securitiesecurities dwhrood in e d. understood that in a couple years the interest rate would go up and they had a make a lot of money off those securities. so this was a system rigged against the first-time home buyer, against the home buyer who wanted to start their journey to oarng their piece of the -- to owning their piece off the american dream. well, that's predatory practices should never have been allowed. some here will remember, they will remember that the responsibility for consumer protection was vested in the federal reserve. well, what happened in the federal reserve? well, the federal reserve carried on with its responsibility on montanatory policy. but it's put its responsibility for consumer protection down in the basement, down in the pavement of their building. they locked the doors. they threw away the key and they said, let the market be the market. they is abandoned -- they abandoned

our consumers across this country. that's why we need a consumer financial protection bureau that doesn't have a conflict in its mission, that's not obsessed with a different mission, such as monetary policy. wwe need a bureau that says new predatory techniques will crop up and we will try to end them, try to end practices and predatory payday loans that can charge 350% to 550% interest on unsuspecting citizens. we need to -- to have a bureau that looks out and says we need to find a way to stop the practice in which on-line payday lenders get your bank account number and then without your permission do a remotely generated check and reach in and grab the funds out of your account. all the list of predatory -- the list of predatory practices is endless because the human mind is endlessly inventive. so we have an important bureau

but an important bureau that cannot do its job unless there is a director to run it. now, it is two years ago that richard cordray was nominated to head the bureau. he's been waiting to get cloture on his nomination and a subsequent vote for two years. he's been an interim, if you will, appointee during that period of time and by all accounts, from everything i've heard from folks in this chamber, doing a very, very good job. working very hard with the great technical details of the financial world to find a fair and solid way forward. and so the fact that his nomination so long delayed is not a reflection on him personally. in fact, many senators who have opposed allowing the vote to take place have come forward and said, it's not about him personally, it's about the consumer financial protection bureau. 43 senators in this chamber

wrote a letter to say they would oppose any nominee -- any nominee -- for the consumer financial protection bureau. it was a bold attempt to change back to a situation where there was no one to fight for consumer protection in this nation for our citizens. today we end that drama in favor of fairness for american citizens. in favor of taking strong action against predatory mortgages and the predatory practices of the future. and in eight hours, we will be vote up or down on his nomination, as we should have long ago. but let me shift gears here and say that the vote we took today is symbolic of much more than just the important function of establishing an effective consumer financial protection bureau. the vote we took a short while ago is central to ending the

paralysis that has generally haunted this chamber. now, that paralysis is something new. in the time from eisenhower's presidency through ford's presidency, there was not one, not one filibuster of an executive nominee. and presiden in president obama2 years, there have been 16 such filibusters. so if we talk about the norman trajectory carbon emissiotradite normal tradition of the senate is an up-or-down vote. that is the tradition. and it's a tradition that fits with the constitution. the constitution calls for a supermajority for treaties to be confirmed but it only embeds a simple majority requirement for nominations.

and there is reasoning behind that, because our founders envisioned three coequal brarchlz obranches of governmen. they could never, never have envisioned that it would be okay for the minority of one branch to be able to deeply disable another branch, be it the executive branch or be it the judiciary. so the vote we took today is part of a larger conversation about ending the paralysis and focusing on the challenge of executive nominations getting timely up-and-down votes. a senator: will the senator yield for a question? a senator: absolutely. the senator from illinois. mr. durbin: madam president, i'd like to address a question to the senator from oregon through the chair. first, thank him for his leadership. he's been a singular force in the senate to have us reassess the rules of the senate to make certain that they are serving the needs of our nation. and i thank senator merkley for his leadership and i know that

he felt a great sense of satisfaction with the vote that just was cast on the floor, a vote which 71 senators voted to end cloture -- invoke cloture, i should say, and end the filibuster on the nominee to head the consumer financial protection bureau. as the senator from oregon knows, this bureau has been controversial since its inception when we passed the dodd-frank finance reform bill after the tragedies and scandals of wall street. there were many who did not want to see us create a consumer protection agency, yet we did. it was the brainchild of one of our current colleagues, senator elizabeth warren of massachusetts, who before she was elected, thought this was an important agency, literally the only consumer protection agency in the federal government. but it wasn't welcomed by some quarters, particularly some financial institutions and others.

but i think it's noteworthy at two levels and i'd like to ask the senator from oregon to respond. first, it's noteworthy that though it took two years, in that two-year period of time, this consumer financial protection bureau has proven its worth. i'm working now on the exploitation of our military by for-profit schools. holly petraeus, the wife of general petraeus, works for this agency and she has really focused her efforts on military families and the exploitation of the g.i. bill by these schools. i think every american would agree that those who are guilty of it should be held accountable. and this investigation is underway by this agency and now richard cordray is there to head it. i think that's important and that's why this vote was important, as the vote on richard cordray's nomination will be in just a few hours. but the second point is a larger global point about the senate and perhap perhaps congress. we have in a very brief period of time, in one month, seen two

very significant votes, in my estimation. the first was on the immigration bill, where 68 senators voted for the immigration reform bil bill -- 14 republicans joining all the democrats. it was a breakthrough and most of us feel it -- it was the first time that we have seen in a long time senators of both political parties sit down, hammer out an agreement that was reflected in the vote on the floor. 14 republicans, 54 democrats. now we have the second evidence of bipartisanship with the vote that was just cast. 71 who came forward, some 17 republicans and 54 democrats, if i'm not mistaken, voting in favor of ending cloture. point i'd like to get to in this long question, it seems to me -- and i would ask the senator from oregon for his reflection on this -- it seems to me that the key to getting things done on capitol hill these days in a fractured political nation is bipartisanship.

not just in the senate chamber but in the house as well. that they have to reach beyond the majority party -- in our case, democrats; in their case, republicans -- and start thinking about how we put things together on a bipartisan basis that have a chance of passing and ultimately becoming law and solving the problems facing our nation. so now when it comes to consumer protection with a bipartisan vote we move forward. just a few weeks ago when it came to immigration reform, we had a bipartisan vote and moved forward. so i'd ask the senator to not only reflect on this institution and the earlier vote but on the current challenges we face politically and how these votes reflect on those. mr. merkley: i'd say to my colleague from illinois that, indeed, these are key milestones on a journey in a -- where the journey is to restore the functionality of this senate so that it can take on the significant issues americans expect us to take on. now, the path forward is not yet

one without obstruction. so we have these two important milestones, one of going forward on immigration, a second of going forward in terms of putting a functioning consumer financial protection bureau fully together. and we've had some other recent moments that fit this pattern, including passing the farm bill out of this chamber for the second time, passing the water resources development act that would fund enormous amount of infrastructure across this country to help provide both water supply infrastructure and water waste treatment infrastructure. these are good moments. but we also are reminded that the path is not clear completely. for example, at this moment, we should be in the middle of a conference committee on the budget. now, the senate passed a budget and the house has passed a budget, but the conference committee is being filibustered

by this chamber, and so that is an evidence of the model we're trying to break that's unexplainable to the american people. and folks back home want to know, why can't we get a bill on the floor of the senate to address the sequester, because fewer kids are getting into head start, fewer kids are getting their inoculations, title 1 schools are not getting their funding. and, of course, there's a lot of concern within the military world about our national security, for the programs that are being compromised. so there's lots of -- but we couldn't get the bill to the floor of the senate because it was filibustered. and so we have important milestones to grab hold of that are presenting a vision of the restoration of this senate as a deliberative body, but we are going to have to work together in this bipartisan fashion you speak of to continue on this road. mr. durbin: i thank the senator.

mr. merkley: madam president? the presiding officer: the senator from oregon. mr. merkley: thank you, madam president. i appreciate my colleague from illinois emphasizing the important role of bipartisanship in making this chamber work. his question gave me an opportunity to talk about what has just transpired as an important victory. an important victory for this chamber in its deliberations, important victory for people across america, families working to have their financial foundation solid rather than torn asunder by predatory practices. in this journey, this effort to pursue a senate that can again function as a deliberative body, i want to take this moment to thank my colleague, tom udall. tom udall and i came into the senate together. tom udall immediately recognized that the senate needed to

address its internal functioning because we were becoming more and more paralyzed. he proposed before this body that we have a conscious debate every two years about how to adjust the rules and to make this senate chamber work much better. because we're not only being paralyzed on executive nominations, but we have the paralysis on judicial nominations and we have this terrible paralysis on legislation, with a few important exceptions that we just talked about, my senator -- my colleague from illinois and i just -- just spoke about. so i want to thank tom for his work to help motivate this -- this body to take on these issues and to restore the functionality. i have been pleased to be a partner with him on this journey, and i know it's a journey that is not yet done. but i do thank my colleagues across the aisle and on this side of the aisle for the very frank discussions last night in

which for three hours we bared our hearts, if you will, about what is working and not working in this chamber. that, too, is an important moment in this journey to make the senate work. and so i applaud the spirit that came into the chamber today that resolved the two-year standoff in regard to having a functioning chair of the consumer financial protection bureau, and it has set the tone hopefully for changing dramatically the partnership to restore the functioning of the senate going forward. thank you, madam president.

mr. sanders: madam president? the presiding officer: the senator from vermont. mr. sanders: thank you. madam president, i am glad that an agreement has been reached in which president obama will finally get senate confirmation votes on his appointees for the consumer financial protection board, the department of labor and the heads -- the head of the environmental protection agency. this agreement, as i understand it, will also provide that the president's new nominees for the national labor relations board will be rapidly confirmed. that's a step forward. but while this agreement addresses the immediate need for

the president of the united states to have his cabinet and his senior staff confirmed, this agreement today only addresses one symptom of a seriously dysfunctional senate. the issue that must now be addressed is how we create a process and a set of rules in the united states senate which allows us to respond to the needs of the american people in a timely and effective way, something which virtually everyone agrees is not happening now. the united states senate, in my view, cannot function with any degree of effectiveness if a supermajority of 60 votes are

needed to pass virtually any piece of legislation, and if we waste huge amounts of time not debating the real issues facing working people but waiting for --quote, unquote -- motions to proceed hour after hour after hour where nobody is even on the floor of the united states senate. so the good news is that i think the nation is now focused on the dysfunctionality of the united states senate and the need for us to have rules or a process which allows us to address the enormous problems facing our country. when people ask why is it that congress now has a favorability rating of less than 10%, the

answer is fairly obvious. the middle class of this country is disappearing. real unemployment is somewhere around 14%. the minimum wage has not kept up with inflation. millions of people are working in jobs which pay them poverty wages. tens of millions of people today lack health care while we have the most expensive and wasteful health care system in the world. the greatest planetary crisis facing our nation and the entire world is global warming. we're not even debating that issue. now, madam president, the united states senate is a very peculiar

institution. it is peculiar in the sense that any one member, one of 100 can come down here on the floor and utter two magical words which bring the senate to a complete halt, and that is i object. i will not allow the senate to go forward. which means the whole government shuts down. i object, i object. and what we have seen in recent years, especially since barack obama has been elected, is an unprecedented level of i object, of holds, of a variety of mechanisms which bring the functioning of the united states senate to a halt, and all of this takes place at a time when millions of people can't find jobs, at a time when kids are graduating college deeply in

debt and millions of others are now choosing not to go to college because we're not addressing the issue of higher education. it takes place in a time when our infrastructure of roads and bridges -- of roads and bridges and airports and rail systems are crumbling, when our educational system is in need of major reform, when the gap between the people on top, everybody else is growing wider. the american people perceive, perceive that this country has major problems which must be addressed, and what does the united states senate do? we are sitting here waiting 30 hours for a motion to proceed, to see if, in fact, we can vote on a piece of legislation which requires 60 votes, and time and time again, we don't get those votes. now, madam president, when votes

come up, i would like to win, be on the winning side. that's natural. everybody would. but what happens here -- and the american people, by and large, don't fully understand it -- we don't vote on issues. what happens is the debate ceases because we don't get motions to proceed, so we don't vote on a jobs program. we vote on whether or not we can proceed to a jobs program to create millions of jobs. we don't vote on whether we can keep interest rates for college students who are borrowing money low. we vote on whether we can proceed to have the vote. and what we have seen now in the last several years is an

unprecedented level of obstructionism and of filibustering. between 1917 and 1967, there was a more or less agreement in the senate that a filibuster would only be used under exceptional circumstances, and in that 50-year period, there were only some 40, 45 filibusters in a 50-year period. when lyndon johnson was majority leader in the late 1950's, in his six-year tenure as majority leader, he had to overcome a filibuster on one occasion. since harry reid has been majority leader in the last six and a half years, he has had to overcome over 400 filibusters,

or at least requirements for 60 votes. the amount of time we are wasting is unconscionable, and furthermore, what the american people don't know is that time after time after time, we are winning. we have the votes to win and have shown that on very important issues, in terms of one major issue as an example. now, madam president, rather tragically, we have a situation as a result of the disastrous citizens united supreme court decision that corporations and billionaires can spend hundreds of millions of dollars on elections, and as bad as that is, what is even worse, they can hide their contributions, not

make it public. well, guess what? the united states senate by a majority vote said that's wrong. if you're going to contribute huge amounts of money into the political process, the people have a right to know who you are. we have a majority vote on that issue. we couldn't get it passed because we needed 60 votes. the american people know that our tax system is enormously flawed, that you have got -- you have major, major corporations, general electric and other corporations that in a given year after making billions of dollars in profits pay zero in federal taxes. legislation was passed on the floor of the senate by a majority which begins to address that issue, but we didn't have 60 votes.

we have provided emergency relief to senior citizens who several years ago were getting no colas with social security. we had a majority vote. couldn't get 60 votes. we had a majority vote to say that women should be paid equal pay for equal work, a majority of senators said that. couldn't get it passed. so what we have seen in recent years is reasonably good legislation getting a majority vote, but we can't get it passed because time after time after time we need 60 votes. so what we are operating under now is a tyranny of the minority. the american people go to vote, they elect obama president, they elect a democratic senate. people who campaigned on certain issues, these people go forward

trying to implement their campaign promises, they can't do it because we cannot get 60 votes. so once again, at one point in senate history, from 1917 to 1967, the filibuster was used very, very sparingly, only under exceptional circumstances. since that point, have democrats -- and i speak as an independent -- have democrats abused the system? have they been obstructionists? there are times when they have been. but since 2008, what has happened is the republicans have taken obstructionism to an entirely new level. virtually every piece of legislation now requires 60 votes, and virtually every piece of legislation requires just an enormous amount of time. what do we do? what do we do?

