we were able to get that done just now. so i appreciate very much their always very thoughtful -- thoughtfulness. and so easy to work with. mr. president, our ability to debate and to deliberate without the restraints of time limits is central and unique to the united states senate. it's supposed to be that way. it's in our d.n.a. it's one of the many traits intentionally designed to distinguish this body from the house of representatives. and from every other legislative body in the world. it's always been central to the senate and it should be. but when that arrangement is abused, we have to do something. not merely in the name of efficiency, for the sake of political parties' fortune in the next election. we have to act because when abuses keep us from doing our work, they deter us from working together and they stop us from working for the american people. and within these four walls it

degrades the relationship that make the senate run. what's special about the senate is this body operates by consensus. it runs on a fuel made of comity and trust. when abuses happen or when colleagues act in bad faith, it dilutes and degrades that fuel and the senate stalls. there are nearly as many opinions on what to do about the senate as there are senators. senators harkin, udall of new mexico and merkley have listened to many ideas and worked to find solutions. i thank them for their time, efforts and energy. so have senators schumer and alexander. no one has worked harder than they have to find a way out of this crisis, and i admire and appreciate their efforts. leader mcconnell and i have worked alongside all of them and with each other to find common ground. in the spirit of compromise, we're trying to restore to the senate, this is how we have

agreed as to secret holds: first, we have to get rid of secret holds. last year a single senator held up for more than -- i'm sorry, mr. president -- held up 70 nominations. why? some parochial issue in his state that had nothing to do what we were trying to do here. the standoff finally ended but only after it became public. what he did was within his right but it wasn't the right thing to do, and the rule has to be changed. senators will no longer be able to hide and the light of day will shine harder on the senate as a body. i thank senators wyden, grassley and mccaskill for their leadership on this subject. about nominations, mr. president, we have to recognize public servants are not political pawns. an appointment by a president to a federal agency is a great honor and in recent years has

become a sentence to purgatory. the senate no longer performs its duties to confirm nominees. the senate is responsible for confirming about 300 nominees to part-time boards and commissions. every one of these boards and commissions require the approval of the senate. because of that, the vetting process for these boards and commissions take an inordinate amount of time. they spend as much time as the f.b.i. does and other people do on the background checks on these part-time jobs than they do somebody who is going to become an assistant secretary or a judge. it just eats up time that's unnecessary. there is no reason for senators to keep them from their posts, but that's exactly what happens. and it's not always the fault of the senators. we have to get rid of as many as

of these nominations as we can. that's what the rules committee leadership has recommended. senator schumer, the chairman; senator alexander, the ranking member, have come up with something i think is so very important. they are going to help us get rid of about a third of these nominations. not only these to part-time boards and commissions, but others. this will be -- the process needs to be changed. we'll work to cut by about a third the number of executive nominations that require senate approval. senators schumer and alexander, as i've indicated, are the leaders on this as far as what we've done to this point. but this legislation will be turned over and they'll be working with senators lieberman and collins who are the committee of jurisdiction at this stage to develop legislation that will do what i've outlined. third, we can't afford to waste time for the sake of wasting time. one of the minorities' favorite

tactics has been to force or threaten to force the clerks to read amendments. now, madam president, you'll note here i said one of the minority's favorite tactics has been to force or threaten to force the clerks to read amendments. i didn't say one of the republicans' favorite tactics has been to force or threaten to force the clerks to read amendments. we've all threatened to do it, and it's wrong and it's got to stop. that's what we're going to do here later today. this is nothing short of show manship to have these amendments read. in this day and age almost always totally unnecessary. the 18th and 19th centuries in the united states senate, senators' offices were this desk. that's all they had. they didn't have offices like we have. their offices were right here on the senate floor. so hearing the clerk read aloud a bill probably was more essential then -- that's an understatement -- because it was part of the debate. today that is no longer the

case. during the health reform debate two decembers ago while snow covered washington, opponents of the bill worked hard to delay its inevitable passage. on a saturday toward the end of the debate the minority forced the nonpartisan senate clerks to read the entirety of an important amendment to the bill. the reading started just before 8:00 a.m. and lasted until just before 4:00 p.m. in the afternoon. seven hours of time during which nobody listened to the reading of the bill. everyone had already studied it. it had been filed a long time before. and it was after each senator already decided how he or she would vote anyway. we don't have time for these kind of gratuitous delays. so the third change we'll make is this: if an amendment has already been filed, the senator cannot force its reading. finally, as to what we call

around here in inside politics, motions to proceed and filling the tree. let me talk a little bit about these two items. ivan concerned my expressed concerns about the procedural rule of forcing a vote simply to determine whether we can have a second vote to determine whether we can debate a bill, the vote called cloture on the motion to proceed. it is another one of the most commonly used tactics deployed to from us progress and waste time. last year most all of them were bills that weren't controversial. we had to hold a vote on whether to hold a vote and whether to debate a bill to promote tourism coming to our country. it's called the travel promotion act. after wasting days of precious time, it passed 90-3. we had to jump through the same hoops before we could vote on extending emergency unemployment benefits which passed by 87 votes. and before we could vote on letting the f.d.a. regulate tobacco which passed with 84

votes. and before we could vote on updating our food safety laws for the first time in a century which passed with 75% of the senate. democrats are bothered by how often republicans forced procedural votes like those on cloture on the motion to proceed. i know republicans are equally frustrated with me for filling the amendment tree on occasion. and their argument is -- and they're right -- it prevents amendments from being offered. so this agreement leader mcconnell and i have reached is going to clean up a lot of this. just as i will exercise restraint, he and his republican conference will cull tail their has been -- curtail their habit of filibustering the motion to proceed. this should be the exception rather than the rule. senator mcconnell and i have prepared a colloquy reflecting

an agreement on these provisions. i ask consent it be entered in the record as if read live. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. reid: let me conclude, madam president, again expressing my appreciation to those parties who have been so heavily involved in this -- udall, merkley, harkin, of course my friend from tennessee lamar alexander, chuck schumer, but especially i want to express my appreciation to the republican leader. as we have said on this floor lots of times, most all the american public sees us doing is fighting. we're here arguing on behalf of a senator on our side or a problem we have on our side. but much of the work done in this body is done with senator mcconnell and i in my office or his office trying to work through some of these problems. they take a lot of time and they take our patience and the patience of the entire senate. that's why i started here with

my remarks this morning telling everyone i appreciate their understanding that we're trying to work things out. we've been working on this for a long, long time. these changes are important, and i really appreciate my friend, the republican leader, for his attitude in all this, recognizing that we have to make some progress here. the changes we'll agree to today are ending secret holds, reducing about one-third the number of executive nominations that are subject to senate delays. third, ending the time-consuming practice of reading aloud amendments that have been publicly available for three days. fourth, limiting the use of filibusters and motions to proceed. fifth, filling the amendment tree only when necessary. i know some want us to go even further. there are just as many arguments for not going so far. but remember this, we're making these changes in the name of compromise. and this agreement itself is constructed with the same respect for mutual concession. senator mcconnell and i both believe our reverence for this

institution must always be more important than our respective political parties. as part of this compromise, we've agreed that i won't force a majority vote to fundamentally change the senate. that is the so-called constitutional option. and he won't in the future. the five reforms we're making, however, are very, very significant. they'll move us five steps closer to a healthier senate. in the minds of many, not far enough. in the minds of some, too far. but that's what the senate's all about. it's about compromise, consensus building. yes, we want the senate to move deliberately, but we want it to move; we have to find a balance that will encourage us to debate and that also enables to us legislate. we're governed by a delicate mix of rules, rights and responsibilities in this body. to that mix, we need to add respect. the senate should function as the founders intended it to function and as the country needs it to function, not simply

as slow as the rules will allow it to function. thank you, madam president. mr. mcconnell: madam president? the presiding officer: the republican leader. mr. mcconnell: the colloquy which the majority leader and i are working on at the moment will reflect the entirety of our understanding. but with regard to comments about how we got to this place, let me just say first to my good friend from nevada, on several occasions i heard both him and the president of the united states talk about how much was accomplished in the last congress. so i'm often perplexed as to which was the case. either an extraordinary amount of legislation was passed and signed or the senate was obstructing. one or the other -- they couldn't both be true. i suspect that the real view that most historians will have is that the last congress passed a great deal of very significant legislation, and then we had a

referendum on that november 2, and the american people changed the equation. but without getting back into that or a litany of complaints by the minority, the senate has heard them before, the principal complaint the minority has had overt past few years, the number of times the tree has been filled up and we've been unable to offer amendments. we're all aware of our grievances on both sides. but as is often the case in the senate, we've worked together through senator alexander and senator schumer to come to an agreement as to how the senate will go forward and the procedures that will be employed, and we'll have votes later consistent with the precedents of the senate at the thresholds that are required under senate rules. and then we will move on with the people's business. and i'm optimistic that my good

friend, the majority leader and i can convince our colleagues that we ought to get back to operating the senate did as recently as three or four years ago when bills came up and they were open for amendment, and we voted on amendments, and at some point the bill would be completed. i know we can do that. i think it's the right way for the senate to operate. i want to thank my friend, the majority leader, for his leadership and working through this difficult period of rules consideration. and i would say to my colleagues again in closing that the colloquy which we will insert in the record will reflect the entirety of our understanding as to how we go forward, and then we'll have the votes later which will give the senate a chance to go on record about some changes that have been agreed to and some that are being proposed that are not agreed to. madam president, i yield the floor. mr. schumer: madam president?

the presiding officer: the senator from new york. mr. schumer: first let me thank both our leader, harry reid, and our minority leader, mitch mcconnell, for their leadership and guidance, their working out together -- and that's a good metaphor -- for what has happened here today. i want to thank my colleague lamar alexander as well, who under the two leaders' authorization, we talked and of course in constant touch with them, worked out this agreement. so, i rise to speak in support of the bipartisan agreement on senate rules reform. it's an important step forward in changing the way we do business here in the senate. last year the rules committee held six hearings on the filibuster. they talked about the history of the filibuster and what had happened and how it had gone out of control. those hearings were requested actually by a member of the rules committee, tom udall, the

senator from new mexico, and it's why we embarked on the hearings. i very much appreciate his sthaugs we do that. -- his suggestion we do that. at the hearings democrats brought up that the majority was no longer able to move forward to consider bills by filibusters on motions to proceed. republicans argued they were too often blocked from offering amendments by the majority filling the tree. both sides had legitimate complaints. what couldn't be disputed that was in many ways the senate was broken. it had become harder and harder for the body to consider debate and decide legislation and nominations it was supposed to take care of. it is true, as senator mcconnell said, we had a very productive session, but that didn't gainsay the fact that there were 74 filibusters that many issues that should have been decided weren't decided and that the senate seemed to many to not be functioning in the way it used to where debate was

stifled by both the majority and the minority. and so when we -- so we resolved things. when i first came to the senate 12 years ago, a senior senator pulled me aside and said, the role of the majority is to set the agenda. they put bills on the floor and they're debated. and the role of the minority is to offer amendments to change them. we're not doing that much anymore. what usually happens is we offer a bill and the minority says, we don't want it. now, they say we don't want it because we've refused to allow unlimited amendments. we think they don't want it because they may just want to gum up the senate. but whatever the reason, both sides have legitimate complaints here and we're trying to resolve some of those. so, clearly, the time for change has come. i believe the reforms we're adopting today give us a very good chance to go back to the way of operating where we have

real debate on bills and amendments and votes on bills and amendments. it won't happen overnight and both sides will still use the procedural tools available to them on the most important issues, but we hope it will work well enough and get us back on track. leaders reid and mcconnell in the colloquy that they would put forward that senator alexander and i participated in framing will do two things in addition to the changes that we will make. one, each will say that we should use the most to proceed to block bills from coming to the floor infrequently. and the majority will say we should use filling the tree to block amendments that might come forward on those bills infrequently. obviously we're going to have to watch how this works over the

next several months. and obviously there will be times when each side decides they need to use the right the senate gives them to block things. but the presumption will be that in the usual course of business, we will not do that, that they will be the exception, not the rule. a second thing that will be stated by both leaders is whoever's in the majority next congress will not try to change the rules by simple majority. this congress or next. some on our side were worried that if we didn't try to invoke the constitutional option, should the other side get the majority -- i don't personally think we have to worry about that, or that it will happen anyway -- but should that happen, then they might invoke it and do something else. so why not do it now? well, both leaders have agreed that they will not do that. and without the leader's support, it's virtually impossible for it to get done. so that's a significant change

that when the come way is printed in the record we will see both leaders have agreed to. and i want to thank them for providing strong leadership and guidance throughout this process. i became vinceed, working with my good friend, the senator from tennessee, and having conversations, plenty with my friend and leader, harry reid, and a few with senator mcconnell, that everybody wanted to come to an agreement here. everyone wanted to see the senate work better. and that made me feel pretty good that -- of what we did here. second, i want to recognize the many senators from my party that worked tirelessly to create the momentum for change. and at the top of the list, of course, are tom udall, jeff merkley, and tom harkin. they worked very hard on these issues. they -- two of them are new in the senate, freshmen, one who has much more experience than i do in the senate, senator harkin, worked really hard to see that we changed the rules.

and while the changes aren't everything they would have liked or i would have liked, certainly the changes we're getting -- not insignificant at all -- are because tom udall started pushing this idea when he got here to the senate -- i think his predecessor, clinton anderson, had done some of this -- and jeff merkley and tom harkin joined in the cause early on and brought us to -- brought us actually to the point where the inertia of not doing anything would bring us together and get something done. there were other senators who played a very important role. senator lautenberg and his proposals. michael bennet, mark udall, al franken all had proposals and all played a very significant role here and can feel very good about the changes we have brought. and i particularly want to thank senator globe cher for --

klobuchar for leader the working group of senators who spent hours reviewing and refining. without all of them, i don't think the agreement would have been possible. now, i'd make one other point, and this is a disappointment to me and i'll just make it myself. one idea championed by the reform-minded senators that i thought made imminent -- eminent sense is the talking filibuster. it didn't challenge the balance in the senate. it simply said that if you were going to filibuster, you had to stay on the floor and talk, you couldn't just there be and object. the american public understands that when a senator wants to filibuster a bill, that senator should be required to stand up and talk on the senate floor. i strongly support the talking filibuster. we sometimes call it the jimmy stewart talking filibuster because everyone knows the mov movie. and i believe that it would pull back the curtain on the kind of filibusters we have now. we wouldn't change the rule of 60 but the filibustering senator

and his supporters right now don't even have to show up or talk for a vote. this talking filibuster is one change i hope the senate will adopt in the future because it makes good sense and we should do it. i don't believe we should eliminate the filibuster altogether but we need to make it real. the talking filibuster proposals would do that and i hope someday we'll make the talking filibuster part of the senate rules and i will vote for that resolution that will be on the floor later today. of course, it will need two-thirds to pass. finally, i really want to thank senator alexander. he and i have been friends before this but we really worked together throughout the holidays, vacations, recesses and being here, and he was creative, he was flexible, as always, he was genial, and, as usual, he was smart. and his concern for this institution helped bring the minority and majority together, and i very much appreciate senator alexander's role. now, senator reid outlined the other parts of the bipartisan

proposal: the end to secret holds, which will be done by rule; the end of reading of amendments filed for at least 72 hours, also done by rule; and the third proposal to limit the number of nomination, executive nominations. there are so many, about 30% of the total, that we propose to eliminate. he and i and senators lieberman and collins, who have the jurisdiction in their committee, will introduce a bill and we hope to move it quickly. we have gotten the agreement from the house that they will move the bill and we should eliminate confirmation on so many of these positions that really don't require -- shouldn't require confirmation. members of part-time boards and comitiondcommissions, officialso handle legislative or public affairs, things like that. and i want to thank senators lieberman and collins for that. finally, let me say in conclusion, as chairman of the rules committee, i believe

there's more we can do. i want to see our efforts at reform continue. i'd like to continue working on the streamlining of confirmation of nominations, both executive and judicial, and our rules committee will continue to look at that. change doesn't come easy. in conclusion, madam president, change doesn't come often or easily to the senate but we're here because many members worked hard on reform. and both parties continuing with the tradition of bipartisan -- or the feeling of bipartisanship that began in the lame duck and i think has continued trough the state of the union speech is continuing again today. i hope our efforts will make a difference. i hope the senate will function better and i am very hopeful that with these changes, both formal and informal, they will. we know there are still sharp differences within our body on issues and those won't disappe disappear. on certain bills, we will, both sides will use every procedural

tactic. that makes the senate a different body than the house. but hopefully on most rewon't. in conclusion, while those of us who wanted reform in the senate didn't get everything we wanted, the senate will be a significantly better mace for the -- better place for the changes we are enacting. as a result of this agreement, there should be more debate, more votes, fewer items blocked by a single senator or small minority of senators. make no mistake about it, this agreement is not a panacea but it's a very significant step on the road to making the senate function in a better, fairer way. and, again, i thank all of my colleagues who participated in this. mr. alexander: madam president? the presiding officer: the senator from tennessee. mr. alexander: madam president, i would like to thank the senator from new york and the senator from new mexico and oregon and senator harkin of iowa for their efforts, some over many years, to achieve two goals. to help make the senate a place that is better able to deal with

serious business that comes before us and, second, to preserve the senate as a unique form. unique in the world, really, as a legislative body in its protection of minority rights. this is an important step forward. the reform of the senate -- but the reform the senate really needs is a change in behavior, not in its rules. these rules move us in the right direction. the behavior that the senator from new york spoke about and that the majority leader and the minority leader spoke about is what in the end will really make the most difference. i've talked with many senators on both sides of the aisle. we've done a lot of talking, both on the floor here and off the floor, about where the senate is today. and a great many of us feel the senate really is a shadow of itself, a shadow of its former self in terms of its ability to function as a truly deliberative body.

it is hard to see how the majority can complain after a legislation -- after a legislative session where they passed health care legislation and financial reform legislation and other legislation that may have even resulted in a diminishing of their numbers. they had a productive, from their point of view, session. but the truth is on both sides of the aisle -- both sides of the aisle -- we would like to see the senate function in a different way. the majority leader and republican leader have put out in a colloquy what that way is and that will govern what we do, but basically i believe it is this. we want the same thing, a senate where most bills are considered by committee, where most bills come to the floor as a result of bipartisan cooperation, where most bills are then debated and amended and voted upon. for someone who just tuned in to

the united states senate, you'll say well, that's a very simple solution. i thought that's what the senate was supposed to be. it is what the senate is supposed to be, and it wasn't so long ago that it was the standard operating procedure. senator mcconnell said it was just a few years ago -- he and senator reid have both been here a number of years. i remember watching the senat senate -- and i've mentioned this before in this debate -- between 1977 and 1985 when howard baker of tennessee and robert byrd of west virginia were the republican and democratic leaders. i had worked for senator baker before that as a legislative assistant. i knew senator byrd. here's what went on then and here's what could go on today. most pieces of legislation that came to the floor started in committee. that gave us a chance to see what they really did, to improve

them, to hear from voices from all over the country. then that legislation came to the floor. during senator baker's day, when he was the majority leader, he wouldn't even bring a bill to the floor unless both the republican chairman and the democratic ranking member supported it because he didn't want to waste the senate's time. and he knew that with a 60-vote requirement in the senate, that that requirement forces consensus. see, people talk about the filibuster but what we really have is a requirement that most important bills get 60 votes and if you're sitting with 53 democrats and 47 republicans, you don't have to have an advanced degree in mathematics to figure out that if you don't have some democrats and some republicans, you don't get to 60. so senator baker was saying back in the 1980's, bring the bill to the floor if it has the republican chairman and the democratic -- and the democratic ranking member.

