Claire McCaskill

Mrs. McCASKILL

Mrs. McCASKILL. Madam President, if I could inquire of the Senator from Arizona for the purpose of making a clear record.

Mrs. McCASKILL. Madam President, I wish to make sure that the objection--the reason I am asking to inquire is it has to be clear that the objection is being made on behalf of someone else and not on behalf of the Senator from Arizona.

Mrs. McCASKILL. Madam President, let me make a couple comments concerning that. First, Mr. Weener has been on the Executive Calendar since March 24. So this isn't something that happened in the last couple days. Second, it was very clear that the Senator from Arizona said he wasn't objecting, so he is objecting for someone else. This notion that this has something to do with the leaders working together, none of these nominees are being held by anybody. This is not about the leader asking for time to clear names. It is not whether somebody can hold. Certainly, somebody can hold. The question is, After they have done it for 6 days, they can't be secret anymore. What I am trying to do--and I know the Senator from Arizona understands this. I am not quarreling with somebody's ability to hold. I just need to know who is holding. It cannot just be that we are working on it and it came over on the hotline and give us a few days. The 6 days are up. The people who are holding these nominees now have to say who they are. I wished to make it clear that your objection was not your objection to these nominees. In other words, you are not claiming the objection, you are claiming it on behalf of someone else who will not identify themselves. That is the point. Tomorrow is the day that all these people need to be identified as to who is holding them. If it is Senator McConnell holding every one, then he needs to claim them and say: I am holding all the nominees. If it is other Members of the caucus, then they need to claim it. It is the same for any Democrats who are holding. I believe we had two or three nominees being held by Democrats. They need to be published in the Congressional Record tomorrow. But this notion that it is being held up because the two leaders are working together, Senator Reid doesn't have anybody being held. So I wish to make sure we got that clear.

Mrs. McCASKILL. I yield to the Senator from Rhode Island for a question.

Mrs. McCASKILL. I don't know about the Senator from Rhode Island, but I would love to know how many people secretly hold a nominee and end up voting yes. Nine times out of ten--I should not say that. I don't know. It is secret. I have to believe that most times people secretly hold a nominee because they want something from an agency. In fact, I had a Member actually acknowledge to me: I don't care what happens to that nominee, but I need something from this agency. It is a leverage: I am going to hold your nominee hostage until this agency gives me what I want. I think we remember, there was an instance that came out in public that some people were being held for projects in their State.

Mrs. McCASKILL. He was held for a long time. And, yes, the Senator is correct, we had to go through all the procedural hoops that take time. Time is money when you are working for the taxpayers. Every hour we spend on something is an hour we cannot spend on something else. Everyone--all the good people who are working in this room, in the cloakrooms, and in all the offices--is paid by the taxpayers. We took time to go through cloture. Then there was not one ``no'' vote. If that is not a great example of obstructionism for the sake of obstructing, I cannot think of a better one--forcing the Senate to take days to confirm unanimously a nominee after they have held for a long period of time.

Mrs. McCASKILL. Exactly. In fact, many of them were voice-voted. We even checked to make sure no one said nay at the committee level. These were unanimously agreed to out of committee. There were 74 last week. I made the requests last Tuesday on the 74. The Senator from Rhode Island made a few requests on some that were not in that group that had been unanimously agreed to. I believe this week some of the group--maybe some of the Senator's, maybe some of the ones on which I made unanimous consent requests. I know we had 14 that moved. I think we are around 70 total right now. But of those, 60 of them are in this unanimous-consent category and ones we have no idea who is holding them.

Mrs. McCASKILL. To be fair, I know we had 84 pending at the first of the week. I think our raising a ruckus is beginning to have a little bit of an impact because the iceberg moved slightly this week. We may have confirmed 14 this week of the 74, I believe, that I moved by unanimous consent last week. Keep in mind, all 74 I moved last week had been unanimously reported out of committee, with no opposition from the Republican Party in committee. None.

Mrs. McCASKILL. I believe under the law, those are the only three options available: to either withdraw the hold and let the nomination go forward or claim the hold and publicly identify yourself or evade the law.

