after November.

This is a breathtaking admission by the No. 2 Republican in the House. I would not be surprised if Leader Cantor wishes he could take his statement back. It contradicts the rhetoric from many on his own side.

Just last month, in a speech at the Peterson Institute, the Speaker of the House made a great show of calling on the administration and Congress to tackle tax cuts and the debt ceiling now--before the election. Here is what Speaker Boehner said:

It's about time we roll up our sleeves and get to work.

Unfortunately, Leader Cantor's comments seem to reflect House Republicans' true intentions more so than Speaker Boehner's quote. And that is a terrible shame. Leader Cantor and the House Republicans are shrinking from a potentially historic moment.

I have a message for Leader Cantor: You may have abandoned any intention to legislate this year, but we will not bow to election-year politics here in the Senate. The Nation needs us, and we have too much to do.

All around this Chamber, there are green shoots of bipartisan activity. In the last 2 months alone, we have overhauled the postal system, approved a multiyear transportation program, renewed the Violence Against Women Act, streamlined drug approval rules at the FDA, renewed the Export-Import Bank, and passed a bill to help business startups. We have confirmed 20 judges and put the Federal Reserve Board at full strength for the first time in 6 years. And just this morning, we moved to proceed to a farm bill--the first overhaul of agriculture in 5 years--by an overwhelming 90-to-8 vote.

Every one of the issues I mentioned had broad bipartisan support. Each would not have been accomplished without bipartisan support. These are items, certainly, that are not the same as the big challenges that await us on taxes and spending, but they are not trivial. They are not post office namings either. They are real accomplishments.

``The Senate is on something of a roll,'' the New York Times recently reported. These accomplishments could very well prove to be the building blocks for bipartisan compromise on the bigger issues that await our Nation. So the House may already have entered election mode, but, I daresay, the Senate may be starting to gel at just the right time.

In the Senate there is a hunger to legislate. Republicans and Democrats alike in this Chamber sense our Nation is at a crossroads, and their first instinct is not to pause to contemplate its political implications, but to get things done. For this, I must salute the growing number of my colleagues across the aisle who are seeking to work across the aisle.

Even as the loudest voices on the Republican side cite the President's defeat as their No. 1 goal, I believe there is a silent majority within the Republican Caucus that yearns to come together and address the Nation's problems, free of partisan politics.

Even after the extreme elements in their own party have claimed two of the most esteemed Members of this body--one by retirement; one in a contentious primary--a silent majority of brave Republicans still dares to believe that compromise is a virtue, not a vice.

My colleague from Tennessee, Senator Alexander, is a

Senator I admire. He has taken the lead in bringing Members together to tackle the big issues that await us at the end of this calendar year.

I was at a briefing this week organized by Senator Alexander, a Republican, and Senator Warner, a Democrat. Believe me, no one in that room thinks, as Leader Cantor apparently does, that these issues should be put off till the election. The conversations were quite preliminary, for sure, but the motivations of all the Senators who attended were pure.

Senator Coburn is another brave Republican. I may disagree with Tom Coburn on most issues, and even on many of his tactics, but I admire the courage he displays on a daily basis by standing up to even the most powerful special interests in his party. He does not talk the talk about bucking his party's orthodoxy on revenues. He walks the walk. Just this morning, I watched him on one of the morning news programs making great sense about the need for both parties to show leadership in confronting the big issues. He also made a point of saying that, unlike Leader Cantor, he does not believe these issues should wait till the election.

My colleague from South Carolina, Senator Graham, is another such brave Republican. We have our differences on many issues, but he is a statesman, plain and simple. He has been quite vocal on his wish to overturn the defense cuts in the sequester. But while others in his party propose to replace these cuts on entirely their own terms, Senator Graham has bravely signaled an openness to make the tradeoffs needed to help bridge the partisan divide. Asked by the New York Times recently about the potential for tapping revenues to replace some of the sequester cuts, Senator Graham bravely bucked his party's orthodoxy. ``I have crossed the Rubicon on that [one],'' he said. Be assured, Senator Graham is someone we can negotiate with.

Senators Alexander, Coburn, and Graham are not alone. There are others who realize the need to act in a bipartisan fashion.

Senator Alexander's colleague from Tennessee, Senator Corker, recently called out his own party for famously rejecting a deal, a hypothetical deficit deal with a 10-to-1 ratio of spending cuts to tax increases.

Senators Isakson and Collins said in the same Politico article that they, too, would be open to supporting a grand bargain that includes revenues as well as spending cuts.

And my colleague from Oklahoma, Senator Inhofe, is featured in the pages of Roll Call today for his Herculean efforts to get House Republicans to be reasonable on a long-term highway bill, along with his colleague and our friend Senator Boxer.

I suggest that the House majority leader reconsider his remarks to Politico and take a page from the book of these brave Republicans. The House may be in an all-politics mode, but the Senate is not done legislating--not by a long shot. And let's be honest: If a solution to these big issues is at all possible in the lameduck, or maybe even before the election, it is not going to come from the House. It is going to come out of the Senate.

So I suggest to Leader Cantor, Washington does not need an election to bridge our differences. It needs the Senate.

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