Hire More Heroes Act of 2014-Motion to Proceed

Floor Speech

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Mr. WICKER. Madam President, I sorrowfully rise this morning to take note of the sad state to which this great deliberative body has fallen, and I do so reluctantly because I must specifically criticize the majority leader of the U.S. Senate for bringing this body to what many historians observe is a new low in terms of our ability to move legislation and our ability to have open debate and open amendments in the Senate.

We see what has become a new normal in the Senate. Earlier this week a bipartisan and popular piece of legislation on energy efficiency was derailed by the majority leader's resistance to the open amendment process. Certainly, it is not only members of my party, it is not only persons on my side of the aisle who have concluded this. There was a very scathing opinion piece on the editorial page of the Wall Street Journal this morning entitled ``Harry Reid's Senate Blockade.''

I ask unanimous consent to have this opinion piece printed in the Record.

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Mr. WICKER. I will quote at length from the Wall Street Journal this morning, because in mentioning this popular piece of legislation, the editorial gets right to the point. It says:

..... the reason [the bill failed this week] tells the real story of Washington gridlock in the current Congress. To wit, Harry Reid has essentially shut down the Senate as a place to debate and vote on policy.

I absolutely agree. Additionally, the editorial says:

The Majority Leader's strategy was once again on display as the Senate failed to get the 60 votes to move the popular energy efficiency bill co-sponsored by New Hampshire Democrat Jeanne Shaheen and Ohio Republican Rob Portman. Mr. Reid blamed it on Republican partisanship. But the impasse really came down to Mr. Reid's blockade against amendments that might prove politically difficult for Democrats.

Once again, the majority leader has made it clear he doesn't intend to let the Senate work its will on amendments. Instead, the new normal is that the majority leader comes to the floor and says: If the bill is worded as I think it should be, if we can come to an agreement with how it should be written, I will bring it to the floor and we can vote it up or down. But this idea of amendments, that is unacceptable to the majority leader, and it is a complete departure from the way this Senate has operated for decades and decades on important pieces of legislation.

I would point out that in the Civil Rights Act of 1964, one of the major accomplishments of the Congress in the 20th century, there were 115 amendments called up during its consideration. The leadership didn't know how those votes would turn out. They had probably done a whip count and they had a decent idea, but the idea was the Senate was going to be allowed to vote up or down with the light shining on the process and the American people seeing how their elected Senators felt on that issue.

There were 115 amendments called up during the consideration of the Civil Rights Act in 1964. The Panama Canal Treaty of 1978 was another major piece of deliberative work that was done by the Senate. There was a total of 89 amendments offered to the Panama Canal Treaty. Those amendments were called up and debated in the clear light of day. Votes were held and the American people found out how their elected representatives in the Senate felt about those amendments. This week and for the last 52 weeks that has not been the case with the majority leader currently in power in the Senate.

The Wall Street Journal goes on to say that the majority leader

..... used parliamentary tricks to block energy-related amendments to an energy bill. This blockade is now standard procedure as he's refused to allow a vote on all but nine GOP amendments since last July. Mr. Reid is worried that some of these amendments might pass with support from Democrats, thus embarrassing a White House that opposes them.

I wish to point out that during the time when Republicans--in this supposedly greatest deliberative body in the world--have been given nine amendments over the last year, Republicans, which hold the majority in the House of Representatives, have given their Democratic colleagues 125 minority votes. This is in a House which routinely shuts down debate, has a rules committee, and historically limits the number of amendments and the number of votes. Minority Members in the House have had 125 votes during that same time period. This Senate has allowed minority Members nine votes during that same period of time, and that is an outrage, which the Wall Street Journal continues to point out.

The editorial goes on to say:

In the case of Portman-Shaheen, Republicans had prepared amendments to speed up exports of liquefied natural gas; to object to a new national carbon tax; to rein in the Environmental Protection Agency's war on coal plants; and to authorize the Keystone XL Pipeline.

I believe these amendments were good amendments. I would have voted for them. The case could be made on the other side of the aisle that they were bad policy. But make the case. Let elected Senators from North Dakota, Mississippi, and all across the United States of America be heard and vote the wishes of their particular constituencies on these issues. Instead, the majority shut down these amendments.

The editorial goes on to say:

Yet the White House and Mr. Reid's dominant liberal wing won't take the chance that a bipartisan coalition might pass these amendments, most of which the House has passed or soon would. President Obama would thus face a veto decision that would expose internal Democratic divisions. So Mr. Reid shut down the amendment process.

As I said, he has shut down the amendment process in every case except for nine lonely votes.

The editorial goes on to say:

It's important to understand how much Mr. Reid's tactics have changed the Senate. Not too long ago it was understood that any Senator could get a floor vote if he wanted it. The minority party, often Democrats, used this right of amendment to sponsor votes that would sometimes put the majority on the spot. It's called politics, rightly understood. This meant the Senate debated national priorities and worked its bipartisan will. Harry Reid's Senate has become a deliberate obstacle to democratic accountability.

And sadly so, I might add.

This Harry Reid gag rule is new to the Senate. We have had a number of distinguished majority leaders whose names will go down in history as the giants and statesmen of our time, and they did not resort to this gag rule. This is largely a Harry Reid invention.

I will give the facts. Mr. Reid has used the gag rule to fill the amendment tree--which is a parliamentary term. He has used his gag rule to cut off amendments 85 times, more than twice the number of the previous six leaders combined, and these were Democrats and Republicans.

Senator Dole invoked the procedural tactic only seven times. Senator Robert Byrd, a giant, a historian, and an expert in the use of Senate rules, invoked it only three times. Senator Mitchell of Maine invoked it 3 times; Senator Lott, 11 times; Senator Daschle, 1 time; and Senator Frist, 15 times. Yet time after time--some 85 times--this majority leader has decided that the Senate doesn't have a right--that the people of Mississippi and the people of North Dakota don't have a right--for their Senators to come up and offer an idea and let it rise or fall based on whether it is good policy or not. This is an outrage that the people of the United States need to understand.

It seems past majority leaders, when entrusted with protecting this institution, recognized that the gag rule should be used sparingly. Its current abuse undermines the Senate's ability to address pressing national issues and to carry on the tradition of debate that has always defined this body. That really cannot be denied.

Senator Robert Byrd, who I alluded to earlier, called the Senate ``the last bastion of minority rights.'' That was true during Democratic majorities when Senator Byrd was the majority leader. Sadly, it is not the case any longer.

The Wall Street Journal editorial--I would commend it to the attention of anyone within the sound of my voice--concludes this:

The lesson for voters is simple: If they want anything meaningful done in the last two years of the Obama Administration, they will have to elect a Republican Senate.

Those are the words of the Wall Street Journal and not my words.

What has become of the Senate under this Harry Reid gag rule is unconscionable. It should be reversed and Senators of both parties should stand in resistance to the idea that we cannot offer amendments and have them debated as they have always been debated in the Senate.

I yield the floor.

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