my colleagues on both sides of the aisle have made the point that the senate is not the house, and they are right. in the house, there are 435 members and majority rules. the majority has a whole lot of power. the minority just doesn't have all that much power. and people have said we do not want the senate to be like the house, and i agree with that. the senate should not be the house. senate members should be guaranteed the rights to offer amendments, not be shut out of the process. whether you're in the minority or the majority, you should have the right to offer amendments. there should be thorough and lengthy debate if a member of the united states senate wants to stand here on the floor and speak hour after hour to call attention to some issue that he or she feels is important, that senator has the right, in my

view, to do that. and if that debate goes on for a week, it goes on for a week. senators, whether in the minority or the majority, have the right to call attention and to debate and to focus on issues that they consider to be important. but at the end of that debate, there must be finality. there must be a majority vote. 51 votes should win. so the concept that i support is what is called the talking filibuster. minority rights must be protected. they must have all the time they need to make their point. but majority rights must also be protected. if democracy means anything, what i learned in the third grade was that the majority rules, not the minority. and what is happening in our country is not only enormous

frustration about the very, very serious economic and environmental problems we face, there is just huge outrage at the inability of congress to even debate those issues. for example, i am a very strong believer that the minimum wage in this country must be significantly raised. it's now about $7.25. i would like it to go up to $10 an hour. even at $10 an hour, people working 40 hours a week will still be living in poverty, but we have got to raise the minimum wage. my strong guess is that if we don't change the rules, despite overwhelming support in this country for raising the minimum wage, we will never get an up-or-down vote here on that issue, because republicans will obstruct, demand 60 votes, filibuster the issue. if my republican friends are so

confident in the points of view that they are advocating, bring them to the floor. let's have an up-or-down vote. let the american people know how i feel on the issue, how you feel on the issue, but let us not have issues decided because we couldn't get 60 votes for a quote -- unquote -- motion to proceed. nobody in america understands what that's about. you want to vote against the minimum wage, have the guts to come up here, vote against the minimum wage. you want to vote against women's rights, come on up here, make your say, vote against women's rights. if you want to vote against global warming, vote against global warming but let us at least have the debate that the american people are demanding. so, madam president, let me just conclude by saying that i am glad the president will finally be able to get some key appointees seated. i was a mayor and i know it's

terribly important that if you're a chief executive, you need to have your team around you and i'm glad he will get some key appointees. but let us understand that what we are doing today is dealing with one very, very small part of an overall problem, which is the dysfunctionallity of the united states senate and i hope having addressed the immediate crisis we can now go on and address the broader issue, and that is making the united states senate responsive to the needs of the american people, having serious debate on serious issues and let's see where the chips fall. and with that, madam president, i would yield the floor and i -- i would not yield the floor -- or i would yield the floor and not yield the floor. what am i doing here. the presiding officer: the presiding officer: under the previous order, the senate will stand until recess until

stand until recess until >> so the senate taking a break now so lawmakers can attend their weekly caucus meetings. members will be considering a deal regarding a number of president obama's executive nominations that deal with the so-called nuclear option that majority leader reid threatened. the votes move forward with the nomination of richard cordray to head up the consumer financial protection bureau was 71-29 with 17 republicans joining democrats voting aye. we'll take your phone calls and tweets momentarily, but first, we wanted the show you how the day began with arizona republican john mccain and majority leader harry reid who broke the news that around agreement was -- an agreement was close. >> mr. president, we are after required amount of debate, we are going to move forward with

the cordray nomination which has been held up for some period of time. i would like to thank everybody on both sides of the aisle who have engaged in this debate and discussion. i particularly would like to thank all of my colleagues last night who engaged in a maybe long which is our custom, but i think productive discussion of the many of the issues that separate us particularly this impending possible what many of us believe with crisis in the history of the united states senate. and i want to thank both our leaders, senator mcconnell and senator reid, and so many others who have been actively engaged in the conversations that have been going on. i look forward to the vote as soon as possible on mr. cordray. i thank all of my colleagues for an evening that i thought was

very important in our relations in the united states senate. >> the majority leader. >> mr. president, we are, we may have a way forward on this, i feel fairly confident. but it's, as you know, that's why we need the time. so what we're going to do is go into quorum. i think everyone would be better, would be well advised if they didn't talk about a lot of the substantive matters. if they want to talk about senator markey, that's fine. but we have a few little is to dot and ts to cross, and i need my, i have to speak to the vice president. we're going to have a phone call with durbin, schumer and murray, so everything's doing well. now, mr. president, i will say

that i hope that everyone learned the lesson last night that it sure helps to sit down and talk to each other. either stand and talk, whatever it is. it was a very, very good meeting. it lasted four hours. people were still as highly engaged at the end of that four hours as they were at the beginning. so i think we see a way forward that will be good for everybody. and there are a lot of accolades to go around to a lot of people, and i certainly appreciate my wonderful caucus. one of my senators told me this morning, i don't mean this to -- something like this will give a person a lot of humility. that person, that senator said to me it doesn't matter what you ask me to do, i will do it. so i would hope that we, this is

not a time to flex muscles, but it's a time i'm going to tell one person and no one else how much i appreciate their advocacy , their persuasiveness, persistence and -- trying to think of a word that really describes this man, it's hard to find. i was told by another senator do you know what this man did? i said, do you know who he reminds me of? bob kerrey. i hope that doesn't disparage john mccane. but john mccain is the reason we're at the the point we are. a lot of people have been extremely helpful, but this is all directed toward john mccain from me. to one was able to break through but for him.

and he does it at his own peril. and so everyone, we're going to have caucus today, we'll explain in more detail the direction we're headed. i think everyone will be happy. everyone will not be -- oh, man, we got everything we wanted. but i think it's going to be something that is good for the senate. it is a compromise. and i think we get what we want, and they get what they want. not a bad deal. i note the absence of a quorum. >> senator harry reid about two hours and 17 minutes ago, a live view of the u.s. capitol, and the senate side of the capitol. the framework of an agreement announced in part with the assistance of senator john mccain, and at this hour senate democrats and senate republicans holding party lunches. we're keeping an eye at an area known as the ohio clock for reporters to answer, to take

questions from the senate leadership. in the meantime, we want the hear from you on this senate filibuster agreement. 202 is the area code. our line for democrats is 585-3885. for democrats it's 202-585-3886. and for independents, the number to call is 202-585-3887. the first test vote came earlier this morning on the nomination of richard cordray to head up the consumer financial protection board, and 17 republicans crossed the line to support the movement of, the cordray nomination. let me read you the names of those who sided with the democrats to vote in the senate was 71-29. ayotte of new hampshire, blunt of missouri, chambliss of georgia, coats of indiana, collins of maine, corker of tennessee, flake of arizona, graham of south carolina, hatch of utah, hoeven of north dakota, isaacson of georgia. kirk of illinois, mccain of a, murkowski and wicker.

these 17 republican senators voting to move ahead on the nomination of richard cordray and that was, again, the first test vote. we'll hear more specifics from mitch mcconnell, the republican leader, and harry reid, the democratic leader. but in the meantime, give us a call, 202-585-3885 for democrats and 202-585-3886 for republicans. we're also keeping track of some of the tweets from senators including this from senator mark warner, democrat of virginia. he say, quote: glad to see strong bipartisan vote to move forward on confirming a qualified nominee. joining us live on the phone is david drucker who is following all of this as congressional reporter for the washington examiner. he's on capitol hill, thanks very much for being with us. >> guest: good to be here. >> host: outline the framework of this deal. what happened between last night's three-and-a-half hour closed-door session, the discussions overnight and what we saw two hours ago on the

senate floor? >> guest: well, what appears -- a couple of things. the members on both sides of the aisle were telling us this morning that following the nearly four-hour closed-door session in the old senate chamber there was a pretty broad consensus that nobody wanted to mess with the filibuster rules because of the fear about where it could lead the chamber in terms of making it, i guess, more like the house of representatives which does function along majority rule lines. number two, they were worried, i think, about, you know, what it was going to mean for the chamber going forward for the rest of this congress, because there's a number of things that republicans and democrats want to try and get done legislatively, and this was likely going to blow all that up. so what they've agreed to do is have nomination votes and allow

most of the nominees that the president wants on the national labor relations board, the consumer financial protection bureau -- that was the cordray vote -- and some other posts that the republicans ultimately were not going to filibuster anyway. and what the republicans get as a part of the deal is that the two nlrb appointees that were appointed in a disputed recess that one court has ruled unconstitutional, those will be replaced. and to satisfy democratic concerns that the vetting could take up to six months or more, they're going to find a way to fast track it possibly, you know, by the end of the august recess. and then finally, there are some, there are some ways in which richard cordray may agree to work with the senate to try and satisfy some of the gop concerns about how the cfpb is run, according to how that agency was put together under the dodd-frank legislation.

>> host: let me put on the table the two nominees that have been scuttled, two nominees for the nlrb, sharon block and richard griffin jr. so at this hour, david drucker, senate republicans meeting in party lunches, senate democrats doing the same thing. what's happening behind closed doors? what is senator reid proposing to his colleagues, and what do you expect senator mcconnell is doing based on what you've been able to hear from senate colleagues over the last couple of hours? >> guest: well, if anytime you've got a situation where, for instance, on the remine side john mccain and a few others talking to a number of republicans and democrats, democratic side you had senator schumer talking to senators on both sides of the aisle, and then you have reid and mcconnell doing similar things. at some point you have to all get together in a room, outline every aspect of the deal and register any complaints from your members, make sure everybody's heard, and that everybody is okay with this going forward. it is the senate which means anybody can go to the floor and start jamming things up if they want to, and these things, you

know, can be fragile. you know, the way this came together, steve, is that there was no resolution to the issue of filibustering executive branch nominees or threatening to go ahead with the nuclear option which the democrats have the votes to do if they really want to. and that was a key part of this deal. they just simply shelfed the biggest problems. that's how deals often get done around here. but i think it was probably the only way they were going to really get this done. so the next time the president nominates an executive branch nominee other than judicial nominees which, of course, don't apply to this, if republicans feel there's a big problem with this nominee, they reserve the right to filibuster him or her. and if democrats feel that the filibuster is completely unreasonable and unwarranted, reserve the right to go ahead and change the rules through a 51-vote margin even though the senate rules call for rules changes with 67 votes. >> host: so, david drucker,

based on this proposed agreement, did one party or the other have an upper hand in negotiations? >> guest: well, as they look at it, i mean, the democrats have the upper hand that they have the votes. they're in the majority, and they could just go ahead and do this and, you know, get the nominees they wanted. but, you know, the downside for them was that republicans would have responded at least for some period of time by jamming up the chamber, making it really difficult to do anything else. and, you know, for the senior democrats -- not all, but for the senior democrats that remember what it's like to be in the minority, they didn't want to end up in the minority at some point in the future, which they will be, even if it's not 2014, and i think they'd like to retain the power to lodge their own filibusters against a republican president's executive branch nominees. i sense a lot of people didn't want to see, you know, for all the opinions of congress as a dysfunctional body and its low

approval ratings, if you watch the senate on a day-to-day basis, it's amazing how much more camaraderie there is in the senate and than there is in the house. and i don't think anybody wanted to feel responsible for doing some type of irreparable damage to the way the chamber functions. >> host: and, david drucker, have you had a chance to talk to senators about the meeting last night, what transpired, what the mood was, what the debate really focused on for three and a half hours? >> guest: yeah. i've talked to -- i mean, and a lot of us have talked to several different members, and, you know, i got a few conflicting reports because on the one hand run -- one republican senator told me that the democratic attitude at the meeting was we're right, we're wrong, you should give us everything we want, and you shouldn't get anything. on the other hand, members on both sides of the aisle on the record said that the meeting was very helpful, that they should probably do this more often,

that they spend too much time in these caucus lunches which are scheduled on tuesday, wednesday and thursday in some fashion and not enough time just talking to each other and that the airing out of their feelings -- it was almost like a big shrink session -- the airing out of their feelings left them all understanding the other side better, understanding that maybe the other side doesn't necessarily have horribly nefarious motives, but just that there's a lot of frustration. and senator mccain was saying just a few moments ago that this fight over nominees and the nuclear option really is about the larger frustration, at least on the democratic side in the his opinion, the democrats have felt over filibusters on legislation, on judicial nominees and everything else. and republicans have told me that they're frustrated because often harry reid uses the parliamentary tactic in their point of view which is known as filling the tree where he closes off amendments. but that also requires the

filing of a cloture motion. and then he calls that a filibuster and blames the republicans. their point of view is if you wouldn't do that so often, allow us our amendments, we didn't create that filibuster, and we didn't want it. so why are you blaming us for it? so there was some sense that maybe some of this was explained to each side, and maybe they felt better, and, you know, they -- a lot of people did run for the senate, particularly house members at some point harry reid was originally a house member, so was john mccain way back -- because they wanted to be in a chamber that afforded them more power in negotiation and wasn't just run on, you know, 218 votes. and they, i think, there are at least a group of members who are trying to maintain the vision of the senate that today had when they ran for the -- that they had when they ran for the office. >> host: david drucker is the washington correspondent, congressional reporter for the washington examiner. thanks, as always, for being with us. >> guest: anytime, steve.

thank you. >> host: right now the party lunches are taking place, and we do expect to hear from the senate leadership. that will take place in an area that we grew fond of last night as we watched the ohio clock area for about three and a half hours during that closed-door session just a few feet away from where that podium is right now. but as i said, the party lunches going on. in the meantime, we want to get your calls and comments on the agreement that averts what was often referred to as the nuclear option. senator bernie sanders, who joined us this morning on c-span's "washington journal" and we heard on the senate floor just a few minutes ago before the senate took a recess for the lunch break, tweeted this out: today's action addresses only one symptom of a very dysfunctional senate. mark from hialeah, florida, on the republican line. good afternoon. go ahead, mark, you're on the air. >> caller: yeah, hi. i was calling just to say that i think the republican party did the right thing in reaching a compromise with democrats. you know, the senate, this

country is founded on compromise, and i think, you know, it's the right thing to do. if you want to block obama's agenda, you do so at another level. you don't prevent his agencies from being staffed by his people. >> host: nick is joining us from bixby, oklahoma. your reaction to this agreement announced in part earlier by senator reid. go ahead, nick. >> guest: it's not nick, and it's nick's mom, and we just listened to bernie sanders making the comment, and i agree that the republicans finally took a moment to put their heads on straight and realize that we cannot have offices without appointments for years and years and years. and i just heard the wonderful senator from oregon speak about the cordray nomination that's going to be voted on this evening, and i'm just thrilled to death it's finally happened. i'm middle america, oklahoma, and i know that there are people in my state who they run roughshod over by big business

and industry, and it isn't fair. so i applaud these republicans for finally taking a moment to consider the rest of the nation. thank you. >> host: nick, thanks for the call. senator thune is tweeting out on a different topic, this on obamacare, he poses this question on his twitter feed: why is the department of education involved in the implementation of obamacare? he has posted this letter along with senator lamar alexander, and the other tweets following up on the announcement that senators ted cruz and rand paul in agreement with senator kirsten gillibrand dealing with the issue of sexual harassment in the military. we covered that news conference, it's also available at c-span.org. but we're focusing on the changing of the senate filibuster rules, the agreement that was put in place by democrats and republicans that averts the nuclear option. carol is joining us from gresham, oregon. go ahead, please, you're next. >> caller: you know what? all's i'm going to say is reid is nothing but a dirty politician. i was born and raised in las vegas, and he's a spoiled brat,

and he needs to go jump in lake mead and stay there. i am so sick of reid, what he's doing. he's destroying this country. him, pelosi, obama, holder, the whole bunch of them. it's about time that the republicans get enough you know what and tell 'em to take care of it. >> host: okay. thanks for the -- >> guest: get 'em all out. >> host: alex bolton of the hill newspaper is reporting on this agreement. again, his story filed just a short while ago, the senate leaders close to the agreement being outlined today at these party lunches, and the framework calls for the president to replace two of those nominees to the nlrb and in replace of that, the senate will move ahead on a number of nominations including gina mccarthy to head up the epa and tom perez to become the next labor secretary. next is a viewer from yonkers, new york, on our independent line. go ahead, please. you're on the air. go ahead, please.

