Thomas Coburn

Mr. COBURN

Mr. COBURN. I will not take but a moment longer. I think it is fair to allow the majority leader to regain the floor. The Senate I know and the Senate I studied was not about limiting debate. It was not about having a Rules Committee of one, it was about unlimited debate, germane but unlimited. It was about amendments. It was about using the parliamentary rules we have in a fair and straightforward way to advance what you thought was best for this country. The majority leader has the toughest position in this body. It is a hard job. There is no question. I defer to his judgment. I am not critical of his judgment. I am sorry for the Senate that we are to the point now where we can only move legislation when it is approved and the amendments are approved by the majority leader and his leadership. I think that fails the test of our Founders' version of the Senate. I think we will rue the day that we have gone down this path. But I will continue to use every parliamentary maneuver I know to lessen Washington's wasteful spending, to pass good bills and make them better and not to say that just because you do not approve of a unanimous consent request that you do not have something to offer. The fact is, we have passed 855 bills by unanimous consent. I may have let too many go. But the fact is we negotiated with a lot of people and got a lot of bills through. The frustration factor is part of the Senate. Working together we solve problems, working against each other what we do is we lower the rate of acceptability and confidence in this body to the 9 percent it has today. My hat is off to Harry Reid for the amount of time he has put in, the amount of effort he puts in it. I would hope he would choose to go a different way, reaching across the aisle, working across the aisle. Everybody's ideas have value. Everybody's input should be offered and there should be real negotiation. One last comment. This omnibus package of bills had 34 bills in it. There were only three bills that I absolutely opposed, nine bills I never objected to at all. And every other bill in that I made an offer to reach out, offer amendments, offer suggestions. Most of the time it was flatly rejected: We are going to roll over you. You cannot have input. If that is the way the Senate operates, then we are going to be back here a lot of times in the future. I know, pretty heady times, thinking that we may not have the power to do that. But that power, if it goes away, will not last for very long being in absence. It will be back. The American people get it. This country is on a crashing course, financially. Fiscally, we cannot handle what is happening to us. Until we start handling the problems now that are going to be the crisis in the future, we will fail the American public. I yield the floor.

Mr. COBURN. Mr. President, I would make the point--I understand the majority leader's concern with my actions. My actions are not of impure motives, nor are my attempts to embarrass anyone. But the fact is, we could pass these bills if we weren't struggling with politics. The fact is, if we wanted to do something about it--and I believe many of the Members of this body do--we can continue the game of reducing minority rights or we can truly work to try to work out the problems on the bills. That is what the attempt was. I will not go any further with that. I will take this time to ask unanimous consent for another agreement--the Emmett Till bill, which I offered multiple times; multiple potential amendments to solve this problem. I met with Mr. Sykes, who is leading this effort. I agree with the purposes of the bill. I have always agreed with the purposes of the bill, and I objected because the Justice Department spent over $400 million in the last 7 years on conferences, and the Justice Department says they can do what we want done for about a third of the amount of the money. So I am willing to offer a way to pass the Emmett Till bill tonight on the floor, a way that allows the Justice Department to take funds from within their other funds and pay for the costs of this bill, which will be about a third less than what we would have authorized, and that will happen in spite of the fact that we do not plan to offer any appropriations bills this year. The Emmett Till bill could become law and be in effect at the level at which we would all want it by agreeing to the following unanimous consent request, the bill I filed, and I ask unanimous consent it be adopted and passed.

Mr. COBURN. That is correct.

Mr. COBURN. I make the note that what we have is the majority leader saying I want cover. I don't cover for anything, I say to the majority leader. I have been out front opposing these bills from the start because they were not paid for or they were not good policy. To claim that my effort to pass this legislation now in a way that both saves money for the next few generations and also will accomplish the very goal that he says he wants to accomplish--that has nothing to do with feeling guilty. I think it is a great victory for the American people today that we did not spend $11 billion and get on a bill that would spend it. I understand there is a permanent disagreement, both on how we have done this and also on the policy questions, but the fact is, if we want to solve unsolved civil rights violations, the way to do it is this. The way not to do it is to say: We are not going to do it, we are not going to work with you, we are not going to change it. The whole purpose of not agreeing to the unanimous consent request on the bill in the first place was there is so much waste in the Justice Department. It would be my recommendation that maybe after a few days we take another look at that, and I will work with the authors of the bill in a good-faith effort to try to make both those bills capable of being passed. I know many on your side would like to get the legislation done no matter what. This is no attempt to cover for anybody. I have too many holds to try to cover for anything.

Mr. COBURN. Parliamentary inquiry, Mr. President.

Mr. COBURN. Is it my understanding there is an objection to the unanimous consent?

Mr. COBURN. Reserving the right to object.

Mr. COBURN. I thank the majority leader for the time. Mr. President, in the bills we did not agree to go to, I have worked with Senator Biden on the child exploitation alternative bill, which would protect our children from pornography and Internet exploitation. That bill is at the desk and has been filed. After working with Senator Biden, adding the SAFE Act, which is an act that would decrease the amount of graphic and vile images of child pornography currently available on the Internet and help root out people selling, trading, and displaying images, and by expanding the requirements for the Internet service providers to report on online child pornography, which is a bipartisan bill as well, as were two of these components I never held in the bill, I ask unanimous consent that we call up and pass that bill, as amended, with the concurrence of the majority leader.

Mr. COBURN. I was aware.

Mr. COBURN. I am.

Mr. COBURN. I am aware of that.

Mr. COBURN. I was aware of that.

Mr. COBURN. I was.

Mr. COBURN. I was aware of that. I had actually offered unanimous consent to waive the cloture and was denied.

Mr. COBURN. I will yield to the Senator from Alabama.

Mr. COBURN. Absolutely not.

Mr. COBURN. I am. I am very pleased in your effort.

Mr. COBURN. I have a concern with the money authorized in this bill that will be wasted and appropriated when we have not taken care of a large amount of the waste in the Justice Department.

Mr. COBURN

Mr. COBURN. I am told by the staff that we cannot waive that.

Mr. COBURN. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. COBURN. Mr. President, the answer to that question is everyone who has a bill in this, outside the nine that have never been hotlined or approved in the past, every one has been offered amendments to offset spending out of the duplication of waste that is already going on.

Mr. COBURN. Mr. President, how much time is remaining?

Mr. COBURN. And for Senator Durbin?

Mr. COBURN. Mr. President, I will finish and end. First of all, the actual facts are that we are spending in Iraq $8 billion a month. It is not $10 billion to $15 billion; it is $8 billion. No. 2, I am not holding four of the eight Judiciary bills in this bill. As a matter of fact, I already agreed to three of them by unanimous consent, and they have gone through this body already. We can play with the facts all we want. The fact is, what is the priority for the American people? I wish to help people who are paralyzed. I have been a supporter of the Emmett Till bill. I think we ought to pay for it. We spent $396 million for conferences in the Justice Department for the last 5 years. Why would we not take some of that money and pay for it? No, that is hard work. We would not do the oversight. We would not get rid of the wasteful spending. What we will do is pass new spending. That is what has to change. What my colleagues want to do I am not necessarily objecting to. What I am objecting to is how they want to do it. I am objecting to doing something in the name of good today that undermines the name of good tomorrow, which is the future availability and potential for the children who come our way. We can have disputes about the war. I have not voted to fund the war, not once. What I have voted for is transparency and elimination of waste, and I brought up amendments. The sponsors of this bill, every one of them voted for the bridge to nowhere; every one of them voted for the Hippy Museum in New York instead of the Child Health Program. Every one of them voted to, in fact, vote for sidewalk and bike trails instead of fixing the falling down bridges in this country. The question is, When will we have people who will vote for the future? It is easy to spend money up here. It is very easy to do. And because we are on different sides of the debate doesn't mean those who want to do this are wrong. What is wrong is, in fact, creating a situation where we are going to charge it to our children. There are options. Senator Reid was offered a list of amendments to offset at the Justice Department for the Emmett Till bill, and so was Senator Dodd. They refused to even consider offsetting any wasteful spending.

Mr. COBURN. Let me ask that again. The time remaining for me is 31 seconds?