Nomination of Elizabeth A. Wolford to be United States District Judge for the District of New York

Floor Speech

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Mrs. FISCHER. Madam President, I rise to discuss the nomination of Elizabeth Wolford to be U.S. district judge for the District of New York.

I am new here. I am just completing my first year in the Senate. But I believe this nomination gives us all an opportunity to discuss how government is or is not working in Washington, DC.

I know when I travel the State of Nebraska--and I am back in the State most weekends and put on hundreds of miles; we are a big State, but as I travel the State of Nebraska, people always ask me: How are things going in Washington? How are you doing in Washington? I can't help but compare what we do in Nebraska to what we are doing now in Washington, DC, because in Nebraska we have a pretty unique system. We are unicameral, we have one house, we are nonpartisan, and we get things done.

We have an agenda set up every day in the Nebraska legislature, and we follow that agenda. We have bills listed. We go through those bills, and, most importantly, we take votes. As a State senator in the State of Nebraska, I have an opportunity to rise and debate with my colleagues on the issues before us. I have the opportunity to sit at my desk in the chamber in the Nebraska capitol and write out an amendment, take it up to the desk, have it discussed, and then have it voted upon.

I believe the Nebraska way is a good example for what we could do here in Washington because we have so many important issues before us that are not being debated. I am speaking basically to an empty Chamber right now. We aren't debating the big issues before this country. We are not acting upon the big issues that are before this country. We certainly are not voting on those issues.

We have a system in the Senate where amendments are not accepted. That whole concept is very foreign to me, because, as I said, in Nebraska we are able to file amendments and we are able to have those amendments voted upon. We also respect the rights of the minority, for although we may be officially nonpartisan, we do belong to political parties. We have a right to express our views on an issue, to represent our constituents, and to express their concerns. Those rights are respected, they are valued, and they are upheld.

I can tell my colleagues I had bills that were filibustered in the State, and those filibusters would last, in one case, 16 hours. But in the end, after those views of the minority were expressed, we took a vote on the issue. In Nebraska, we take up those issues. We defend the rights of our constituents to be heard, and that is what this body should do as well. We should honor the rights of all of our constituents and have their views be heard.

Being from Nebraska, we don't have as many people as some of the other States.

But within this body, every Senator is equal. Every citizen has equal representation. That is a principle, and that is a value that must be respected.

I am sorry to say I believe we are at a point where that principle, that value is no longer respected within the U.S. Senate.

I see my colleague from Nebraska is in the Chamber, Madam President. I ask unanimous consent that the Senator from Nebraska and I be able to enter into a colloquy.

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Mrs. FISCHER. Madam President, I am so very fortunate to have Senator Johanns as the senior Senator from Nebraska. He has a wealth of experience as a former Governor, as a former Secretary of Agriculture, and as a U.S. Senator. So he has definitely been a mentor to me. I believe, perhaps, Nebraska can mentor the Senate through the trying times we are facing right now.

As Senator Johanns said, we are nonpartisan. We do not caucus. We do not have majority or minority leaders because we are nonpartisan. So we do not have that leadership structure in our State that we have here in the Senate.

In the State of Nebraska, if you want to be part of leadership, you stand on the first day of a legislative session, and you have to nominate yourself and run for that position. So you would nominate yourself for speaker and then we do a secret ballot. It is 25 votes, and you would be speaker because there are only 49 of us. Then we go through the committees, and we have 14 standing committees. So as chair of the transportation and telecommunications committee, I had to stand on the floor of the legislature and nominate myself, which is hard to do, but you nominate yourself, and then your colleagues, your peers, decide who the chairman will be.

We had Republicans and Democrats who were committee chairs. In fact, this past year in the legislature, even though officially there is a majority of Republicans, many of our chairmen--in fact, I think it was the majority--were Democrats because you are rewarded for the hard work you do, for your integrity, for your honesty, for being willing to listen to all sides and work with everyone to reach consensus.

So it is a unique system, it works for our State, and it is that ability to work with each other to try and build those coalitions so you can get your 25 votes on an issue, on a bill that you have, that makes us so very special with regard to other States and also with regard to the U.S. Senate, because we do work together.

The coalitions change. The coalitions change depending on the issue. You can find allies all across the spectrum--from more liberal members to more conservative members. If you have a good idea that is going to benefit the people of the State, your peers are willing to come forward and work with you.

I know Senator Johanns as Governor had to draw up budgets and send those budgets, then, to the legislature and have our appropriations committee go through that process dealing with his agency heads. Then the appropriations committee would bring that package to the floor. Here again, we would debate it. I do not know if the legislature always agreed with Senator Johanns during his time as Governor, but perhaps he could give us some insight into how we came together on budgets and were able to work through that as well.

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Mrs. FISCHER. Madam President, the people of Nebraska would never stand for that to happen in our State. As I said, we are very proud of our unicameral system and how we are able to work together. Of course, we know who is a Republican and who is a Democrat in the Nebraska legislature. But as I said, we are able to cross that aisle, which does not exist in Nebraska, by the way. We do not sit separate from each other. We are able to reach out and work together. We have this system that is so open and so transparent. We work with the Governor--or perhaps in Senator Johanns' case not work with the Governor--on the issues. But we are able to have that dialog with our chief executive. We are able to have that dialog with each other.

We have a committee process where every bill that is introduced has a public hearing. Any person can walk into the hearing room and come forward and testify before a legislative committee in the State of Nebraska. Senators then have the opportunity to ask questions to be able to gain more information, not just from people who are invited to come and sit on a panel before a legislative hearing but from citizens who step forward and are willing to take that time away from their jobs, their families. Some may have to travel a great distance since we are a very big State in order to get to the capital to be at a hearing and express their views. I believe in most cases--at least in my experience--every individual who would come before a legislative hearing in the State of Nebraska was treated with respect, whether they agreed with a majority of the members on the committee or they had a disagreement.

It is a respect for those views that are different from your own that I believe is so very valuable as a legislator, to be able to hear, to be able to question.

That is why it truly saddens me that we are seeing a rules change here in the Senate, where I believe the views of the minority will no longer be considered.

It has been my experience here so far that I have been able to have meetings with nominees, nominees who are coming before the committees that I sit on to be confirmed. They come to my office. I am able to ask them questions. I am able to express to them the concerns I have heard from the people in my State and hopefully get answers from them. It does give us an opportunity to establish a relationship where we are going to be able to work together in the future but, more importantly, it gives me the opportunity, as the Senator from Nebraska who happens to be in the minority, to have that chance to question the nominee for Commerce Secretary. With the rules change, now that requires 51 votes, and even as a committee member, those nominees do not even have to come and introduce themselves to me.

That is not fair. It is not fair to the people of my State because every State citizen needs to be represented here in the Senate. That is what is so very--or what used to be so very special about this body.

You look through history--I know Senator Johanns is a great student of history--you look through history and you read about the debates that happened on the Senate floor. I remember earlier this year when we were all in the Old Senate Chamber and we got to experience that feeling of being open and honest with our colleagues, without the cameras going, and truly being able to air some grievances. I thought that was helpful. It was a very moving experience for me as a new Senator to be there. But I think perhaps the Senator would agree with me that we have lost that spirit of the Old Senate Chamber and of the Senate Chamber in which we are standing.

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Mrs. FISCHER. In watching the Senate before I arrived and in studying the Senate throughout history, the beauty of this body has been the individual rights of every single Senator.

With the change we have seen, I believe those rights are diminished, which translates into the people who live in States that are represented by the minority will not be heard in this body.

I have been surprised, I have been shocked, and I have been hurt by comments from the majority, where I am referred to as an obstructionist, where my colleagues on this side of the aisle are referred to as extremists, anarchists.

I don't even know how to respond to the question of the Senator because nothing could be further from the truth. How I view this body is as one that should have an agenda. We should have Members on the floor participating in debates on bills following an agenda and taking votes, but we don't see that.

Instead, we see the two of us and our friend and colleague, the Presiding Officer, speaking to an empty Chamber, speaking to the TV cameras. That is not the way the Senate is supposed to operate. We are supposed to be doing the people's work.

I say to the Senator I don't know what we are obstructing, because as a member of the Armed Services Committee, we passed the National Defense Authorization Act out of committee in May. We passed that out of committee in May. We could have taken it up in June. We could have taken it up in July, September, and October. Instead, we seem to be in this crisis management mode in one of the greatest bodies in the world. That makes no sense.

I am ready to do the work, but until these bills appear on the agenda, how do we do the work? Why do we wait until we have a few days left in the year to take on what I believe is our most sacred responsibility, the defense of this country, our national security, our military men and women, our veterans.

The committee passed out a great bill in a bipartisan vote. It has passed in the Senate for the past 50 or 51 years. Yet we are against a time limit that was manufactured.

As I said, the bill came out in May. Why wasn't it on the agenda? Why can't we have amendments to it--very important amendments.

I happen to have a good amendment with Senator Claire McCaskill, a Democrat from Missouri, and Senator Kelly Ayotte, a Republican from New Hampshire, that we believe makes the provisions in our committee bill dealing with sexual assault even better, even stronger, that will protect victims. We are not allowed to have that amendment.

Again, that is a foreign concept to me, as a Senator, not being allowed to have an amendment on a bill that should have been brought up on the floor months ago so we could have had a debate on this truly No. 1 priority of our country. Instead we have crisis management.

I don't know about the Senator from Nebraska, but I don't respond well to crisis management. I like to have time to make wise decisions, to have major discussions, to gather information, to represent our constituents, to represent the American people.

The American people demand more. They demand us to be better. I can't even imagine what folks think when they know we are speaking to an empty Chamber, when we should be talking about the big issues of the day, when we should be talking about the National Defense Authorization Act, when we should be talking about sexual assault in the military, when we should be talking about how are we going to make sure our military men and women have the resources they need to keep them safe so they can return to their families and return to their families whole.

We should be talking about Iran. We should be talking about Benghazi, but we are not because we are not allowed to have that legislation before us.

As a new Senator, I can tell the Senator I am very frustrated. I know when the Senator is back in the State he hears, as I do, that the people of Nebraska are frustrated as well. I believe they reflect the views of the people of this country. They expect more from us. They expect us to be better. They expect us to do our job.

How can we do our job when we are not allowed to vote on legislation that addresses the truly pressing issues of our day?

I say to my colleagues on the other side of the aisle, yes, I am frustrated. I am upset. I am angry that I am not able to represent the people of my State by taking a vote, by taking a vote on amendments that all Senators feel are important as well. It is not only Republicans offering amendments that don't get heard, it is Democrats as well.

I would imagine the Presiding Officer is very frustrated. This has to change. I don't know how long it has been going on, but we can change this. We can change this by having an agenda that works, an agenda that brings bills up by a leader who is going to have an open amendment process.

Instead of us coming to the floor and addressing a camera, we need to be able to debate each other and have our voices heard because we are representing those voices back home. They expect that.

We need to do this. Maybe I am naive, but I think we can do it. I think we can still come together and be able to work together. Sometimes we hear the terms ``obstructionist,'' ``extremist,'' and ``anarchist.'' Enough of that.

It is not only Republicans who are demanding their rights and who are exercising their rights. I know we have Democratic colleagues who have put holds on nominations. They are not obstructionist. They are not extremist. They are exercising their rights as Members of the Senate. They are exercising their rights to have questions from their constituents answered.

I will defend their rights to put holds on nominations until they get those questions answered.

We don't always hear about that though. We don't hear that it is all of us in the Senate who have that duty to make sure we can have our constituents' concerns answered; so we can have a project in our State that is being held up for one reason or another addressed; so we can bring forward a question--from our Governor or our State or our State legislature--that an agency has not addressed in a timely manner, and where we as Senators can push a little harder to get an answer from a nominee or an agency. That is checks and balances. That is a balanced government. That is transparency. That is accountability.

It is not allowing the executive branch to get everything they want. None of us gets everything we want.

Senator Johanns made the comment that as Governor it is give and take. As a State senator I can tell you I had to compromise on bills that I thought were great the way I had them drafted, but you need to compromise with your colleagues, with the Governor, and with the President, in order to truly represent all the people in this country.

I am sorry to say this country is polarized. This country is polarized and
the Senate is polarized. If we could show some leadership here--if we can take on these hard issues, make tough decisions, and make hard choices--then we would be good examples to our country and we would have a brighter future. We need to show some leadership. We were elected to make these hard choices for the American people so that we can go forward.

With that, Mr. President, I yield the floor so that my colleague has time to address issues before us.

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