>> caller: yeah. i already gave my comment, but i'm not on the air. [laughter] >> host: caller, you're on the air. go ahead, please. >> caller: oh, yeah, how you doing? i'm out of new york. i was wondering why, they should have just went ahead with the nuclear program, make it 51 votes. this way here the democrats can move the country towards communism, which we are now a socialist country, and the government's so big nobody can get anything done anymore. so give 'em the 51 votes. get all that garbage passed. the day will come when the republicans take over, and we'll go back the other way. and maybe we'll wake up one day and realize we're in america and not in some socialist country. that's what i have to say. have a nice day. >> host: we'll go to ed joining us from spokane, washington. go ahead, please. >> caller: yeah. i'm opposed to harry reid's position on this nuclear vote thing. i believe that america's worked for 250 years and will continue to work without this kind of

legislation. thank you. >> host: thanks for the call. next is irvine joining us from bryson city, north carolina. our line for democrats. >> caller: hello, steve, how are you doing? >> host: fine, thank you. >> caller: i am so proud that the, they got together and talked last night and tried to understand what was going on. but i do think it's a shame that the republicans have been so obstructive to our nation's running. the republican party wanted to cut $20 billion out of food stamps, and they -- that guy that called from new york, he needs to get him a dictionary and learn, and look up what socialism is. i'm tired of hearing -- well, i don't know if i can say this -- i'm tired of hearing these sean hannity lovers and rush limbaugh and fox news people calling all the time because the only thing

they're having done to them is being completely brainwashed. so many half truths. oh, gosh. of i do hope the democrats take over in 214. ted cruz would be no kind of president for this nation. and i appreciate c-span and all the teabaggers and the fox news watchers, y'all have fun. >> host: okay. thanks for the call. let me share with you the reporting from the hill newspaper and this headline from senator blumenthal who said that the filibuster reform still is needed. story posted just a short moment ago with the hill.com. quote: a senate agreement to confirm a number of the president's nominees should not halt efforts to reform the filibuster, that from senator richard blumenthal of connecticut. he is quoted as telling reporters earlier today this trend to abuse and misuse the filibuster clearly should be addressed by an effort to change the rules. i'm hopeful that we will push

ahead that, in fact, the effort will not end here. senator blumenthal criticizing what he described as the obstruction that, in his words, has paralyzed the senate. sarah bender joined us over the weekend to talk about what this means for the senate as an institution. she is with the brookings stootion and joining us live on the phone. thanks very much for being with us. >> guest: sure. thanks for having me again. >> host: so let's talk about what this means. if the agreement, as we've heard, does come together -- and we should point out the details are still being hammered out as they meet in their respect i caucuses, but if they move ahead on some of these nominees, does it key accelerate this -- avert this nuclear option? >> it averts this deal in the works, averts the nuclear option at least for this round of nominees and for the two national labor relations board nominees which are expected to be sent as replacements. it puts nuclear option off the table because senate republicans

have essentially guaranteed confirmation by majority vote for the pending executive branch nominees. >> host: how did we get to this particular point, and why has this reached a head in the summer of 2013? >> guest: well, the issue here is really, from democrats' perspective, how far republicans have been willing to sort of exploit the senate rules that allow them to filibuster both set of measures and nominations both to the executive branch and to the judiciary. and i think it's fair to say that historically executive branch nominees have really not been, there have really not been attempted filibusters against them. the minority has typically allowed the president to find nominees and to secure support for them without having to face a 60-vote threshold, right? a supermajority rather than a simple majority vote. and i think tensions have really boiled over within the

democratic conference over their frustrations with how long it has taken them to get nominees to the floor and then to see them sometimes confirmed, you know, overwhelmingly and other times see them blocked by filibusters. so, again, i think this is a combination of the republicans' exploitation of the rule and the democrats' frustration over particular sets of nominees. >> host: the party lunches will wrap up sometime between 2:15 and 2:30, and that's when we expect to see the senate leadership speak with reporters, take questions and get more information on what exactly is in this agreement. but based on what we know right now, what do the republicans get out of this proposed agreement? >> guest: well, i think that's the critical question of the day. they averted going through the nuclear option which would have foreclosed their ability to filibuster future executive branch nominations. because if democrats succeeded, the rule going forward would

have been no filibuster of executive branch nominees. and so what did they win? they, they won their ability to keep filibustering judicial nominations, future executive branch nominations and, of course, legislative measures. >> host: and so in terms of what we saw back in 2005 with the debate over judicial nominees, is this a similar outcome in terms of how both parties came together? >> guest: i think this one a little different. i think in 2005, which was a fight over filibusters of judicial nominations, i think in 2005 it was never really clear that majority leader frist had 51 republican senators behind him to invoke the nuclear option. and i guess i should point out that neither did senator frist get all of the pending bush judicial nominees confirmed. really the gang kind of split the difference, although the

democrats ended up allowing confirmation of some judicial nominees that they really, really did not want to see with lifetime appointments to the bench. >> host: we're talking with sarah bender, senior fellow at the brookings institution here in washington. and let me go back to the comment made by senator bernie sanders in terms of what this means for the senate moving ahead. that three-and-a-half hour meeting that took place haas night, by all accounts they found it to be at least productive the fact they had the meeting, which in and of itself might have been significant. >> guest: i think the meeting, at least according to some senators, putting democrats and republicans face to face in close quarters is somewhat unusual, and i don't think a meeting in itself created the deal. i think perhaps it helped cloistering those senators helped further along the process to drive home what was at stake. but more generally i think this is kind of the senate

collectively taking its breath -- [laughter] recouping, seeing where they are and then going forward where they know they will continue to face in some form over some nominees future filibusters. >> host: which is my final question along those lines. what is your expectation in terms of the senate moving ahead? >> guest: well, i think pretty soon the senate will find themselves with other difficult questions, and it will be first up probably after they resolve the issues of the national labor relations board nominees, it'll be questions about nominees to the d.c. circuit, probably the most important federal court of appeals. and, of course, senator reid through this has said he's not targeting filibusters of judicial nominees. but we could well see three filibusters of three pending nominees, and then we're almost back where we started again. >> host: we appreciated your time over the weekend, thank you for joining us to update our audience on the developments in the senate.

>> guest: sure. thanks for having me. brookingsinstitution.or g. "the washington post" is writing about how the nuclear option would work, but the story from the blog at "the washington post" points out it does look like democrats and republicans have reached a deal to avoid the showdown over the filibuster and have confirmed several of the president's executive branch nominees. the washington post points out if we do go back, there's still confusion over what harry reid has been planning and how or whether it would even work. you can read more details at washingtonboast.com. harry is joining us from st. petersburg, florida, independent line. good afternoon. >> caller: yes. i think that the senate should have a majority vote on everything, that includes from health care to every which you want it to be, and i think senator reid has given in to the republicans again, and now we're all going to suffer from it because they're going to go back to their same stuff.

they don't care whether they do their job or not. and a good example of that is -- and this is for democrats and republicans -- they only spend, they spend less time up there doing their business and doing the people's business than people who on unemployment spend trying to get their unemployment. it's a disgrace, what these guys are doing. if the american people reelect any of them that's up for election, they deserve exactly what they get, a piece of crap. >> host: harry, thanks for the call. jennifer is tweeting out this: the white house was not involved in negotiating on a filibuster deal, that from press secretary jay carney at today's daily briefing and also the white house giving senator mccain, quote, significant credit for helping get a deal. also praise from senator democrat leader harry reid as part of his exchange on this proposed agreement. roger is joining us from grant's pass, oregon. go ahead, please, what do you think of all of this? >> caller: well, you know, first of all, none of the people up

there in washington have a clue what it's like for everyday, regular americans that live paycheck to paycheck whether they're unemployed and on unemployment or refused unemployment. you know, the congressmen should all be forced to wear nascar-style uniforms and put patches on there for the lobbyists that they're representing and, you know, that way the people are going to get a real idea of who the congress is working for. because it's sure not working for us. and i'd like to say something very quickly on immigration, if i could. >> host: sure, go ahead. >> caller: the people up there, you never hear a word about gang violation, yet you see on tv all day long these little gang banger punks, hey, we're here, and we're taking over. i suggest to you, sir, it's not immigration anymore, it's an invasion. and we need to do something about it. >> host: okay. roger, thanks for the call. >> caller: thank you. >> host: again, this morning the senate moving ahead on the richard cordray nomination. the vote in the senate was

71-29, a procedural vote to put his full nomination before the senate. we're looking for additional votes on additional nominees during the course of the afternoon. of course, we'll have live coverage here on c-span2. the party lunches are going on right now. in fact, there is a new member of the u.s. senate, certainly no stranger to washington, ed markey, former member of the house first elected in 1976. he won that special election against gabe gomez in massachusetts, and he replaces outgoing senator and current secretary of state john kerry. and there's this from coral daffen port who has sent this tweet: spotted, freshly sworn-in senator ed markey on his first day, and this was overheard, quote: he is walking into a buzz saw. ron is joining us, washington, d.c., democrats' line. gogood afternoon. >> caller: thanks for taking the call. i just want to mention that everyone continues to refer to what reid was going to do as a nuclear option, and it's simply a procedural change that's been done 18 times since 1977.

so it's really not a nuclear option. >> host: how would you phrase it then? what would the term be? >> guest: i think it's a procedural change to change the rules for the particular vote in front of them. i don't think it change the rules going forward. i think it's a procedural change to change for that particular vote. >> host: you sound like somebody who spent some time on capitol hill. >> caller: i spent a little time there, you know, just in my job. i don't work on the hill, but i've spent some time with what i do for a living. the other thing i would comment on i just heard as listening here, i just heard you talk about the white house and carney said that the white house wasn't involved, and that's a true statement, and i think that's part of the problem. the white house is not involved in these type of things. they need to get more involved to push the platform forward. >> host: okay. ron, thanks for the call from here in washington, d.c. on the democrats' line. next to hunter from reading, pennsylvania. go ahead. >> caller: hi, i'm a high school senior, and i feel really passionate about this issue

because i really believe that the young woman that did the debate or the filibuster as it's known is maintained in the senate really puts a check on power. and i am a republican, so whether it be a republican in the white house or a democrat in the white house, i 2eu8 think it's really -- i still think it's really important for a filibuster to be a huge check on executive power, and it gives the minority a say in the senate either if it's a democrat or republican. and i think that's really important that all people in the united states are represented in the senate. >> host: thanks for the call. next is david joining us from boston, massachusetts. good afternoon, david, independent line. >> caller: hi, yes. i just wanted to comment that ever since the president been in office, the white house, they've been totally against him and especially the speaker of the house. of everything that the president put up, he wants to knock it down. so i feel for the ones that continue to put them in, and

that's all i have to say. >> host: chad who has been following the house and senate for the fox news channel had sent out this tweet as well: senator john mccain on this proposed deal to avert a nuclear option, i think most everyone is onboard. senator mccain saying some are swallowing hard or than others. -- harder than others. again, we have a camera inside the u.s. capitol in an area known as the ohio clock. the podium is there with the senate seal, and that's where we expect to hear from senator harry reid, democratic leader and presumably also from senator mitch mcconnell, the republican leader. and if that happens, of course, we'll carry it live here on c-span2, of course, unless the senate is already in session and, again, we're looking for votes on other nominees later in the afternoon. cameron is joining us from los angeles, democrats' line. go ahead. >> caller: yes, how you doing, sir? my name's cameron. i actually, um, i just kind of believe that this filibuster thing is really, it's kind of pointless sometimes because there are a lot of important

laws that haven't been passed because of this, you know, and they can just throw it out there anytime and just say, oh, 60 votes, and it's kind of, you know, it kind of just comes a time when you don't, you don't need that. >> host: okay. thanks for the call. another quote from -- tweet, we should say, fromchad per gram from the fox news channel. jay carney on the issue of the nuclear option, any agreement there might be between senators has yet to be announced, so we will not get ahead of that announcement. thanks for joining us for your calls and comments on what's been happening in the senate this morning and this afternoon. again, a reminder, we'll take you back to floor of the senate following the party lunches, also to the ohio clock where reporters will be asking senators questions if they come to the podium to announce whether or not there has been a formal agreement and the path forward on the issue of the filibuster rule. earlier today senator carl levin spoke at the christian science monitor breakfast, and the issue of sexual harassment in the military and the agreement that appears to be in place -- but,

again, not formally announced -- was talked about this morning and what's next for the senate in terms of the filibuster. senator carl levin spoke with reporters this morning here in washington. [inaudible conversations] >> okay. here we go. i'm dave cook from the monitor. thanks for coming. our guest today is senator carl levin of michigan, chairman of the senate armed services committee and chair of the senate's permanent subcommittee on investigations. his last visit with the group was in january of 2012, and we appreciate his willingness to come back. he's a graduate of swath more and harvard law. after graduation he practiced and taught law, worked for the michigan civil rights commission and the appellate public

defender's office. he was elected to the detroit city council in 1969, became its president, later served on the council until his election to senate in the '78. he is the longest-serving senator in michigan history and has announced that his current term, ending in 2014, will be his last. so much for biography, now on to the ever-popular process portion of our program. as always, we're on the record. please, no live blogging, tweeting or other means of filing while the breakfast is underway. there's no embargo when the session is over, except c-span has agreed not to use video of the session for at least one hour after the breakfast ends to give those of us in the room a chance to file. as many of you heard me say ad nauseam, if you'd like to ask a question, please do the traditional thing and send me a subtle, nonthreatening signal, and i'll happily call on one and all. we'll start off by offering our guest the opportunity to make some brief opening comments, and then we'll move to questions from around the table. with that, thanks web for doing