Mrs. McCASKILL

Mrs. McCASKILL. Mr. President, I have a favorite President and it is not President Obama. It is, in fact, President Harry Truman. I still cannot quite get over the fact that I am sitting at Harry Truman's desk on the Senate floor and that I hold the seat in the Senate that Harry Truman held. Tomorrow, when I attend the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, and as we see a parade of Wall Street executives justifying their behavior, I will be asking questions at the committee that Harry Truman made famous when he took war profiteers to task many years ago. Harry Truman said: If you can't convince them, confuse them. Well, I am confused. I read today that the ranking member, from the Republican Party, of the Banking Committee said the following at a meeting of community bankers. I am quoting exactly what he said: I think we basically know what went wrong. We had a lot of hearings. We've been working on it 15, 16 months now. That is not Chairman Dodd who said: ``I think we basically know what went wrong.'' It is not Chairman Dodd saying: ``We had a lot of hearings.'' It is not Chairman Dodd saying: We've been working on it for 15 or 16 months. It is the Republican ranking member on the Banking Committee. I am confused. Is it that they do not realize it is a huge problem? Well, of course they realize it is a huge problem. Is it that they are not prepared, that they do not have enough information? Well, of course not. Senator Shelby said today: We basically know what went wrong. We have had a lot of hearings. We have been working on it for 15 or 16 months. Senator Dodd has sat here this evening as many Members of my class and the freshmen class have come to the floor to express regret and confusion about why we cannot debate this bill. It is admirable he has sat and listened to all these speeches tonight. He did not have to. He could have gone home. He is invested in this legislation for all the right reasons: Because he cares deeply about this country. He understands we have an obligation as Senators to address this problem. He sees it as his duty to see this through. So why--why--did this happen today? Why did we not move forward to debate? It is just politics, raw, bare-knuckled politics--the kind of stuff Americans are so sick of they want to throw up. They are so sick of this game playing, they want to throw everybody out of this place. Frankly, right about now, I do not blame them. What in the Lord's Name are we doing delaying the debate on this bill? I do believe the leader of the Republican Party thinks his success as a leader can only be defined by my party's failure. It is like it is a football game. I was confused when 41 people signed the letter saying they did not want to go forward. All 41 Republicans signed this letter. Then I got confused because Senator McConnell came to the floor and said black is white. He literally said that. He said: We cannot be for this bill because we want to stop bailouts. Well, of course this bill is about stopping bailouts. That is why we are doing the bill, to make sure we do not have any more taxpayer bailouts. He knows that. But he honestly, I don't think, believed the American people were paying close enough attention. Then we had the announcement that the SEC had come out of a coma and was going to do something about Goldman Sachs and what had happened. Then, as Senator Dodd said so well on the floor the other day, it is like the rooster taking credit for the morning. They said, Well, we wrote that letter and now we are back at the negotiating table. What hogwash. What hogwash. The negotiating table has always been open. The door has always been open. Senator Dodd has been out working the floor of this building and every building within a mile trying to find Republicans to sit down and negotiate and find what is the problem we need to solve to make sure we never have this kind of financial meltdown again in America. Here is another thing that is very confusing. It is time for the markup in the Banking Committee. I believe the number is over 400 amendments were filed by the Republicans for the markup. The Friday before the markup, all of these amendments were on file. Many people worked all weekend long getting ready for the markup on Monday, for the markup of this bill. The chairman of the committee, assumed--as anybody would who has spent as many hours working in this august body as he has--that on Monday Republicans were going to offer amendments. In fact, the Democrats worked all the way through the weekend trying to figure out how many amendments filed by the Republicans they could easily accept without any debate or contention. So what happens when the committee starts? The ranking member on the Republican side says they don't want to offer any amendments. What? Now I am really confused. They don't even want to try to change the bill in committee. They make no effort to offer any substantive changes, and then they all vote no. If the American people don't realize that a game is being played here, they need to pause for a minute and think about that. Why on Earth would the members of the Banking Committee from the Republican Party fail to offer one amendment to this legislation, unless there was some kind of plan, political plan: Don't participate. Don't vote for it. Stop it. Obstructionism, saying the Democrats are doing something they are not trying to do: taxpayer bailout. It would be so easy to stand here and say there are ulterior motives about helping big bankers or helping Wall Street and campaign finance issues. I don't know. I just know I am confused. I am confused as to why the Republicans would march lockstep away from the debate on an issue that is of paramount importance to this country. I am confused why the Republicans would fail to offer one amendment at the committee level. I am confused why debating this bill is a problem for them politically. I am confused. Ronald Reagan is cited for this quote often, but it wasn't Ronald Reagan who first said it, it was Harry Truman: It is amazing what you can accomplish if you don't care who gets the credit. Man, oh, man, do some people need that advice in this body. We need to quit worrying about whether the Democrats are getting credit or the Republicans are getting credit and realize all the American people want us to do is get to work. Get this thing done. Quit fooling around with this game that is being played. Tomorrow I think the leader may have a motion to reconsider. I would implore my colleagues on the other side of the aisle: Reconsider what you are doing. Many of my colleagues are such fine, upstanding people who also care deeply about their country. They are just wrapped up. They have been convinced this is some political Tic-Tac-Toe match and if they hold on for a couple more turns they are going to be able to draw the line through the series of squares. This is about whether we fix a serious problem. I am a big fan of how hard Senator Dodd has worked. I think he is trying with every bit of intellect and passion he has to get this across the finish line, because he knows we need to do it for the American people. The games need to stop. The American people need to pay attention and realize they have a very good reason to be confused. Let's debate this bill. Let's debate it beginning tomorrow. Let's debate our differences. Let's try to amend it. Let's vote on amendments. Let's agree to disagree on some of it and decide who has the most votes to move forward a piece of legislation, the way our Founding Fathers intended. I guarantee they didn't intend this. They did not intend this, a refusal to even debate. So let the debate begin. If the Republican Party wants to lockstep and say we don't even get to debate it, then the American people are going to have to draw their own conclusions, and I have a feeling it won't be a good one. Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mrs. McCASKILL