then the call would go out for amendments, and sometimes, madam president, there would be 300 amendments. the senator from north carolina or tennessee might offer 40, and no one said whoa, stop, you can't do that. bring them on in. sometimes there would be 300 amendments. then senator baker or senator byrd would ask for unanimous consent to close off amendments. well, i guess because the senators by that time were exhausted from writing amendments, they all agreed to it. and then they started voting. now, it got to be wednesday or thursday, and the party secretaries would go to the senators and they would say i noticed you still have 30 amendments waiting. maybe you would only like to offer 15. you might get to friday and they would say i notice you have five left, maybe you would only like to have one. but if they had one that they wanted to get, they almost always got the amendment, madam president. and that's what this -- real importance of this agreement is

today. the difference of opinion we have had that has caused us to degenerate in some cases to a body that didn't function as well as it should has been because on that side of the aisle, the majority, people didn't want to vote. it's like joining the grand ol' opry and saying, you know, i don't want to sing. some republican senator might offer an amendment that that side doesn't want to vote on, and they say we don't want to vote. or they say well, we don't want to work on friday, and so they go home. and they put pressure on the majority leader to use a procedure called filling the tree which cuts off votes and the right to amend. the majority leader used that power to cut off all amendments and debate 44 times, more than the last six majority leaders combined. then what happens over here? well, then republican senators now in the minority say we're not going to get amendments,

we're going to start objecting. and so we have what's called a lot of filibusters. we say you're counting filibusters when you cut off our right to offer amendments. they say you guys over there are keeping us from doing our business. and on both sides, there is some truth to what has been said. so i -- i think most senators are happy with this result. i think they will be. i hope that it works. i mean, the idea would be that the leaders will do their best to see that most bills go to committee, come to the floor, and that when they do, if the senator from north carolina has an amendment that the senator from tennessee would rather not vote on, she offers it anyway, if she wants to. or if i have one she would rather not vote on, i may offer it anyway. because it's important to the people of my state, even though we might be in a political minority at the moment. and i believe that if in most cases, most senators in the

minority have that opportunity, that that will help us get back to the kind of senate that we want to see. now, i would like to compliment senator udall and senator merkley and senator harkin. i learned a long time ago in life that if you start out in one direction, you don't always get exactly where you wanted to go, but you don't get anywhere if you don't start out. and i think what they have done with their intelligence and diligence and persistence in this have created a period of time here where the senate is taking some steps today that will -- that will help the people of this country know that serious issues -- and we have got plenty of them. the debt, for example, 42 cents out of every dollar we spend is borrowed. jobs. for example, in my state, we have had 24 months of 9% unemployment. these changes will help us deal better with those issues.

i will have more opportunity to talk about those after lunch later this afternoon. i want my friends on the other side to make their points before we adjourn for -- or take a recess for an hour, but fundamentally, the steps we're taking make a difference. the one i am especially glad to see is the effort to make it easier for a president, any president, to staff his or her government. one of the problems senator reid talked about is we confirm too many people. it's not necessary for us to confirm the p.r. officer for a minor department. there is no need for that. the secretary needs to go ahead and be able to appoint that person, and we need to be able to work on more important issues. and then secondly, we have created a phenomenon in this town that i referred to as

innocent until nominated. we have created a situation where any citizen who is invited by the president to serve in his government has to run such a gauntlet that it's almost impossible to get to the end of the gauntlet without being branded as a criminal. and the reason is we have a maze of conflicting forms in the executive branch plus an i.r.s. audit and a maze of conflicting forms in the senate, and it not only delays but it traps people and it tricks people into filling out one definition of income here and another one here. we all know this is true and we all know it needs to be fixed. we have tried to fix it before. not just some of us. the majority leader and the republican leader tried to fix it, and they didn't get it done. senator lieberman and senator collins tried to fix it and they couldn't get it done. two years ago at a bipartisan breakfast which senator lieberman and i hosted, we had a whole group of us that said let's try to get this done. we talked to president obama's

administration about it. they said sure, go ahead, we'd like to see that happen, either for us or for the president after the next term. but we couldn't get it done because of resistance in this body to giving up any -- any sort of power. well, right now, madam president, we have a -- a unique confluence of support for the idea of making it easier for any president to staff his or her government. the majority leader and the republican leader are solidly behind the effort. senator lieberman and senator collins are solidly behind the effort. senator schumer and i are working on a bill to do that, and we hope we can succeed. this opportunity, this window would not have happened if it hadn't been for the work of the senators who have been arguing for reforms. the other step we're likely to take is abolishing of the secret hold. i think that's a good idea. i speak from experience. when i was nominated by the first president bush to be

education secretary, the senator -- a senator put a hold on my name. took three months to get it off. i finally found out who it was. i never knew exactly why he did it or why he took it off, but it might have helped if i had known it a little earlier. so i think it's a good idea. the majority leader put a hold on one of my t.v.a. nominees, but he did it publicly so i put a hold on one of his nominees and i did it publicly and we worked it out. so there is nothing wrong with asserting our rights, but we might as well do it in public. i congratulate the senators for making that effort. senator wyden and nor grassley have been working for more than a decade on that as well as other -- other senators. the step that says that if a bill has for 72 hours been on the internet and filed, that we can't require the clerks to read it all night long, that's a very commonsense proposal. i mow it would be greatly appreciated by the employees of the senate who have the job of

reading the bill. if they had a chance to vote, this would probably be the bill on which they would like to have a chance to vote yes. so these are important steps in the right -- in the right direction about which we'll have a chance to talk more about today as the debate goes on, but i'd like to end where i began. what we need most in the senate is a change in behavior in addition to this change in rules. we need to preserve the senate as a forum for minority rights. we need to preserve the 60-vote requirement for major votes. that will force consensus, that will cause us to work together. that will build support out in the country for the result of what we do because they can see that both republicans and democrats think, for example, that the way we have gone about trying to make social security solvent is a good way, rather than one side or the other just

jamming through their partisan way. there is a reason why it's a good idea for this not to be a body that operates by a simple majority like the house does. i mean, the house can repeal the health care bill overnight, bring it over to the senate. that side says let's stop and think about it. the house if it's democratic can repeal the secret ballot and union elections overnight, and it did with its vote in the last congress, but when it came over here, the republican side said let's stop and think about it. the american people are better served at having these two different kinds of bodies, and the senate and the american people will be better served both boy the rules changes that were likely to adopt -- that we're likely to adopt this afternoon and especially by the agreement by the majority leader and the republican leader, which i feel confident has the backing of almost all of us. that we would like to work in a united states senate where most bills are considered by

committee, where most bills come to the floor and where senators most of the time have an opportunity to offer their amendments in debate. to be sure, there will be times when if it's repeal of the health care, that side does everything they can do to exercise their rights to stop it, or if it's repeal of the secret ballot union elections, this side will do everything we can to exercise our rights to stop it, but that won't be the ordinary course of events if this works like we hope it does. so i hope that my friends on the other side feel -- feel good about what they have done. they haven't achieved everything they sought to achieve, but none of us -- well, we rarely ever do, particularly in a body of 100 that offers by a consent of 100. and what they have done, i believe, in addition to the rules changes that we're likely to adopt, is created a window in which we had a good, open discussion about the kind of place we wanted to work, the kind of senate that we hope

would serve the american people the best, and we have come to a consensus about a change in behavior, which i believe in the in -- in the end will be more important than the change in the rules. madam president, i yield the floor. mr. udall: madam president? the presiding officer: the senator from new mexico. mr. udall: madam president, i have a couple of unanimous consent requests on committees and also on a staff member. i ask -- i have five unanimous consent requests for committees to meet during today's session of the senate. they have the approval of the majority and minority leaders, and i ask unanimous consent that these requests be agreed to and that these requests be printed in the record. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. udall: and i also ask unanimous consent for tim woodbury on my staff be granted floor privileges for today's debate. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. udall: and before senator alexander leaves, i know we -- we have our conferences, and i guess we're going to go to about

1:00 today, but i just would like to thank him for all of his efforts, and i really look forward to senator alexander being the ranking member, i believe he's going to be the ranking member on the rules committee now that bob bennett has -- has moved on to other things, and he's participated in many of these hearings, and i really look forward to continuing the exchange on rules that we've had. i -- i don't think this is the end of the rules debate and i think that's why we have a full-time rules committee to take a look at this, and i hope these new senators that are listening to us today, that you're going to talk to on your side, i'm sure, in about 15 minutes, senator alexander, that they look at our rules and offer suggestions and we still continue this discussion in the rules committee. and -- and i want to thank all of the leaders that -- that came

down here today and talked. senator reid and senator mcconnell, they have announced an agreement, we're moving forward with reform. senator schumer, senator schumer has been a real champion on rules reform. i -- i remember going to him and asking for hearings, and -- and he said well, what kind of hearings are we looking at and what do -- what do we want to do? and i explained to him, went through, we need to talk about the history of the filibuster. you know, the filibuster was not in the original senate. there were rules for 17 years where you had a -- what was called a motion to order the previous question. that is a majority motion to cut off debate. and then -- then later it was changed. and so i said we've got to get the history out there for everybody to see because some of these charges are not very accurate. and he was a champion.

he allowed us to do six hearings. we brought in constitutional scholars. both sides participated and it was very, very productive. so here we are at the beginning of a congress, and we have been pressing with my good colleague and friend from oregon, pressing for rules reform, through the constitution, relying on the constitution. in article 1, section 5 of the constitution, it gives us the power and the authority, a majority of us at the beginning of an organizing session, to determine what rules we function under the next two years, and that's the exercise that we have been in. and senator merkley, one of the things i want to say to you that i -- i think both of us realize is that we know that if we hadn't utilized our rights under the constitution, if we hadn't pushed this very hard and said

we -- we are trying to round up 51 senators that will stand up with us and say we want change in this institution, we want to get back to being the greatest deliberative body, we want to consider all the important bills in a timely way, budget bills, appropriations bills, and -- and i think by utilizing our constitutional -- our constitutional option or our rights under the constitution, we have -- we have come a long way in -- in a year. and we've had many debates in our caucus, we've had many discussions. but the one point i want to make, we're not exactly where i think you and i think we should be at this particular point in time because while these reforms -- and let me say that -- that -- these reforms i think are steps forward and in some ways significant, the fact that we're getting rid of secret

holds. if we have that vote today and get 6 60 votes, that's a good things. the nominations. reading of amendments. my cousin, mark udall, from colorado is involved in that. the motion to proceed. the gentleman's agreement on the motion to proceed and in filling the tree, that is a significant step in behavior to say let's change our behavior and then the fact that we're going to have votes today -- later today on senate resolution 10, on senator merkley's talking filibuster, on senator harkin's proposal. these are significant votes to be taking and significant steps forward. but i have to tell you that i -- i -- and that's what i wanted to focus on -- and for you and i to talk about, senator merkley, i strongly disagree with one thing that was announced here with the idea that the two leaders are taking off the table us

utilizing our constitutional rights. and that was what was announced. and i think we both heard it the same way. leader mcconnell and leader reid, they both said that they are not going to rely on a majority vote for rules in the future, no matter who's in power and what's happening. well, the beauty of the constitution, and i think we all realize this spending some time with it, is that doesn't -- that's a good agreement for them. it doesn't apply to 98 other senators. senator -- each senator under the constitution has his or her right to rely on those constitutional rights. and so i would urge, like has been done every time in the past, when we've -- we've had a movement for change on rules that it be bipartisan. and that we're seeking 51 senators that will join with us.

because if 51 senators join at the beginning of a congress and say, we want rules reform, we want this place to function better, we want to do the people's work better. we want to take up some of those house bills, the 400 bills that died. we want to do appropriation bills in a timely way. all of these things are very important to a better functioning senate and, really, a better functioning senate is all about the people's work. so i thought that for the last couple of minutes here, i know you want to say some initial comments, senator merkley, but we -- we could talk about this idea that -- that we -- we've moved a long way, we've pushed the constitutional option. i don't think there's any count that you and i are giving up on our constitutional rights. other senators can say what they want to do. but we are going to stand and -- and utilize our rights as -- as we move down the road and we're

hoping that we will -- we will be at a place where we have 51 senators, democrats and republicans, that are going to continue to look at this and find a better way to make this institution work in terms of -- of modern issues, modern times. i think we're kind of stuck back in another century with some of these rules and we need to -- we really need to bring it up to date. and, with that, senator merkley, you and i i think are going to engage in a little bit of a colloquy. i know that you had some initial comments and happy to let you jump in at this point. i yield. mr. merkley: madam president? the presiding officer: the senator from oregon. mr. merkley: thank you, madam president. and a huge thanks to my colleague from new mexico for his leadership on the constitutional option. some may ponder how it is that we've come to have this constitutional argument at this moment. and, as you have noted, under

the constitution, this body is empowered to organize itself. and that is not that those who spoke 100 years ago or 50 years ago get to tell us how to operate, but we, today in this chamber have the power in the constitution to organize ourselves. there is little question from constitutional scholars about this understanding of the very plain words written by our forefathers as they designed this institution. indeed, they were very clear, the authors of the constitution, when supermajority requirements were set. supermajority for overriding a presidential veto, supermajority for impeachment, supermajority for treaties. but a simple majority to pass bills. a simple majority to pass amendments. a simple majority to adopt the rules by which we would function. and, indeed, that's exactly what

the first congress did. they used a simple majority to adopt their rules. and they extended to each other a courtesy to hear each other out, those 26 senators coming from 13 states. they heard each other out so they could make better decisions. now over time that courtesy has grown to be informally entrenched in a senate rule that says shutting down debate takes a supermajority. but when that was done, it went hand in hand with a social contract toed understand that such power for one senator to shut down this body requires a supermajority, delay action for a week would be a power rarely used, a power used in courtesy and respect to the other members that only would be used for the most important issues, the most -- the highest issues --

the highest concern to one's particular state or to the future of this nation. but that social contract is what has disappeared that went hand in hand with the rule -- with the supermajority. and let me put up a simple chart here to show the deterioration of that social contract. so here we are with the average number of cloture motions, that's to shut down debate filed, and the average in 1970 was one per year and the 1970's, 16. you can see how this grows over time until the 1990's we were at 36 and 2000 at 48 and this past year, 68 per year. this is the change from the courtesy of hearing each other out to using a supermajority as an instrument of legislative

destruction to blockade good debate, to blockade the will of the majority, to bloc blockade d paralyze the senate as a whole. so recognizing this damage -- this damage that meant that no appropriation bills were adopted last year, that no budget was adopted, that 400 house bills lay collecting dust on the floor rather than being processed and voted on. that more than 100 nominations were never acted on and that we failed in our constitutional duty to advise and consent. it's in recognizing all of that and it's particularly apparent as new members of the body observing this, that something had to be done. and that is why i was so impressed when you stepped forward, senator udall, and

said, we will use the power of the constitution to help restore the broken senate. and it's been a privilege and an honor to team up with you and to team up with many of our members in this effort. so we come to this point today where, as my colleague mentioned, there's a number of steps forward that are coming out of this debate. but they are modest steps forward. some of them are ones that have been debated for years. i applaud senator wyden, from my state, who worked with senator grassley, and senator mccaskill on secret holds. as senator wyden likes to note, 15 years he's argued, we shouldn't be able to put a hold on legislation without taking public responsibility for 15 years. since he came into this senate. and he's absolutely right. and today i think a supermajority will adopt that. and these other steps forward

that -- abusing the reading of amendments, reducing the number of folks who are subject to confirmation, they're steps forward. but i'd like you to envision three 60-foot high walls between where you are now and where you need to be to have the senate work as a body that debates legislation an votes on legislation. the first 60-foot wall is cloture on the motion to proceed. the next 60-foot wall is cloture on an amendment. and actually there can be any number of those. and the third 60-foot wall is final passage, closing down debate for final passage. and so in this agreement today there has been a sense between the leaders that the motion to proceed will not be filibustered. that's the first wall. so that's being taken down or at

least a commitment not to use it except in extraordinary circumstances. well, that means there's two more major walls left in place and i step back from that and ask, how much will it really change for this senate? because if i go back to this chart, we have the first wall is one that's only been occasionally used, it's the second and third wall that are the main thing driving these numbers, driving the paralysis of the senate. so i hope, indeed, that when the majority and minority leader talk about changing behavior, when my good friend from tennessee, lamar alexander talks about changing behavior, i hope they talk about restoring the social contract, that the filibuster would rarely be used, because that would be a tremendous step forward and so i will hold out that promise.

meanwhile recognizing that it will only happen when a senator comes forward and does a frivolous effort to continue debate on an amendment or a bill or a nomination that's overwhelmingly supported, that it will be up to leadership to say, that's not acceptable, we need to restore the social contract and if that change in behavior happens, that would be a tremendous step. but meanwhile i echo my colleague's comments that i cannot surrender the rights under the constitution to use a majority to continue the -- to pursue rules that will make our broken senate work better, so i preserve that right as he does. now, there are many who say the senate should be different than the house. and the traditional term is it should be a cooling saucer and in part that was related to the

debate and design of the constitution when our terms were staggered. so one-third of us is elected every two years. and so the country may be way over here and the senate may change accordingly, but only one-third are up for election. and then maybe over here and senate changes less. and, in addition, it this courtesy, this respect of hearing each other out and pondering the arguments each other are making, but a cooling saucer is very different -- very different than the routine use of the filibuster to obstruct the ability to act. very different than the way it's been used this last two years to prevent us from doing appropriation bills, to prevent russ from doing house bills, to prevent nominations from being considered. that has to end. that has to change. and so i -- i pledge myself to continue working, hoping that

behavior will change on its own, but working with others to say when it doesn't change, we need to change -- we need to change the rules to make this institution fulfill its constitutional responsibilities. we're going to be breaking soon and when we come back, i hope to resume a conversation about some of the specific items we'll be voting on later today. the one i particularly want to talk about is the jimmy stewart or talking filibuster. it's a compromise that takes into account the desire that we hear each other out, the desire that we be a cooling saucer, but prevents an opportunity to be accountable to the public. not to have the silent or secret filibuster we have now. but to have the public and talking filibuster where we actually debate. so i'll say more --

both of them on rules, to hold hearings to craft structure, for our leadership, our majority leader, harry reid, our minority leader mitch mcconnell, who have been in this conversation that has resulted in the steps forward that we're taking today, and applaud all of the members who have said that, as a u.s. senator sworn to uphold the constitution, they have an obligation to make the senate a great deliberative body, something it once was, something it is not now, but something that is in our hands to make happen again. thank you, madam president. the presiding officer: under the previous order, the senate the previous order, the senate

>> "congressional quarterly" majority leader harry reid and minority read later this month are both proposing changes to the senate operating rules. what are some of those changes? >> one of the biggest changes will be a change to pakistan is secret whole to which senators informally let leaders know

they're going to block legislation or nominations from coming to vote on the floor. right now that can be done anonymously. and people like senator ron wyden of oregon who is a democrat and republican chuck grassley of iowa want those votes to be announced publicly so that people know the nomination and can work with them to overcome them. so the change would attempt to force people to say publicly even on the floor of the senate or in the congressional record that they object to legislation coming forward. >> why are these changes being sought by democrats? how might that affect the senate, the way the senate conducts business? >> over the last couple of years, new democrats in the senate have been really frustrated by the pace of action. it take so long for legislation

to move, particularly compared to the house of representatives. so there's been this movement among the newer democrats to try and find ways to speed up action in the chamber. the republicans argue that, they have objected to moving legislation when democrats have prevented them from being part of the processes. so some of the larger changes that democrats, some of the democrats had pushed were to eliminate the opportunity to filibuster of legislation or reduce the number of votes required to overcome a filibuster. those changes are not likely to happen because of the democrats worry that they may end up in the minority sunday and would want to have the opportunity to filibuster themselves. and so, now it looks like you'll be something of a gentlemen's agreement with the democrats will serve in formally agree to

give republicans more of an opportunity to offer amendments on legislation and in return republicans will look to block legislation less frequently. >> minority leader mcconnell appeared interested in moving ahead with these changes. what is in a it for republicans? >> the opportunity for more amendments is one that's very appealing to republicans, especially now with republicans in control of the house. there are a number of measures that mcconnell would like to see votes on, for example, repeal of health care law that was passed in the house earlier this month. so there are -- they're hopeful some of these changes will give them more say on legislation. >> votes are coming up later this evening. is the vote threshold for all the resolutions the same? >> no. two of the resolutions will be set to a 60 vote threshold. that's because they are not official rule changes.