this -- again for doing this, sir. >> excuse me. thank you, dave, and thank you all for coming out this morning. my press secretary's with me, jack danielson, my legislative director, is with me. >> jack's at the table in back. >> i thought i'd start off with a couple minutes of remarks about what the senate's embroiled in at the moment. dave mentioned the words "ever-popular" before the word "process." and that kind of goes to the heart of the matter. what the senate is debating is process, and it's not the least bit popular. i know there was irony in his words. there's no irony in my words. process is not something which the people care much about. they care about results; how you get there is not much in their

minds understandably. and when you folks report on these kind of issues, it's not very much in the front and center of your reports. understandably. the public wants results. but the senate has a process, and the question is whether or not that process now is going to be changed by a majority of the senate. that is the fundamental question which will be decided later this morning. whether or not the rules of the senate will be changed by a majority of the senate. can the majority change the rules whenever it wants like the house of representatives? they have a rules committee. every day they adopt new rules. they can change the house rules by a majority whenever they

want. the senate, by its rules, says that the debate -- and this is where the subtlety comes in, but it goes to the heart of the matter -- the debate on rules changes lasts until two-thirds of the senate ends the debate. and so for shorthand you and we say right now it takes two-thirds of the senate to change the rules. technically, that's not true. that's a majority that votes ultimately if there's cloture invoked or the debate is ended. it's a majority to change the rules. that does vote on the change. just the way on a filibuster on legislation or on judge nominees

it takes 60 votes to end debate, so we sometimes say it takes a supermajority to get something passed in the senate. but that's only true in debate on an issue. not on the issue itself. now, the reason that distinction is critically important is that process is important in any legislative body that has any protection for the minority. and the senate has protected the minority with a process. that process has been abused. that process has also been used by the likes of me, a democrat, and by members of my party to stop some things from happening which we believe very strongly should not happen. we've prevented the confirmation of judges who we thought were

rigid idealogues who could not be objective judges. we have prevented -- and this is just in recent years -- the restrictions on reproductive rights of women. we didn't have a majority, but we had 60 votes -- we had 41 votes, enough to stop those changes from happening. we were able to prevent an amendment which would have inflicted on all of our states the rules of other states. in other words, if my state -- my state's a bad example, but if a state has a law that says you can't carry a concealed weapon, there was an amendment in front of the senate just a few months ago which says but if a visitor to that state comes from a state which allows you to carry a concealed weapon, then that person, that visitor has a right to carry a concealed weapon when

visiting the state. we stopped that. we didn't have a majority. we had a minority of more than 40. it was able to stop it. and so the issue before the senate, the issue before the senate is whether or not a majority of the senate can effectively change the rules at will just the way a majority of the house can change the rules at will. and i want to just end here by quoting a michigan senator. many years ago arthur vandenberg, republican from michigan, was facing a similar situation. this issue, believe me, has been debated over the last century at least. there was civil rights legislation in front of the senate. he favored that civil rights legislation. he was a strong proponent of

civil rights. but it was being filibustered. and the question was then whether or not the senate would by fiat change the rule relative to cutting off debate. in this case it was on the legislation itself. and what vandenberg said, and he voted against his own substantive position, but what he said applies today. if the majority of the senate can change the rules at any time, quote: there are no rules except the unregular lated wishes -- unregulated wishes of a majority. so do i favor changing the rule about executive appointments getting a vote? you betcha. i believe the president -- and i

think a majority, by the way, of my colleagues of both parties believe that a president ought to be able to have his or her nominees voted on and not filibustered. i believe that. i want to change the rule. but not by fiat. not by breaking a rule which says that it takes two-thirds of the senate to end debate on a rule's change. so let me, you you know, it's a little bit longer than the few minutes that i planned on talking, but what's at the heart of the issue today not whether we change a rule so that presidents are guaranteed they can get votes on their nominees and, again, i favor that change, but how you change the rule and whether or not the majority of

the senate can become then the determiner unilaterally without any minority support of the rules. whether it can change the rules, whether it's today on nominees, tomorrow on judges, the day after tomorrow on legislation. >> we're going to go to patricia, christina, jerry and al after i ask you one or two. and since i figure you'll get a lot of questions following up on what you said about the nuclear option, let me ask you about two other subject areas. one, about sexual assault in the military. as you know, there was a new york times story over the weekend talking about the impact of president obama's comments about sexual assault saying that they should be prosecuted, stripped of their positions, court-martialed, fired and dishonorably discharged. and there have been a number of cases where military defense lawyers have cited that as

command influence. question: how badly did the president mess up in terms of placing obstacles in a prosecutor's way? >> well, i'm going to let the courts decide that. i'm an old defense lawyer, and if i were representing a defendant, i'd probably make the same argument, but i'm not going to resolve that, decide who wins that argument. the president was not referring, i don't believe, to any specific case, so the argument i guess would be on the part of the prosecutor there's no command influence in this case. these are generalized comments of a president. the problem, of course, is he's also the commander in the chief. so if the jurors, whoever those jurors are in that court-martial , i think would have to be asked by the defense counsel are they familiar with and does it have any effect and go through the usual kind of process about questioning jurors.

and then if there is a, if there's a finding of guilty in that -- guilt in that case, then there would be an appeal to, i presume, the court of military appeal. so there's a process to resolve that issue, and i'd rather not comment on it because maybe then because i'm chairman of the armed services committee, my comments could be viewed as command influence. >> let me ask you a related question. as you know, there's a press conference this morning where senators paul and cruz are going to join with senator gillibrand in her effort to get, you know, votes to take sexual assault cases out of the chain of command. the "the politico" story says she had 32 votes beforehand. what's your take on the way this issue is moving? do you see -- what do you see? >> well, the armed services committee on a bipartisan vote adopted major changes in the rules and laws on sexual assault.

the problem is being dealt with, has been dealt with in our legislation in many, many ways. the most important thing that we do is to make sure that the victim or the alleged victim of an assault has an opportunity to work with a special counsel it will be whose ethical obligation is to that victim. and there are some major changes which have to happen. the problem is that if you remove the chain of command, you're taking away from the command, the chain of command, the club that they need to change the culture which is the club of being able to prosecute somebody. if you take away, and we've had testimony from the commanders here including a number of women command pers who say we've got to -- commanders who say we've got to change this culture. we need that club.

don't remove that club from us which is the ability to prosecute. because it is that which helps us change this culture. we changed it relative to race, we've changed it relative to sexual orientation. we as commanders command, we order changes. and that's why, by the way, the military in some respects was the head of the country when it came to changing discrimination against african-americans. they were ahead of the rest of the country because they had commanders which finally said it's going to end. of it's going to end here. and we're going to enforce it. and if anybody opens their yap and makes comments about people of other races or ethnic groups, we're going to deal with it as commanders. behind them was the force of being able to court-martial. prosecute. so the commanders are telling us we will weaken their ability to end the sexual assaults and the other types of sexual misconduct if you take this out of the chain of command.

so, you know, i don't know, you know, where the votes will be on that issue when it comes to floor. but on a bipartisan basis including the number of republicans, male, female, democrats, republicans by a pretty sizable majority in the armed services committee felt the last thing we want to do is weaken the not just the power, but the -- we have to have accountability on those commanders. accountability for their climate. and we do that in our bill as well. we add accountability for the commanders if they fail to change the climate inside of their command. >> patricia? >> good morning, senator. i was wondering if you could talk about what's going on with giving aid to egypt right now? there's been talk that the united states has a lot of options to continue giving the aid despite even if there is a decision that it was a coup. is there anything happening with

your committee, and what options might you be able to have? and what's your position on that issue? >> i think we ought to suspend the aid which the law says needs to be suspended. which is the nonmilitary aid which is by its own terms, the haw's own terms -- law's own terms must be taken away, suspended in the event there's either a coup or where the military by decree is operating. the word "coup" is in the statute as a grounds to stop the aid. again, this only applies on the nonmilitary side. the president has the power on military aid to do is the same thing. but the law as written applies to nonmilitary aid, and i think we ought to follow that law. we ought to follow all of our laws. i don't know of anything new in this area. people have expressed their opinion on it. my hunch is that there are not the votes to suspend the military, the nonmilitary aid as

required we believe, a firm of us, by law -- a number of us, by law. i think all of us hope the military will live up to what they say they'll do which is to move to a constitution which protects the rights of all egyptians of all faiths and backgrounds and ethnic origin and so forth. we hope that the military lives up to the commitment to then have elections following the constitution. and if that's so, the aid could always be restored. but i think until the actions are, take place rather than just the statements of commitment that we ought to keep that portion of the aid suspended. >> christina? >> could you explain a little bit more about, you know, the suspension of nonmilitary aid versus military aid? -- [inaudible] the 1.3 billion that is military

aid -- [inaudible] were it determined to be a coup. so i'm just a little confused on how that part -- >> i believe that the law refers to the aid portion, not the military assistance portion, but the aid, the economic aid part of the assistance program. i'm pretty sure that's true. but you can check it out. >> well -- >> either way, it's not all of it. i may have them reversed. i don't think so, but you can check that out. but as far as the portion that's not bound by that language, the president would have the authority, of course, to do that without being required to do that by law. >> will we then go ahead with the f-16 transfers to egypt? >> i don't know -- >> regardless of whether it's a coup or not? >> i don't know what the president's decision is. that's within his discretion. >> okay. and, sorry, i have a second question. >> go ahead. >> i heard you speak last week at the carnegie, and you

eloquently stated the risks of inaction on syria. what are the risks, the real risks of getting further involved in syria and the usage of standoff weapons to perhaps target assad's, you know, tanks and military acts? how can we do that? >> how do we weigh the risks? >> i guess whether -- >> how do we do it -- >> what are the real risks and how can we use -- is it reasonable to use standoff weapons to achievement achieve n syria? >> i believe it's reasonable. are you saying is it feasible? >> [inaudible] >> feasible? it is. depending on the targets. there are targets which standoff weapons can reach including some airfields, including airplanes that are on those airfields, including other targets, command and control targets.

there may be some -- i've got to be careful here -- there may be some missile sites, scud missile sites that can be reached. there may be some clusters of artillery that may be reached. you can have a significant impact without violating syrian air space. and israel's done that, by the way. israel's done exactly that from all the reports. >> and the risks of getting involved? >> the risks are that it might be a, end up being a step to getting in deeper, that instead of supporting the syrians -- which is what i think we ought to do -- that we could somehow become more directly involved, and i don't think that's anybody's intelligent. nobody wants to -- intent. nobody wants to put boots on the

ground. and i think the folks like me, others, senator mccain and others who want to raise the military pressure on assad want to help the syrian forces, the opposition to do that, to help in terms of training and equipping and considering at least some kind of a standoff move against targets which are being used to pilary the syrian people. people so far have been hit by this regime, and the slaughter continues in homs. this regime doesn't avoid collateral damage, its goal is collateral damage, to terrorize innocent people. out of their homes. it bombs neighborhoods,

villages, wipes them out with artillery. creating refugee flows. so this, the outcome here is it's got a huge impact in the region. almost every country in the region wants to gets a sad out of there. -- assad out of there. if assad survives this, iran will be strengthened, hezbollah will be strengthened because they are at his side fighting. as a matter of fact, those foreign fighters are what are making the difference for assad in terms of shifting the momentum in his direction which has been the case recently. so in terms of training and equipping the syrians not alone, we can't do this. we need to be part of a regional group. and that's why when senator kaine and i came back from jordan and turkey about a week ago now, we urged the president to convene a group of countries that wants a sad to be

removed -- assad to be removed. and that's most of the countries in the region to plan on increasing the military pressure by helping the syrian opposition to become stronger. they are in the clear majority, by the way, in syria. and if we give, if we help to provide the weapons and the training and consider at least going after some of these targets which would weaken the regime, and from a pock outside of syria -- position outside of syria without even invading or moving into syrian air space, we can make a difference. but we can't do that unilaterally. we shouldn't make the mistake that we made in iraq which was a double mistake, going in being the biggest mistake in my judgment. that's why i voted against it. but the second mistake was to do this without the support of the region or the international community. and we can't make those mistakes again. >> we're going to go next to

jerry, al, mark thompson, anna, john stanton, paul bed ard and michael hirsh. jerry? >> [inaudible] you talked about changing the culture, and it reminds me that over time the culture has changed a lot in the military. there was a time when the idea of gays in the military was strongly opposed by commanders, when women in combat was strongly opposed by commanders. do you worry at all that the culture will change in a way that will push the military towards senator gillibrand's point of view on this, or is this issue fundamentally different in a way that will prevent the military and congress from ever agreeing to take this responsibility away from the chain of command? >> well, first of all, cases can be prosecuted now civilly, outside of the chain of command. right now. that power exists.

and by the way, there are many cases, many, many cases where civilian prosecutors, just local prosecutors, have refused to prosecute but where then the military did prosecute. i want to repeat that. okay? right now civilian prosecution is available. the victims can simply go to a local cop and say i've been assaulted. it'll be investigated, and local prosecutors can and have prosecuted cases. that is available right now. the experience is that in many cases we don't have overall, total statistics, but in dozens and dozens and dozens of cases where the local prosecutors have

decided not to prosecute, the military's decided to prosecute with success. so i don't know if that answers your question, because i'm not -- all i can say is this: the military commanders have been told we're going to, we're ending don't ask, don't tell. make it work. i will never forget the commandant of the marine corps who before our committee said don't make us do this, don't repeal don't ask, don't tell. it's going to be a problem. general amos stated but he believed. he said the following. if you do change it, marines will make it work. we take orders. we will make it work. we don't think it's the right thing to do, but if you make the decision, it'll happen. a couple months later he said we

are making it work, and he thought again about the decision, and he said and it probably was the right decision. we made it work with race. and it's commanders who make it work, because they give orders. they discipline people. who violate those orders. and that's what you want with these not just the, obviously, sexual assaults, but with the climate which ultimately leads to sexual assault. you've got to change that climate. everyone agrees with that. and commanders are the ones that change the climate. so you not only want them to have the power to discipline, to implement their orders, you've also got to hold them accountable. and that's one of the things our bill does. and should do, is to hold commanders accountable when being judged. they've got to be held -- being judged on their own performance. to be judged on climate

merchandise their units -- inside their units. and it's -- okay. >> al? >> two-part question. first dealing with the issue of changing the senate procedure. i was unable to tell from your opening remarks, i gather that there was no progress made towards avoiding a confrontation last night at your meeting? >> there was a lot of folks said we should avoid this. so, and urged the leaders to find a way to avoid it. a lot of people spoke out. myself, i indicated as i said here, i cannot support this. and there may only be a few other democrats when this comes to a vote -- i guess it's a when, not if -- later on this morning. but, and i've been clear with my leader on this. i was clear when the republicans tried this five years ago or

eight years ago. and all of us did, by the way. read those speeches. read those speeches. they're there. i think you can punch a button these days and find out what ted kennedy had to say about this subject or joe biden. or harry reid. you know? and so now the leaders are in a position of flipping their positions. so the republicans were threatening it eight years ago i guess it was, '05, on judgements. and we spoke against it, i spoke against it. i can't just now say, well, okay, now we're in the majority. so now it's okay for the majority to change the rules of the senate whenever it wants to, at will? as arthur van vandenberg said. so i don't know if i answered your question, but -- did i

answer your question? let me ask you a question. i'm sorry. and if i didn't answer your question, please repeat it. >> the second part of my question -- >> oh, the answer is there was no specific progress last night but, hopefully, the seeds of progress were planted. a whole bunch of folks, including a whole bunch of democrats, urged our leaders to try to find a way to avoid this. >> second part of my question you said most people probably don't believe, care much about process. i suspect that's true for the people of detroit. wouldn't you agree that you and senator stabenow and members of the michigan congressional delegation including your brother would be better off devoting most of their time to helping detroit avoid its likely fate as a failed city of the third state, which it appears to be? >> most of our time? >> i'm sorry? >> would we be better off spending -- >> better off spending more, most of your time --

