Nomination of Thomas Edward Perez to be Secretary of Labor

Floor Speech

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Mrs. MURRAY. Mr. President, I am pleased that yesterday the Senate was able to come together and work out a bipartisan agreement to make some progress on approving President Obama's nominees. This is a great example of the kind of work I hope we can do more of going forward, because gridlock is getting in the way of progress on far too many issues that affect the families and communities we have a responsibility to serve.

One of the most egregious examples that still remains is the Republican leadership blocking a bipartisan budget conference--and the regular order they called for--in order, it appears, to gain leverage by manufacturing a crisis come this fall.

Democrats have come to the floor to talk about this a lot over the past few weeks. Unfortunately, it seems to be getting worse and not better.

We have heard from more and more tea party Republicans about their latest brinkmanship threat. They are now saying: Defund health care reform or we are going to shut down the government.

I wish I were making this up, but it is real. The House has already tried to repeal this law 37 times. In fact, just for good measure, they are voting on it again this week.

We all know that is not serious. It is certainly not governing. It is pointless pandering, and it does absolutely nothing to help the families and communities we represent.

There are so many real problems we all need to be focused on. We need to protect our fragile economic recovery and get more of our workers back on the job. We need to replace sequestration and we need to tackle our long-term deficit challenges responsibly. We have to stop this lurching from crisis to crisis and return to regular order and give families and communities the certainty they deserve. The only way we can do that is if we all work together, and the last thing we need to do right now is to rehash old political fights.

Based on what I am hearing more and more of in recent days, not only are tea party Republicans willing to push us toward a crisis this fall, but they will do that to cut off health care coverage for 25 million people and end the preventive care for our seniors that is free, and cause our seniors to pay more for prescriptions.

These political games may play well with the tea party base, but here is the reality: ObamaCare is the law of the land. It passed through this Senate with a majority. The Supreme Court upheld it. It is already today helping millions of Americans stay healthy and financially secure. We should all be working together right now to make sure it is implemented in the best way possible for our families and our businesses and our communities. Instead, what we are hearing is some empty political threats and a push for more gridlock here in the Senate.

I don't think it is a coincidence that the very people who are now pushing for a government shutdown to defund the health care law are the ones who are blocking a budget conference. If the goal is to simply push this country into a crisis, as it now seems to be for the tea party and the Senate Republican leadership, then those both are ways to do it.

When the Senate budget passed, I was optimistic. We worked here for a very long time--hours and hours, well into the night, well into the hours of the morning--and we allowed everyone the opportunity to vote on their amendments. They were voted up or down, agreed to or not agreed to, and we passed a bill, because both Republicans and Democrats said they wanted to return to regular budget order, and they said if we did that, we would get back to a responsible process. I took them at their word.

At that time, we had 192 days to reach a bipartisan budget agreement. Three months later, Democrats have come to the floor 16 times to move to the next step of the process: to get us to a bipartisan budget conference with the House. Each time we have asked to do that, a tea party Republican or a Member of the Senate Republican leadership has stood up and said, No, I am not going to let us work out the differences with the House. We are not going to do a budget. We are going to allow things to plod along here until we have a crisis in the fall.

There are now less than 3 weeks before we are scheduled to return home--all of us--to our States for constituent work. If we can't get an agreement by then, we are going to return in September with very little time before a potential government shutdown on October 1.

We still have a window of opportunity to reach an agreement before we are in crisis mode. I will tell all of my colleagues, it is closing quickly.

My colleagues should ask their constituents. They are sick and tired of hearing about gridlock and partisanship coming out of Washington, DC. It has to end.

This body had a great conversation on Monday night in the Old Senate Chamber. Everybody had an opportunity to have their say. A group of Republicans, led by Senator McCain, who are very interested in ending the gridlock, worked together with us to solve the problem. In fact, I have to say it has been very heartening to hear from the many Republicans who agree with the Democrats that despite our differences--and they are many--we should at least--at the very least--sit down in a bipartisan conference committee with the House and try to solve this problem and get an agreement.

It started with just a few who were willing to stand up to their leadership, but I think we all should know that chorus is getting louder. Senator Moran, for example, said yesterday: ``I too hope we can have a budget conference because the process needs to work.''

I am sure Senator Moran would agree with me that getting a bipartisan deal is not going to be easy. We know that. We know it is going to be difficult. But we all know it won't be easy unless we get to work now, rather than risking our economic recovery and hurting our families and communities by manufacturing a crisis this fall.

I am hopeful the bipartisan spirit we have seen this week will carry over into this budget debate, and that rather than listening to a few, Republicans will listen to the Republican Members who prefer a bipartisan, commonsense approach over brinkmanship and chaos.

We still have an opportunity to govern the way the American people rightly expect us to and to come together and try and reach an agreement. I am ready to sit down and go to work with the conservative House majority to try and solve the problem that all of us have come to Congress saying we want to work on, and that is a budget agreement.

A budget agreement means certainty for our constituents. It means the ability, no matter how tough the choices for us--and none of us are going to love any of them--to be able to give them certainty so they know how to move forward.

Mr. President, as if in legislative session, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the consideration of Calendar No. 33, H. Con. Res. 25; that the amendment which is at the desk, the text of S. Con. Res. 8, the budget resolution passed by the Senate, be inserted in lieu thereof; that H. Con. Res. 25, as amended, be agreed to; the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table; that the Senate insist on its amendment, request a conference with the House on the disagreeing votes of the two Houses, and the Chair be authorized to appoint conferees on the part of the Senate; that following the authorization, two motions to instruct conferees be in order from each side--a motion to instruct relative to the debt limit and a motion to instruct relative to taxes and revenue; that there be 2 hours of debate equally divided between the two leaders or their designees prior to the votes in relation to the motions; further, that no amendments be in order to either of the motions prior to the votes; and all of the above occurring with no intervening action or debate.

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