they are more of what's called a standing orders in the jargon of the senate. and that's really to the secret hold, and an effort to prevent senators from forcing the reading of amendments which, on long bills, amendments, can take those are subject to 60 votes and they have a chance of passing. there are three other changes, you know, bigger changes to the filibuster that are unlikely to pass and those will be subject to a two-thirds vote, which would require 67 votes if all 100 senators are voting. >> we have just a couple of seconds left. if he were alive today what would robert byrd say about some of these proposed rule changes? >> he was a real institution was innocent and deeply the rules rules were designed intentionally to slow down things. he would often point to george

washington's growth of the senate was a saucer to cool the passions of the house, the teacup sitting on a saucer. the senate was the saucer. and so he would probably be generally happy with the way things are going to turnout turn out, which is really generally the status quo on the rules with to work more closely together in the future. >> brian friel of "congressional quarterly." we thank you for your time. >> thank you very much. >> i need to say for the record i philosophically have always been opposed to taxpayer dollars being used for political advocacy of any kind. >> in the house oklahoma republican tom cole offered a bill to reduce federal spending the deficit by ending taxpayer financing of presidential campaigns and party conventions. follow the entire debate and the final vote on line with c-span

congressional chronicle, with timelines and transcripts of every house and senate session. congressional chronicle at c-span.org/congress. >> 9/11 redefined the presidency because it made it abundantly clear that my most important job was to protect the country. i made a lot of controversial

decisions to do that, many of which i describe in the book. the truth of the matter is if i had to do them over again i would have done it again. >> former president bush talks about his book decision points sunday at eight on c-span's q&a. >> the senate armed services committee held a hearing today investigating how boeing and another contractor receive sensitive information about each other from air force clerical error. both companies are competing for 50 billion-dollar contract to replace the aging refueling airplanes. i contract announcement could come as early as next month. >> good morning, everybody. the committee meets today to address the inadvertent release of proprietary data in the

process of the tanker procurement. we recognize that the air force is currently conducting a source selection in this procurement, and we need to avoid any action or comment or question or answer that might compromise the source selection. for that reason this hearing will focus on versus the nature of the information released by the air force. second, the steps that the air force took to determine what happened, and to determine if there was any damage to the fairness and integrity of the source selection process. and third come any remedial actions taken by the air force. i would ask both senators and witnesses to avoid any lines of inquiry that could compromise the source selection process. will the issue that needs to be addressed is whether what was apparently a clerical mistake

where the air force released proprietary or source selection sensitive to the data of competitors during the ongoing third tanker procurement process has damaged that process. my understanding of the current situation is as follows. boeing and the european aeronautics defense and space company known as ea ds, are competing for the contract of first the next generations strategic refueling contract. called the kc x. to the air force. as part of this competition the air force is evaluating the capability of the competitors aircraft in a model referred to as the integrated fleet aerial refueling assessment. in this analysis the air force is evaluating potential aircraft

using several postulated real-world scenarios. in deriving a ifara score, the air force uses the model to compare candidate aircraft with the current taker, they kc 135 are. as part of the official discussions within the current competition, the air force intended to share with each contractor the air force ifara assessment. on that contractors aircraft to ensure that there were no substantive disagreements on the calculations on the score, in november 2010, personnel working for the air force program office inadvertently set the ifara files to the boeing offer, and the eads offer to both

contractors. after the error was identified, the department of defense and the air force investigated the incident, and determined that some ifara data had been viewed by one of the two contractors. the air force and determined the comparable data should be released to the other contractor in an effort to ensure that the competition could continue on a level playing field, and it was released. now, joining us today are major general wendy, program executive officer for combat and mission support, office of the assistant secretary of the air force for acquisition. and mr. stephen shirley, executive director for the department of defense, cybercrime center.

these witnesses have been selected because they have a detailed knowledge of issues regarding the specific subject matter of this hearing. i want to extend a welcome to our witnesses. thank you both for appearing before us this morning, and they know that you took some doing? get your giving the stuff circumstances. over the last month, a staff has met on two occasions with the department of defense officials, funny with the release of information and the air force investigation. also i made an offer to the chief executive office, officer of each of the companies to accept written statements to the committee addressing these issues should they choose to do so. and we have received a submission from each of the companies, and without objection we will make those two submissions part of the record at this time. we appreciate both companies

positive approach to this committee inquiry, and both of the companies cooperation with us. senator mccain. >> thank you, mr. chairman. i thank the witnesses for their attendance and being here this morning. one of the primary duties of this committee is to engage in oversight of department of defense spending and programs. and while i am and failing in my support for aggressive oversight by this committee over major defense acquisition programs, and i acknowledge that it is the right and responsibly of the chairman to schedule hearings as he deems fit and appropriate to ensure that the committee exercises its oversight responsibilities effectively. i approach today's hearing with a fair bit of concern and even a greater amount of skepticism that this hearing will be beneficial to our job of oversight. unfortunately, this hearing appears to be designed to

produce little new information about pending award of the air force's kc x. take a competition. as we all know the competition for the air force new aerial refilling tanker has been beset by problems and acquisition a regularitregular these four years. after effort to ensure the current competition process is as air free and clean as possible, in november the air force inadvertently and incredibly sent data related to the competition to each of the respective bidders that they should not have had. the natural outcome of this mistake is asked quote what difference, if any, will this mistake make to the competition? what i think the urge to dive into that question is understandable, it's a long drawn out process is nearing its end and a final announcement of the air force's decision will be made soon. to the extent that november's mistake could be argued to have an impact on the outcome, that

seems to be, needs to be an issue more appropriate address after the competition has run its course and a winner has been announced, not just weeks before the process draws to a conclusion. while this committee should continue to exercise aggressive oversight and a tanker award process is, witnesses here today have little ability to shoot real light on the facts are eventually need to be examined on this matter. indeed, the tanker program has been delayed for more than a decade and is expected to be worth approximately $30 billion. with that much at stake, hearings on this topic should be designed to allow the air force to speed the delivery of the tanker that is so badly needs in the most efficient cost effective manner possible. everyone wants to ensure that this competition is fair and above board, and that no party games and unwarranted advantage. we know corrective actions were taken, and effort was made to assess damage and set things

right, opinions were formed about what the impact was and whether could be overcome. with these fundamental questions in mind, and in an attempt to exercise as we involve ourselves in this issue i look forward to the testimony of the witnesses. i also note that the chairman intends to released today documents that we received for this hearing that they be publicly released. i think this is a bad idea. i think we could wait until just a few weeks from now when the final decision is made and then make all of these documents public, and i understand the department of defense quote doesn't object to the release of these documents. given all of the controversy, all of the legal challenges, all of the delays over a decade, why wouldn't we want to just wait a few weeks before we would release that information which could cause further disruption

to the competition? so, mr. chairman, it is your right as chairman to release those documents. i don't think that it does any good at this time and could be disruptive, and i say that as a person who has been very much an advocate of total transparency and knowledge of, not only shared by members of congress, but by the american people. so i thank the witnesses for being here today. i hope that in february we can finally have a final resolution and selection of a tanker that is badly needed by the united states air force after nearly a decade of stories of corruption, abuse, mismanagement, and now this latest fiasco of releasing the documents relevant documents to the contractors steel and incredible happenstance, as long odyssey inside of mismanagement.

and in some cases corruption surrounding the awarding of the contract of the state. i thank you, mr. chairman,. >> thank you very much, senator mccain. general masiello. >> mr. chairman, senator mccain and members of the committee, thank you for the opportunity to discuss the events surrounding an inadvertent disclosure of information related to the kc-x program. i should make it clear at the outset that neither i nor my fellow witness mr. shirley our affiliate with the kc-x source selection and that we cannot address nor speculate on matters beyond the scope of today's hearing. as a senior air force military officer with contracting experience, as well as experience in numerous selections i've been asked to review the redacted record of the incident and extent of the air force's response so i could appear today to address the process was followed and have air force's actions maintain the integrity of the source selection process. i know that committee members

are aware that the air force is in the midst of the source selection and will appreciate that my test what today would be limited to the specifics of this event and my analysis of the actions taken. the air force has been and remains committed to a fair open and transparent kc-x source selection. i understand that the department has provide all committee requested documents, properly redacted a proprietary selection and sensitive information. these are the summary statements by the procuring contracting officer and the head of the air force contract activity regarding procurement integrity act. the osd independent review team report statements from both companies including signed ceo certification letters, and the summary statement of the classified defense computer forensic report. before responding to your questions let me provide a summary of what the air force believes the record stands today. first, the air force determined that the area -- the error was

unintentional and that the actions of the individuals of both government and offers did not constitute a violation of procurement integrity act. second, through the statements offered by the employees who handle argued the discs from both companies, certified in writing by both company ceos and other things that i will address in imola, the air force believes the information was exposed to one was limited to one screen, a summary data related to the governments integrated fleet refueling assessment known as ifara data. net the information on that was proprietary, and as has been previously stated, there was no pricing data anywhere on the disc. summary page and excel spreadsheet was opened on the screen for a matter of seconds before it was closed when a company employee realized the mistake. both companies upon realizing the error it merely secured the disc and contact the program

office. the program offers immediate redirected and received all of the discs the next day. the company employed to do the single screen shot was reassigned to an administrative position and did not rejoin the company's proposal preparation team until after the leveling the playing field, which i will address momentarily. third, at the direction of the source selection authority and procuring contracting officer and independent review was conducted by personnel from the osd independent review team as to the facts and circumstances regarding the incident. the review team also made recommendations to help prevent future occurrences. forth, as a further level of verification, the air force requested and both companies cooperated by providing the computers that their competitors this were inserted into. using the defense computer forensics laboratory, the air force was able to verify that the record of the disc and files accessed was consistent with the

statements provided by both companies and certified by the ceos. fifth, following the investigation and to order a level playing field both offers were present with the same screenshots of each other's information. further, since the airport was still at a stage where offers could continue to update their proposal, the procuring contracting officer made it clear that such updates could continue. consistent with the air force's efforts to maintain transparency, both offers received the opportunity of a forensic analysis of their prospective computers. six, i informed the program office, by the program offers a ifara scores chair with both offers were interim scores. and were not the final scores that would be used in the evaluation. further, both mr. chairman have the opportunity to provide a final proposal provision as stated.

no offer was and, therefore, continuing to improve its proposal. seven, that two individuals directly responsible for the packaging and mailing of the information to the companies were not only removed from the program no longer perform any duties on programs associated with it or not go systems. two other individuals involved were council. eight, all recommendations from the independent review team to prevent recurrence had been adopted, transmit within the material to the contract will be accompanied by a letter, not just an air force form 310 signed by an appropriate official. descriptions of the material in transferred most match the transmit a letter and the form 310. the transmittal letter and air force form 310 must both be reviewed by the signatory of the transmittal letter and an appropriate security official. classified material to be

transmitted must be delivered to the security office in a separate clearly marked package to identify the recipient of the material for each package. ensure individuals with knowledge of both the content of the material and the purpose of the transfer be involved with the preparation and packaging of the information and personally execute the transfer. additional measures were taken to include supervising supervision oversight, and two-person rules that involve senior program and contracting officer positions to personally verify and validate contents of the packages against transmittal letters, and finally by the department requested that the incident occurred, the department leadership is satisfied that both companies responded to the incident correctly and professionally. after reading the same document presented to the committee, it is my opinion that the actions taken by the program office have ensured a level playing field. i'd like to thank the committee for your continued support of our men and women in uniform him as we await the outcome of the

source selection. >> general, thank you so much. mr. sharry. >> good morning, senator. i have no opening statement, but as a technical representative to answer questions about the forensic process it required. >> thank you. thank you both very much for being here and for your service. let's try an eight minute first round. general, let me ask you this question first. can you tell us specifically what data from each contractor has been shared with the other contractor as a result of the incident? you talk about a screenshot, for instance. be much more precise as to what was seen and what was been shared. >> senator, from my observation, my reading the documents that are presented here come it was a

screenshot of ifara data which was about a spreadsheet that appeared of 10 lines of information, and that screenshot -- it was a ifara data, and now dashing analysis of the air force's analysis that their individual data, and that's all i know about what the contador the details are. >> it was one page? >> one page. >> is that a page? >> yes, sir. when it pops up onto your computer and it has a spreadsheet, the information, it is about instant page on the computer screen, and it's a picture of that page so there's nothing that deals, drills down below the. >> one image? >> one image. >> on the screen for you to determine how long? >> however long it presented, the fact is a copy of that for each offer was swapped with the offer. >> that one page, that one page of a? >> correct. >> have you determine how long the screen was open?

>> sir, based on the forensic of the meeting provided by the company, we think it was on the order of, that it was viewed on the order of several minutes. and that's based on statements from the company. but the computer was powered for a longer period. >> where was the 15 seconds figure? where did that come from? >> sir, that was the person's estimate of how much time they viewed it, that they then prepared and signed a statement certifying to that, which was subsequently certified by the ceo of the company validating. >> use a bit of those documents that you outlined to us, and we have received assurance from the department that there's no objection to the committee's

decision to do so if we determine that it is appropriate to do so. >> that's my understanding. >> is there objection to those documents be made part of the record and being released? >> not that i'm aware of. >> hearing none, that is the action the committee will take. now, you indicated that that information was nonproprietary information, is that correct? >> yes, sir. >> with the availability of that information to one of the competitors, but not the other, be advantageous? and if so, is that the reason why you decided to attempt to level the playing field by swapping the information so that both companies would have that same spreadsheet of the other

company? excuse me, of the assessment of the other company. >> sir, i can't tell you whether it was that important or not because i don't know. i'm not privy to the kc-x specifics. but whether it was what wasn't, there was a minimum, a perception so the government chose to provide copies to both contractors. >> and it was -- how long did it take after the sheet was seen by i present it the eads employ that we're talking about. how long was it after that mistake was noticed by that employee that eads, close it up and get back to the government? >> what i read is that he neatly stopped looking at it, and

because they were not in a secure and private consulate to go partner with them to close it all down. it was immediate. they wasted no time shutting it down and securing the documentation and the discs in a file that was signed by security reviewers as well. >> the other company, boeing, also copped a mistake. and how long did it take them close up that, wasn't it just? >> it was instantaneous as what i read about in the eads testimony as well. >> and those documents that you refer to that contain that chronology and certification, and there were for them that you made reference to in your opening statement are now part of the record, and people can look at that chronology and determine how many minutes and how many seconds it was after the mistake was noticed that each company locked up the cds

or the discs, excuse me, and got them back to the government, is that correct? >> yes. >> that information is in those documents now made public? >> yes, it is. >> you're a forensic expert, mr. shirley, and you've told us what -- well, how confident are you, let me ask you this question, and your conclusion or the department's conclusion as to what data was viewed and for how long? is that a high level of confidence? >> yes, sir. , center. if if i might describe about the process, the context. beauty cybercrime center has as part of that the defense computer forensics lab, it's been with about 110 people

today. it operates as an accredited lab, certified by an external entity. in this case the american society for crime lab directors and lab accreditation board. so what that process does is validate that we have a reliable and valid repeatable process that we have people are certified and qualified to perform their duties in question. and are subject to periodic review and testing in that regard as a condition of the lab retained its coordination. when we received this day we essentially treated it in the same manner as we retreat and inadvertent disclosure of classified information in a sensitive program. so we assigned as a forensic examiner one of her most capable subject matter experts, and he

is really the forensic expert, that processes. he has been qualified in court about 13 times. and so we have a very high level of confidence that the representations asserted by each company -- well, let me say it this way. the forensic findings validated the representations by each copy spent in very specifically the reputations of the case of boeing were they saw the mistake and did not open the page or read the page. and in the case of eads, the records -- the reputation was the same page as in the berkeley open. the person who saw it, saw that one page, you indicated this morning apparently because of personal conversations with that person that may have been a matter of minutes. but according to the documents which are now part of the record, that was for 15 seconds.

in either event, you had concluded it was a matter of some minutes. >> yes, sir, very short time. >> then that person immediately closed that page and got the material back to the air force come is that correct? >> that's correct, sir. >> and you are confident that the facts are that was the only page which was opened up by that person's? >> yes, sir. >> based on your forensic capabilities? >> that's correct, senator specter thank you very much. center inhofe. >> thank you, mr. chairman. i will not be my fault eight minutes. i had a chance to talk to both witnesses beforehand. let me just, on ifara, how significant is it? i think maybe for the record we could determine, in your position are you able to say what percentage of the dead or

the weight of the bid this represents? >> i have no inside to what percentage. that ifara data represents for the whole process. >> now, the final that i think is sometime in the next few weeks, be coming up. in your opinion from what you do know, would this impact the final bid? >> sir, i don't have a sense for how much it does, or if it does affect the final bid. all i know is that the contractors have the opportunity to adjust their proposals anyway they see fit over the next remaining period, whatever that might be, before the final proposal provisions. >> but however import nor unimportant it is, i don't know and you in a position to know. has any thought been given to

eliminate this ifara element in the final bid process? >> sir, i couldn't confirm whether or not that would be the case. that would probably be something that a tco would consider when they made the decision whether or not or how to address the inadvertent release. >> well, i think as a member of this committee i would like to get from the person who would be in a position, if it's appropriate to know, as to whether or not they should -- it bothers me when there's something that is disclosed like this, and i don't know how significant it is relative to the whole bit, i feel that we should know. so what i would like to ask is for the record is, if you determine after talking to the appropriate people as to how significant it is, maybe try to get an answer to the question i just asked. would that be all right? >> yes, sir. >> thank you. i don't have anything else, mr. chairman. >> thank you very much, senator

inhofe. senator mccaskill. >> let me just say for the record this is a case study of incompetence that contract competition. this whole debacle from beginning to this very moment. and contract competition for something like this has to be a core competency. and so i want to know in this instance what punitive actions have been taken. we can call it an accident, but it's incompetent. so what punitive actions have been taken against the person who made the mistake? >> man, from what i read of the documents, the two people who were involved in making the mistake are no longer employed at aeronautical systems. >> so they were fired? >> well, from that, from the program and they have been moved to another species where have they been moved? >> i don't know him. >> i would like to know that. i would like to know where they are. i like i like to know if you're

still making the same amount of money and i would like to know if they're going to resurface later in another position of responsibility. there is, sometimes i have coveted secretary gates because he has provided accountability at the top level in many instances where we've had problems, but i just think this is beyond the pale. assuming things about this that are unusual. let me start with this. if you can stay for the record, and if you can't i would like this answer from someone else within the military. it, is it correct it is very unusual for boeing to file a protest after competition? >> ma'am, i couldn't answer that. i have had different experiences. >> well, i would like -- that's the question i would like for the record. i would like to know from the defense department's perspective whether or not it is unusual for boeing to file a complaint, and whether not it is unusual that all nine bases on which they

filed the complaint were also stained at the gao. and i'm confused about the screen. eads said originally that they didn't look at the data come is that correct? >> no, ma'am. they did not say that. >> they said they looked at for a very brief period of time to? >> they at the screenshot of the spreadsheet. they admitted to that. that's what made them nervous. they realize that they shouldn't be looking at that. >> i'm confused though. it appears to me from looking at the information that the original said they look at a very short period of time and differences indicated that that may not be true, they might have looked at longer than they originally said they looked at it. is that correct, mr. shirley? >> senator, what we are able to determine is that the file was opened for a very short period of time. the computer was powered a bit longer, and so in essence the statement by the employee we

thought was consistent with what we saw in the digital media. >> why is irrelevant the computer is on longer? can you bend down with the forensics how long -- why do you even mention the computer was powered longer? >> well, it goes towards just -- when we perform an exam we look at the media, at a number different levels. one of the things that is associated with the computer being in a power state is there's a feature called clock time that tells you how long the computer is in operation and what files may be manipulated while it is in operation. so it was part of the context of trying to validate the employee's statement against what we saw on the computer. >> so you are testified today that you believe that the screen was only viewed for the same

amount of time that eads represented it has been viewed? >> roughly, yes, ma'am. >> i am curious if you believe, and my sense is these are maybe not the right witnesses to answer this question. to follow up on what senator inhofe said, given this controversy, should ifara be used and retained in the final evaluation process now? >> it's not for me to judge. ahead of contracting activity determine that it was still appropriate to leave and the competition. >> we will compose another question for the record to get to those individuals to get the rationale for that. and, finally, i know that once again these are probably not the right witnesses, but it's my understanding the department has taken the position that the wto rulings are not relevant to their decision, and i would like to know where in ifara that is

prohibited. if it's not a level playing field due to subsidies by other countries, you know, common sense tells me from the midwest that if someone has their finger on the scale in terms of subsidies they get from the government, that it's not a level playing field. and i am trying to get my arms around the notion that that is not relevant. and if either of you can speak to that that would be terrific. if not we will try to track down the right person to get the answer from. i don't believe there's anything in ifara that prohibits that from being considered. i will defer to the department on that. >> i understand that limitations would have, mr. chairman in terms of all we can ask since this is an ongoing process but somebody's our writ large policies that i think the senate has to come to grips with. we've got a farm field in alabama and a company that is receiving tens upon billions of dollars in subsidies and with

that -- i'm not saying, you know, i visited this process began with bad acting on the part of the company that i think, were i said, is better equipped to handle this. but having said that, you know, the notion that we're not going to take into account in light of everything that's going on in this country that we have got foreign nations are subsidizing companies, and that's not relevant your competition, just doesn't make sense to me. and i would like us to get to the policy question in these hearings, if at all possible. thank you, mr. chairman. >> senator mccaskill, i think as you know the purpose of this hearing is set forth which is to see what happened here, specifically and what was done to attempt to remedy it. the broader questions which you raise are appropriate in different form for that to be argued at a different time. these witnesses in all fairness

to them are not called for that purpose. >> and i certainly understand and they don't need to be in any way critical of these witnesses because they are not prepared to handle these questions. but they are on my mind and i needed to express them. >> which is your right. thank you very much. senator sessions. >> thank you, mr. chairman, and i would just like to say first that the air force did start off with this process in a very, very unfortunate we, people from both the boeing company and air force went to jail. senator mccain smelled a rat early on. this committee was the one committee that was a really consulted and how that original contract was awarded. and senator mccain, supported by senator levin and senator john warner, challenged the situation and what we decided to

do was read the competition. it was the right decision to do. and it saved $7 billion. i remember declaring senator mccain to be the $7 billion man to save taxpayers $7 billion as a result of having a competition in this process your a fair objective competition is what we need and what we have committed to as a committee, as a congress. now on the eve of this final decision, we have got people with political interests and local interest trying to destabilize the process. now, i am just not happy about that. i wish it had not happened. i understand how important it is, because it would mean a lot for my state just like you would mean a lot for other states if they would go another way.