>> my time. i spent a lot of my time on that subject. i live in detroit and always have lived in detroit. i'm an old local official, by the way, as dave has mentioned. and my wife and i have raised our kids in detroit, we live in the city. so i spend a lot of time on doing what we can to help detroit come back from this perch -- not a perch, from this position. per of. should understand like -- perch sounds like, anyway, and that's in lots of ways we've done that. on the transportation side recently, on new kind of light rail transportation, on river front development in terms of getting a whole new beginning of river front development on the automobile city which is critical to the future of my city and my state. so we spend a lot of time on that, on the future of the city and the future of my state. ironically, my city's coming

back. it's coming back strong. and it's, i know counterintuitive to folks. google, google the word shrks -- shinola. [laughter] you want to see one thing that's going on out of hundreds of things that are going on, google that word. a guy from texas -- >> so you're saying there's hope for detroit. >> more than hope. detroit is on its way back. and i say this as someone who knows almost every block of my city. there are parts of detroit which are devastated. you've not only seen pictures, half of a you have run pictures of the devastated part. i wish you could go and take pictures of the parts of detroit which are coming back strong, because young people are moving into the city because they want to be where the action is. and the action right now is going big. we've got a guy who is owned

quicken loans who's moved 10,000 jobs into detroit downtown. he believes this is where young people want to work and where they want to live. and so we've got probably 20 vacant buildings downtown, half of which i worked in as a lawyer 50 years ago. that have been vacant. that are now danny gilbert, one guy. now, there's a lot of other things going on besides one guy. and i mentioned the word to you, shinola, and i -- this is probably, i'm afraid a bit of a deviation from your schedule, but since you asked me about detroit, i'm going to tell you what's going on in half of detroit. not the half you see the pictures of which is real and painful. and maybe bankruptcy is what's going to happen to remove a whole bunch of debt which is there which is dragging us down. but on the other half what's going on is amazing.

it's an amazing story. so one guy from texas who owns some men's furnishing place it was called fossil, i don't know if there'd be guys around the table who are familiar with it, apparently highly successful. sells his business for $400 million. he decides -- he's in texas. he's going to use that to bring manufacturing back to america. he focuses on detroit. okay? so now he's investing in detroit. so now we're building bicycles in detroit, top of the line bicycles. hard to buy 'em, by the way. but i watched them being built downtown. we're making watches, really great shinola detroit watches. the name detroit's right in there. you remember that super bowl game where chrysler said imported from detroit? remember that? kind of shocked people. well, people are getting over their shock. we're coming back as a manufacturing country and as a state and a as a city, we're

coming back. the entrepreneurial spirit in detroit is amazing. we've got hundreds of young people that are involved in all kinds of stuff i don't even understand, frankly. you know, creating apps for every damn thing in the world just about. hundreds of them. you can't get, you can't buy a condo in detroit. danny gilbert's turning these vacant buildings into condos. you can't even buy one, they're so busy. that's the other half of detroit. so to answer your question, yeah, we spend a lot of time. part of it is trying to turn around the image of detroit to make sure people see the half i just described as well as the blighted half which is real. it's real, believe me. i know how real it is. i live there. >> will i'm sorry. >> no, i'm sorry. get carried away with my love of detroit. [laughter] >> mr. chairman, i'd like to circle back around again to the sexual assault in the military. you described the spate of problems as if it's an event

when in reality it has been epic. early in your career it was tailhook. halfway through your career there was aberdeen. for the past several years of your career, there's been lack lund air force base. this isn't a one-off kind of thing, this has been a persistent problem. and it gets back to what a military scholar says. the job of a commander is the health and welfare and well being of his troops. but if he's got a soldier with appendicitis, he doesn't take his appendix out. and in the same way, this pernicious problem needs to be dealt with like appendicitis is. why isn't he right after decades of the problemsome. >> because it's been proven in the military you want to change things, you've got to have commanders that are held accountable. in some cases like race, frankly, faster than our own society. look, i'm an old civil rights

lawyer. i was the attorney for the michigan civil rights commission when it came into existence in 1963. i know how tough it is to change racial attitudes. i know how tough it is. but the military actually, finally after all kinds of near riots inside the barracks during the vietnam war, they finally did something. they decided they were going to use affirmative action, and they were -- that's number one. and number two, the commanders were going to put a stop to it, and they were going to be held accountable. you've got to hold commanders accountable for changing the culture. that has not been done yet, it is going to to be done under our law. commanders are going to be held accountable for the climate inside of their units. so that's, that's the difference. i don't know about the appendicitis thing. you can -- the best, i guess, analogy is if you want to analogize racial prejudice or sexual misbehavior, misconduct to appendicitis, if that's your

analogy, not mine, if that's your analogy, take it out. how do you take it out? the commander is the right person to get at racial discrimination, gender discrimination, sexual orientation discrimination. it's been proven. the problem is in this area the commanders have not been held accountable, and this they are going to be held accountable under our law. our bill. our bill, read -- there's 20 provisions or more in our bill on sexual misconduct, and we're going to hold commanders accountable, and they need to be to change that climate. but you know what? it's interesting because the gillibrand approach doesn't do anything in the area -- i mean, removing the decision maker on prosecution, that decision maker's now a colonel. with three to ten thousand people under his or her command. that doesn't, that doesn't change the behavior at the lower level. the problem is that victims here are intimidated. they don't report or they're

ashamed or they're embarrassed at the local level. the decision by panetta to change the decision maker on whether to prosecute to higher up in the chain of command to get away from any kind of buddy system. so now it's a colonel. and by the way, what we do, what we do in our bill -- and don't forget this because it's a key part of our bill -- we say if there's an allegation of sexual assault, one of four crimes, if just if there's an allegation, if that does not lead to a prosecution, the decision then is bumped up to a general officer. now, that's never been done before. that's in our bill. okay? i mean, i don't know -- i think

i said it accurately and clearly, but it's a very important change in our bill. how are we going to hold that colonel accountable who decides not to? and if the jag officer for that colonel recommends prosecution and the colonel says no, and this is rare but it's happened, then the head of the department, secretary of the army, secretary of the navy will then have to make the decision. you talk about putting, bringing about change? but we do this without doing something which doesn't relate to the problem. the problem isn't that the prosecutor, the colonel be doesn't make a decision to prosecute. no one has shown that as a problem. the problem is at that lower level with the fear to report or the feeling, the pressure at the lower level, the intimidation. god, you're going to mess up things in our unit if you report

this. that's the problem. you've got to change that. and we do change that in some very powerful ways. >> anna? >> senator, james clapper has been accused of lying to congress in his testimony. do you feel he's been held suitably accountable? >> that he's been -- >> held suitably accountable to lying to congress? >> i'm troubled by that testimony, obviously, and i don't know how he's tried to wiggle out from it. but i'm troubled by it, so how do you, how do you hold him accountable? i guess the only way to do that would be for the president to somehow or other fire him. and i, i think he's made it clear that he regrets saying what he said, and i don't want to call on the president to fire him, although i'm troubled by

it. so i'll leave it at that. >> can i ask a follow-up question? you serve both on armed services and the intelligence committee, as anna's question implied. do you feel fully informed? >> on? >> on what the national security agency is up to? >> on this issue i was adequately informed. not at the beginning where only the leaders of the intelligence committee were brought into it before it happened. but later on down the road, and i don't remember the exact years, we were informed about the metadata issue. i don't think we were informed about the other half of the problem. i forgot the exact name at the moment, the -- >> [inaudible] >> the what? >> prism. >> yeah, the prism issue. but i don't want to duck responsibility that way.

i just think i feel adequately informed. do i think this is an issue which has got huge ramifications? it does. technologies have opened up capabilities which have been unthought of until now, and we've got to deal with that issue. in principle it's not much different, frankly, from when i was born i think probably there were still operators who are connecting long distance calls. so operators who didn't keep a record of longing distance calls. then you would be billed on it so the telephone companies had the billings in their records. and then comes a totally different age where now it's all computerized, but now if those records can be put into -- kept in a form where they can be accessed instead of going back

into paper records in principle is this much different from going back into paper records of phone calls? maybe not in principle, but i'll tell you in practice it's a heck of a lot different than being able to punch a button and find out every caller if you meet the criteria that are in the haw to find out every single call i've made in the last whatever number of years this stuff's been kept, you know, it's got to be looked at, i believe, very, very carefully to see whether or not this technology now has the greater potential, the greater potential than it does -- i shouldn't say if. this technology has a greater potential to invade our privacy. period. they can't look at the substance of my conversations, but they can find out a heck of a lot about me by what phone calls i make. and that capability of that technology is something which we all have to think through because there's pluses to it in terms of catching bad guys, and

there's some minuses to it in terms of abuses. j. edgar hoover, if this technology were in the hands of j. edgar hoover, would i feel comfortable? no. [laughter] but on the other hand, i wasn't comfortable with j. edgar hoover with his technology. laugh after -- [laughter] >> mr. stanton? >> there was a report yesterday that the nsa, cia provided hezbollah with information regarding an attack from inside of syria by al-qaeda elements that they were planning in lebanon against hezbollah at quiet, you know, areas within shia neighborhoods. and it raises this question of there are a lot of al-qaeda elements that are working with the rebels in syria, and the sharing of information, it seems to be running counter a little bit. does this raise concerns for you that, you know, we're getting awful close to working with al-qaeda in some ways against hezbollah? >> that's a weird place over there, i'll tell you. i, i'm not going to comment on

reports for two reasons. number one, i haven't read 'em, so you're telling me about classified reports, so now it's thirdhand or whatever. without your number of hands you've got, it may be secondhand. but whatever it is, you know, even if i knew it, i wouldn't tell you because it's probably classified. but i don't know anything, i don't know anything more than what you've told me, and i'm not going to comment on that. >> sharing information with hezbollah generally -- >> sharing information with your enemy because your enemy is dealing with a worse enemy at the moment, is that complex and troubling? of course it is. but if it happens. i mean, in general. but, you know, i'm not going to, i can't comment on whether or not it's appropriate because i don't know the circumstances, and if i could, i couldn't comment on them anyway. >> we've got about 13 minutes left, we're going to go to paul, mark, caitlin and lauren fox. that means i've got -- >> we're not going to get to all

of them. you just keep answering your questions. >> i'd like you to sum up how hagel's done, he's been pretty quiet. i understand he meets a lot with enlisted folks. what's your view of how he's done but, more importantly, are you disappointed prince fielder didn't repeat as home run champion? but -- [laughter] >> yeah. yeah, it's -- detroit's coming back despite that short-term setback. [laughter] and when we knock the yankees out to win the pennant, that's proof of it. we don't have to win the world series. if we beat the yankees for the pennant, that's more important than the world series as far as i'm concerned. i think i've lost about half my audience here at least. [laughter] the -- what was your first question? hagel. i'm sorry, hagel. i think he's doing great. i mean, if you ask me to give you examples how he's doing great, i'd say he's won the support of my republican

colleagues who voted against him. i think that's or very significant. i think he's got respect inside the building which is very important. gates had that respect. gates is a very difficult act to follow because of he did such a terrific job. but i think hagel's fine. and the fact that he's not in the headlines a lot, to me, is not a sign of lackover success. it could be a -- lack of success. it could be a sign of the opposite, but it's probably not a sign of either. but in any event, i think he's doing fine. >> mr. hirsh. >> senator, just quickly on to the nsa issue. based on all the briefings you've had about these various programs over the years, would you say that the u.s. private industry whether telecom companies or silicon valley-type companies, have they been fully cooperating partners to your knowledge in these various

programs that the nsa conducts? >> i think there may be some differences between companies. may be some differences. i'm not sure. i read the other day that one of the companies has been less willing to cooperate than some of the other companies, so i hate to generalize. but in general, i think they've cooperated doing what they believed was, i gather, the right thing to do for the country. i'm not sure that's your question, but you say cooperating -- >> well, there was some issue as these leaks came out about whether some of the big internet companies, for example, like facebook or google whether the ceos were even aware of what was going on. on the other hand, you know, we know we know of a lot of companies that have been cooperating for many years. so i was just curious whether you think some of these companies have been disingenuous in trying to preserve their public reputations by saying they know -- >> yeah. i don't have a comment on that. i just don't know enough about

the different ways in which different companies have in general or, i mean, specifically how different companies have worked with the government. i just don't know about it. >> mr. kinsey. >> thank you, mr. chairman. by the way, i'm a yankees' fan, and i requested j. edgar hoover's table at the mayflower saturday. >> did you? >> yes. >> we'll go together. [laughter] in. >> anyway, first of all, thank you for reminding everyone, i think people forget about the republicans wanting to change the rules. based on what you've said, is it safe to assume that every one of the republicans will vote with you and the few democrats who are speaking out to stop the change in the rules? >> i think it's likely. it's totally inconsistent with the position that they took six years ago. but our position, the position of democrats is totally inconsistent with the position we took six years ago. reminds me of "the new york

times" editorials. [laughter] boy, i just -- i read some of those new york times editorials, it was '06, right? anyway, when the republicans were wanting to change the rules of the majority, man, they editorialized strongly against allowing this power grab and this destruction of minority rights. ..

>> i believe every republican will vote against the majority to be able to change the rules at will, even though they sounded like they were willing to do it. they were. in 2006, they threaten to do it, but on the other hand, i don't want to just criticize republicans for totally reversing positions depending when they were in the majority/minority because i believe democrats are doing the same thing. i was opposed to it when the republicans were trying to change the rules, majority deciding to change the rules at will. i was opposed to it when they threatened to do it, and i'm opposed to our threatening to do it. by the way, there is a way.

people ask all the time, so, how do you get these abuses? how do you change this if you don't change the rule? first of all, you can't change this rule on nominees. i believe a majority in both parties would change the rule according to the rules, according to the rules so that two-thirds could cut off debate on nominations, on executive nominations. not judicial, on executive nominations. i believe we have a good chance of changing the rules according to the rules, okay? i made that argument last night. people ask me, you know, my democratic, the constituents who are democratic, how do you end abuses if you don't change the rules? my answer is we should change the rules. we've been through that, but the second answer is use the rules to make them filibuster, and that's the other thing i read to the colleagues last night.

robert byrd put -- i'll read this, he put it succinctly about this using the rules. this is what he said in 2010, "it's unbelievable," he said, "just the whisper of opposition opposition," and you can hear him talking, "just the whisper of opposition brings the world's greatest deliberative body to a grinding halt. forceful confrontation to a threat to filibuster is undoubtedly the antedote to the mallty." it is. i read it to my colleagues last night. why do we not force folks threatening the filibusters to filibuster? we can do it. the leaders even said earlier this year when we were able to avoid this problem early in

january, eight of us got together, made a proposal to the leaders and motion to proceed. we modified the rules on motion to proceed. we were able to do it. we can -- you can do it. republicans and democrats, you know, looking at some of my republican colleagues who threatened this all the time. oh, all you got to do is whisper. no. stand up filibuster all night. why not spend a day, a weekend, august forcing folks to threaten to filibuster. go ahead. filibuster a judicial nominee who got unanimous approval who will get 99 votes. you want to filibuster that nominee? go ahead. you know how long it lasts? an hour. end of answer. >> justin? >> quick question about the budget. the last 20-30 years, as you know, the departments of the

army, navy, and air force have received, essentially, constant, roughly equal shares of the defense budget, and that's been true through at least half a dozen different strategic reviews, major changes in the strategic environment from the end of the cold war to 9/11, so my question for you is that now we're in a period of acute fiscal pressure, do you think that those roughly equal shares are strategically sound, and do you favor continuing them, and as a related question, how do you see the pivot to asia affecting those budget shares in the future? >> i believe we ought to look at the budget much more specifically than to start with assumption that current shares, whatever they are, should continue, whether they are roughly equal or not is not the point. the point is whether or not we

should assume that the current division of our budget should continue, and i don't. i think we ought to challenge a lot of things, including the nuclear program, by the way. the answer to the first question is that's the answer to the first question, and has the pivot to asia changed things? i think not yet. i think over time it probably will change the budget in a number of ways including the question of the location of the marines and the building on oak now way and moving marines to gaum, the location of ships, the type of location of our troops whether we're forward located or not forward located. it's going to have a lot of effects over time. >> last question, katelyn? >> can you just give an assessment of what you think the

fact that the senate's spending this kind of time and energy on rules changes, what that says about the institution you're leaving, and, also, how does the filibuster and the rules change -- >> to break away from the recorded program, live now to the u.s. capitol, senators coming to the microphone to speak. live coverage here on c-span2. >> moving forward just to give you a little history of my recommendations on this issue. i recommended back in january that the president send us two new nominees for the nlrb since, obviously, the two nominees who were currently on the nlrb were unconstitutionally appointed according to the majority decision in the district court of the district of columbia. a couple weeks ago, i renewed the conversation with the haven't and suggested that the way out -- vice president and suggested the way out of the dilemma that

seemed to be heading our way was to send up two new nominees. i'm pleased that the administration is going to send up two nominees, senator alexander in discussions about how to process those nominations in the health committee, and we anticipate the regular order will be followed, hearings, markups, and the like, and there's an effort made to get these up for votes before the august recess. we are moving forward to reach an agreement on the way to process the additional nominations the majority is interested in. the understanding is that none of our rights will be waived. i mean, for example, 60-vote thresholds on controversial nominees have to be achieved, so in a sense, that's the regular way that we handle business here in the senate, and we are pleased that the majority

decided not to exercise the nuclear option. we think that's in the best interest of the institution, and i would say about the meeting last night that it struck me unique in the sense that, first of all, essentially everybody was there on a bipartisan basis, and it went on, as you know, few three and a half hours, almost everybody was able to say, who chose to say something, could say what they thought, and i thought it was really good for the institution for us to be talking to each other rather than at each other, and i think it led to a constructive outcome and opportunity to get back to normal. we had actually had, prior to this threatened blow up a good view in the senate point of view in the sense we followed orders on three major bills, multiple amendments and bills at the end of the day like the farm bill

and immigration, very controversial measure ended up passing the senate. that's the way we used to do business around here, and, hopefully, ce can wsh -- we can continue to operate in the balance of this year. >> i'm glad that six months after senator mcconnell asked the white house to withdrawal these two controversial nlrb nominees who were unconstitutionally appointed, that they've decided -- the white house decided to take the nuclear trigger out of senator reid's hands and withdraw the nominees. i'm imlad -- glad we are where we are, but we have the opportunity now to pivot back to the people's business and to deal with the things that my constituents in texas and people around the country are most concerned about, and that is slow economic growth, high unemployment, how do we get america back to work, how do we deal with the evolving train wreck that is obamacare, and that's in the words of one

of the chief architects, the democrat, the chairman of the senate finance committee? what's the next step? if you were for obamacare or against it, recognizing it's failing right before our eyes, what will we do to ensure the american people have high quality access to affordable health care? that is the business we ought to be about. >> i, like my colleagues, pleased the democrats decided to pull back from the move that would have been destructive to the workings of the senate, and, like my colleagues, i hope now that we can focus on the people's business and the things people across the country really care about. you know, i think the democrats like to have these discussions about process because it distracts people from what is really important to people across the country, and it distracts people from the record and their policies which are

very harmful to jobs in the economy. most americans care about scrobs in the economy, if you listen to any public opinion poll, more than just about anything else, and the democratic policies with regard to those issues have given us this chronic high unemployment, sluggish growth, and lower take home pay for most ordinary middle class americans, and just this week on sunday, senator reid went on a weekend talk show saying obamacare is wonderful for america. well, wonderful for who? you got a lot of families seeing premiums going up by $2500. you have lots of people across the country who are having more difficulty getting access to health care. you've got lots of people across the country who are worrieded about their jobs, 40% of the employers said they are not going to hire people, 20% cutting employees as a result of obamacare, and then just

yesterday, you had the major union leaders in the country come out with a letter saying that it would shatter their employees' benefits and create nightmare scenarios where the words they used, the impact of obamacare upon the people they employ so this really is a train wreck, and i can see why the democrats would rather talk about something else, but the fact of the matter is these policies are very harmful to many americans, and we're pleased, actually, the president decided to delay, for at least a year, the employer mandate, but we believe rather than create a partial delay for some, we need to have a permanent delay for all americans so that other americans, besides those who -- those small businesses impacted by the employer mandate who would be harmed by the effects of obamacare, have relief as well. >> i'm pleased the democrats decided to not break the rules

to change the rules. you saw senator reid on the morning talk shows sunday talking about the issue, but you heard him make a statement where he said that obamacare has been wonderful for america. e he may not have yet had a chance to read that letter that senator thune referred to because that came from jimmy and the teamster's union as well as two other large unions, and it was specifically to nanty pelosi and to senator reid, and the letter they sent to them says, you promised us, you promised us that if we like what we have, we can keep it. we now know that doesn't look like it's the case. lots of reservations. they also mentioned the fact that this is undermining the fundamentals of the a 40-hour workweek in the united states. we've seen that in small businesses around the country. we've seen it in communities, school districts which are cutting back employee hours to less than 30 hours per week

because of the mandates and the unintended consequences of the obama health care law. this health care law is unraveling, and we need to repeal it and replace is to people can get the care they need from a doctor they choose at lower costs. >> well, hopefully now we can focus on student loans and other things that need to get done and need to get done this month. i served in the house. i like the house. i like the house a lot better in the majority than i did in the minority. >> breaking away from the senators in the hallway and go back live now to the floor of the u.s. senate here on c-span2. mrs. boxer boxer: madam preside? the presiding officer: the senator from california. mrs. boxer: i suggest the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll.

quorum call:

mr. schumer: madam president? the presiding officer: the senator from new york. mr. schumer: i ask unanimous consent the quorum be vitiated. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. schumer: i now ask unanimous consent that all future time on quorum calls be divided equally between the two sides. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. schumer: madam president, i note the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call thwill call the roll. quorum call:

quorum call:

quorum call:

the presiding officer: the senator from iowa. mr. grassley: i ask that the calling of the quorum be suspended. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. grassley: during the debate

on the budget, dr. coburn and i offered an amendment that would create an a separate and independent inspector genuine the consumer finance protection bureau. we introduced this amendment because thanks to a quirk in dodd-frank, the consumer finance protection bureau is the only major federal agency without its own inspector general. and i think people know i tend to rely a great deal on inspector general, within the bureaucracy to be an independent check to make sure that laws are followed and to make sure that money is spent according to the law. now, dodd-frank created the consumer finance protection board, but it did not create a protection board specific inspector general. instead, because dodd-frank is

funded -- or funded the protection bureau through the federal reserve, this consumer finance protection bureau ended up sharing an inspector general with the federal reserve. this has created a problem. right now, the consumer finance protection board's inspector general has a split role. he serves as both inspector general for the federal reserve and for the consumer finance protection board. i believe this creates a great deal of confusion, and obviously a bureaucratic battle for resources. in fact, the inspector general has already had to create two separate audit plans. he also has had to hire employees that can oversee both the federal reserve and the consumer finance protection

board. the end result is an office split by two very important but very different priorities. dodd-frank created the consumer finance protection board within the federal reserve in order to fund the bureau without having to come to us on capitol hill to get congressional appropriations. that's a problem, but that's not a problem i'm going to deal with right now. so we had a marriage of conveniences, the consumer finance protection board and -- within the federal reserve. but that board's function is very different from the federal reserve. despite this, years after dodd-frank was passed, this unique situation remains. my concern is that if you have one inspector general trying to cover two different entities,

the end result is that neither gets fully overseen. in other words, we don't have adequate checks within the bureaucracy to make sure that laws are abided by and that money is spent according to law. since the passage of the inspector generals act of 1978, congress has believed that each department and each agency needs its own independent inspector general. this has been a long-standing, bipartisan position. currently there are 73 inspectors general in every single cabinet-level department, and almost all independent agencies. even small independent agencies like the federal maritime commission and the national science foundation have their own inspectors general. in each of these agencies, if

each of these agencies have their own independent inspector general, shouldn't the consumer finance protection board, particularly since this board doesn't have to come to congress for appropriations, you don't get appropriations oversight, and since even some of their decisions can't even be challenged in the courts. now, we're in this situation, the majority has opposed commonsense changes like this to the consumer finance protection board. during the budget debate when dr. coburn and i introduced the amendment to create a consumer finance protection board-specific inspector general, the majority would not allow it to be brought up for a vote. the position i heard over and over was that the majority did not want to relitigate in any

way dodd-frank. i did not hear any concerns related to the merits of this proposal. our amendment wasn't about relitigating anything. it was about creating accountability and oversight at the consumer finance protection board and doing that through an independent inspector general just like 73 other agencies have that sort of checks and balance. because the consumer finance protection board is funded directly by the federal reserve, there are few, if any, congressional oversight checks on the board. that makes an independent inspector general even more important. right now, it seems to me, since we don't discuss dodd-frank very often, we don't

have legislation related to it, we don't have opportunities to amend, this nomination of mr. cordray now before the tons is the only -- the united states senate is the only tool to create transparency and accountability within the consumer finance bureaucracy proaks board. as we consider this nomination, i hope we will remember that and consider the senate's role in overseeing the consumer finance protection board and what steps we can take to make the consumer finance protection board more transparent and, hence, more accountable to the congress and in return -- in turn, to the american people. i yield the floor and i suggest the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call:

a senator: madam president? the presiding officer: the republican whip. mr. cornyn: madam president, i ask that the quorum call be rescinded. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. cornyn: now that the so-called nuclear option has been averted and the senate can now turn its attention to other matters of substance rather than internal matters of how the senate operates, i think it's important that we evaluate how legislation that has passed this body is working. and i want to focus specifically on the affordable care act, which is better than known as obamacare. amazingly, senator reid on sunday on one of the talk shows was quoted saying obamacare has been wonderful for america. and the house minority leader, former speaker pelosi, has said

that implementation of the health care law has been fabulous. well, that stands in stark contrast to what senator max baucus, chairman of the senate finance committee, one of the principal pal architects of obamacare said when he told kathleen sebelius, secretary of health and human services that the implementation of obamacare is a train wreck in the making.u contrast that with what president obama himself said about the affordable care act, about obamacare, and he said it is working the way it's supposed to. well, not all of those things can be true at the same time, and indeed they're not. in the real world, unfortunately, it looks like obamacare is a slow-motion disaster in the making. and the administration, not withstanding the president's comments, that it's working the

way it's supposed to, seems to be acknowledging by its own actions that it is not working the way it is supposed to. the administration has chosen to delay the so-called employers mandate and have begun to admit what americans have been saying since at least 2010, when obamacare passed, that it has proven to be unworkable. rather than accept the reality and support full congressional repeal of the law, the administration is instead refusing to enforce the law and is choosing to apply it selectively. the law clearly states that as of january 2014, all businesses with 50 or more full-time employees have to provide their workers with health insurance or else pay a penalty. now, to be clear, i didn't support the affordable care act for obamacare, but that's what the law says.

our democratic colleagues, 60 of them in the senate, and the majority in the then-democratically controlled house passed the law and president obama signed it. and that's what it says. but the president has chosen to take unilateral action and to refuse to enforce the law that he himself signed and the congressional democrats passed, without a single republican vote. but whether you support it had or you didn't support it, many of us now are forced to acknowledge -- and i would think the administration itself would be forced to acknowledge -- that the law simply is not working as advertised. it is now obvious that the employer mandate has prompted many businesses to reduce the number of hours and transform full-time jobs into part-time jobs in order to avoid the employer mandate. and this has contributed to a surge in the number of people

working part-time jobs for economic reasons. and that number last month alone was 8.2 million people. 8.2 million americans who would like to have full-time work but simply can't find it in large part because of the implementation of obamacare. as i said, mr. president, i voted against obamacare three years ago. i remember being in this chamber at christmas eve at 7:00 a.m., 2009, when our congressional -- when our democratic colleagues passed obamacare without a single vote on this side of the aisle. and many of us were voicing concerns about the provisions of obamacare, including the employer mandate, long before it became law. the problems with the mandate will, of course, still be there in 2015, not withstanding the one-year delay unilaterally by the administration. and they reflect broader

problems in the affordable care act as a whole. now, i believe the most commonsense thing we could do was simply to repeal it and to start over again and replace it with patient-centered reforms that actually address the biggest challenges that face most families in america. you know, the president said if you like what you have, in terms of your health coverage, you can keep it. and millions of americans are now finding that not to be the case. the president said a family of four will find their premiums reduced on average $2,500. actually rather than than a reduction in costs, they're finding that their premiums are going up and will go up even more when obamacare is implemented. so, my point is whether you voted for obamacare or not, i think it's important that we now acknowledge the sad reality is that it's not working the way even its most vigorous

proponents wished it would. and indeed it seems to be working out a way that most of its critics thought it would. but it's important now that we work together and give permanent relief to this public policy train wreck for individual americans and for small businesses. that's actually how we're supposed to function under our constitution. no congress, no -- even under uniformly democratic control as the united states congress and the white house was in the first few years of the president's term, if things don't work out the way even most of its ardent proponents wished and hoped it would, then our job under the constitution is to work together to try to provide some relief and solutions to the american people. so that's true whether you objected to the law in its first instance or you simply supported it. if it turns out not to work as advertised, it's our job to fix it.

and we can do so by replacing it with high-access, high-quality care that's more affordable and is much simpler to use. because rather than have the federal government dictate to you and your doctor what kind of care you're going to get and under what terms, you can, in consultation with your private doctor, make those decisions in the best interest of you and your family. but the bigger problem, mr. president, is president obama simply deciding which of the laws to enforce and which not to enforce. and that's becoming somewhat of a trend based on political convenience and expediency. time and time again he's made clear that if a law that pafs passed by the -- that's passed by the congress and signed by the president, whether it's him or another president, if it's unpopular among his political supporters he'll simply ignore it and refuse to enforce it. shortly after obamacare became

law, the administration began issuing waivers from the annual limit requirements which made it seem as if certain organizations, oftentimes labor unions, would simply be exempted from and receive preferential treatment based on their political connection. meanwhile, to help implement obamacare, the i.r.s. has announced that it will violate the letter of the law and issue health insurance subsidies through federal exchanges, especially in those places where the states have declined to issue state-based exchanges, even though the law makes it clear that these subsidies can only be used for state exchanges. so let me restate that. the law says you can only use these taxpayer subsidies for state-based exchanges. but because many states have simply said that this makes no sense for them and are refusing to create state-based insurance exchanges, these individuals

will now be in the federal insurance exchange. and even though the law says taxpayer subsidies are not available for those, the i.r.s. is papering over that provision of the law and simply disregarding it. but again, we have seen he this time and time again. we saw similar disregard for the rule of law during the government-run chrysler bankruptcy, when the company secured bondholders received much less for their loans than the united auto worker pension funds, even though under the law these bondholders were entitled to the highest priority in terms of prepayment but were subjugated to the united auto worker pension funds basically in an exercise of political strong arming. then we saw it again in the solyndra bankruptcy. you remember that, when the obama administration violated the law by making taxpayers subordinate to private lenders.

in other words, they put the taxpayers on the hook rather than the private lenders who helped finance solyndra. more recently the administration -- and this is something that's in the news as recently as today -- we know the administration made unconstitutional recess appointments to the national labor relations board and to the consumer financial protection bureau. the district of columbia court of appeals held that the administration's argument in defense of its so-called recess appointment power would -- quote -- "eviscerate the constitution's separation of powers." but now it appears that as part of the so-called nuclear option negotiations, even the white house is now being forced to withdraw these nominees that were unconstitutionally appointed and offer substitute appoint ease. we also know that the obama

administration unilaterally chose to waive key requirements of the 1996 welfare reform law and the 2002 law known as no child left behind. mr. president, government run by waiver or by the federal government picking winners and losers is the antithesis of equal justice under the law. you can look across the street at the supreme court of the united states, and above the entry it says equal justice under law. that is the very definition of our form of government which is designed for congress, duly elected representatives of the american people and the president of the united states to write legislation that applies to everybody, and not to issue waivers or exemptions or to simply refuse to enforce the law because it's proven to be inconvenient or not politically expedient. the u.s. constitution obligates the president to make sure that all of our laws are faithfully

executed. and yet, with president obama, the pattern is unmistakable. inconvenient or unpopular legal requirements repeatedly being swept aside by executive fiat. now, if the law is not working the way it's supposed to, what the president ought to do is come back to congress and say we need to amend the law. we need to replace this unworkable law with one that will actually serve the interests of the american people. but we're not seeing that happen. we're seeing the white house decide on its own that it simply won't enforce it. last year, for example, the administration unilaterally announced a moratorium on the enforcement of certain immigration laws. in effect, when congress failed to pass legislation that the president wanted, the president himself simply decided not to enforce the immigration laws. as that skpapl -- example shows

this administration has relied on bureaucrats to override the people's elected representatives, and it's simply improper and unconstitutional under our system for the president to decide unilaterally that he's not going to enforce the law. for example, when congress refused to enact so-called card check for labor unions, the administration simply turned to unelected bureaucrats at the national labor relations board. and when congress refused to extend cap and trade energy taxes, the administration turned to unelected bureaucrats at the environmental protection agency to attempt to accomplish the same objectives indirectly that it was prohibited by congress because it couldn't get a political consensus from doing directly. indeed, the president has now authorized the environmental protection agency to regulate virtually every aspect of the american economy without congressional approval and without recourse to the american

people. when we make a mistake, when we do something that the american people don't approve of, they get to vote on us. they get to vote us out of office if they see fit. that's not true with this faceless, nameless bureaucracy which is rarely held accountable, and particularly when the president delegates to that bureaucracy the authority to regulate in so many areas and avoid congressional accountability and accountability at the white house. taken together, all of these measures represent a basic contempt for the rule of law and the normal constitutional checks and balances under separated powers. after witnessing the president's record over the past four years and a half, is it any wonder why the american people, indeed members of congress, were skeptical about his promises to enforce our immigration laws under the immigration bill that passed the senate recently? all of the extravagant promises

that were made for border security or interior enforcement, the implementation of a work sited verification system for a biometric entry-exit system to deter 40% of the immigration that comes when people enter the country legally and simply overstay their visa. if after 17 years the federal government still isn't enforcing those laws that are already on the books, how in the world can the american people have any confidence whatsoever that the president and congress could be trusted to enforce laws that it passes? after witnessing the president's performance, i just think the american people are deeply skeptical of his promise of future performance. and in selective enforcement of our existing laws undermine public confidence in the federal government. mr. president, i believe the executive overreach that i've

described is corrosive to democratic government. if a republican president had ignored these kinds of constitutional checks, had refused to enforce laws he didn't like, refused to defend in court laws that he didn't like and used federal agencies to flout the will of congress, you can be sure that our friends on the other side of the aisle would be complaining nonstop about the imperial president. yet they've largely given president obama a pass. whether you agree with the president on health care, on immigration, on energy policy, on card check or other hot-button issues, we should all agree that government should not be picking winners and losers and that we urgently need to restore the rule of law and faithful execution of those laws to their rightful place in the highest reaches of the federal government.

mr. president, i yield the floor, and i suggest the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call:

quorum call:

quorum call:

a senator: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from maryland. mr. cardin: mr. president, i ask unanimous consent that the quorum call be dispensed with. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. cardin: mr. president, i would ask consent to speak as if in morning business. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. cardin: mr. president, my good friend, congressman sten just hoyer, -- steny hoyer, promotes america by using the phrase make it in america.

it talks about the pride of our country, the ingenuity, the spirit of american workers, and the fact that we can compete against any country in the world on a level playing field. we can make it in america. i rise today to share with my fellow senators news of my recent visit to maryland businesses who are contributing to our local and national economy through manufacturing innovation. as part of what i call made in maryland tour, i visited the volvo group north america's manufacturing facility in hagerstown, maryland, and the flying dog brewery in frederick, maryland. just a few weeks ago, i toured the paul reed smith guitar factory on the eastern shore. my made in maryland tour has highlighted many of the leading job creators and key small businesses that have helped revive maryland's manufacturing sector. the goal is to meet with employees and business owners, take stock of their challenges

and successes, and help them identify ways that the federal government can help them grow and innovate. we have highlighted the diverse products being produced in our great state, and we are celebrating the hardworking marylanders who have made these products and the companies who are providing jobs in our local communities. for example, the paul reed smith guitar factory in stevensonville, maryland, makes high-end guitars used by some of the most prominent musicians in the world, including carlos santana. operating for nearly 30 years, the paul reed smith now employees 230 workers with revenues of $24 million. this is the largest private employer in queen anne's county, maryland, and one of the top five private employers on the upper shore. as a region and as a country, we must stay focused on creating good jobs at home and strengthen and continue to build our

economy. manufacturing is good for maryland, and it's good for america. let me tell you about my visit to volvo group which employees 1,500 people in hagerstown, maryland, accounting for one out of every ten jobs in the region's manufacturing sector. employees at this facility are paid approximately 62% above the average wage in the region. these are good jobs, jobs that people are proud to hold. volvo has set the standard for environmentally aware manufacturing. through its partnership with the u.s. department of energy, volvo has developed the next generation of fuel-efficient engines and trucks. since 2001, volvo has invested $330 million to upgrade and renovate their facilities, allowing volvo to build a state-of-the-art engine development laboratory to produce increasingly fuel-efficient engines. this volvo facility has shown

outstanding success. 60 of volvo's trucks a day emit the same emission as one truck in 1990. that's an amazing reduction of pollutants going into the air. in addition, the facility recycles 84% of the site's waste and has achieved an 83% decrease in the use of diesel fuels. furthermore, volvo remains invested in western maryland by making generous contributions to local health and welfare organizations, civic and community organizations, art and cultural organizations and education initiatives across the region. this commitment to the well-being of volvo employees is demonstrated by the august, 2013, opening of an on-site family first pharmacy which will provide employees and their families with innovative state-of-the-art health care to be provided by doctors, nurses and pharmacists in cooperation

with walgreens. as the volvo facility has highly invested in the local community and its numerous employees, we must remain invested in ensuring this socially responsible company future success. later in the day i traveled to frederick, maryland and the blind dog brewery. they make a very different product than the transmissions assembled at volvo but i recognized the same qualities in these unique companies and their employees. hard work, attention to detail and a real pride and passion for the product being made. these are qualities that can never be outsourced. small breweries like flying dog have been anchors of local economy since the start of our history. this is a state-of-the-art facility that constantly works to make its product better. in addition to making a product

whose quality i can attest to they are supporting 80 jobs and putting profits back into the western maryland community. when i grew up, brewing brewing in maryland was a huge industry. we lost most of it, but it's coming back. today, the brewing industry in maryland is supporting more than $13 million in wages paid and are contributing nearly $100 million to our state economy. my made in maryland tour was conceived to highlight manufacturing and innovation that is boosting our economy across our state. but i can tell you that agriculture which is still our number-one industry is being revived along the way, too. during my tour of the flying dog brewery, i met a farmer and his son who are fifth and sixth generation frederick county family farmers, celebrating 1759 year of their family farm. they told me that their decision to begin growing barley, small

grains and hops for local breweries is what kept their family going. they small small grains and hops to flying dog and numerous brewing companies for many of their seasonal, locally brewed beers. these farms -- their farm, amber fields molting and brewing company in conjunction with brewers restaurant and brewery in frederick, maryland, introduced amber fields best bit were they describe as an english style best bitter. this is the first commercially brewed beer in over a hundred years to rely exclusively on barley grown and malted in maryland. amber fields releases locally grown ingredients are available through brewery alalally and their sister companies. america's manufacturing sector from autos and truck

manufacturing to beermakers and guitars have played a major role in growing our economy and our nation to be the world's leader and has helped create the strongest middle class in history. to continue in our recovery we need to make sure that companies like volvo group, flying dog brewery and wall reed smith i did guitars are creating jobs here at home have a what they need to be successful. our job in washington should be to make their job easier because when they do better, we all do better. mr. president, with that i would yield the floor. and suggest the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call:

the presiding officer: the senator from wyoming. mr. barrasso: thank you,

mr. president. i ask unanimous consent that the quorum call be vitiated. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. barrasso: thank you, mr. president. mr. president, there's been some confusion about the president's health care law recently. so i come to the floor today to try to clear up one point. just before the fourth of july holiday, the obama administration admitted, admitted to the world that its health care law is not working out according to plan. they did it an in an unusual way in a blog post right before the fourth of july holiday yet it was known to the world. because by choosing to delay the law's employer mandate, the president conceded that it would place a tremendous burden on america's job creators. then just this past sunday, the senate majority leader went on "meet the press" and said he said -- quote -- "obamacare has been wonderful for america." wonderful for america? mr. president, senator reid's comments demonstrate once again democrats in washington, people who voted for this law are not

listening to the american people. i hear it when i return home to wyoming every weekend. i did this past weekend. i hear it as members of the senate do when they talk to friends from home. i heard it today from people from gillette and eston and cody -- evanston and cody, this health care law is unraveling. i want to make a couple of things clear to everyone. after three and a half years, we know the obama health care law is not working. it's a train wreck. if the law were wonderful, we wouldn't increase premiums. it wouldn't shrink paychecks, wouldn't discourage job creation. if the law were wonderful, we wouldn't put the feared i.r.s. as the enforcer of the health care law. if the law were wonderful, the administration wouldn't have delayed one of its most critical parts. it's clear to me even president obama does not share senator reid's opinion that the health care law is wonderful. this law is not wonderful for america. it's obviously terrible for

america's job creators. it's also terrible for many people trying to make a living in this country. there was an article, mr. president, on the front page of "the new york times" recently, wednesday, july 10, headline at restaurant, delay is help on the health law. the delay is a help. and what this article did, the front page above the fold, "new york times," looked at a small vp maryland restaurant called the shanty grill. what's going on at that restaurant makes the case better than any actuarial study or charts or economic model ever could because it's a story about real people and their lives. the article talked about how the law was hurting everyone, everyone from the owner of the restaurant to the uninsured waiter to the chef who has insurance, all of them were hurt by this health care law. because for each of these people and for millions of others like them across the country, the reality of the health care reform is that it has fallen far short of the president's many

promises. according to this article in "the new york times," the restaurant's owner is on a pace to finally this year 2ur7b -- tawrn profit. it will be the first profit since the economic downturn a number of years ago. four years after the recession ended, he's finally set to recover and get back into the black. if he has to provide expensive washington-approved, washington-mandated health insurance for every employee, though, that profit will quickly evaporate. so that would certainly harm this employer. but what about the employees? let's talk about the people this is designed to help. turns out the younger workers at the restaurant, they actually aren't too interested in having this health insurance coverage, they'd rather have more money are in their paychecks so they can decide how they want to spend it, not how the president thinks they should spend it. so they stand to lose out once the law's individual mandate starts in january because they'll have to go out, buy

insurance which may be much more than they want or need or can afford. now, the employees at the restaurant who already have health insurance, they're worried, too. they're concerned they won't able to keep their current coverage. when the president stopped his disastrous employer mandate, i believe he made actually the right decision but i do have some doubts about his reasoning. i think this was purely for political reasons because regardless of how and why the president made the decision, a one-year lay dlai in this one policy -- delay in this one policy doesn't solve the problem it. only extends the problem. first, this restaurant and other small businesses, they can't afford and they can't expand or hire more staff because they still face the mandate in 2015. and actually the final line in this article,-on the front page of the "new york times" when you carry over to read the end of it, we're not going to expand, no more expansion. many businesses are cutting bac

workers to part-time status because of the health care law. president obama has had nothing to say to those americans looking for full-time work but trapped in a part-time job and part-time as defined by the health care law which is different than most americans think of or define part-time work. third, the law still requires of all the employees but like nearly everyone else in america that they have to buy pricey health insurance starting january 1. now, that's a problem for the president and knows it. here's how an article in "politico" put it this weekend. the article is entitled "obamacare's missing mandate." it says -- quote -- "the massive coast to coast campaign to get people to sign up for obamacare is light on mentions they say of one central element, the widely disliked individual mandate. the widely disliked individual mandate. the "politico" article goes on to say "poll after poll has

found americans don't like being told that they have to get insurance or face a penalty. so the groups they say doing outreach don't plan to draw much attention to it. the employer mandate has collapsed, the individual mandate is unpopular so they just don't want to talk about it. a lot of the people who do have to buy this new washington mandated, washington approved insurance will have to buy it through the government exchanges. of course, these may not be ready on time. there are 77 days left for these to be ready. even if they're up and running by the deadline we've seen ample evidence premiums will be much higher than they were before the mandate. that's especially true for young, healthy adults who the president expects to pay more to help older, sicker people but a lot will have to pay more for that one older, sicker person.

