Jim DeMint

Mr. DeMINT

Mr. DeMINT. Madam President, I would just like a few minutes to address the Senate. I have some deep concerns about some things that are going on. I have been really encouraged since the new majority took over. We have had some great bipartisan meetings, and we have talked about trying to create a new spirit of cooperation here in the Senate and to work together. I think a lot of us have been trying to do that, and it has been going reasonably well. Today I had the opportunity to offer an amendment, an amendment that will contribute to the transparency of what we call earmarks or the favors that sometimes lobbyists and Members work out where we put money in bills for specific things. We just wanted to make that transparent and to include all earmarks, not just a few. We had a good debate. I have to admit it was the most fun I have had since I have been in the Senate. I was given 45 minutes of time before the vote at 2 o'clock, and Senator Coburn came down to speak on my behalf. Senator Durbin asked me to yield, and I gave him all the time he wanted. I even yielded the last 2 minutes and gave him the last word. We had a good debate about it. The majority had decided to try to table that amendment so we wouldn't have a vote, so the motion was to table the DeMint amendment. We had a good vote. It is always exciting to see how votes come in. When they held up the final sheet, 51 had voted not to table the amendment and 46 had voted to table it. It wasn't a partisan vote. It wasn't party line at all. That is what was kind of unusual. Again, I think the spirit of what we have been trying to do is not just to look at the party but to look at the issue. I think a lot of folks decided that if we are going to have disclosure of earmarks, let's have disclosure of all of them, and this one happens to take it from 5 percent to 100. But I would like to thank some of my colleagues, my Democratic colleagues who thought about this amendment, who listened to the debate, including Senator Landrieu and Senator Kerry, Senator Cantwell, Senator Webb, Senator Tester, Senator Harkin, Senator Feingold, Senator Obama, and my good friend Senator Lieberman, who took the time to listen to the debate and decided that this shouldn't be tabled, that we should have a vote on it. Normally what happens in the Chamber--in fact, I have never seen it done any other way--is if a motion to table fails, then the majority would accept the amendment as a voice vote because the will of the Senate has spoken and a majority have expressed their support of that amendment. But something happened on the way to civility and camaraderie here today. Instead of the normal procedure of the majority conceding that Republicans and Democrats wanted to pass this amendment, they did not agree when I asked that the amendment be accepted. They objected. Now I am told that after a lot of backroom work, they want to bring the amendment back to the floor, and apparently they have convinced some of my colleagues to change their votes. I have to say, I know when I was in the House, I saw my party guilty of that, after a Medicare vote being open 3 hours and arm-twisting and all kinds of carrying on. I think we all decided after the last election that maybe the American people didn't want us to do business that way. I think the will of the Senate has spoken on this amendment, and I think the issue is bigger than on my particular amendment; it is, if we are going to have ethics reform, let's be ethical about the process of voting on this reform. We had a good, open, and honest debate. The amendment is simple and clear. It is actually Nancy Pelosi's amendment from the House side which has been vetted and voted on and discussed. I am aware there is some misinformation now going on about the amendment, but I would just encourage my colleagues--I would encourage my Republican colleagues because some of them voted against this--even if they don't like the amendment, let's support the idea of just following normal courtesies here in the Senate. I have often heard, since I came from the House side, that the Senate is a much different place, that we are civil, we respect each other's rights. I am afraid a lot of that is slipping away here. I would just like to make an appeal today that my colleagues accept this amendment. The will of the Senate has spoken. It obviously can be worked on and improved in conference. The majority will control the conference. I think it will speak well for the Senate that we are willing to shine the light of day onto all of our earmarks so the American people can see it. So, Madam President, I thank you for the opportunity to speak, and I yield the floor.

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

Mr. DeMINT. Madam President, if I could have a brief moment to address the majority. We had a good debate on my first amendment, amendment No. 11, to expand the definitions of earmarks in a way that the American people could understand and see. I appreciate the Senator from Illinois participating in a good and open debate. The motion was to table that amendment, but, with bipartisan support, we defeated the motion to table. And as a customary way of courtesy, I think, in the Senate, we normally accept a voice vote for amendments that are not tabled. I ask unanimous consent that amendment be accepted.