but we have to be sure that we are not doing anything that says that we expect the air force to do anything other than what we have directed them to do. and the question of subsidies in all of those matters have been discussed for a decade as we've gone forward with this. we decided how we need to proceed with the competition, and we need to proceed in that we. i suppose it's appropriate to ask about whether or not it's possible information error infected the process. i'm not comfortable that it is. i asked general schwarzer, the chief of staff of the air force earlier about it and he assured us all that there had been no unfair advantage gained through this process. mr. chairman, thank you for your leadership. i really believe that all in all i know you've got members on

your side and others that want you to do this, that, and the other. all in all it's a thankless task you've got, and i think you have conducted in a fair way. i just would like to say, i think producing these documents is a bad idea. just because they have been redacted to exclude source selection sensitive and proprietary information doesn't mean that releasing them might not cause disruption to competition which is taking place right now, and coming to its conclusion. so in my view, not disrupting any way politically the competition would reflect poorly on our committee. i understand the department of defense doesn't object to the committee's release of the documents. while that fact is relevant it still doesn't mean that any exercise of its discretion that they should be released before the contract is awarded. selected object to that. >> they've already made a part

of the record, senator sessions. >> mr. chairman, general masiello, i asked general schwartz in this room last fall, last year about the documents, and he responded quote, that both offerers responded in a responsible manner and return the discs that were mistakenly forwarded to them to the air force, and we've confirmed that by forensic evidence. so i would just like to ask you today whether or not you or -- you have any information that would indicate that either competitor has acted inappropriately when they receive the data that should not have been sent to them. general? >> by reading the statements that came from both companies i was really quite impressed by the responses on both companies part when they realized they had

data that they shouldn't have had. so my assessment is that all active area properly and have certified to that effect. >> mr. shirley come you've examined forensically the disc and information. and have you been able to conclude that both offerers responded appropriately speak with senator, yes or. what we found on the computers was consistent with what they said that they did in each case. >> general masiello, what action did you take what you realize this error had occurred? >> sir, once i read the data come which aired was she pulled out the packaging of any of the ticket desk right back to the air force. and then they instituted independent review team. they went over to look and see what happened and what went on and air force dissipation

process so that they could correct that the neatly. they pulled in the defense service to examine the computers, and get the ceos to certify to the details that came from each incident on the company's side. it was very thorough. >> and do you think that the process as a result of this disclosure was injured in any way? was fairness in the process damaged in any way? >> from what i read here and from the decision that the pcl and validated by the head of the contracting activity, and fairness and sharing, the same snapshot with the companies, i would come to the conclusion that it would not affect the

source selection process. >> either one of the copies, either one of the companies don't they had been unfairly affected by, what action if any could they have taken? >> sir, a company can protest that any point, either pre-or post-award. they still have an opportunity to protest if they think anything has been in a properly managed. >> how long did the companies have, the offerors have to lodge a formal complaint as a result of this even? >> they could even, it could still be a part of a post-award protest, should he choose to do that. >> and had either one protested? >> not at this time. >> throughout this whole process there have been opportunities to protest, and neither company has? >> that's correct. >> and no formal complaint has been lodged? >> that's correct. as far as i'm aware.

>> i suppose then that we have to conclude that both companies feel that is inadvertent disclosure did not affect them adversely, to the degree that they should ask for, would you agree with that? >> at this point, sir, i would. >> november 30, a new -- a "new york times" article indicated that an air force forensics expert inspected both countries computers and found that one of the firms have mistakenly opened a computer file containing information about its rivals airplane while the other had

not. the redacted a forensic report presented to the committee yesterday a search that both companies inspected their own and their competitors discs and opened them. then, mr. shirley, to which statement is correct. a "new york times" report of the matter what the statement by the air force spokesman forensic report, defense cyber crime center? >> sir, both discs -- both companies put the other companies just in the computer. one of the companies realized the disc -- were they saw on the disc right away was probably something they shouldn't look at. the second company opened one of the files on the disk, and that's the 10 line approximate and described in your spreadsheets snapshot that was in swap between the countries. both countries did put the disks in their company from what i read. one opened a single file and that is the snapshot of the

ifara data that is in question. >> mr. shirley, do you agree with that? >> yes, i do. >> you explain the fact that, you know, so we have heard the fact that nothing significant was disclosed, not unfair, did not affect the competition. and that neither company have protested. mr. chairman, there's a lot more we talk about but i would just say it's very important, i know it's important to every every other country that has an interest in the outcome of the contract, but it's really important for us on this committee not to politicize this process. every one of these issues, the trade issues and all we have discussed for almost a decade. and we have made the decision to go forward, and we shouldn't on the eve of this competition take any action that would suggest we want to air force to do anything other than try to select the

best aircraft at the best price for the men and women who defend our country. and thank both of you for the effort you're taken to get to the bottom of the air, and establishing i think conclusively that there was no unfairness arising from it. thank you. >> thank you, senator sessions. senator graham. >> thank you. i have a completely different take than senator sessions on this. i think this is something we should be looking at, something we should be talking about, and quite frankly, this is senator mccaskill said, is not the finest moment for the air force. and i happen to be a member of it. bottom line, the sheet of information were talking about, was at the price proposal that the companies were making? >> no, sir. the disc and information that was presented and feud was not proprietary, and it included no pricing data. >> well, why do we even care about this?

>> sir, it's an element of the decision process, as i understand it. its information that was asked for. >> was it an important event in the whole process? did the information that was disclosed into by one company, not the other, doesn't matter at all? >> sir, it matters to me fairest perspective. whether it is important not, the important thing is -- >> do you know whether it is important what you said you didn't know. know. you know? >> i don't know. >> so what is this whole hearing about? you can't tell us what it was important or not. and at the end of the day, the whole process has a conclusion to it. we are about to spend $35 billion of taxpayer money here, and quite frankly i think it is important, and it's not your job to enter this question as to whether or not we want to

award a contract to a company that received subsidies from a foreign government. we are setting president here. and i think the committee should be looking at this year it's hard enough american companies to compete already. the chinese want is 20% undivided of are going to start awarding public contracts. by one side gets government eight and the other doesn't, from a foreign government, that's something we need to think about. so that's not the purpose of this hearing that we need to have some discussion about that. now, mr. shirley, the person at eads said they looked at for 15 seconds, is that correct? >> yes, sir. >> how long was the computer on? >> roughly 20 minutes, sir. >> now, how can you say that a-15-second statement and a 20 minute gap in the computer is roughly consistent? >> well, circum- what i would do is i will ask -- >> we sit in recess and you'll

see very clearly there's a long gap in time between 15 seconds and 20 minutes. >> what we are judging is based on the statement presented by the employee. >> do you know -- the computer was off for 20 minutes. do minutes. do know is on the screen for 20 minutes? >> yes or i believe we do. and you're right, sir, we can't assert what that employee did or didn't do. all we know is what the company -- >> the point is, i'm no forensic expert, but the difference is 15 seconds in 20 minutes is a lot. we know, we can tell -- >> thank you. i haven't -- >> how long a file is opened, sir. >> mr. chairman, if the witness could finish his answer. >> do you know what to look out for 20 minutes? >> who are you asking? >> i'm asking anybody who can answer the question. >> can't i finish? let me say this way, sir.

our lab found no evidence in conflict with the offer, either offers written statement that the only files open were -- >> i know you're funny to i'm just asking a factual question. can you tell us. the computer was on for 20 minutes. the person said they look at it for 15 seconds. the point i'm trying to conclude here is, this whole idea that it doesn't matter, we can't really get too because y'all don't know. i'm not complaining about the fact that you don't know. that's not your problem. that's my problem spent if i can clarify here. the fires -- our examiner concluded that the files were open only for the time suggested by either offer. >> i just wonder how you got to that conclusion. >> he can judge from examination of the media whether a file is open and when it was open and when it was closed. ..

>> and was not allowed to participate in the program until the pco released them. >> i'm going to submit questions to the record about why boeing could use landing sites. you don't know anything about this, there's a bunch of problems how the contract has been change. some people went to jail, they should have gone to jail. before we reward the contract, i want to make sure what we are doing here, mr. chairman, doesn't set the president precedent for the future. this is where we are going to do

contracting, one company gets subsidies and the other doesn't with public money. and we need to think about the process and what outcome is precedent for the future. i'm glad you had the hearing. i hope we'll think more about what we are about to do. not less. thank you, mr. chairman. >> let me just clarify one point. because we've had three different statements, it seems to me, mr. shirley from you. one we know from that the record that the certain who opened up that file said that they looked at it or about 15 seconds. when i talked to you earlier today, when i asked you the question, you said you determined forensically that it was opened for a few minutes. now you are saying that the computer was open, not necessarily the file, but the computer was open for about 20 minutes. >> yes, sir.

>> do i have it straight? if not, straight it out. >> yes, sir, the computer was powered for about 20 minutes. >> how long was the file open? >> the -- >> approximately how long was the page visible? >> my recollection from the briefing from my examiner was roughly three minutes, sir. >> three minutes. >> okay. i think it's important that we get our terms straight, okay? now -- >> chairman could i add to this as well. >> of course. >> from what i read in the documentation, the person who was responsible for opening the file and seeing it realized they shouldn't be looking at it. their prize yours are when they see something they shouldn't, the two-person rule comes into play. they saw it and they were in a skiff. they wouldn't use their phone to get the other person there to come help them close it and follow the procedures. so they went outside of their classified area to use the phone

to get ahead of this person to let them know they had discovered something that, boy, they were all going to get in trouble for and didn't want to get in trouble for. so the screen might have been open, but he was the only person in the room, he left the room to get the other person to come help them follow their procedures to close the data. >> that's the statement of the person who opened the file. but in terms of how long the file was open to get it straight forensically, three minutes. is this correct? >> yes. >> well, mr. chairman, the air force obviously is trying to make sure this is not a big deal. >> i'm not -- i'm not trying, senator graham, to say if it was big or small. obviously, it raises some significant questions. else we wouldn't be here. >> yes, it does. >> that's why we are here. excuse me. >> i'm sorry. >> i just want to -- i'm not trying to defend, attack, i'm just trying to straighten out facts. because we've had a statement

here that it seems to me we've got to be very clear on from mr. shirley. the computer was powered for 20 minute, the file was open for three minutes, the person who opened the file said they looked at it for 15 seconds. that's the statement which the person gives. those are the times that we're talking about. now the significance whether or not it is significant that they had that information for some period of time, longer than -- or that the person -- excuse me, whatever that information was that was seen by that person was existing for some period of time before the two files were exchanged; right? and the significance or lack thereof seems to be an important issue which we'll get to a little bit later. for the time being, that's the time -- okay. i just think we -- thank you, senator graham. now, forgive me, senator wicker,

i've intervened before i called on you. i wanted to straighten that out. thank you, senator wicker. >> i thank you for straightening that out. i think that was very helpful. and i appreciate the chair actually giving mr. shirley an opportunity to answer the question. this is not a jury trial where we are trying to play got you. we are able to leave the record open and get a full explanation. but i think i see what's going on here, mr. chairman. there's some people in this town who believe that the company that they favor maybe about to lose a bid again as they did in 2008 and a foundation is being laid for protest.

i don't have any idea who's going to win the award. i know who won it in 2008. and i regret that the department of defense didn't go forward with that contract then. we would be very, very close to having a tanker that we could rely on. i see what is happening with this hearing and, of course, it's no wonder that general masiello and mr. shirley can't answer these questions. because they are not involved in the actual award. i thought this was going to be a hearing about how the information was inavertedly released and how that has been corrected. but let me see if i can get to this procedure with regard to the computer being on for 20 minutes, the file being open for about three minutes, and the statement of the individual that he viewed it for some 15

seconds. do i understand general the eads procedure is that once an individual realizes he has opened a file, then he must go and get a second person to come in and verify that before it can be closed. was that your statement? >> sir, i'm not sure what the procedures are. what i read was they had to have another person to -- they instituted a two-person rule that together they closed the data, they sealed the data, and they took the disk and put it in a safe separate from the documents and isolating their specific bid information. >> mr. shirley, that consistent with the file being open for approximately three minutes? >> sir, part of what general masiello talked about, we were given to understand at the lab that when the employee opened

the question, they were very nervous about what had occurred, realized they shouldn't be looking at that particular piece of data, and they went through some sort of internal process to see, jeez, how should we walk back from this and essentially find another witness or a second party to sort of instruct them, okay, what do we do next? we're into something that's un -- awkward, and so that was why the computer -- we were given to understand was left on while they figured out that internal process and as they did, then they shut the computer down and went through the process that general masiello just described, senator. >> general, the air force after looking at this, and after understanding what had happened decided to level the playing field. now once again, tell the committee what information has

been shared to both of these competitors, to each of these competitors to level the playing field? >> as i understand it, it was the snapshot screen of the spreadsheet that contractor saw. and they took a picture of the screen from the computer that had the information, and took that same picture of the screen from the other competitor and swapped that information. it's just a single piece of paper that had the spreadsheet from each other. and it's the -- >> okay. so it really wouldn't matter if the person from the eads had looked at that file for 20 minutes? would it? because now both competitors can look at each other's snapshot of that spreadsheet for an infinitely long time.

is that not correct? >> that's correct, senator. >> i really don't think there's anything more to ask about. did either competitor change their proposals significantly after this information was shared? >> sir, i have no way of knowing that. right now they still have the opportunity to change it should they choose to. >> okay. now -- and my friend from missouri mentioned a protest. with regard to this release of information, is it a fact that neither boeing nor eads has protested this? >> this is correct. >> and as a matter of fact, i would observe, mr. chairman, that the statements from both of the companies that are before us -- both relatively straightforward and relatively relaxed about this, and that neither company has an

opportunity -- having had an opportunity to file a protest has done so. do either of you have -- can either of you answer this question? and i expect that you can't, because you are not involved in the contract. the testimony is this is not proprietary information. but in previous competitions, hasn't this exact data been provided in 2008 and isn't it sort of part of the public record? >> sir, i'm sorry, i can't answer that. >> okay. i expected that was the answer. mr. chairman, you had no choice but to call the hearing.

until i see a protest from either company, i'm going to concludes that the air force solved the example of human error and that they responded correctly, professionally, and properly, and have now leveled the playing field. we should go forward and not see further delay in this very important program. thank you. >> thank you, senator wicker, senator brown. >> thank you, mr. chairman. all i can say is thank goodness there wasn't highly classified information. not like we've had in other circumstances. i, being in the military, i understand the scenario that the followup, the checks and balances. you try to identify the problems, where they were, and move forward to make sure it doesn't happen again. i appreciate that. i guess are you able to guarantee to the committee that the unauthorized release of this

information does not give one contract or the unfair advantage? >> sir, i don't know. whether to judge or not. what we have don is provided the same type of information to both contractors now. from what i can see and based on the air force having taken that action, it appears that they have leveled the playing field. >> you are right. you can't answer that. i'm not sure why we are actually here. i understand that maybe other things happening behind the scenes that are forcing us to be here. i don't think -- i appreciate your statement could have been given to me offline as to what you have done and i would have if i had any other questions, i understand sometimes we need to kind of politicize things a little bit more. one thing that i'm kind of surprised, it takes ten years for the -- >> we'll leave this program at this point.

the u.s. senate has returned to senate after a break for the lunch meetings. senators are working on legislation that would change filibuster rules. this is live coverage of the senate here on c-span2. for a united states senator to engage in the unconscionable practice of secretly blocking a piece of legislation that affects millions and millions of americans. the fight for more sunshine in the way the senate does business feels like it has been the longest running battle since the trojan war. today, after scores of battles, the cause of open government is going to prevail. over the years senator grassley and i and with the strong support of senator mccaskill, we've been able to secure leadership agreements to end

secrecy. we've been able to pass amendments, send them to conference committees where they would then magically disappear in scre ski si. we one time got a watered down version of our law passed. in each case the defenders of secrecy have found a way to keep sunshine out and obstruct the public interest. when this proposal passes, we believe there will be real change. and there three reasons why we believe our bipartisan proposal to end secret holds will be different from previous approaches. the first is that now with any hold here in the united states senate, there would be a public owner. every single hold would have a united states senator who was going to be held accountable for blocking a piece of legislation.

second, there would be consequences. in the past there have never been any consequences for the senator who objected anonymously. in fact, the individual who objected would usually send somebody else to do their objecting for them and they would be completely anonymous. essentially the person would be doing the objecting would sort of say, i'm not really involved here, i'm doing it for somebody else, so the entire senate lacked transparency with respect to who was actually responsible. and, third, the wyde wyden-grassley-mccaskill proposal would deal with all holds whether they reached a point of objection on the floor or objected to when hotline. our bill requires an objection to be public -- that never get called up on the floor. and this is a particularly

important provision, mr. president, and my colleagues, senator grassley and senator mccaskill, feel very strongly about this as well. because most holds never reached the point that there is an objection on the floor. and that is something i think that has been lacking in this debate. they hear about discussions of people objecting on the floor. most holds never reach that point. typically what happens is that a united states senator who objects to a bill or nomination tells the senator -- the senator's leader that the matter shouldn't be allowed to come up for a vote and then the leader objects to bringing up the bill when it is hotlined. because of that objection, the bill or nomination never actually gets called up on the floor. the bill -- that type of hold effectively kills the bill or nomination long before it gets to the point of an objection on the floor. so we want to make it clear that

this is an important distinction and that for the first time we wouldn't just be talking about objection that's are made on the floor. i see my friend and colleague, senator mccaskill, who has crusaded relentlessly for this, senator grassley and i, i said senator mccaskill we sort of feel like we've been added as part of the longest running battle since the trojan war. your energy has been absolutely crucial in this fight. and i would also point out, mr. president, that i think we know that the defenders of secrecy will always try to find a way around anything that passes. we think we have plugged the holes here. we think we've finally made the crucial differences, but the fact that you have been such a relentless watchdog for the public interest, an opponent of secrecy, has just been a tremendous contribution. i thank my colleague from

missouri and welcome her remarks. mrs. mccaskill: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from missouri. mrs. mccaskill: prp mr. preside, i'm proud to join senator wyden and senator grassley on this issue. i'm giddy. i can't believe it. i really can't believe it that we are are this close to amending the senate rules by a wide margin. i will predict this will be a very lopsided vote, which is ironic. i don't think there is anything that has taken as long as this has that will win by as much as this will win. people were stubborn to holding on to their secrecy. it's a lot easier to do business and get your deals if you don't have to be public about it. so there are very few things that you can grab a hold of in the united states senator and actually -- senate and actual see to the finish line. i believe this will be the finish line. let me say one warning.

if anyone thinks they can figure out a way around this, all of us that have worked on this are not going to give up. so six month from now if something's not moving and no one knows why and we figure out that one person is just -- has just decided to own the holds, like the minority leader, i'll just own all the holds, that isn't going to work. because we'll come right back and we'll point out to the american public, believe it or not, they're trying to get around this rule. so a warning to everyone if we're going to amend this rule, be prepared to live by it. because it's the right thing to do. and i think it will be -- our stock will raise with the american people. i think the transparency is essential, and i'm very proud that it appears -- i'll keep my fingers and toescrossed because it hasn't happened yet. it appears that we have bipartisan agreement that this nonsense is going to end. i want to thank my colleague from -- from tennessee, senator alexander, because i think he's

been essential in if these negotiations as it's related to an amending of the rules as it relates to secret holds. thank you, mr. president. i yield the floor. mr. wyden: i thank my colleague, our invaluable ally in this fight, senator grassley, i believe is on his way. but the senator from tennessee has had many, many discussionings on this topic with me and other senators and i want to thank him for all the time and effort he's put into it and yield him whatever time he would like to pursue. mr. alexander: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from tennessee. mr. alexander: senator grassley and senato senator wyden and moe recently senator mccaskill, as well as others, have pointed out the obvious fact that so-called holds that members of the senate place on nominations should be public. i think that's a good idea. that has bipartisan support and

i believe today that we will change the rules to make that clear and i congratulate them for their perseverence and persistence in pushing this ahead. i've always been glad to be public with my holds. i remember when senator reid filibustered my t.v.a. nominee by putting a hold on it. so i filibustered one of his nevada citizens by putting a hold on it but we were able to work it out. but we did it out in public. i knew what he was doing and he knew what i was doing. so that's -- that's important to build confidence in the senate. and i would say while i believe the senator from iowa is on his way over, he's been the partner with senator wyden on this for some time, but i would like to say senator wyden, mccaskill, and others as i've said to senator merkley and senator udall, that the efforts they have made to change the rules of

the senate evening though they won't succeed in all of the changes they are seeking to make have created a window of opportunity which i believe on both sides of the aisle we believe will make the senate a better functioning forum with which to discuss serious issues. the majority leader and the republican leader earlier today said they were going to do their best to see that most bills came to the floor after first going to committee and once they got here, we'd have amendments. i think that's what most of us want. we want a chance to -- to represent the views that we -- that we are elected to represent and that we have. and sometimes they're in the minority, sometimes we're very solitary with our views. maybe we're the only ones that have a view. we want a chance to be heard and

offer that amendment. we're presenting in the senate a forum that can be done but at the same time make it a more effective place in which to do that and i congratulate senator wyden and his colleague, senator grassley, and others for their efforts. the presiding officer: the senator from oregon. mr. wyden: while we wait for senator grassley, who senator alexander has mentioned has just been relentlessly pursuing this with us for years again and again senator grassley would come -- come to the floor and make the point that the united states senator -- united states senator ought to have the guts, just ought to have the guts to stand up and say, look, this is important to me. i'm the individual who ought to be held accountable. and senator grassley in that midwestern way just always manages to get these issues down to what they're really all

about. it's about accountability. and, as senator grassley says, it's really about guts. i would also mention what's striking about the secret hold, mr. president, is that astounding power -- and i think it's only fair to describe it that way. i mean i know of few powers that an elected official has that resemble the ability to anonymously block a bill or a nomination that affects millions of people. it is an astounding power and for years and years it has never been written down anywhere. now, as part of the ethics legislation that was passed a few years ago, we were able to get a watered-down version of secret holds reform in there. but literally to think that a

power like this so sweeping, almost unrivaled in terms of the powers an elected official has could be exercised in secret is something worth reflecting about in and of itself. i will also tell -- tell colleagues that for those who want to get into the history of this, there are all kinds of holds. there was the revolving, you know, hold. there were a number of different ones, but my favorite over time was the may west hold which came to also be known as the come look me over hold which was almost as if a united states senator was declaring that they weren't sure what they wanted to do with -- with their hold, but somebody ought to come up and see them sometime. and it just goes to -- to show you that these kinds of -- of

practices -- and this is what has been good with the work done by senator schumer, senator alexander, my friend and colleague from oregon, senator merkley and senator udall have been so important because for the first time they have brought out into real debate what these rules are all about. and my hope is that this will just be beginning of the discussion, mr. president, about how in the days ahead it will be possible to bring more sunshine and more transparency to the united states senate. but senator grassley, who has made this point in the past about doing business in public, that the principle at stake is accountability and transparency has made the case for a long time and has additionally told senators that since he -- and

there have been a number of us have always put our holds in the congressional record. and i haven't used them very often. senator grassley has made the point that colleagues will find that when they do it, it doesn't hurt at all. that, in fact, not only do they not suffer any detrimental consequences, but they do it, the public thinks more of them. one final point, mr. president, as we wait for senator grassley is that i'm particularly interested in having holds reform enacted as part of our work today because the secret hold is a huge bonanza for the lobbyists. the lobbyists can, as we've seen year after year, go to a united states senator, say, you know, it had be a big -- it would be a

big favor to me if you put a hold on something so we'd get a little more time to have a chance to make our case. sometimes you have competing lobbyists asking for secret holds, so you have one united states senator putting a secret hold on a piece of legislation making a whole array of lobbyists happy. sunshine will be good for the united states senate. it will certainly be good because it will shine the hot light on some of these lobbyists' practices that we have been trying to discourage here on the floor of the united states senate. mr. president, i've just been notified that senator grassley is unavoidably detained. note go -- he is not going to make it to the floor at this time. but on behalf of myself and senator grassley and senator mccaskill, at this time, mr. president, i would ask for the yeas and nays. the presiding officer: are

there sufficient seconds? there appears to be. there is. the yeas and nays are ordered. ms. klobuchar: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from minnesota. ms. klobuchar: mr. president, i first want to commend senator wyden, senator grassley, senator mccaskill for their incredible determination to get this done, to finally -- we thought we did it bh our class of senators came n we thought we had go toen rid of the secret -- we thought we had gotten rid of the secret hold but lo and behold they found a way to work around it. secondly, i want to thank senator alexander over there as we will as senator schumer with the rules committee for negotiating a number of these

changes as we will as senator reid and senator mcconnell. you know, when i think back to the last few months and what's happened, we really an incredibly productive lame-duck session tend of this last congress. we all know there's a lot of work to be done but in the closing months of this year, would've shown people, think to their surprise, that we could truly get some things done hon a bipartisan basis. when the american people unewt and the -- when the american people unite and see a clear issue, whether it was the nuclear arms treaty, whether it was the repeal of don't ask, don't tell, whether it was the first responders and they say, hey, what's happening in this chamber, because they actually see a debate, they see someone standing up and making a point, as you do so we will, mr. president, on so many issues, then they can make a decision. that's all we're talking about here when we talk about these sometimes complicated and convoluted rules changes. it's getting things out in the

open. and obviously the first thing is to get rid of the secret hold and permanently end it. the second thing that's important here is filibuster reform. it is a long-standing tradition in the senate that one senator can, if she chooses, hold the floor to explain her objections to a bill. we always think of jimmy stewart's character jefferson smith in "mr. smith goes to washington." this is where senator udall --, who by the way, i always think his voice sort of sound like jimmy stewart -- but where senator udall and senator merkley have come in and done such a tremendous job of pushing these filibuster reform issues, as we will as tom harkin, who has been working on this long before our group ever came to the senate. a group of us got together with the smart proposals made by senators harkin and udall and merkley, got together to look at what are the best reforms, what are the ones we can truly get

through, what's a package that we can go to the other side of the aisle and talk about what we need to get it done? the disagreement that's been reached includes some of the important changes we want. the first i mentioned to get rid of secret holds, but of course critical reforms to the filibuster are still necessary as far aches see. one of the things that i hope we reconsider as we go down the way is the idea that we could actually make people stand to filibuster, so that they're in this chamber, they are discussing why it is so noorn they hold something up, whether it is a judge, whether it is the assistant secretary of oceanic affairs, whether it is a major bill, or a minor bill. people should be able to hear the arguments and then make their own decisions. and, b way, if they have a good argument for filibustering something or if a group of senators have good idea, the american people will say, or, i can understand why this is happening. but if they are doing it for

reasons that don't make any sense to the people of this country, it is going to be seen for what it and that's slowing down the progress of this country at a time when there are so many major issues that we need to deal with in this chaivment so i'm happy that we have been able to reach agreement on a number of these important issues. it would not have happened bout the people who are here today, without their dernlt nation, and i look forward to more changes and agreements in the future. with that, mr. president, i yield the floor.

mr. merkley: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from oregon. mr. merkley: thank you, mr. president. i rise to continue the debate on this set of rule proposals, but specifically to talk about the talking filibuster. there is one scene from american movies that captures everyone's attention, and that is the scene of jimmy stewart here in the we will of the senate holding forth to make his case before his colleagues and before the american people to stop a

corrupt act designed to destroy a camp for children. that's jimmy stewart in the role of jefferson smith in "mr. smith comes to washington." he wasn't making some behind-the-scenes move, some back-room deal. he was out in front of the american people, and that is why we have brought both the end of secret holds and the end of secret filibusters to the floor today. the concept of the talking filibuster is that the american people believe that when you filibuster, you are making a personal action, a courageous action, a public action at personal time and energy to stand up and say what you think needs to be said and to fight for what you need to fight for. to make your state or this nation or this world a better place.

but that is not what the filibuster has become in modern times. folks object to closing debate and they go off to dinner, have a a glass of wine or two while they paralyze the senate. it appeared -- 126 times in the last two years. each one of those filibusters proceeds to paralyze this body for a week and yet those folks would not stand before the senate here on the floor of the senate and make their case. the secret filibuster must go. it is an issue that the american people understand. since they believed that we'll make our case before them when we wish to stall the senate on an important issue, let's make it soavment let's make it so in the vote that will take place in this chamber within the next

couple of hours. i want to note that hundreds of thousands of people have signed petitions across this country. they've heard about this on the web and other places, "common cause," the sierra club and other groups generated almost 200,000 signatures, calling for accountability, calling for transparency, calling for us to make our case before the american people, so the american people can weigh in whether we are here roars or bums beneficiary whether we're heroes or bums. when we hold the vote, i understand there's been a lot of pressure aplierksd whether it be a unanimous party vote across the aisle against t and it troubles me. a number of our new senators campaigned on transparency. they campaigned on

accountability. they campaigned on changing the broken ways of washington, and one of the first votes that their leadership is asking them to do is toss away accountability, toss away transparency and not help fix the broken senate. now, there are some who said, we must make sure that we protect the rights of the minority. the talking filibuster does exactly that. you still need 60 votes to close debate. my colleague, senator wyden, was just here from oregon, an issue affecting oregon that we must oppose, the two of us could take this floor going back and forth making sure that this body doesn't run over the rights of oregon, as long as we have the 40 colleagues with us to avoid cloture. that's the way it is now, that's the way it would be under the talking filibuster. so, mr. president, i am not

going to belabor this further. there are others who wish to speak and we want to here them. but let me say this: when we have gotten to the point that we cannot get a single appropriations bill dmon 2010, when we could not address 400 house bills by that lie collecting dust on the floor, when we had 100 nominations and did not fulfill our constitutional responsibility to advise and consent, then we have a responsibility to work together, to change the conduct of this senate, to change the rules of the senate, so that those rules are not abused in a fashion that undermines our performance under the constitution. thank you, mr. president. mr. alexander: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from tennessee. mr. alexander: the senator from oregon has talked about the number of nominations that couldn't be considered. i'm sure the senator from oregon

remembers that there cannot be a filibuster on a motion to proceed to a nomination. all the senator has to do -- the majority leader has to do is just bring it up. you can't -- you can't debate that. and if he should bring it up and if he -- and if a senator over here or over there, even one senator, as was done to me when i was nominated by president bush to be education secretary -- senator met enbalm, as it turned out, had a mold on my nomination for three month -- had a hold on my nomination for three months. all it would have taken for me to be confirmed was for the majority leader to bring my name to the floor and then -- then we could have debated -- if we could get 60 votes for it we could debate it for 30 hours and that would be it. what would happen during the 30 hours? we don't have senators going out to dinner except on the other

side of the aisle. because under the current rules in those 30 hours one senator gets seven hours to speak. now, we know a senator can do that because a distinguished senator from vermont demonstrated very capably that he was capable of doing that not long ago. did a great job. people all over the country saw it wrote him. became a little bit of a celebrity for that day, maybe even longer. so senators are still capable of that. but if he wanted to make the whole 30 in the course in a postcloture period -- and he was in a different period. he just got the floor and talked, which we all have a right to do when we can get the floor -- that's it for the senator. i mean, that 30 hours. he then has to get 23 more senators to join him in taking an hour of that 30 hours, and without getting into the

complications of that, if they fail to talk, we will then the majority leader, if he is pushing it, can say those are dilatory tactics and really force any senator who wants to extend the debate to be very uncomfortable, because that senator would have to get up to 23 senators to come join him at sometime during the speech and take seven hours himself. the reason why that hasn't been done is because the majority hasn't wanted to do t i am not just saying thasm the master of the senate rules, senator bide, said it in his last testimony before our rules committee. he said, "forceful confrontation to the threat of a filibuster is undoubtedly the antidote to the

malady." the malady he was talking about was what some consider the abuse of a filibuster. "most recently," senator byrd said before he died, "senate he majority leader reid announced the senate would stay in session around the clock and bring all procedures necessary to bring financial reform legislation before the senate. as preparations were made and cots rolled out, a deal was struck within an hour and the threat of a filibuster was withdrawn. i heartily commend the majority leader for this progress. i strongly caution my colleagues as some propose to alter the rules to severely limit the ability of a filibuster. i know what it is to be a majority leader and wake up on wednesday morning in november and find yourself a minority leader. i also note that senator byrd said the senate rules provide the means to break a filibuster, "and he went on to describe it.

so, mr. president, i don't want to suggest to the distinguished whip who knows all the rules of the senate much better than i do or to harry reid, the majority leader, who knows them very, very well how to break a filibuster that he thinks is an abuse to a filibuster, but they know how to do it. it takes a little trouble. you can't go out to dinner and have a glass of wine as the senator from oregon was talking about. you have to sit over there on that side of the floor and have 50 senators ready. but you can sit over there and say i would like for the senator from tennessee to assert himself and you can stay all night, and i imagine if you did that once or twice or if we voted on more than zero fridays, which was the number of fridays we voted on last year, you could -- you could confront filibusters -- just let me finish my sentence. i will be delighted to yield the floor to the senator from

illinois. but if -- i would say to my friends that what we're trying to do today is -- is to move past this time where we point out that the majority leader has cut off our right to amend in debates six times more than recent majority leaders. that's what gets everybody stirred up over here. we came here to -- it's like telling us we could join the grand ol' opry and can't sing. we're here to speak. we're here to let the people know what the people in tennessee think. we might be in the minority but we're in the senate where the minority is supposed to have a voice. so when time after time after time you bring a bill to the floor and cut it off and call that a filibuster, well, we don't -- you know, that's why we're upset. you're upset because as a result of that, you didn't get to bring as many bills to the floor as you would like. well, we're trying to put all that behind us today, and this

pointed of opportunity we have here has produced what i think is the most important event here. i think these rules changes that we're going to adopt today are good and move us in the right direction, but the real value of this debate and this whole effort has been to cause us to stop and think about how the senate operates and to realize that the best way to do it is for most bills to go to committee, most bills to come to the floor and most senators to get most of the amendments that they want offered offered and voted on. so we might have to vote on a friday, maybe even a thursday night, maybe even a saturday, and it might be that the majority has to confront a filibuster by saying senator so and so, if you're going to slow us down on this, we're going to make you use that 30 hours. you're going to have to talk your seven hours. you're going to have to get 23 other senators and we're going to be here to see you do it. my guess would be you do that about once, maybe twice, that would end that problem. but my real guess is that if this general attitude that the majority and minority leader

talked about early today, which is we're going to do our best to see that most bills come to the floor, that most bills -- most senators get the amendments they want and the votes they want, i think you will see very few uses of the filibuster that you think are inappropriate, and if you think they are, according to senator byrd, you've got the means to confront them. so my hope is that -- is that this whole exercise not only is producing some rules changes which are valuable but is producing a change in behavior on both sides of the aisle which will be valuable, we'll wait and see. and i'm happy to yield to my friend from illinois. mr. durbin: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from illinois. mr. durbin: i see others stand shalling, and i will be brief just to say a few words in support of the so-called talking filibuster. in the world of the most arcane things that people can concentrate on, this book would probably be on the top ten

bestseller list. it's the senate manual that has the rules procedure and the rules and precedents of the united states senate. unless you live here, work here, follow the senate, most people never, ever have any glancing occasion to even observe these rules let alone pay any attention to them. so why are we doing this when we have all these people unemployed in america, when we have so many challenges at home and abroad, why are we taking the time in the united states senate to talk about this book and the rules included? because many of us, including my friend -- and the term is used loosely here but i mean it literally -- but my friend from tennessee, senator alexander, knows that what happens on the floor of the united states senate has an effect on america and the world, and if we do our job and do it well, we are going to solve some of the problems of the world. if we do it poorly, the exact opposite is the case. and what my colleagues from

utah -- pardon me, from colorado and from oregon and from new mexico have urged us to do is to think about whether we can do things better in the united states senate. the history of the filibuster in the senate is an interesting one. there was a time when any senator, any senator could stand up and object and stop the proceedings of the united states senate, and then woodrow wilson as president suggested that we should arm the merchant marine so that our ships could fire back if the germans or others fired at them. he asked for legal authority to do that, brought that issue to the united states senate before world war i, and two or three pacifist senators stood up and said no, we don't want these ships to have guns because that's going to drag us into a war. at which point wilson said i want to take that issue to the american people and three senators should not be able to stop that from a vote. he got his way. at the end of the day, the rule was initiated, the cloture rule

that said two-thirds of the body could decide to move forward even if one or more senators objected, and that cloture rule of two-thirds was -- guided this senate for decades until the 1960's and the civil rights debate ended up in amending that rule from 67 under that day's count to 60. so 60 has been the guiding way to end a filibuster in the course of the time i have served in the senate and the senator from tennessee. but what is being suggested here is i think fundamental, and i would like to at least say i disagree in principle with the senator from tennessee, respectfully, and here's what i believe and i think the movers of this idea believe. if the senator from tennessee believes in his heart of hearts that something is so bad, so controversial, so wrong that he wants to stop the business of the united states senate in

considering and debating an amendment or a bill, if you feel that strongly about the value or principle that would lead you to want to stop the senate, what we're being told is you ought to be willing to stand here and say why. currently, you can initiate a filibuster, close down the senate where for 30 hours, nothing happens except the drone of -- the lovely drone of the quorum calls, and people across america tune in and say what is happening there? are they actually going to pay these men and women for doing nothing another day? so a person initiates a filibuster and can literally leave the floor and head out for dinner, and the senate is stopped cold. now, what is being suggested is if you believe it, if it's important enough to stop the business of the senate, for goodness sakes, stand up and tell us why. defend yourself. stand up for your principle. i would remind the senator from

tennessee -- and i think he was a member at this time -- that one of our colleagues, who will go unnamed, but from your side of the aisle initiated a filibuster once which forced us to come in on a saturday -- as you say, a rare occurrence here -- and to be here, to have enough, over 60 o'to vote because of his filibuster, and that senator didn't show up. he initiated the filibuster and didn't stick around. he was asked later, he said i had something important to do back home. now, that to me -- i will at the end after i have explained my position here, i will -- but that to me is a classic illustration of someone who initiates a filibuster and then takes a powder, heads to their office, goes out to dinner, goes home to attend an event and says let the senate burn up 30 hours, i'll be back later. now, what we're hearing from the other side is it is far better for us to say to that senator, if it means that much to you, stop the senate.

it should mean enough for you and some of your colleagues to stand up and fight for that right. is it worth it? will you at least take the floor and speak to it? now, what the senator from tennessee says, oh, there is a better way. the better way is to force the entire senate during a filibuster to be here, all of us. so any one senator then changes and affects the lives of all senators by saying we're going to stay all night. we'll have live quorum calls. we'll sleep on cots in the marble room if that ever would happen again, and that's the way to stop the filibuster. so think about that for a second, i say to my friend from tennessee. is this a punishment to the person who initiates the filibuster? does it even put responsibility on the person who initiates a filibuster? and the answer is clearly no. the burden under your defense of your position falls on the entire senate to sit here all night long because one senator objects. i think this talking filibuster is much more reasonable. if it means enough to you to

object to the senate moving forward on the debate of an amendment or a bill, then for goodness sakes, have the courage and be open enough to stand at your desk and defend your position. that is not unreasonable, and if you find that you can't hold a number of colleagues to your position, let's move on, let's move on. if you don't want to stand and actually debate the issue but want to go out to dinner with your buddies, that's fine, but don't try to stop the senate while you're on your way to a nice dinner here in washington, d.c. not you personally, but the person who would move for this filibuster to be initiated. i support this talking filibuster, not just because of jimmy stewart who created this mental image of what a filibuster is like, but because of what the principle of the senate is, and i think what our colleagues have done here would help the senate. mr. alexander: may i ask a question? mr. durbin: i would be happy to yield for a question. mr. alexander: since the distinguished whip has

apparently renamed this amendment which side of the aisle goes out to dinner amendment, let me ask him this: isn't it true that if your side didn't go out to dinner, since you asked to be elected to the united states senate and you raised a lot of money and you worked hard and you defeated some -- some republican to get here, and if you really think someone's over here abusing their minority rights by -- by filibustering, then why would you go out to dinner, why wouldn't you want to be over there and hear that person talk and respond to him, why would you not do that? senator byrd -- isn't it true that senator byrd says forceful confrontation to the threat of a filibuster is undoubtedly the antidote to the malady, and senator byrd did not want us tampering with this 60-vote procedure that we have here that forces consensus. so my question to the minority

leader is why did you go out to dinner so often, through the chair to all senators, when instead you could have been here dealing under the rules as senator byrd suggested with abuses to the filibuster or what you considered they were? mr. durbin: the senator misspoke and called me the minority leader. in defense of his relationship with senator mcconnell -- mr. alexander: i ask the record be corrected. mr. durbin: let me just say quickly, the obvious question is what do we accomplish by staying here all night? every 15 minutes, every hour, the majority leader could ask for a live quorum and members could be asked to come vote, and if they don't, their voting record would reflect it. so the body would pay the price of putting the pressure, the confrontation that senator byrd speaks of. what the senators who are proposing this suggest is the person who wants to stop the senate should really have the burden of explaining why, of standing and defending his or her position.

i don't think that's unreasonable. i yield the floor. a senator: mr. president? mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from oregon. mr. merkley: i want to correct the record on something that has been common to say on the other side of the aisle, and that is the abuse of the filibuster has been a response of filling the tree. here we have the last two years. we had the tree filled once. we had 3 -- 33 filibusters. in response to those filibusters, the tree was filled nine times, we had 34 filibusters. the tree was filled six times, filibusters 36 times. obviously, the 36 filibusters was not a response to six times filling the tree. that myth that has been created by the opposing side is actually a myth. so while it's a convenient argument, it happens to be a wrong argument, and i think that that's important to note. i'd also like to note that my colleague from tennessee was

talking about postcloture discussion for 30 hours. and thereby confusing the conversation about the filibuster on motion to proceed, the filibuster on amendments, the filibuster on the bill. with the 30-hour requirement on nominations. actually we had a proposal to reduce those 32 hours to two hours. that proposal is in house resolution 10 that will be voted on today. i do hope my colleague in support of the principle he was putting out that those hours should be reduced would be supporting senate resolution 10 and noting that that is a very logical way to reduce the delay of the senate. my colleagues wish to speak. i just want to close with this comment and that is if you have the courage of your convictions and you want to exercise the privilege of shutting down the senate for a week, then stand up and make yourself accountable to the american people. thank you, mr. president. a senator: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from colorado.

a senator: thank you, mr. president. i rise to speak on a particular proposal that we'll consider later today, but i did want to associate myself with the remarks with the senator from oregon who has been tireless in pushing for commonsense reforms in the way that the senate operates. the majority whip made the point in his remarks before the senator from oregon spoke, that we want to make she's changes so that -- these changes so that the senate can respond to the changing nature of the world around us and particularly focus on the world economy and getting americans back to work. if the senate's tied in knots, we're not going to put the policy in place that these stalwart committed senators, including the senator from iowa, mr. harkin, and the senator fr from -- senator udall. i will speak to the proposal that i have introduced that will bring us a step closer to fixing some of eat dund sis in the --

redundancies in the rules that youltimately make not just our constituents frustrated, but americans all across the country. mr. udall: put simply this proposal would encourage senators to file their amendments 72 hours in advance of a vote to ensure that we have a chance to review that amendment. but then it would also discourage the practice of delaying a final vote by calling for an outloud reading of the amendment. and i've heard concerns from members of both parties about this particular practice. now, we all want to have an opportunity to read the provisions in amendments and broader bills. but it's become increasingly obvious to me that we need to make some changes in our rules, as said, to make sure that the process works smoothly. what would my proposal do? it would encourage senators to file amendments 72 hours in advance and prevent any senator from creating a logjam on the senate floor by forcing the text

of that amendment read outloud if it's made available in advance. now, mr. president, you and i've been around long enough, we know that in the days before copy machines and the internet, we probably, if you were serving in the senate, it was helpful to sit here and hear the text of each amendment read outloud. but that practice is outdated and it's not the way the senate operates today. instead our technology allows us instant access to the text of amendments and there's, therefore, no crucial need to hear them read allowed at the last minute. in fact, we just rea waive the reading and move to the final vote. when the reading is forced, it largely brings this place to a halt, as senator durbin pointed out earlier, and the effect has been to tie the senate in knots and it creates a spectacle when the hard-working clerks, that actually are the people that make the senate run, have to

stand here and read amendments sometimes for hours to an empty chamber. there is one party that believes that the text of a rather large amendment has been withheld from in order to deny them adequate time to review it. i don't want to take away that power from the minority power to reasonably voice their opinion on the floor to get the information they need, which is why my proposal is a balanced way of fixing the senate rules. mr. president, this resolution is designed to help us find common ground to prevent needless delays by allowing us to prevent the live reading of an amendment when the text has been available long enough for everyone to have studied in advance. so instead of allowing an individual senator to put senate on hold literally for hours by forcing an amendment to be read, a simple majority of senators would be able to collectively vote to dispense with the reading provided that it was filed on time. this is a commonsense approach.

it seeks to address the concerns of those who want more time to read amendments and those who see the forced reading of amendments as needlessly obstructive. it's a simple approach and i believe later today the senate will approve such a rules change. i want to just -- in ending my remarks -- that senator schumer and senator alexander's work, there's an agreement, as i understand it and we'll vote for it later today, i want to applaud their work again and offer my very sincere thanks. i also want to acknowledge leader reid and leader mcconnell for helping bring this package t package the flood for reaching their own agreement on how to improve the way the senate works. finally, as i did in my beginning remarks, i want to acknowledge senator harkin, tom. mr. udalltom. mr. udall tom -- tom udall for the attention so many had on this

issue. senator merkley spoke on the topic that this may seem obscure to many constituents. this is historic progress that will make the senate function better. that's the mission of these outstanding senators. madam president, if i might, i'd like to ask unanimous consent that senator merkley can be listed as a cosponsor of the amendment that i'm offering today. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. udall: and, madam president, i will close on this note, i urge my colleagues to vote for this simple commonsense reform of the senate rules. madam president, i yield the floor. a senator: madam president? the presiding officer: the senator from iowa. mr. grassley: i rise to support the wyden-grassley-mccaskill public holds proposal. i apologize to my two colleagues from oregon and missouri that i was not on the floor at the proper time. it's all my fault. i'm pleased to see this day come to where the senate will finally

have the opportunity for an up or down vote on our freestanding senate resolution to require public disclosure of holds. senator wyden and i have been at this for a long, long time. we made progress at times and we have also had many disappointments where things didn't quite work out the way we hoped and what we thought the president -- or the senate had spoken on through even roll call votes. it's also been good to have senator mccaskill join us in helping push this issue to the forefront easily. and she did that -- i shouldn't say easily, recently because it hasn't been easy. ending secret hodes seem holds a simple matter, doesn't it? that hasn't been the case. secret holds is an informal process. it is easier said than done to push them out into the open

using formal senate procedures. it's kind of like trying to wrestle down a greased hog. however, after a lot of thought and effort and two committee hearings, i think this resolution does a pretty good job of accomplishing our goal. that goal is really just to bring some more transparency into how the senate does its business and with transparency more accountability. now, this isn't the only proposal that we're considering today related to senate procedure. and i don't want there to be any confusion. this proposal is not about a lottering any balance of -- altering any balance of power between the minority power or majority power. neither does our resolution alter the rights of any of the 100 members of this senate. over the time i've been working on this issue, i have

occasionally encountered arguments purporting that it -- to defend the need for secret holds. however, the arguments invariably focus on the legitimacy of holds not on the subject of secrecy. so i want to be very clear that secrecy is my only target and the only thing that this resolution eliminates. i fully support the fundamental right of individual senators to hold or withhold his or her consent when unanimous consent is requested. senators are not obligated to give their consent to anything that they don't want to and no senator is entitled to get any other senator's consent to their motion. i think the best way to describe what we seek to do with this resolution is to explain historically how holds came into being as senators have heard me do before.

in the old days when senators conducted much of their business in a daily way from this, their very desk right here on the senate floor, it was a simple matter to stand up and say, i object, when necessary. these days most senators spend most of their time off the senate floor. we're required to spend time in committee hearings, meeting with constituents and attending to other duties that keep us away from this chamber. as a result, we rely on our respective party's leaders here in the senate to protect our rights and prerogatives as individual senators by asking them to object on our behalf. just as any senator has the right to stand up on the senate floor and publicly say, i object, it is perfectly legitimate to ask another senator to object on our behalf if we cannot make it to the floor when consent is requested.

by the same token, senators have no inherent right to have others object on their behalf while keeping identity secret. if a senator has a legitimate reason to object to proceeding to bail or nominees, then he or -- to a nominee, then he or she should have the guts to do so publicly. we need to have no fear of our constituents if we're acting in their interest as we are elected to do. transparency is essential for accountability and accountability is an essential component of our constitutional system. transparency and accountability are also vital for the public to have faith in their government. as i've always said many times, the people's business ought to be done in public. in my view that principle is at stake. madam president, i see my colleague from oregon here on the floor and if he would indulge me, i would ask unanimous consent for -- to

engage in a colloquy with the senator from oregon to get his thoughts as well. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. wyden: madam president, as senator grassley has said, senator grassley and you, senator mccaskill, and i have always maintained that there is no legitimate reason for senators to keep holds they have placed with their leaders secret for any period of time. in fact, for quite some time we have made a practice of immediately disclosing any hold we place in the congressional record. and that has been at the heart of our resolution in my judgment. with my colleague, my friend from iowa agree? mr. grassley: absolutely correct. one of the defects of the wate watered down secret holds provision in the ethics reform bill in the 110th congress is that a it allowed for large

bills of secrecy for disclosure was required. ours states that the leaders shall recognize the holds placed with them only if two conditions are met, if the senator first submits the notice of intent to object in writing to the appropriate leader and grants in the notice of intent to object permission for the leader or designees to object in the senator's name. and, secondly, not later than two session days after submitting the notice of intent to object to appropriate -- to the appropriate leader, submits a copy of the notice of intent to object to the congressional record and to the legislative clerk for inclusion in the applicable calendar section. mr. wyden: i thank the senator. i think that's an important point because the resolution, the bipartisan resolution, clearly establishes the responsibility of all senators

to go public with their holds and the understanding that the leaders will not honor secret holds. in addition, a concern that has been expressed is the lack of an enforcement mechanism in case there is a breakdown in this process, that it doesn't work as intended. could the senator from iowa address that? because i believe our resolution addresses that concern as well. mr. grassley: it certainly does. even if the process that we've talked about isn't followed, once a hold comets to light in the form -- comes to light in the form of an objection, someone will be required to own up to that hold. it will no longer be possible for a leader or their designee to object, but claim that it is not their objection. they can say on whose behalf they're objecting, and why not. we also require senators placing a hold to give their permission to object in their name. still if a senator objects and

does not name another senator as having the objection and another senator does not promptly come forward claiming the objection, the senator making the objection will be listed in the relative section of the senate calendars having placed that hold. i would yield for final conclusion to the senator from oregon. mrmr. wyden: i thank the senator from oregon because with this -- i thank the senator from iowa because he lay it out very wevment it sometimes feels like it's bent longest-running battle sinlts trojan washings given the fact that we have had leadership agreements, we've had amendments, we have the watered-down version of the law, and today we finally have an opportunity to ensure that the unconscionable practice of secrecy that keeps the american people, millions of americans, from learning about a billion or a nomination, that this practice is finally eliminated. and i thank my colleague t has

been a long fight and a pleasure to work with my friend from iowa, to have the energy and enthusiasm of senator mccaskill, who has given this cause a huge push, and i ask unanimous consent, madam president, as part of this colloquy, to add senator merkley as a cosponsor to the bipartisan senate llings, eliminating secret holds, and include a further coul fee in the record. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. grassley: and i yield. the presiding officer: the senator in new jersey. mr. lautenberg: madam president, people across this country are feeling pressures from so many points of view: job loss, threatened losses in

the future as pressure exists on businesses, particularly small businesses across our country. they look to us -- we in the senate and in the house -- to help them solve their problems. and what we've seen is -- results in an attitude about those of us who serve in the senate and the house of representatives with a degree of disdain, and the reason that it's developed that way is because they think we're not doing our job. and they watch television or listen to what's going on, they're further -- it further confirms the fact that they have in mind that we're not doing our jobs, that we're wasting time, that we're not paying attention to the country's needs.

and that kind of a picture is appropriately formed with the situation as it is. the senate has become a roadblock to progress in our country. and i've spent time -- and i is a liewrt my colleagues -- and i salute my colleagues, senator udall of new mexico, senator merkley from oregon -- for the work that they're doing, and the others that are associated -- and i commend the senator from tennessee from the other side for his willingness, for his interest in establishing a consensus of view about how we can improve the functioning of our body here, and i salute him, commend him for it -- i mentioned it to him privately. but we've all been wrestling with this problem.

but finally i think we're coming to a time when we can solve t now, i've spent the past year trying to improve senate rules so that it -- we can improve our functioning, that we show the people in the country that we are actively trying to solve their problems, and they'll understand that when they see people on the floor debating the issues, not seeing a clock working without any action to support it. last year -- and then this month -- i introduced the mr. smith act to require filibustering senators to come to the floor and actually filibuster. the filibuster is a right that's reserved for senators when they object to a piece of legislation that we're dealing with to -- if

they're able to get the floor, to keep it, until at the present time 60 votes develop that say, end this debate. and so we know that at the moment that's a tool that the minority has used regularly, and it brings the senate to a halt. but if the plurality, the -- buf the plurality of the majority shifts, the same thing is liabll to happen, but with the filibuster being used by the democrats. what we're going to do here is make the body more transparent, reduce the grinding of the senate to a halt for no good reason. today we'll have the opportunity to vote on a couple ever resolutions that include

proposals based on the mr. smith act. and everybody knows what the mr. smith situation was. jimmy stewart came to washington, stood on his feet for hours -- unimaginable length of time -- to try and get something done. and it was an heroic gesture and has lasted as an icon for the american people. like my bill, which we entitled the "mr. smith bill," the proposals put forward by senators merkley and senator udall, came down to -- come down to a simple idea: senators who want to delay action on a bill or a nomination must stand up here and explain why we're delaying responding to their needs, to the american people. an empty senate chamber can't help put americans back to work,

protect people from dangerous weapons, and improve our country's schools. we can't invest in our railways, roads, bridges, and other infrastructure needs and help struggling americans to stay in their homes if there's nobody willing here -- sent here after i'm sure in every case an arduous election, even though the numbers might not say that. but why then aren't they at wo work? schoolchildren would have no tolerance if they continued their absence from their classrooms or their homework. why? why in the senate should it be allowed without intervention? so we want people to be able to see that there are senators in this chamber to debate the issues, that they're not clock-watching and doing nothing to take care of the needs of the country.

we're not making progress on vital issues because the rules of the senate are being abused. some of our colleagues are conducting silent filibusters, which really is a disguise for action -- for inaction. under these silent filibusters, senators are allowed to object to a bill or a nomination without ever having to defend their position. instead of explaining to their colleagues and the american people why they oppose a bill, they're able to skip off to dinner, leaving this chamber to total gridlock. is it any wonder that so many americans have such a low opinion of congress? when people look at the senate and they see us stuck in the nmorass of dilatory activities, they don't appreciate it, they don't like it, and they want

action, they want people who they've sent here, who they wanted for, who they depend upon to do something in their behalf, and if there is a disagreement about whether one path is right or not, then they'll understand that at least we're trying to do something. so that's why i've spent so many months trying to improve the way that we conduct business. passing these resolutions today will assure the american people that we are here to do their business in addition to the merkley-udall resolutions, we'll be veeght to other important reforms to the senate rules today. for example, i support senator wyden's measure -- the senator from oregon -- to end secret holds because the american people again deserve to know who's holding up important legislation. transparency is something we talk about constantly around here, but yet we're he not

willing to put it in front of the people. there is -- this is a much-needed reform. but we need to do more to make the senate a more effective, more efficient chamber. the united states senate -- and i've been here a long time -- was once known at the world's greatest deliberative body. and at some point we decided -- it was decided some years ago that in order to bring the message more clearly to the american people, that we'd allow television come ras to be here so that the american people -- cameras to be here so that the american people could see us at work, maybe even -- call it -- supervise us at work. we will, when they see a beautiful facility like the senate chamber with no action going on, it gets to be quite depressing, as far as they're concerned and as far as we generally here are concerned.