these weren't the kinds of reforms that democrats promised when they are were forcing this plan through congress on strictly party-line votes. during the debate republicans made suggestions to improve the health care law but we were shut out of the back rooms where the democrats struck their deals. in the end, democrats drafted their law so badly that the negative side effects and unintended consequences were inevitable. "the new york times" article shows how some of these side effects are hurting millions of americans, not just those working at the restaurant, including the restaurant owner in maryland. we all know that president obama liked lieks to hold photo ops with people he says he are helped by the law. it's time for hem to meet with the people like ones featured on the front page of the "new york times," people who are being hurt by his health care law. it's time for the president to sit down with both democrats and republicans to really talk about how that we can reform health care in this country.

delaying the employer mandate for one year is not enough. this doesn't eliminate the burdens of this costly law. the house is scheduled to vote this week to delay the individual mandate. the senate should do the same. it's time for the president and for senator reid to listen to the victims of obamacare. president obama was right to recognize that his health care law is not working out. senator reid was totally wrong because obamacare is not wonderful for america. it's turning into a costly failure. the only appropriate course at this point is to permanently delay implementing the rest of the law and to replace it with a reform that really works. thank you, mr. president. i yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call:

quorum call:

quorum call:

a senator: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from idaho. a senator: i ask unanimous consent that the quorum call be lifted. officer without objection. mr. crapo: thank you, mr. president. earlier today the senate held the first of a series of cloture votes on controversial nominations by voting to invoke cloture on the nominee to be director of the consumer financial protection bureau. this agency is unlike any other federal agency. under its current structure, the cfpb has a very broad discretion but very little in terms of congressional or executive oversight. it's not a debate about whether republicans in the senate support consumer protection, as some would portray it. both sides agree that everyone

benefits from a mortgage industry and marketplace that are free of fraud and other deceptive, exploiive practices. republicans did not object to consumer protection when it was placed in each of the prudential banking regulators. in fact, the imil i bill is aimd specifically at consumer protection, passed by an overwhelming majority in the senate. the fair and accurate credit transactions act passed 95-2 and the credit card act of 2009 passed 90-5. during the dodd-frank debate, the key point of contention was not the value of consumer protection but, rather, the bureau's design. one of the lessons of the financial crisis is that we need a supervisory program at that looks and considers how safety and soundness and consumer protection work together to create a better-functioning financial system.

what republicans have been asking for is that the bureau be restructured in the same way as other similarly situated financial regulators, with accountability and transparency to congress and to the taxpayers. as outlined in two letters to the president sent by republican senators in may of 2011 and this past february, the changes highlights are not new. in fact, they exist in the current federal regulatory landscape. one of the key changes that we seek is the establishment of a board of directors to oversee the consumer financial protection bureau, with staggered terms. this is the structure of the securities and exchange commission, the commodities futures trading commission, the consumer product safety commission, the federal trade commission, the federal deposit insurance corporation, and the federal reserve. a board of directors would allow for the consideration of

multiple viewpoints in decision making and would reduce the potential for politicization of regulations. indeed, the administration originally supported a board of directors for the bureau. in 2009, the obama administration proposed a stand-alone consumer protection agency with a board of directors funded through the congressional appropriations process. the bureau also should be subject to the congressional appropriations process rather than as the dodd-frank legislation did it, to ponds it through the federal reserve, with no review by congress. while mr. cordray stated that he would come and testify before the appropriations committee, this is quite different than congress being able to oversee how the moneys that the agency utilizes are spent. for example, the cfpb intends to spend close to $100 million to

renovate its current headquarters. this amount is double the amount that the government services administration has for property acquisition and renovation in any one year. finally, consumer protection cannot and must not be detached from prudential regulation. though the bureau must consult with other prudential regulators before finalizing its rule making, the bureau can simply disregard their advice. by establishing a solid safety and soundness check for prudential regulation, the link and coordination between prudential supervision and consumer protection could be strengthened by allowing prudential regulators to provide meaningful input into the cfpb's actions and proposals. such collaboration will only strengthen our financial system. not weaken consumer protection. without it the cfpb and prudential regulators may issue rules that result in confusion

for the regulated entities, as has already been the case, with conflicting guidance for private student loans, and the many questions raised by the qualified mortgage final rule. the dodd-frank solution was to have the financial stability oversight council review certain cfpb actions. but it set the threshold at two-thirds of the fsoc members. verthis very high threshold rens its veto virtually meaningless. i have encounter add number of items with the cfpb that warrant greater scrutiny but it is it e federal agency's data-collecting initiative that is disturbing to meevment recently we learned from press accounts, not from the agency, but from press accounts, that the cfpb was spending tens of millions of

dollars to collect americans' credit data. we've learned from the recent i.r.s., associated press, and n.s.a. scandals what happens when government agencies cross the line and watch our citizens instied of watching out for them. there's a trust deficit in government today. during the last several months, i've raised significant concerns with the cfpb's data collection efforts. i've been told that the bureau needs big data to level the playing field. however, the bureau's efforts go far beyond simply leveling the playing field. unfortunately, for an agency that prides itself on transparency, i've encountered very little concrete answers to very basic questions. for example, i've asked the bureau on three occasions to give me information on the number of americans' credit accounts that the cfpb is currently monitoring.

in response, the cfpb said the information was confidential and could not be supplied. information coming from last week's hearing in the house financial services committee indicates that the cfpb is undertaking unprecedented data collection on possibly hundreds of millions of americans' accounts, possibly as many as 900 million credit card accounts in the united states. the size of this data collection and the amount of money being spent by the agency are a cause of concern and should be for those americans whose financial and credit data is being sent to the bureau each and every single month. the cfpb is collecting credit card account data, bank account data, mortgage data, and student loan data. in addition, the bureau has hired third parties to act as

its antiquities to collect, ato collect, aggregate data on behalf of the agency. some contracts even contain instructions to follow specific consumer accounts over time. this ultimately allows the cfpb to monitor on a monthly basis an individual consumer's financial activity. some of the data collected and provided to the cfpb monthly includes account balances, zip code-plus-four low cakes data, the year of birth and other demographic information. plurks the cfpb can know how much you owe, how much money you have, how much you pay each month, and where you live within a few blocks. the bureau has stated publicly on several occasions that it does not collect personally identifiable information other than the voluntarily personally

identifiable information consumers submit to the consumer splaints database -- complaint database and in supervisory exams. however, two documents drafted by the cfpb seem to raise doubts about this federal agency's actions. pursuant to the privacy act of 1974, the cfpb's system of records notice of november 2012 for the consumer and market research database, states that some of the collected data will be personally identifiable information. in addition, a cfpb contract with a third party, data aggregator, states "most if all all of the data will be confidential supervisory information and some of the data will contain identifiable information." questions still remain about what type of personal information is collected by the cfpb and what is collected by the agency's contractors.

imu without the structural changes to the agency that we are asking for, it's hard to get answers to the question. at the hearing 234 in the house last week, a cfpb official was unable to state how many agency employees have access to this enormous amount of credit data. he was also unaware of any logs used to know when employees access the data. i also question whether the bureau has put in proper policies and procedures to prevent the data from being reengineered and reverse engineered. i consider these to be very se serious privacy concerns by the very agency that was created to watch out for consumers, not to watch consumers. banks constantly worry about cyber attacks and recent news reports have run stories about the federal reserve and the i.r.s. being susceptible to cyber atafntle but what ashiewrcheses do we have from

the cfpb that these massive troves of consumer credit information are safe? data safety is particularly of concern given that both the g.a.o. and the cfpb's inspector general have found weaknesses in the cfpb data security programs and policies. because i was unable to get sufficient answers out of the cfpb, i turned to the government accountability office and asked that it look into the agency's data collection and security efforts. that review is now under way. with regard to the regulatory role of the agency, in the past two years the bureau has issued numerous new rule makings, resulting in significant cumulative burdens for affected institutions, especially small and community banks. and remember, there is no board directing this agency. there is no board to whom the

director of the agency responds. one single individual has been given the authority in this statute, without oversight by congress of his or her budget, tto single-handedly issue rules and regulations. in the span of ten days this past january, the cfpb you shalled more than 3,500 pages of final rules affecting mortgage markets and other industries. this represents more than 1 million total words of regulatory text. when i asked at an april hearing about the overwhelming number of regulations the bureau issued in one single month, i was told that there were -- quote -- "less than 100 pages of rules" -- end quote -- when translated into the "federal register." well, 100 pages of rules is a lot, but this ignores the more than 2,500 pages of guidance, analysis and interpretations which are all admissible in court and all of which are

required reading for anyone who has to comply with this complex web of rules. in order to understand and comply with these regulations, institutions are forced to hire lawyers and compliance officers, tying up resources that could be better spent on growing business, creating jobs, and boosting the economy. and again recall that the connection between safety and soundness regulation was severed with the creation of this easmghts instead, these adisicial compliance costs are -- these additional compliance costs are inevitably passed on to consumers which is difficult during high unemployment and sluggish growth. if we were convinced that the agency was at least protecting consumers rather than collecting data on all individual americans who have credit cards, student loans, mortgages, or bank accounts, then perhaps we could at least engage in a discussion

or a debate about whether the agency's actions are appropriate and effective. but i am concerned that without the strong cost-benefit analysis and input from the small business panels in crafting reviews, that even well-intentioned rules could make consumer credit more expensive and less affordable. another concern i have with the cfpb is the enactment of policy changes outside of the established notice and comment rule-making process. in march the cfpb posted a legal bullty on its log instructing auto lenders to adjust compensation practices to avoid violating fair lending laws. the bulletin includes significant legal interpretations and suggests that the bureau may utilize its enforcement powers to ensure that lenders adhere to its guidance. the only example the cfpb uses in this bulletin on how auto lenders can effectively comply with fair lending laws is flat pricing, as is interpreted by

many that any other type of pricing will be a clear violation. -- in the cfpb's eyes. if the cfpb intends to make major policy changes, then it needs to go through a regular notice and comment rule making, not a blog post. and this bulletin also frankly represents a backdoor attempt to regulate auto dealers, a group that is explicitly exempted from the cfp b's regulatory purview by the dodd-frank legislation that created the agency. in what appears to be yet another example of the cfpb's overreach. in conclusion, i'll continue to work toward oversight of the agency to ensure accountability and transparency for the american people. those who are trying to paint our demands as being extraordinary need to look at the extraordinary data collection and actions of this agency and look at our regulatory landscape with similarly situated financial

regulators. those who are trying to portray these demands as another attempt to water down consumer protection need to thralls consumer protection divested from safety and soundness does not make for a better financial system or for greater benefit to consumers. we found in our review of the cfpb that the agency does have serious problems in a number of different agency. -- areas. the lack of prompt and complete responses from the agency regarding its big data collection of americans' accounts is indicative of the lack of transparency established when this agency was created. the expenditure of nearly $100 million just for building renovations is extremely troubling in these tight economic times. mr. president, while the confirmation of the nominee is now all but certain, there remains significant work and oversight to ensure that the cfpb is an accountable agency and that it is transparent in

its actions for all americans to see. thank you, mr. president. i yield back my time.

the presiding officer: the majority leader. mr. reid: did my friend from idaho suggest the absence of a quorum? the presiding officer: no, he didn't, sir. mr. reid: mr. president, i'm going to talk just for a minute about the national labor

relations nominees. the nlrb has helped to protect the rights and safety of workers for about 80 years. it is a vitally important watch-dog for working americans. it's also important for employers. it also protects employers. but unless we act before the senate recesses in august, the nlrb will lose its ability to operate and will fail to have a quorum, it can't work, it can't -- it can't be effective. so the nomination of the full membership of the nlrb is really a priority. i understand that republican senators are frustrated by president obama's recess appointment to two members of the nlrb. i accept that. so no one has raised any questions, however, about these two good people, griffin and block. they're really fine public servants and the record should be spread with that fact.

however, republicans have insisted on the president's nominating new people and he's done that. it's a right they had and this is a compromise that was reached. republican senators have also committed that the senate will confirm these new nominees quickly. certainly before the end of this month, the month of july. to that end, i met earlier with senator harkin, senator lamar alexander, the chairman and ranking member of the big help committee and they've given me word that they're going to file notice tonight that the committee will hold a hearing on these nominees on tuesday and then they will have a markup on wednesday and we will -- we intend to turn to these nominees next thursday. i've talked with the people at the white house and these nominees will be advocates for protecting the nlrb, the rights of workers and the employers that are also protected with this legislation.

so when the senate confirms them, the nlrb once again will have a full team to protect the rights of american workers, workers in west virginia, workers in nevada, and all over the country. something they've done for 80 years. mr. president, i now ask unanimous consent that the cloture motion with respect to calendars number 100, 101, 104 be withdrawn, that the vote of the confirmation of cordray be at 5:00 today, that if the motion is confirmed, th the motn to reconsider is laid upon the table, there be no intervening action or debate, no further motion would be in order, and any related statements be printed in the record, and president obama be immediately notified of the senate's action. finally, that the vote on the motion to invoke cloture on the hawkburg nomination occur tomorrow morning, july 17, at 10:00 a.m. the presiding officer: is there objection? without objection. mr. reid: mr. president, i would note the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll.

quorum call:

a senator: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from maryland. mr. cardin: i ask consent that the quorum call be dispensed with. the presiding officer: without objection. the question is on the cordray nomination. the yeas and nays. is there a sufficient second? there appears to be. the clerk will call the roll. vote: