Filing Cloture

Floor Speech

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Mr. GRASSLEY. Madam President, the majority leader, the Senator from Nevada, came to the floor last night to take exception to my criticisms of how the Senate operates these days.

I have criticized the actions of the current majority leadership, of which he is the head.

However, I would like to point out that I have tried to avoid singling him out personally because it is not my intention to engage in personal attacks or name calling.

Still, the fact that he takes my criticisms of the Senate's dysfunction so personally should tell us something.

Yesterday, I criticized the abuse of same-day cloture motions.

In response, Senator Reid said, ``He claims that I file too many cloture motions.''

Well, it often is the majority leader who files the cloture motions, but sometimes it is other members of the majority leadership, and on rare occasions, other Senators.

The fact is, this majority leader has instigated more of the cloture motions than any leader in recent times.

Senator Frist filed about 72 percent of all cloture motions when he was Majority Leader, Senator Daschle filed about 32 percent during his leadership, Senator Lott about 69 percent, and Senator Dole about 50 percent.

Senator Reid has personally filed 94 percent of all the cloture motions since he became majority leader.

And, that is 94 percent of a much bigger number since cloture filings have more than doubled under this majority leadership.

So if the Senator from Nevada takes my criticism of cloture abuse personally, perhaps there is a reason he does.

He also blames Republicans for the fact that he has abused the cloture process, just as I predicted in my speech, which struck such a nerve.

However, I want to be absolutely clear that my criticisms were focused on same-day cloture filings related to legislative business.

In other words, I was specifically criticizing the practice of moving to end consideration of a legislative matter that is subject to amendment before there has been an opportunity for any debate or amendments.

The majority leader went off on a tangent complaining about how many nominees are waiting for confirmation. I don't need to remind anybody that the ability of the minority party to block nominees was eliminated using the nuclear option. Besides, the focus of my speech was on the legislative process.

We can argue about how much debate is too much and how many amendments are too many. But no one can claim that same-day cloture motions were in response to Republican obstruction when there hasn't been any deliberation whatsoever before they are filed.

The majority leader can criticize me and stoop to petty name-calling, but the data I cited was from the non-partisan Congressional Research Service.

This data on same-day cloture speaks for itself. His excuse, ``The Republicans made me do it'' won't fly. In fact, Senator Reid has been caught before trying to blame Republicans for his cloture motions.

The Washington Post Fact Checker gave him two Pinocchios for his claim that Republicans were to blame for a record number of cloture motions.

He tried to claim that every cloture motion represented a Republican filibuster. However, the source he cited was a report by the Congressional Research Service containing a long section under the heading ``Cloture Motions Do Not Correspond With Filibusters.''

That heading pretty much says it all, but it contains about a page and a half of explanation as to why it is erroneous to claim that all cloture motions are in response to filibusters.

Certainly, cloture motions which are filed before there has been one word of debate cannot possibly be in response to a filibuster. Those are the cloture motions my criticism was directed at yesterday.

This is also the problem addressed by the Stop Cloture Abuse Resolution which I introduced yesterday with 25 of my colleagues.

The majority leader did not even attempt to defend the practice of same-day cloture, and understandably so. There is no justification for it.

The majority leader's refusal to acknowledge such a blatant problem, much less put a stop to it, just confirms the need for the Stop Cloture Abuse Resolution.

I should add that the deliberative process can work if it is allowed to, and the bill we have been debating yesterday and today is evidence of that.

It isn't just Republicans who would prefer to go back to the way we did things when the Senate functioned as a deliberative body as it was designed to.

The manager of S. 1086, Senator Mikulski, said earlier today, ``This is one of the first times in a couple of years where we have had an open amendment process, and in some ways we're getting adjusted to how that actually works. This is terrific.''

So even prominent Members of the majority party acknowledge an open amendment process is the way things should work. I have offered a constructive idea along with 25 colleagues to make that the norm again.

Instead of criticizing me, the majority leader should join me and become part of the solution instead of part of the problem.

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