the united states senate was known again as the world's greatest deliberative body. the place where national conversations began and the major issues of the day were debated. and i and many of my colleagues want to see the senate regain the respect o of the american people, restore our reputation for serious debate, and civil discourse, but we'll never adheef this if we continue to allow our own rules to be abused. so i say to my friends and colleagues, join in supporting these resolutions because if we want to help the american people get back to work, if we want to restore their confidence, if we want to let them know that government is here to help, not delay, then we've got to get back to work, too. and the fact is that time is being spent, but it's not being spent on behalf of progress in

the country. and with that, madam president, i yield the floor and i thank my colleague from iowa, senator harkin, who agreed to let me intervene with my remarks before he spoke, as it was agreed to. thank you. i yield the floor. i note the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call:

mr. harkin: madam president? the presiding officer: the senator from iowa. mr. harkin: madam president, i ask that further proceedings under the quorum call be dispensed with. the presiding officer: without objection. so sorded. mr. harkin: madam president, i ask unanimous consent that hal halliday be granted privileges of the floor for today's session. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. harkin: madam president, exactly 16 years ago in january of 1995 for the first time in eight years i found myself as a member of the minority party here in the senate. at the beginning of that corntion republicans outnumbered democrats 53-47. the exact same majority-minority ratio that existed today, just in reverse order. even though i was opposed at

that time to the majority party's agenda, i introduced legislation to change the senate rules regarding the filibuster. my plan would have ensured ample debate and deliberation, which i always hear is the stated purpose of the filibuster, but it would slays allowed -- but it also would have allowed a bill or nominee to receive a "yes" o. "no" vote. my proem proposal didn't pass. i first proposed this at a conference of our democratic senators that was held in 1994. and because at that time i saw -- understand a predicted and it is in the "congressional record" -- i predicted at that time that there was an escalating use of the filibuster that was being used not for debate purposes, not just to slow things down but to actually provide for a veto of pending legislation by the minority.

i predicted at that time if this arms race were not nipped in the bud, it would escalate, because it had been escalating since the 1980's. democrats were in power. republicans would have "x" number of filibusters. and then when the republicans were in power, the democrats would do the same to the republicans. and the republicans would come back in power, and the democrats would do the same to them, and back and forth. but each time it escalated. escalating arms race. i predicted at that time if we didn't do something about it, it was going to get worse. unfortunately, my prediction became all too true. in the intervening years because of the extraordinary use of the filibuster the ability of our government to legislate was saoefl jeopardize -- severely jeopardized. 16 years after i introduced my

proposal it has become more pwaoerpbt must -- apparent we must reform the use of the filibuster. there are some who say senator harkin would not be doing this if he were in the minority. i repeat, in 1995 when i was a member of the minority party, i first introduced my proposal. the truth is in the future, whether the chamber is controlled by democrats or republicans, i will continue to work to accomplish a couple of things. one, to provide that there is -- if there's going to be a filibuster, that it's a real filibuster. that the filibuster is used to slow down processes, to give the minority ample time to debate and discuss and to amend. but in the end, the majority rule must come to the united states senate. madam president, i thank senator

schumer and senator alexander for the effort they made to negotiate a package of badly needed reforms. of course eliminating secret holds is long overdue. it's wrong not only for the majority to block the minority from action, but too often without accountability. and eliminating low-level branch executive nominees i think is a meaningful step. while i fully support these steps they are far from the meaningful reforms i think are essential to make the united states senate a properly functioning legislative body. keep in mind, we are a legislative body. the filibuster was once an extraordinary tool used in the rarest of instances. across the entire 19th century, there were only 23, 23 filibusters. from 1917, when the senate first adopted rules on this, until

1969, there were fewer than 50 that whole time span, less than one a year. during the 104th congress, in 1995, when i first introduced my resolution, there were 82 filibusters. but it was not until the 110th and 111th congresses that the abuse of the filibuster would spin wildly out of control. in the 110th congress there was an astonishing 139 motions to end filibusters. when the 111th congress ended there were 136, 275 filibusters in over four years t. has spun out of control. this is not just a cold statistic of 275 filibusters. it means that the filibuster, instead of a rare tool to slow things down, has become an everyday weapon of obstruction, of veto.

on almost a daily basis one senator is able to use just the threat of a filibuster to stop bills even coming to the floor for debate and amendment, let alone a final vote. just in the last congress the filibuster was used to kill many pieces of legislation that enjoyed majority and often bipartisan support. the reality is because of the way the filibuster is abused today, the minority -- the minority -- has unchecked veto power over public policy. when i say minority, i don't say republicans. i say the minority. it could be the democrats, it could be the republicans. think about this, we are a legislative body elected by the voters of this country every six years to legislate, to pass legislation with the house to send it for the president.

or to defeat legislation one way or the other through our votes. but it would seem to me that reason alone, reason alone would suffice it to say that legislation should be able to be passed with a majority vote. that's not what's happened in the senate. the power to pass legislation has been given to the minority. reason alone would dictate that there's something inherently wrong and inherently unconstitutional about this. as james madison noted when rejecting a supermajority requirement to pass legislation, here's what james madison said -- and i quote -- "it would no longer be the majority that would rule. the power would be transferred to the minority." unfortunately, madison's

prediction has come true. we are the only democratic body in the world, and i challenge anyone, i challenge anyone to contradict me on this with proof. we are the only democratic body in the world where the minority, not the majority, controls. in today's senate, democracy -- democracy, democracy, to which we all claim to be such strong supporters of, democracy is turned on its head. the minority rules, the majority is blocked. the majority has responsibility and accountability but lacks the power to govern. the minority has power but lacks accountability or responsibility. this means, as we have seen recently, that the minority can block bills that would improve the economy, create jobs, and then turn around and blame the majority for not fixing the

economy. the minority can block popular legislation, then accuse the majority of being ineffective. again, i want to note when i refer to the minority here, i'm not saying republicans. i'm saying the minority. both parties have abused the filibuster in the past, and both will absent real reform, abuse the filibuster in the future. the republicans are currently in the minority, there is no question that control of this body will change again at some point as it always does periodically. some have argued that filibuster reform is nothing more than a -- quote -- "power grab by a democratic senator reacting to the recent elections in which his party lost seats." i've heard that said. well, it's true that it is now harder for either party to obtain the 60 votes needed to pass legislation. but i want to make clear that the reforms i advocate are not about one party or one agenda gaining an unfair advantage. it is about the senate as an

institution operating more fairly, effectively and democratically. i want to repeat again that i first introduced this in 1995 when i was in the minority. as we say in law school, in the court of equity, i come with clean hands. the truth is as it's situated right now, with republicans controlling the house, any final legislation will need to be bipartisan with or without a filibuster. let me also say again here that for a bill to become law it has to be passed by the house and the senate in the same form. in the same form. and then it must go to the president. the president can veto it. then it takes two-thirds vote to override a veto. a lot of checks and balances out there. a lot of checks and balances. so the need for the check on legislation by the minority with the ultimate power to veto that

is not needed. not needed. in fact, inimical. inimical to a democratic institution. it was former republican majority leader bill frist who said when he nearly shut the body down over the use of filibusters to block a handful of judges, again by democrats, here's what former leader bill frist said -- quote -- "this filibuster is nothing less than a formula for tyranny by the minority. for tyranny by the minority. further, i want to make it clear that it's not those of us who seek reform who are engaged in a power grab. it is those who insist on hanging on to an antiquated rule that are grabbing for power. it's those who have taken an extraordinary tool once used sparingly to ensure ample debate and deliberation and turned it,

turned it into a monstrosity, destroying the power of the majority to govern, turning over effective control of the senate to the party that failed to elect a majority of senators. that's the real power grab. that's the real power grab. moreover, despite the dire predictions of opponents of reform, filibuster reform does not mean the end of minority rights in the senate. senators of all parties will continue to have ample time to make arguments, attempt to persuade the public that a majority of their colleagues. the reform proposals that are being considered fully protect the rights of the minority to full and vigorous debate and deliberation, maintaining the hallmark of the united states senate. republicans presently have stated that the filibusters were

necessary because democrats employed a procedural maneuver to deprive them of the right to offer amendments, this so-called filling of the tree. not withstanding the rejoinder that republicans' use of amendments, such as offering amendments totally unrelated to the pending matter -- and there again this is when you get into the chicken and egg, who did it first to whom. nonetheless, i am sympathetic to the argument. the argument that the minority ought to have the right to be able to offer amendments. that's why i've included in my resolution guaranteed rights to offer germane amendments -- germane amendments, germane amendments -- not an amendment dealing with something totally unrelated to the legislation on the floor, but to offer legitimate germane amendments which the minority feels would improve or change to the

minority's liking whatever legislation, amendment or bill might be on the floor. too many people, i believe, confuse minority rights with minority winning. having the right to debate and to deliberate and to offer amendments does not mean you have the right to get your way. being allowed to vote on your amendment does not mean you have the right to win the vote. the minority does not deserve the right to prevail in every instance. if the minority can obviously convince some of the majority to join them, then they become the majority on a given issue and a given amendment. and that used to happen all the time around here. there's nothing wrong with that. but the minority, i submit -- the minority, i submit does not deserve the right under our

constitution nor under any reasonable interpretation of a democratic legislative body, they do not have the right to systematically block action by the majority and to veto, to have veto power over what even can be considered on the floor of the senate. the fact is provided that the minority is vested with ample protections, as it is in my proposal, and that the end -- at the end of ample debate the majority should be allowed to act. what is so radical, what is so strange about the notion that in a legislative body, the people's representatives should vote up or down on legislation or nominee? as senator henry cabot lodge stated many years ago -- quote -- "to vote without debating is perilous. but to debate and never vote is

imbecile." to vote without debating is per willous. -- is perilous. but to debate and never vote is imbecile. i think at the heart of this debate is a central question that we're not coming to grips with. do we really believe in democracy? do we really believe that the issues of public policy should be decided at the ballot box and not by the manipulation or procedural rules? i think the truth is both parties appear to be afraid of majority rule, afraid of allowing a majority of senators to work its will. at its heart, those who hang on to this outdated rule, those who vigorously oppose the majority having the ability to govern, i believe fear the american

people. they fear the american people. they fear that the people's choices and wishes will be translated into action here in washington. the central question, i think, for this body is very clear: do we or do we not believe in democracy and majority rule?. elections should have consequences. as ample protections for minority rights, the ma report party in the senate, whether democrat or republican, duly elected by the american people, should be allowed to carry out their agenda and be allowed to govern. should i be opposed to reform of the filibuster because i'm afraid that republicans someday will become the majority party in the senate and proceed to enact their agenda? no. i believe in democracy for republicans and democrats alike.

i believe in majority rule for republicans and democrats alike. the distinguished minority leader a week or so ago said, in regards to our proposal, said, you know, the majority, the democrats, ought to be concerned because a couple years from now, the republicans might take over this place and we'd be able to undo a lot of the things that they did. fear, fear that somehow the republicans will get the majority and be able to enact their agenda. i say to my friends, god bless you. if you win the election and you become the majority party, you ought to govern. now, what are the checks and balances? well, we don't know what the president will be, whether it will be a democrat or a republican. we don't know what the house is going to be. there are still a lot of internal checks and balances in the committee structure.

the minority under my proposal can still slow things down. i read in the paper the other day one senator said that it ought to be the right of the minority to slow things down. i believe that. in the senate, i believe that the minority ought to have the right to slow things down. that's why my proposal provides for that. provides for that. there's sample opportunity to slow things down, throw some sand in the gear box of the majority. but in my proposal, at the end of a period of time of eight days, the majority, the majority can govern. the majority can govern. so you can slow it down, the minority can still slow it down and slow down everything -- slow down every amendment, slow down every bill -- so compromise and negotiations would still go on.

someone -- some people say well, what if in the future the tea party -- i hear that on my side -- what if the tea party gains the majority in the senate. we'll need the filibuster to stop them. i say to my friends on this side, it's a sad day in america when the only way we can stop the tea party or any other extreme group is through subterfuge, through filibusters, secret holds, and parliamentary trickery. we have to have a fundamental confidence in democracy and the good sense of the american people. we have to have confidence in our ability to make our case to the american people and to prevail at the ballot box. we must not be afraid of the american people. we must not be afraid of how they cast their votes and for whom their cast their -- they cast their votes. i'm not afraid of the will of the american people expressed at

the ballot box. that's what sent me to this chamber. i should note, it used to be the operating principle of this body but over the years, especially recently, it has become grossly distorted. now, we all have our views on the recent election of what the american people said. everybody's got a view on it. so i'll say what i think my view s. the american people spoke loudly that they're fed up and angry with washington, with government, with congress. they want change. they want an end to the dysfunction in this city. in too many critical rairs -- job creation, immigration, energy, just to name a few -- people see a congress that is simply unable -- unable, unable -- to respond effectively to the urgent challenges of our time. madam president, my proposal's basically the same as i offered

16 years ago. it would amend the standing rules of the senate to permit a decreasing majority of senators over a period of eight days to invoke cloture on a given matter. so again, a determined minority could slow things down for eight days. senators would have ample time to make their arguments, attempt to persuade the public and a majority of their colleagues. this protects the rights of the minority to full and vigorous debate and deliberation. again, maintaining the hallmark of the united states senate. at the end of ample debate, however, there would be an up-or-down vote on an amendment, a bill, a nominee. my proposal would restore a basic and essential principle of representative democracy. majority rule in a legislative body. i also think there's another advantage. i think it would lead to greater compromise. many have argued that it's the filibuster that forces compromise and collaboration. i disagree.

the fact is, right now the minority has no real incentive to compromise. why should they? if they can totally block something and then go out and campaign on the message that the majority just couldn't get anything done? so again, the minority has a great deal of power but zero incentive really to compromise. i think my proposal would encourage a more robust spirit of compromise. if the minority knows that at the end of the day, at the end of eight days that 51 votes will be enough to bring a bill to the floor or to end debate on an amendment or a nominee, it would seem to me that they would be more willing to come to the table and compromise. and for the majority -- for the majority, the reason to compromise is because for the majority party in the senate -- and i say either one, democrats or republicans, whoever's in the majority -- one of the most

valuable things is time. allocation of time here in the body. so the majority always wants to save time. so rather than chew up eight days on a nominee or amendment, the majority would like to get it done in a day or so. the minority, knowing that at the end of eight days, 51 votes can pass something, would say well, maybe we ought to compromise now and get what we can out of it without dragging it out eight days. right now, there is literally zero, zero incentive to compromise. i also strongly encourage my colleagues to support the talking filibuster proposal of senator merkley's. they claim it's about silencing the minority. but the fact is, the filibuster today has nothing to do with debate and deliberation.

it's used to prevent consideration rather than to serve to ensure the representation of minority views and to foster deliberation. the minority uses the filibuster to prevent debate and deliberation. the filibuster has been used to defeat bills and nominees without their ever receiving a discussion on the floor. so the world's greatest deliberative body, the senate, has now become the world's greatest nondeliberative body. i think a "yes" vote today on a vote for reform, for change and for a government that can effectively address our nation's challenges is a vote to move ahead. it's a vote for progress. or you can vote for continued gridlock, continued obstruction and broken government. this body, madam president, does not function the way it's supposed to. to be sure, the founders put in place a system of checks and balances that makes it enormously difficult to enact

legislation. as i said, it must pass both houses of congress. first of all, it's got to go through committees, pass both houses of congress, go to a conference committee, then it goes to the president and he can veto it. and then it can be challenged in court. all very significant checks. now, one last -- a couple of last things. i often hear opponents of reform claim what i'm proposing would turn the senate into the house of representatives. turn it into the house of representatives. because at the end of the -- end of eight days, there would be 51 votes could move something. i ask my friends, when did the senate become defined by senate rule 22, which is the filibuster rule? i thought the senate was defined in the constitution of the united states. rule 22, the filibuster rule, is not the essence of the senate.

regardless, the senate will continue to be totally different from the house. we have two senators from small states, two senators from large states. we're elected every six years. we have sole jurisdiction over treaties, impeachments. and the senate operates, as we know in so many instances, based on unanimous consent. and that will continue. that will continue. so the power of one single senator renien remains to objecy unanimous consent request. so eliminating the filibuster will not change the basic nature of this body, not the constitutional structure of the united states senate. for most of the senate's histo history, there were very few filibusters, at most, one or two a year. can someone suggest that the senate of henry clay or daniel

webster, lyndon johnson, everett dirksen, that that senate was the same as the house of representatives? i mean, even in my short time here -- i've been here now, what, 26 years -- we used to have amendments on the floor that we would debate and vote. and if you got 51 votes, you won. we don't do that anymore. under the present structure of the senate, under the present rule 22, the way it is being used today, every measure that passes the senate must have 60 votes. whatever happened to the idea of majority rule? now you have to have 60 votes. and i've heard some say that, well, if you have to have 60 votes, this encourages compromise to get to the 60

votes. well, i'm all for compromise. i've brought a lot of legislation to the floor in my time here. some have been adopted 100-0. farm bills, appropriations bills, others that i have brought to the floor, both as a majority -- in the majority party and in the minority party, as the ranking member on a committee, and we didn't need 60 votes. if someone offered an amendment, they had the right to offer an amendment and get 51 or 52 or 53 votes and win. i have never -- i have never stood at that desk, either as a committee chair or as a ranking member and insisted on i a bill that we had on the floor, that it had to have 60 volts in order

t -- 60 votes inorder to pass at that is what has happened now in the senate? some say, well, that promotes compromise. but anybody, anybody that has a bill or an amendment, wants to get the most votes possible, right? so you want to get more votes. it's the very nature of legislation. but sometimes, sometimes there is a bill or an amendment that does not lend itself to easy compromise. it may be contentious. and you have to take a hard vo vote, and maybe it only gets 51 votes. should that amendment go down to failure because it got 51 or 52 or 53 or 54 or 55 or 58 or 59 votes? go out and explain in to the american people. go out to your next town meeting and say, no matter what happens, you got -- you can't pass anything with 51 votes.

you have to have 60 votes to pass anything in the senate. giving the minority the right to veto anything. you see how you're -- see how people react to that. i think if they understood it, they'd say, it's nuts. we all stand for election. every six years, if we only get 52% of the vote, maybe we shouldn't be here because obviously there was no consensus among the people who vetted for us that we should represent them if at the -- who voted for us that we should represent them if we didn't get 60% of the vote. is that what's coming, that if we don't have 60% of the votes we shouldn't serve in the united states senate? i'm taking that to the extreme. but it boils down to the essence of what we're saying. without adopting the reform of the filibuster is that, yes, we as a united states senate believe that a minority has the right to veto anything in this senate.

i would much rather be on the side that says the minority has a right to slow things down, the minority has the right to debate, the minority has the right to amend, and the minority has the right to win those amendments with 51 votes, but the minority should not have the right to veto and stop legislation. that's what my proposal does. adequate time for debate, adequate time for amendments, ensuring that the minority can offer an amendment, but in the end, the majority would rule. it was never intended, never, never, never intended that a supermajority of 60 votes would be needed to enact any piece of legislation, any amendment or confirm any nominee. indeed, the framers of our constitution were very clear about where a supermajority was

required. there were only five in the original constitution. ratification of a treaty, override of a veto, votes of impeachment, passage of constitutional amendment and expulsion of a member. it may come as a shock to many people, but the filibuster is not in the constitution of the united states. in fact, historically, the first senate when it met included a rule that permitted the majority to end debate and bring a measure to a vote with a majority. it was called the -- voting the previous question. but they had the right to do that. it was done away with by aaron burr, then-vice president of the united states. we know what happened to him. but that was done away with. and so the senate embarked upon almost 100 years, a little over 100 years of really having no rules, but then, again, the senate didn't do much. they really didn't do much.

however, in the 21st century, as a major superpower, with things happening with lightning speed around the world, we have to be able to react a little more rapidly than what we reacted in the 19th century. moreover, reform of filibuster rules stands squarely within the tradition of updating senate rules as needed to foster an effective government that can respond to the challenges of the day. the senate has adopted rules that forbid the filibuster in numerous circumstances, such as the war powers in the budget. think about that. for some reason, the senate at some point in time said you can't filibuster the budget. imagine that. you can filibuster other things, you can't filibuster the budget. how about the war powers act? what could be more important than whether or not we go to war or not, a power granted to the congress by the constitution, but you can't filibuster.

think about that. so we have rules that forbid the filibuster, we have passed four significant reforms of the filibuster since 1917. today, unfortunately, it has become abundantly clear that we cannot govern a 21st century superpower when a minority of 41 senators can dictate action or inaction to a majority of the senate and a majority of the american people. a majority of the american people. we had a bill here last year that was called the disclose act. the house passed it twice overwhelmingly, sent it to the senate. now, what did the disclose act say? all it did is it said that the supreme court decision in

citizens united that allowed corporate money to be fund into campaigns, to defeat or support an opponent, and did not have to be accounted for did not have to be made public. many people suspected that there was foreign money coming in through various sources to influence campaigns in the united states because they didn't have to report it. so the bill came through that didn't overturn the supreme court decision, just said that if you're going to do this, you have to disclose where you got the money. it passed the house. polls show that it was supported by well over 80% of the people, the majority of republicans and democrats around the country. it came to the senate twice. 59 votes. it got 59 votes. why isn't it law today? because you need 60 votes, 60

votes. go back and explain that at your town meetings. go back and tell them that we don't have that today, we don't have that sunshine law because you need the 60 votes even though we got 49. this is not the kind of representative democracy the founders envisioned. it's not the kind of representative democracy that our sons and daughters have fought and died for for over 200 years. how many of our young men and women in uniform today risking their lives in afghanistan, iraq or around the globe, how many of them know that they're risking their lives for minority rule, for minority rule, not majority rule, minority rule? very few, i submit, very few. it's time to end the paralysis, the drift and the decline here in the united states senate.

yes, let's commit ourselves to debate and deliberation. nothing wrong with that. nothing wrong with extended debate. and there is nothing wrong with having compromises, but there come times when maybe a compromise is not in the cards, but should that mean you can't vote on it, i say to my friends? should that mean that if you can't get 60 votes, you don't even deserve to have a 51-vote or 52 or 53 votes? is that what we're saying? i -- i've heard my friends on the other side, i think i heard heard -- i don't know exactly who it was earlier today say well, the 60 votes really promotes compromise. i'm all for that, but what if you can't get the compromise, i say? then are you saying you can't have a vote because you can't

get 60 votes? that's in essence what they're saying. it is not the bedrock of democratic principles to deny the majority to rule to finally take a vote. so there may be a lot of misinterpretations of the amendment that i'm offering. oh, it's going to make us like the house. nonsense. it's going to take away minority rights. nonsense. it's going to take away the right of the minority to slow things down. nonsense. what my amendment does is finally -- it says finally at some point in time, we're going to exercise our constitutional obligation. and i will close on this. every six years, we elect when we go down here and we hold up

our right hand and we swear an oath, we swear an oath to uphold and defend the constitution of the united states against all enemies foreign and domestic and to bear true faith and allegiance to the same. i submit, madam president, that we are not living up to our oath of office, in terms of bearing true faith and allegiance to the constitution when on the other hand we enact rules that deny the majority the right to govern. when we deny the majority the right to govern. so i -- i say, madam president, every senator has a lot of power here. the power of a senator comes not from what we can do but from what we can stop. i've often said that's kind of the dirty little secret of the

united states senate. well, i think it's time for each of us to give up a little bit of our power, to give up a little bit of our power for the good of the country. to give up a little bit of our power to be able to stop something in order that the majority, whoever that majority may be, can carry out their be agenda on behalf of the american people. i do not fear, i do not fear the voters, i do not fear the ballot box. what i fear is that this senate will continue to be dysfunctional, it will not be able to act, we will continue to drift. we will not be able to respond to the exij yen sis of our -- exigencies of our time. the american people will get more and more frustrated and

disappointed in the workings of our government, and the end result will be a decline in america. so i -- look, i'm not pollyannish. i know that none of these proposals will succeed. it takes 67 votes, they say, to change the rules of the senate. madam president, i believe that is inherently unconstitutional, unconstitutional. can one congress bind another? can one congress bind all future congresses? can one senate bind all future senates? can one senate in a moment of time say that you need 90 votes to pass anything here because 90 members happen to be of one party, so they enact a rule, they say you've got to have 90 votes to change any rule, knowing it will probably never

happen again. as senator byrd said one time -- i know he is being quoted a lot around here today when it comes to these debates. he said -- quote -- "we should not be bound by the dead hand of the past, the dead hand of the past." i believe it is the inherent right of the senate to change its rules by a majority vote at the beginning of any congress. that's what it says in the constitution. each, each house shall make its rules. it doesn't say each house makes its rules and every succeeding house must abide by those rules. they didn't say that. so, madam president, i think what we're really left with is we are left with a situation where the senate, where the senate cannot live up to its constitutional obligation. i think it is almost inherently impossible for the senate to do

so. and therefore i think that we must now have to look to the courts to provide some relief in this matter. just as the supreme court decided in baker v. carr that legislatures could not reapportion themselves, and so therefore they found it unconstitutional. i, quite frankly, think a case could be made to the courts that the senate rules as they are now applied with the 67-vote threshold prevents me, a senator from iowa, prevents a senator from georgia, prevents a senator from oregon from fulfilling his or her constitutional obligations to their constituents, to the people who

elected them to try to get legislation passed on a majority basis. so, as i said, i'm not pollyannish. i know where the votes are here today. i know that my proposal won't get many votes. it didn't get many in 1995 either. people say well, harkin, why are you doing this? why do you do it when you don't get many votes? i do it because i believe in it. i believe with all my heart and all my soul that the senate is not operating constitutionally right now. so i feel that this fight must continue. and, as i said, madam president, i now come to that point in time where i feel that perhaps we must look to the courts for their decision on whether or not the senate is capable ever of

fulfilling its constitutional responsibilities and obligations. so i hope that we don't have to go there. i hope that we could adopt some of these reforms such as the merkley amendment or my proposal quite frankly, the essence of it is the proposal by the senator from new mexico. that is the heart of it. can a majority of the senate change its rules at the beginning of a senate? i believe it is constitutionally not only permissible, but i think we are obligated by the constitution every two years to adopt the rules of the senate by a majority vote and not by 67 votes. so i -- i close my part of the debate by appealing to the

conscience of our senators to think about majority rule, to think about rights of minority, but to think about the rights of the american people to have their voice heard here by a majority vote -- by a majority vote and not by a supermajority. i believe that's our constitutional obligation. madam president, i yield the floor. the presiding officer: the senator from georgia's recognized. mr. isakson: madam president, i rise briefly to address a few remarks made by the distinguished senator from iowa and to compliment my colleague from tennessee. first, all these talks about our founding fathers and the constitution, if our founding fathers had not intended supermajorities to pass -- why would two-thirds have to -- three-fourth of the staff have to vote to ratify one. if they had -- if our founding fathers not intended minority representation to exist i

wouldn't have two senators like california or like everybody would have proportionate number of senators. and finally with regard to the question we're the only democracy in the world to have a rule where majority rules, the fact of the matter is that may be true. we're also the richest, safest, most prosperous democracy in the world, and that has to do with how we govern ourselves. i wanted to make those three points, if i could, i wanted to congratulate senator wyden, senator mccaskill and senator grassley to make sure that we have total transparency. i think that is right and that's exactly what the american people would express. and, lastly, i want to thank the senator from 10 attend the senator from new york. i think in the last few weeks they've done a lot of work, yeomen's work to make sure that this senate doesn't rush to judgment. the senate in the end is all about senators putting their

shoulder to the grind stone and making things work. i think in this case there's no question that senator alexander has done exactly that and i want to compliment him on his work and yield back the floor. a senator: madam president? the presiding officer: the senator from new mexico's recognized. mr. udall: thank you, madam president. and -- and i -- i want to thank all the senators who have come down on this debate and these are just a couple of cleanup house keeping things that i'm doing. first of all, the charge was made that we're trying to make the senate like the house and rather than get in a long debate

there, i would just ask unanimous consent to put federalist paper 62 and a letter from a number of scholars that testified before the rules committee. i ask unanimous consent to put those in the record. the presiding officer: without objection, they'll be included in the record. mr. udall: and i have also -- have a full statement on this particular issue and others have a full statement that answers that specific charge, the senate and the house, and i ask that full statement be put in the record as if read at this point. the presiding officer: without objection, the statement will be included in the record. mr. udall: and then there was also the -- to the first -- to the first u.c. with the federalist paper there was also an additional statement that -- to back that up. i ask unanimous consent to put that in. the presiding officer: without objection, included in the record. mr. udall: madam president,

we're at this point in the debate, the concluding point in the debate where i think it's very appropriate to just thank staff. my two staff members that have worked the hardest, all my staff has worked very hard on this, but matt nelson and tim woodbury deserve individual recognition for their tireless work on this. i know, as a result of this, we put a lot of pressure on the rules committee, jean borderwich and her crew has done a good job and the parliamentarian shop we've had great assistance from them in terms of answering questions and working with them. so i would applaud allen and all of the parliamentarians. at several places in the record, a variety of different items were mentioned. and to clarify the record, i ask unanimous consent to insert in

the record a "new york times" editorial from january 25th, that's the first one. the second one, a harvard law and policy review article that i authored, number three, quotes from -- from constitutional scholars an conservative -- and conservative scholars and number four, an op-ed from "the washington post" entitled "fixing broken senate rules." the presiding officer: without objection, they'll be include ntd record. mr. udall: -- included in the record. mr. udall: and then, finally, i just want to thank again our leaders here, lamar alexander, chuck schumer have done a remarkable job in terms of negotiating. leader reid and leader mcconnell have made a decision which was announced earlier today and that decision was to change some of the rules to let

us vote on some changes to the rules, and also i think one of the most significant things, and i know senator alexander has mentioned this is to try to change behavior. and more than anything i think that could be very significant as they have talked and said we'd like to do this differently, we'd like to get back to the senate functioning where we bring things up, we debate them, we allow robust debate, we allow the amendment process to work forward and as -- as i know senator alexander said at one point in his heritage speech, the senate is a shadow of itself well. , that -- we want to get back to that the senate with that robust debate and amendment. and i think both sides have tried to pull that together. so, with that, i would just say i hope -- i very much hope that this is a -- a new day in the senate as a result of this, and,

with that, i yield the floor. the presiding officer: the senator from tennessee is recognized. mr. alexander: madam president, i've earlier congratulated senator udall and i -- i have earlier congratulated senator udall and wyden and merkley and -- and senator harkin for stimulating a good, full discussion about two objectives, one, how do we make the senate the best possible place to deal with serious issues that come before our country because we have plenty of them right now starktsing wit -- starting withr national debt and the high unemployment rates. they've done a good job of that. they have led us to adopt two important steps. one having to do with secret holds, another having to do with -- with taking time away

that might otherwise be better used by reading from the -- by having the clerk read an amendment. it's also produced a couple of other things, one is a -- the broader support we've had in a number of years on dealing with the persistent problem of the difficulty a president has in staffing the government. senator reid and senator mcconnell, when they were whips, tried deal with this. we had three bipartisan breakfasts on this working with the white house two years ago. senator lieberman and senator collins, who are the committee chairs, have tried to deal with this and we have all failed so far. but senator schumer and i will be introducing a bill and will have the support of the leaders, senators mcconnell and reid, and -- and it will have the active involvement of senator lieberman and senator collins

and what we hope to do is two things, one is reduce the number -- senator harkin spoke about this a little earlier, he's a chairman, he's been a ranking member and a chairman. he's basically saying, we don't need to spend our time here. -- here having senate confirmation of hundreds of boards and commission members and the p.r. official for some department. we ought to focus our attention on jobs and debt and terror and the issues that affect the american people. and perhaps we can deal with that. and the second thing we should do is to end this practice of -- of -- of making it so that citizens who are invited by the president of the united states to -- to serve in our government, to become innocent until nominated. we drag them through a maze of -- of conflicting forms, many of them created by the executive branch, many of them created by us that trap them an trick them

and embarrass them and it's surprising anybody will accept -- accept the opportunity. i remember majority leader howard baker was nominated by president bush to go to japan, everybody said it, knew him very well. he was voted most admired senator by senators on both sides of the aisle, cost him $250,000 to fill out the forms so he could be the ambassador to japan. i could give many examples of this. washington, d.c., is the only place where you hire a lawyer and accountant and ethics rosser before you find your house and put your kid in school if you come to work here. and we need good people in the government and we need to be able to attract them here and we should fix that. and i greatly appreciate the work that senator schumer, reid, and mcconnell and lieberman and collins and others have done and i hope that our colleagues will bring this in an expedited

way. i ask unanimous consent to include remarks i made on march 9, 2009, entitled "innocent until nominated." the presiding officer: without objection, that will be included in the record. mr. alexander: only two other things. i want to congratulate senator mcconnell and senator reid for -- for leading us in this way. changing rules is an important step forward. i do not in any way want to diminish what i believe we're about to do here. but we need a change in behavior more than we need a change in rules and this has caused us to talk across party lines about what we want. and i think what we want is what senator udall said as a whole. we'd like most bills to come through committee. most bills then to come to the floor. most bills then to have a chance for most senators to be able to offer most of their amendments and then to get votes. that's what we should try to do most of the time. sometimes the republicans will want to repeal the health care law and the democrats will use

all of their resources to defeat it. and the democrats in the house will send over a bill to repeal the secret ballot and union elections and republicans will try to defeat that. so we'll use all our resources then. that won't be most of the time. most of the time we will be able to do our jobs better to be able to represent the people who sent us here. i hope that those who have provoked this discussion feel a sense of satisfaction about what they've don't even though i know in every case they didn't get exactly what -- what they wanted. and then, finally, i -- there is a long response to senator harkin's excellent comments on his amendment, which he's been fighting for for 16 years, but with a couple of exceptions i'll put in the record. i ask unanimous consent to include at the end of my remarks an address i made to the heritage foundation on january 4. the presiding officer: without objection, included inned

record. mr. alexander: he believes that we ought to bring every debate eventually to 51 votes. and so i would respectfully term his amendment as a sort of hang me now or hang me later. i mean, you know, eventually it's not 60 votes you're going to require, it's 51. he says that's the way it ought to be. i disagree. so do many others and i'll just cite two distinguished senators who spoke on the floor of the senate about five years ago when a number of republicans got it in their mind that they would like to change the filibuster rule as it affects judges. this is what the democratic whip, harry reid, said then. the filibuster is far from a procedural gimmick. it's part of the fabric of this constitution that we call the senate. for 200 years we've had the right to extend the debate. it's not a procedural gimmick. some in this chamber want to throw out 214 years of senate history in the quest for absolute power. they want to do away with

mr. smith as depicted in that great movie being able to come to washington. they want to do away with the filibuster. they think they're wiser than the founding fathers, i doubt that's true, said senator reid. and then another senator, the senator from illinois, barack obama. then in the majority, referring then to the republican majority, then to the majority, said senator obama, chooses to end the filibuster. if they choose to change the rules and put an end to democratic debate, then the fighting and bitterness and the gridlock will only get worse. i would suggest, madam president, that as a result of this discussion, we preserve the senate as an institution, a forum for deliberation where minority rights are protected, but we've also taken some important steps forward or about to with rules changes to make the function better and we've reached a consensus among ourselves informally, any heway,

that's represented by the colloquy placed in the record that will be placed in the record by senator reid and senator mcconnell. oology ever and so what we really want is an opportunity to represent the american people the way they since the here to do, to take these difficult pieces of legislation, bring them to committee, bring them to the floor and for us to have a chance to amend and debate and vote on nem. that would be most of the time. and some cht time we'll exercise all of our minority and majority rights to defeat a bill, because that's all what we're sent here to do. soy thank the senators for this spirited debate and as far as i sew noi l. know, there are -- and as far as i know, there are no more speakers on the republican side. the presiding officer: the sno senator from new york is recognized. mr. schumer: thank you. i believe i am the lft speaker. preceded by months and months f

serious discussion. i think every one of success better. we went through this process, we understand the senate better, we have deeper feelings about this hallowed snurks about what it has done and what it can do. and what is wrong with it as we will. and i think every one of us agree that the senate needed to be fixed and every one of us also agreed that we did a lot last year despite the fact that it was broken, and we had different paths to fix it. but fix it we must and fix it we will. and i would just say this. obviously there are going to be some rules changes and some statutory changes. but a lot of what will make this work is the agreement, informal but serious, between senators reid and mcconnell that senator alockbox ander and i were a part of. -- alexander and i were a part of. i would say, hopefully we are opening up a bit of a new era

where bills are allowed to come to the floor, except under administered circumstances, where amendments are allowed to be added to those bills except under extraordinary circumstances and there is vigorous debate. i would ask my colleagues to forebear -- it is very easy for any senator to stand up. but the spirit of this new agreement says think twice, three times, even for times before you do because that was the path that lysed to the dysfunction. i, too, want to just once again salute my colleagues, senator harkin, senator udall, senator merkley for the great job they did, senator i woulddon and senator mccaskill and senator grassley will have a descreem of theirs neablghted into the rules momentarily. this that be a fine debate. i would hope and pray -- i don't think the talking filibuster cuts against anything my colleagues on the other side of

the aisle have said. and i will going to proudly vote for that provision and maybe miracles of miracles it'll get two-thirds but at least there'll be a vote and maybe we can work towards that in the future. i also do believe that the proposal to not invoke the constitutional option for this congress and next congress gives us some time to figure all this out without closing the door on this forever because some is on our side i know was worried about that. so let us go forward in a spirit of comity that we have seen since the lame-duck. let us go inured a bipartisan way that we've worked on these rules changes and move forward in the next few months and try to legislate in the way many of us who have been here longer than a few years used to love and enjoy and relish. if we can bring those times bark the senate will be a better place for every one of us, no

matter our party or our ideology. so i thank all of my colleagues -- my colleague from tennessee, the two leaders who stepped up to the plate and the so-called young turks, some of whom have been here much longer than i have been -- for importuning us to afnlgt i yield the floor. mr. reid: mr. president? the presiding officer: the majority leader is recognized. mr. reid: ask unanimous consent that at remaining time be yielded back. that there be two minutes equally divided briar to each oat. that all roll call votes after the first be for 10 minutes. the presiding officer: without objection, so ordered. mr. reid: have the yeas and nays been ordered? the presiding officer: yes, they have. the question is on the adoption of senate resolution 28. under the previous order, a vote of 60 is required for adoption of this resolution. there are two minutesly divided. the senator from oregon. mr. wyden: madam president,

there has been much discussion about the proposed rules reforms and how far they go. to those who say that this resolution doesn't go far enough, i would ask, why have the friends of secrecy fought so hard for so long to allow senators to anonymously block legislation on nominations? the fact is, this resolution deals with a sweeping, almost unparalleled, legislative power: the act of one united states -- the ability of one united states senator to anonymously block a bill or nomination from going forward. that's not right. senator grassley, senator mccal skill and i have worked with colleagues on both sides of the aisle to say that if you want to exercise that extraordinary power, you ought to do it in sunlight. there art to be public disclosure. there ought to be transparency. i yield the remainder of our time to senator grassley, who has championed this cause with

senator mccaskill and i thank him for awful his efforts. the presiding officer: thank you. the senator from iowa is recognized. mr. grassley: madam president and my clerks the time has come to end secrecy on the floor of the house of representatives. the time has come for senators who think they ought to put a hold on a bill to be able to continue to put a hold on a bill or a nomination, but it's also time to show that you have guts enough to let the people know who you are and, more importantly, to let your colleagues know who you are so if there's something wrong with a piece of legislation or a nomination, we can find out what it is and move the business of the senate ahead. this is something that's going to make the senate a much more efficient place to work and get the people's business done and do one of the most important things we can do is that the public's business ought to be public. i yield the floor.

the presiding officer: the question is on the adoption of the resolution. the clerk will call the roll. vote:

vote: