Jim DeMint

Mr. DeMINT

Mr. DeMINT. Will the Senator yield?

Mr. DeMINT. I thank the Senator for the comment. You are exactly right. If this was just what I wanted, I would not hold up anything. This is something you voted for. Every Senator voted for this earmark reform as a Senate rule, not as something we are going to debate with the House but as our rule. All I am asking is that we adopt the rules for the Senate that we have already passed. I do not want to hold up this conference.

Mr. DeMINT. Madam President, will my Senator yield for a question?

Mr. DeMINT. Madam President, will the Senator yield for a question?

Mr. DeMINT. Madam President, will the Senator yield for a question?

Mr. DeMINT

Mr. DeMINT. Mr. President, I thank the Senator for his leadership. Mr. President, this immigration bill has become a war between the American people and their Government. The issue now transcends anything related to immigration. It is a crisis of confidence between what the American people believe our Government is and should be, what it is to them now, and what they perceive it to be. This vote today is really not about immigration. It is about whether we are going to listen to the American people and realize we need to proceed more carefully, in a more sensitive manner, and appear to be listening to the concerns of the American people. The allocation of time, as we approach this vote, is very symbolic of where we stand. The supporters of this bill, out of an hour's time, have allocated 10 minutes to the opinion of the American people. I think we should listen to the American people. I hope all of my colleagues will decide not to move ahead with this bill and vote against cloture today.

Mr. DeMINT. Mr. President, one of the most encouraging parts about this debate--there is a silver lining--is it has reengaged the American people and shown us that we are truly a government of the people. They have spoken and they have spoken loudly. Our phones have been ringing off the hooks. We have received e-mails and letters. People are trying to get in touch with us. Even now, they are calling in such numbers that it has crashed the telephone system in the Senate. My question to the Senate today is: What part of ``no'' don't we understand? We need to vote no against cloture and stop this process that is alienating the American people from what we do, and then enforce the laws that are on the books and prove we are a nation of laws and that we will enforce the laws that have been passed by this Congress. I thank the Chair, and I yield the floor.

Mr. DeMINT. I thank the Chair.

Mr. DeMINT

Mr. DeMINT. Mr. President, I would like to yield my time to other Senators. I will give 1 minute to Senator Vitter and 4 minutes to Senator Sessions.

Mr. DeMINT. Mr. President, will the Senator yield for a request?

Mr. DeMINT. I object.

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

Mr. DeMINT. Parliamentary inquiry.

Mr. DeMINT. Reserving the right to object, is it my understanding we will be in morning business or on the amendment?

Mr. DeMINT. I ask I be included in the time.

Mr. DeMINT. Five minutes.

Mr. DeMINT

Mr. DeMINT. Thank you. Dear Senator Reid: Thank you for your response to our letter regarding your unprecedented efforts to bring the immigration bill back to the Senate floor after it was rejected three times by the full Senate. We are writing to address several of the issues you raised. First, you said the Senate was not allowed to complete its earlier debate on this bill because some of us objected to your calling up further amendments. This is untrue. You repeatedly objected to Republican amendments being offered and insisted on selecting our amendments for us and for the entire Senate. Consequently, we objected to all amendments until we could get a full and fair debate. We did not believe you had the right to hand-pick amendments then, and we do not believe you have that right now. Second, you said the abuse of Senate rules during this debate is justified because it allows you to ``overcome the tactics of a small number of Senators.'' This is also untrue. We hope you realize that over 60 Senators voted against cutting off debate because they opposed the substance of the bill and the process you used to debate it. This is not a small group. In addition, your unprecedented abuse of the rules and precedents of the Senate will negatively impact every Senator by fundamentally reducing their rights to debate and to offer amendments in the future. We believe you understand our concern because just two years ago you said, ``the Senate should not become like the House of Representatives, where the majority manipulates the rules to accommodate its momentary needs.'' If you go forward with this plan, history will show that your decision not only impacted the ever- growing number of Senators who oppose this immigration bill, but hundreds of Senators in the years to come who wish to make their voices heard. Third, you repeatedly defended this process for debate by blaming the Senate Republican leadership and the President himself. While their cooperation may give you comfort, it does not justify your actions. As Senate Majority Leader, only you can execute this abusive practice. Only you can set up a process that guarantees consideration of a hand-selected group of amendments to buy support for a bill while at the same time blocking all other amendments. You may want Americans to believe this is a Republican bill, but your willingness to use your office to force it through the Senate shows precisely how much you support it and the extent you are willing to go to pass it. We respectfully ask you to reconsider your plan to force this bill through the Senate. The American people do not support this legislation and they do not support the heavy- handed tactics being used to pass it. That is signed by Senators Vitter, DeMint, Sessions, Elizabeth Dole, and I think several others on another page. I thank the majority leader for allowing us to read the letter.

Mr. DeMINT. Will the leader yield for a question?

Mr. DeMINT. I thank the leader. I would just ask that I have the opportunity, as you did, to read the letter that I wrote, along with a number of other Members, in response to your response to us. It is just a few paragraphs. I ask unanimous consent that we be allowed to put in the Record our particular response to what you read.

Mr. DeMINT

Mr. DeMINT. Reserving the right to object, the amendment is not yet ready. I would request that the leader keep us in morning business for the next hour. I object.

Mr. DeMINT

Mr. DeMINT. Mr. President, what I have done in these requests is to show that there is no intent to let this body actually see what we are voting on, which is incredible with such a complex bill; that we are going to bring up an amendment we haven't read, and when we ask that it be read, that request is denied. When we ask for a vote on the underlying amendment, that is denied. When we ask for the yeas and nays, which means you can't voice it, that means eventually we are going to get a vote on the amendment that will be offered today, that is denied. I wish to make it clear that those of us who don't think this process is fair or that this bill is good for this country, that we have not wanted it to be voted on. But the intent is for these to be modified, just as they have been throughout this process. All these 26-some-odd amendments will be modified minute by minute, hour by hour, so when we come to vote on these amendments, nobody is actually going to know what is in them. I heard Members say, it is like what we were talking about a couple weeks ago, but we found out this morning when we asked questions about the new amendment that it isn't like what we were talking about a few weeks ago. In fact, there were important amendments that were passed that we were told would be in this bill which have been eliminated by the amendments that have been offered. We can talk more about this as the process goes forward, but right now I wish to reserve the remainder of my time and yield to Senator Vitter.

Mr. DeMINT. That is a unanimous consent request.

Mr. DeMINT. Mr. President, then maybe it would be fair to ask unanimous consent that after Senator Reid modifies the amendment, that the modification be read.

Mr. DeMINT. Mr. President, it is extraordinary that we are using Senate procedures to actually keep a 400-page amendment from being read. I ask unanimous consent that when the amendment is modified, when it is broken into these clay-pigeon pieces, that I be recognized to request the yeas and nays on that amendment.

Mr. DeMINT. Mr. President, I think it would be a good idea that we create a national warning system to tell Americans when we decide we need to do something, even if it is wrong. A few weeks ago, we decided we needed to do something about immigration. A few of the Senators announced on a Thursday that we had reached this delicate compromise and nothing could be changed from this bill. We all found out a few days later that the bill had not been written yet, but over the weekend one version was written, and by Monday, another version had been written. We were told we needed to vote on that bill by Friday. This bill has been a moving target since it began. It is hard to tell on any given day what is actually in the bill. We were able to convince our leadership to at least go to a second week. But when many of us came down to offer our amendments, consistently there was objection to bringing up additional amendments. When finally the original bill came to its final day, there were three cloture votes that failed. This bill was put down. Now we have brought it back. We brought back a bill, just yesterday, a new bill in which we have already found significant flaws the writers didn't know were there. We have problems in the underlying bill, and yesterday we were all waiting down on the floor to get this new amendment, this amendment that is almost as big as the original bill, 373 pages. We were all waiting, and we received it later in the afternoon. What actually happened was, when we asked that the amendment be read, we had to recess the Senate and go finish writing the bill. But we finally got the bill. It was warm from the copier, 373 pages, after a couple of hours of delay. When we asked that it be read so we would understand what was in it, we finally got the majority leadership to agree we could have the night to review it, which we greatly appreciate. Now we have come to the floor, got here at 10 today because we understood the majority leader was going to divide this amendment in this grand clay-pigeon procedure to divide this amendment, only to find out the amendment is being changed, but it hasn't been written. We are waiting on the floor again to get a new version of this amendment, but we don't know what is going to be in it. It is amazing that something so important that has been talked about on the floor of the Senate, something we have to do, is continuously being revised and rewritten every day. Instead of stopping and getting this amendment in some form we can work with, we continue to press the whole process forward. Some of us who are critics have been called obstructionists because we don't think this process is fair or that the underlying bill is right for America. We have been called a lot of names, but we can't even get started with a fair process, and we can't start to fix it with amendments if we don't even have it written yet. It is hard to know what the amendments should even be if we don't see what is actually in the bill. So here we are again. It is going to be offered sight unseen, just as yesterday, when not one Member of the Senate had read it when it was offered. We are going to get a new amendment, probably 400 pages today, that not one Member of the Senate will have read, that we will be expected to bring up and to vote on. Mr. President, I wish to ask a couple unanimous consent requests. First, we need to stop this moving target and know what we are working with. I ask unanimous consent that it be in order at this time to order the yeas and nays on the pending amendment.