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

Floor Speech

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Mr. THUNE. Madam President, earlier today the majority leader and the majority whip came to the floor to decry and denounce, attack Republicans for what appeared to be literally everything bad that has happened in the world in the last several years, to the point you have to ask yourself, do they really believe what they are saying? They came down here to talk about how Republicans are blocking this, are blocking that.

I think it is important to point out that now for the past 6 years, the Democrats have been the majority party in the U.S. Senate. In fact, for 2 of those years, they had a filibuster-proof, 60-vote majority in the Senate. Filibuster proof--literally, they could do anything they wanted to in the Senate. They had a majority in the House of Representatives, and, of course, they got the Presidency.

If you look at the volume of the legislation that was produced at the time, most of the things that were accomplished with the 60-vote, filibuster-proof majority were things the American people disagreed with--I think as evidenced now by what you see in terms of public opinion polling about the health care bill. Most people disagree with the individual mandate that was included in that legislation and disagree generally with many of the provisions in the bill.

But my point very simply is, for a period of time, the Democrats literally had the run of the tables here in Washington, DC, as we know it--a filibuster-proof, 60-vote majority in the Senate, a majority in the House of Representatives, and the Presidency--yet they come down and decry Republicans as being responsible for all the things that have or have not happened here in the Senate.

One of the things they point out is that there is this intent by Republicans to continue to filibuster legislation. I would argue that nothing could be further from the truth. In fact, everybody knows that in the Senate the majority leader is the person who is first to be recognized on the Senate floor, which allows him to use that power to offer a series of Democratic amendments to pending legislation in a way that prevents Republicans from offering their own ideas. It is called filling the tree--sort of a term of art that is used around here in the Senate. But filling the tree essentially is what the Democratic majority leader has the opportunity to do because he has the power of recognition and he can fill the amendment tree and prevent the Republican amendments from being offered and voted on.

Now, interestingly enough, Majority Leader Reid once insisted that this practice ``runs against the basic nature of the Senate.'' Let me repeat that. Majority Leader Reid once insisted that filling the amendment tree ``runs against the basic nature of the Senate.'' But by the way the Senate operates today, it is pretty clear that he has abandoned that assessment.

According to the Congressional Research Service, the CRS, Majority Leader Reid has employed this tactic a record 59 times. He has used it to block minority input into legislation 50 percent more often than the past six majority leaders combined. I think that is worth repeating. This majority leader has used the filling-of-the-tree procedure 50 percent more often than the past six majority leaders combined. So the only option the minority is left with under that scenario is to basically try to get votes on amendments and to work with the majority, in which case the majority says: No, we are not going to give you any amendments; we have filled the tree. So a cloture motion is filed, and we end up having a vote on cloture.

What we have seen repeatedly now is the Senate sort of break down into this state of dysfunction simply because the majority does not want to make tough votes on amendments. We have seen this over and over and over again. As I say, it is historic and unprecedented in terms of the number of times it has occurred in the U.S Senate.

I would also suggest that the real reason, probably, that we do not have votes on amendments and that the filling of the tree is used repeatedly is because Members on the other side do not want to make the hard decisions, do not want to cast the tough votes. I think that is evidenced as well by the fact that for 3 years in a row now, we have not had a budget in the Senate.

If there was a real interest in solving problems, you would think the majority--again, which has the responsibility to put a budget on the floor--would bring a budget to the floor that would set a direction for the future of this country and ask the Members of the Senate to vote on it, to vote on amendments, to have an opportunity to say to the American people: This is how we would lead the country. That has not happened now for over 1,100 days, for the past 3 years.

Now, Republicans are ready and willing to work with the majority, as we have evidenced on many occasions. In fact, we are going to debate, this next week, farm bill legislation--something for which there is bipartisan support in the Senate.

I would argue that there are many things we would like to see done. We would love to have an opportunity to vote on extending the tax rates that are in effect today--which is something that even President Clinton in the last few days has come out in support of--because we know--everybody here knows--we are facing this fiscal cliff. It could be very dangerous to our economy if steps are not taken to prevent and avoid that. And we would be more than willing to work with the majority on extending the tax rates to give some certainty to our job creators and our small businesses.

We would also like to work with them on the sequester that is going to happen at the end of the year, in redistributing those cuts in a way that does not completely decimate our national security budget.

There are lots of things the Republicans are ready to work on with our colleagues on the other side when it comes to trying to grow the economy and create jobs. But, frankly, we believe it is important that we at least have an opportunity to get amendments debated and voted on. That simply has not happened, as I pointed out by the number of times the majority leader has filled the tree.

So I am not suggesting there is not plenty of blame to go around in Washington for the state of the situation we are in. All I am simply saying is that for the majority leader to come down here and suggest that somehow Republicans are responsible for gridlock here in the U.S. Senate is a complete denial of reality and a denial of the facts.

As I said before, they had a period here for a few years where they had the complete run of the place. They had a 60-vote, filibuster-proof majority in the Senate, a majority in the House of Representatives, and the Presidency, enabling you to do literally anything you wanted to do. They still have the majority in the U.S. Senate, the ability to control the agenda and to determine what does and does not come to the floor, what amendments are allowed, and the use of the filling of the tree in an unprecedented way. It is pretty clear to me that to suggest for a moment it is Republicans who are attempting to slow things down around here or keep the majority from working its will is completely contrary to the facts and the reality, as I think most Senators--all Senators, I think--know.

I know my colleague from Wyoming is someone who is somewhat new here, but he has been here long enough now to have seen many times where the majority has prevented the minority from actually offering amendments, getting votes on amendments on the floor of the Senate. I would just suggest to him and allow him to make some observations with regard to this subject as well because it strikes me, at least, that he and I both--and many of our colleagues--are very interested in working with the majority on things that would actually put people back to work, get our economy growing again.

We would love to have that opportunity.

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