Mrs. McCASKILL. Mr. President, I came to the floor on Tuesday of this week to do something I do not think had been done before under the rules. We had a new law that went into effect in the early part of 2007 that gave us a mechanism that was supposed to stop secret holds. We are all waiting to see if by moving all of the nominations by unanimous consent, in fact, the owners of the secret holds step forward. While we wait to see if the rule that was designed and passed into law works, a bunch of us have been talking. The folks who have been talking about this are the newest Members of the Senate in the Democratic Party. There are 21 of us who have arrived in the Senate sometime between now and January of 2007. It is a pretty big group of Senators. In discussing the secret holds with my colleagues who have been here for a fairly short period of time, we decided: Why don't we just quit doing them? Let's quit worrying about whether you are identifying yourself in 6 days, whether you are going to play the switcheroo, pull your secret hold and put on another secret hold. Let's just stop it. No more secret holds. We now have drafted a letter to Leader Reid and Leader McConnell, and we have said: First, we will not do secret holds. We are out of the business of secret holds. We are not going to do them. Second, we want the Senate to pass a rule that prohibits them entirely. If a Senator wants to hold somebody, fine, but say who they are and why they are doing it. If a Senator wants to vote against somebody, that is their right. But this notion that they can, behind closed doors, do some kind of secret negotiation to get something they want from an agency--let's be honest about it; that is what a lot of this is. It is getting leverage, secretly getting leverage for something they want. Those are not appropriate secrets for the public business. We have 80 secret holds right now. About 76 of those are Republican secret holds; 4 are Democratic secret holds. By the way, all 80 of the ones on which I made the unanimous consent request came out of committee unanimously. We even checked on the voice votes to make sure no one said no in committee. There were no ``no'' votes. These 80 nominees were completely unopposed out of committee. They are everything from the Ambassador to Syria to U.S. marshals to U.S. attorneys. These are people who need to get to work. They are going to be confirmed. They are all going to be confirmed. We need to get this done. We need to stop secret holds. We need to get these people confirmed. We need to change the way we do business around here. I, once again, give a shout-out to Senator Wyden and Senator Grassley who worked on this issue for a number of years. We are going to open this letter to all Members of the Senate and, hopefully, before we find out--we are all waiting to see what happens in the 6 days that are looming for all these secret holds, if people step up into the sunshine. If they do not, in the meantime we, hopefully, will get unanimous support from Senators that secret holds are now out of fashion and no longer going to be tolerated in the Senate. Mr. President, I yield the floor for my colleague from Colorado, Senator Bennet.

Mrs. McCASKILL

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

Mrs. McCASKILL

Mrs. McCASKILL. I would be happy to----

Mrs. McCASKILL. Mr. President, notwithstanding rule XXII, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to Executive Calendar No. 620, Victoria A. Lipnic, of Virginia, to be a member of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission; that the nomination be confirmed, the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table, no further motions be in order, the President be immediately notified of the Senate's action, and that any statements relating to the nominee be printed at the appropriate place in the Record.

Mrs. McCASKILL. Mr. President, notwithstanding rule XXII, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to Executive Calendar No. 618, P. David Lopez, of Arizona, to be general counsel of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission; that the nomination be confirmed, the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table, no further motions be in order, the President be immediately notified of the Senate's action, and that any statements relating to the nominee be printed at the appropriate place in the Record.

Mrs. McCASKILL. Mr. President, notwithstanding rule XXII, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to Executive Calendar No. 592, Mark R. Rosekind, of California, to be a member of the National Transportation Safety Board; that the nomination be confirmed, the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table, no further motions be in order, the President be immediately notified of the Senate's action, and that any statements relating to the nominee be printed at the appropriate place in the Record.

Mrs. McCASKILL. Mr. President, notwithstanding rule XXII, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to Executive Calendar No. 590, the nomination of Albert DiClemente, of Delaware, to be a director of the Amtrak board of directors; that the nomination be confirmed, the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table, no further motions be in order, the President be immediately notified of the Senate's action, and that any statements relating to the nominee be printed at the appropriate place in the Record.

Mrs. McCASKILL. Mr. President, notwithstanding rule XXII, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to Executive Calendar No. 589, the nomination of Anthony Coscia; that the nomination be confirmed, the motions to reconsider be made and laid upon the table, no further motions be in order, the President be immediately notified of the Senate's action, and any statements relating to the nominee be printed at the appropriate place in the Record.

Mrs. McCASKILL. I saved us a rollcall vote.

Mrs. McCASKILL. Mr. President, let me just sum up. I had 20 I was going to try to do today. There are 80 of them. I will be back. This is not about trying to rush through nominations, this is about trying to make the rules work the way we wrote them. That means that beginning immediately, all of the motions I just made, the Members who are holding those nominees have an obligation under the law--under the law they have an obligation to ``submit a notice of intent specifying the reasons for his or her objection to a certain nomination,'' and not more than 6 session days after today, that must be printed in the Congressional Record. These are the first 15 or so. I will continue to get them all on the record, hopefully by the end of the week, so that everyone knows next week, and maybe we will figure out why all these people are being held secretly. This is not about saying you should not vote no on these people. This is not even about not debating these people. This is about transparency and open government. That should be a bipartisan value, an all-American value in which we can all believe.

Mrs. McCASKILL. Notwithstanding rule XXII, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to Executive Calendar No. 581, the nomination of John Laub to be Director of the National Institute of Justice; that the nomination be confirmed, the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table, no further motions be in order, the President be immediately notified of the Senate's action, and any statements related to the nominee be printed in the Record at the appropriate place.

Mrs. McCASKILL

Mrs. McCASKILL. So what he is saying is, he is asking the Army Corps of Engineers to do something that is illegal, and if they refuse to do something that is illegal, he is going to refuse to allow a soldier's promotion to go through? Am I actually getting that right?

Mrs. McCASKILL. That is the part I want to inquire about. Let's just say hypothetically, if the Army Corps of Engineers succumbed to what the Senator is asking and said: OK, you are going to hold up this brave soldier's promotion that he deserves because you want something for your State--if they did that, would that not be illegal?

Mrs. McCASKILL. It is my understanding, through the Chair, that there are dozens and dozens of these holds that are secret and nobody knows what demands are being made or why. We do not know. In this instance, it is my understanding that this Senator has proclaimed publicly why he is holding it. Is my understanding correct about that, I say to the Senator.

Mrs. McCASKILL. Will the Senator yield for a question?