Mr. DeMINT. We get lots of scores around this place. This is not spending. Pursuant to section 904(c)(1) of the Congressional Budget Act, I move to waive the point of order, and I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. DeMINT. I wish to appeal to my fellow Senators to remember that over the last 25 years, 24 of those years we were not able to complete the appropriations process before the end of the fiscal year. As you know, every year we have a crisis situation here. We are all familiar with the end of the year crisis where we have to vote for a bill or we are going to close down the Government or parts of the Government. We sign a continuing resolution and that night, many times, we are flying to other parts of the world so the President can sign it. This amendment is a very simple idea. If we are not able to finish an appropriations bill before the end of the fiscal year, it simply continues the Government under last year's funding. That way, we do not have to have a crisis and vote on bills we have not read and that we are embarrassed about 3 weeks later, and we do not have to threaten Federal employees or senior citizens that their services will be cut off. Please support this amendment. It is simple common sense to continue the operations of Government until we can complete our business.

Mr. DeMINT. Madam President, it is my understanding I am speaking in defense of amendment No. 13, which we call the automatic continuing resolution.

Mr. DeMINT. I thank the President for his patience.

Mr. DeMINT. Mr. President, this is what we call the Nancy Pelosi amendment; it is in her honor. I appreciate the opportunity for debate. I appreciate my colleague from Illinois joining us in some give and take. I think there is a temptation to make this more than it is. It is not a new set of regulations. It is applying the same transparency we are trying to apply to 5 percent of earmarks to all the earmarks so that we will not only be honest as a body, but we will appear honest to the American people. I think all of us know if we walk out of here and the media shines a light on what we have done, and if it becomes obvious that most of the earmarks we pass are completely overlooked by our ethics and lobbying reform bill, then it will be seen for the sham that it really is. We are investing too much of our time and too much of the interests of our country in this idea of ethics reform----

Mr. DeMINT. Which amendment is this?

Mr. DeMINT. Mr. President, I will give the Senator from Illinois the last word.

Mr. DeMINT. I yield to the Senator from Oklahoma.

Mr. DeMINT. Mr. President, I thank the Senator. The Senator from Illinois is right. We don't authorize, but the Senator also mentioned the word ``recommending.'' Ninety-five percent of the earmarks produced by this Congress are in report language and conference reports that actually do not have the force of law, that are recommended but have been carried out by the executive branch for years just for fear of retribution from the Congress because we talked to the President about this. There is no reason why these should not be disclosed. There is no reason the American people should not know they are there. We are not limiting the number that can be there. We are not suggesting we change the authorizing process.

Mr. DeMINT. Yes.

Mr. DeMINT. Mr. President, I appreciate the Senator's transparency. I have been around long enough to know exactly what is going to happen. If we have a transparent provision for 5 percent of earmarks, but if we do them another way, such as in report language, they are not transparent, and this is going to encourage more perversion of the way we do business because what is going to happen is we are going to push more and more of our earmarks into report language in conference bills that we don't know is there and the American people don't know is there. We know how this place operates, and we are going to choose the path of least resistance. If we don't have to disclose it if it is in report language, but we do if it is in the bill, then we are actually going to do harm to the process. I will tell the Senator from Illinois this: He mentioned a Senate rule. We are not talking about a Senate rule. We are talking about a statute of law we are passing that will go to conference with the House. The Senator, obviously, as a member of the majority, will have ample opportunity to change this provision, but I think it would be a good signal to America, to the House, to our colleagues in the Senate that if we adopt this amendment today, and if there are ways to improve it in conference, I am certainly open to that. But to table this amendment and to say we don't even want to discuss or vote on an amendment that creates more disclosure and honesty in the process, I think does harm to what we are trying to do today.

Mr. DeMINT. I will yield in a moment. I appreciate the Senator from Illinois staying with us because I want to mention another amendment and give him some comment. I do appreciate the opportunity for some debate. I would like to summarize to make a key point. Nothing in this amendment would limit, in any way, our ability to earmark bills. We could have 12,000 next year, if we want. The main point of this is that if we are going to have 12,800 some-odd earmarks we have a way to show the American people what these earmarks are, where they are going, and who sponsored them so they can see what we are doing. We know what that would do. It would, first of all, reduce a lot of the earmarks if they were disclosed. It would allow Members to know when we have earmarks. Many times, the 95 percent or so we are voting on are in a conference report, and we haven't seen them. We are not eliminating earmarks, we are disclosing them and making them transparent, which is key to any lobby reform. Let me mention another amendment we talked about earlier today. It is referred to as an automatic continuing resolution, and I am sure a lot of folks don't know exactly what we are talking about. Every year we go through a process of appropriating money for different Government programs. We have 11 or so different bills, if that is the way we divide it this year. We have to have those done, or supposed to, by the end of our fiscal year in order for the Government to continue operations. But 24 out of the last 25 years, the Congress, under the control of both Republicans and Democrats, has not finished all its appropriations bills before the end of our fiscal year, and we have had to have a continuing resolution to avoid the Government shutting down. We have done that every year I have been in the House and in the Senate. What that does at the end of every year is create a crisis. We have to vote for the continuing resolution, we have to get it done, and that is when many of these earmarks are slipped in. That is when many times we are told that if we want to keep the Government operating, we need to vote for this resolution, even though we don't know what is in it yet. Every year we frighten senior citizens, veterans, and other people depending on Government programs that somehow their service is going to be interrupted because the Government is going to close down. It is completely unnecessary to do this every year. We know, in the last years, it is not unusual for us to pass a continuing resolution in the middle of the night and put it on a jet airplane and fly it to the other part of the world so the President can sign it at the last minute so we won't send all our Federal employees home and cut services around the country. It is a game we play every year that encourages bad legislation, it encourages unnecessary earmarks, and it encourages us to operate with blinders on because we don't know what we are voting on. This is not a partisan trick because the Democrats could be in charge, we could have a Democratic President. This amendment is, again, very simple. If we have not passed the appropriations bills at the end of the fiscal year that applies to certain agencies of Government, those agencies continue to operate at the budget they had the previous year. At whatever time during the year we pass the appropriations bill that funds them, then that circumvents the automatic CR, and we continue with the new level funding. This would take the crisis out of the end of every year. What is effective blackmail, where you vote for this or the Government is going to close down, we don't need to do that. What we need is an orderly, transparent process that the American people can see and that we as Members can see. This amendment would continue the operation of Government until we are able to get our business done, and then we would continue business as usual. Again, it is simple, commonsense legislation that does not cost the country anything. In fact, I think it will save us millions and millions of dollars when we do our business correctly. If the Senator from Illinois has some response, I will be glad to yield.

Mr. DeMINT. Mr. President, reclaiming my time. I am running short. I believe I have until 2 o'clock.

Mr. DeMINT. In the interest of continued debate, I yield to the Senator from Oklahoma.

Mr. DeMINT. Mr. President, I thank the Senator for being here.

Mr. DeMINT. I yield.

Mr. DeMINT. Yes.

Mr. DeMINT. I thank the Senator. Reclaiming my time, I would be happy to work with the Senator on that. We include earmarks related to special tax treatment and special tariffs. I know there was discussion in the House. Again, Speaker Pelosi and the Democrats decided on this definition because they believe strongly in it. I do, too. We are certainly willing to work on that. The strategy today to table this amendment that would move from 5 percent of earmarks to 100 percent does not seem to be an open and honest part of the process to get at a better ethics reform bill.

Mr. DeMINT. I yield to Senator Durbin so he may answer the question.

Mr. DeMINT. Yes.

Mr. DeMINT. Mr. President, I thank my colleague for his persistence and hard work on a very commonsense issue. Many times in this Chamber, and in the House, we assume on our side that if the Democrats have an amendment, there is always some trick in it and they are trying to get us to take a vote and make us look bad; we don't trust each other. I wish to make an appeal that on this one amendment--this amendment No. 11 we have talked about--there is no trick. It is the exact language Speaker Nancy Pelosi put in their ethics bill, because everybody there--many Republicans and Democrats--agree that if we are going to at least have a pretense of changing the culture here, we need to be fully transparent and open and honest in what we are talking about. As Senator Coburn said, many earmarks are good projects; they help people and organizations. The problem we have is that in order to get a few of those things that are good and necessary, we have to vote for thousands and thousands of earmarks that are not Federal priorities, and many of them, once disclosed, become an embarrassment to us. I think it has made the American people jaded about what we do here. This is an opportunity to at least work together on one thing. The problem we had--and Senator Coburn mentioned this--in 2006 is that in the appropriations bills there were 12,852 earmarks. I am sure there are many that could be defended. But the biggest problem we have as a Congress is that behind these thousands of earmarks are thousands and thousands of lobbyists who have been paid to come up here and influence us in a way that would include a favor for their client in the bill. Again, many of these are legitimate. But what we have done to ourselves and our country--it drives me crazy to see a little town in South Carolina that is paying a lobbyist firm over $100,000 a year because that firm has promised them they can come up here and get a Federal earmark for a million dollars or more. What a great return--pay $100,000 and get a million dollar earmark. We see little colleges, associations, and businesses hiring lobbyists, hoping to get a particular earmark. So we have thousands of lobbyists in this town who are here to try to influence us to do a favor on behalf of their client. Much of this is legitimate, but our oath and our reason for being here is for the good of this country. We cannot do business with thousands and thousands of special interests who are here to influence us, and we have a system that actually makes it difficult for us not to go along with that, as Senator Coburn has pointed out. This amendment is very simple. It doesn't create any kind of rigorous process for disclosure, which has been claimed here today by the other side. It simply says if we are going to create a transparent, well- disclosed process of the earmarks we are putting into a bill, all of them are disclosed, not just some small definition that includes only 5 out of 100 earmarks. We have already said there were only 534 out of about 12,800, so we cannot pretend to be putting a stop to the corrupting process of money here in the Congress if we try to convince the American people that somehow we have done some good. If we look at the corruption we are trying to get rid of, Duke Cunningham on the House side was influenced by lobbyists to get a Federal earmark from the Department of Defense. That would not have been included in the bill that is here on the Senate side. But it would be in Nancy Pelosi's language. We could stop the corruption before it ever happens. We have a real opportunity to do something that is significant. If we are going to spend weeks and weeks--which ultimately we are--with ethics and lobbying reform and transparency, if we get to the end of this and we have something that does not appear remotely honest to the American people, I think we will all be ashamed of the process we went through. Unfortunately, yesterday, we voted down an amendment that would bring another bit of honesty to this organization. We had the big scandal we talked about in the last election, Abramoff. The problem there is that Indian tribes in America are allowed to give unregulated amounts of unaccountable money to Congress to buy influence, and that is what happened in that case. We had an amendment yesterday that would have asked the Indian tribes to play by the same rules every other group in America plays by, but we voted it down. That means that in the future Indian tribes, with all their casinos and money, are going to continue to flood Congress with money and the American people don't know what it is buying, where it is coming from. It is senseless to go through an ethics reform bill and overlook something that obvious. Today, we have something equally as obvious. We have a proposal to identify and make transparent the earmarks that come through the appropriation bills. It is something the House has agreed on, and Speaker Pelosi has made it a top priority. This is not a partisan trick. This is a commonsense disclosure provision that will be good for this body.

Mr. DeMINT. I thank the Chair. I am here to discuss two amendments that will be voted on at 2 o'clock. I see my colleague, Senator Coburn, is here to speak on one of them. I will make a few comments and then yield some time to him. This whole debate about lobbying and ethics reform is very important to this Congress. We know from the last election that the American people are concerned about how we spend our money, about corruption. The closer we looked at it as Congressmen and Senators, the clearer it became that the practice we have of earmarking, which is providing some favor with tax dollars to some group or entity around the country, has begun to corrupt the process. The scandals we saw on the House side were mostly related specifically to a lobbyist basically buying an earmark, a favor we consider scandalous in the Senate. The new Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, in a thoughtful proposal, H.R. 6, provided a clear definition of what these earmarks or favors are, so that when we begin to develop reform of the earmarking process, we can target those things that are the problem. That is what my amendment is about. The bill that is on the floor of the Senate now defines earmarks in a way that only includes about 5 percent of the total earmarks. It would not have included the type of earmarks that got Congressman Duke Cunningham in trouble. It would not have included the Abramoff type of scandal either. We often disagree, but as we start this new session, there is a new climate of bipartisanship, the need to cooperate, Republicans and Democrats. But it is also important, between the House and the Senate, that when we think the House gets it right, whether it is Republican or Democrat, we should take an honest look at it. In this case, Speaker Pelosi has it right on the earmarks. I would like to speak more about it. Before I do, I will yield whatever time Senator Coburn would like.