Jeff Sessions

Mr. SESSIONS

Mr. SESSIONS. I have the floor, and I will yield for a question in just a second. But I am not aware of that ever happening. I would ask my good attorney general colleague, who is familiar and understands tradition and the power of precedent, what would keep a Republican majority next year--or if they were to obtain one in the Senate--from changing the rules again and again and again? The tradition in this Senate has been that to change the rules, we use a two-thirds vote, and we have adhered to that rule. There have been some threats to do the nuclear option, they call it, to use a simple majority to change the rules of the Senate, but it has not happened. I think that is a dangerous thing. I would also ask my colleague to consider that because he is a young and popular Senator, and he is going to be here a long time--longer than I--and he may be in the minority. That might be a dangerous thought and it may be unimaginable for him today, but it can happen. We had 55 Senators just a few years ago. In two cycles, the Republicans went from 55 to 40. So I just would say to the Senator, be careful about this. I know the Senator believes in debating, and he is capable at it, and he doesn't want to be able to put us in circumstances that would endanger that. The point I was making is this: The problem in the Senate is not fundamentally the rules of the Senate; the problem in the Senate is a desire by the majority to move its agenda with a minimum of objection and to eliminate frustrating procedures that obstruct their ability to do what they think is good for America. But I had that view too. When we had the majority, we wanted to pass the Bush tax cuts, 99 percent of which were extended 2 nights ago--the Bush tax cuts, which were passed for a limited period of time--10 years. Why? Because it took 60 votes to pass the tax cuts and our Democratic colleagues didn't want those tax cuts passed. It was passed through the budget. We requested to only do a 10-year budget. So they were passed as part of the budget process with 50 votes, but they could only last 10 years and then they expire. So that is the rule. They got extended. President Obama extended them once, but we got to the end, and they were about to expire on January 1, and everybody's taxes were going to go up. We had to pass a law to keep that from happening, and a compromise eventually was reached where most of the taxes stayed where they were and the taxes on the rich went up. I guess that is democracy in America, the way the Senate is supposed to work.

Mr. SESSIONS. I will yield to my former U.S. attorney colleague without yielding the floor. He is younger, and a fine member of the Judiciary Committee and a capable Member of the Senate.

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, reclaiming the floor.

Mr. SESSIONS. This is a good question. Let me tell my colleague how it happens in the real world of the minority party. Senator Reid will bring up a bill, and he will say he wants five amendments. Senator McConnell will talk to Republicans, and they will say: Well, we have 15 amendments. We have a lot of things we want to vote on, some of them germane and some of them not germane. Nongermane amendments are a historic and critical part of the history of the Senate. You two advocates would never want to give that up. I don't think my colleagues would if they have thought it through. And we are not going to give it up. We are not going to give up nongermane amendments, but there are limits on nongermane amendments. So Senator McConnell says: Well, we have more amendments than that that we want. Senator Reid says: I am filing the bill, and I am filling the tree, and nobody is going to get an amendment I don't approve. So we said: Well, we have 15. OK, Senator Reid says, I will take four. Well, I have an amendment on immigration. I have one on taxes. No, we are not going to vote on that one. We will take these three amendments, and that is it. So Senator McConnell and his staff are talking to the Senators, saying: You have five amendments; I can only get you one. He will not accept this amendment. I have been told explicitly that you will not get this amendment or that amendment. That is happening every day. And he will file cloture immediately and say the Republicans are filibustering when all we are doing is disputing whether or not we get 5 or 15 amendments. What are we here for if not to debate and offer amendments? Do my colleagues mean, in the great Senate of the United States, a Senator can bring up a bill-- maybe small in language, about the minimum wage, but it is a matter that invokes philosophical disputes--I will just say it that way. For the bankruptcy bill, I think there were 60 amendments on that bill. It was a bitterly contested piece of legislation. We had a good number of amendments. Finally, when the Defense bill was brought up after the election just a few weeks ago we were able to get amendments. But still it was less than one would normally expect on a bill spending $600 billion. Well, at least we got amendments. The bill came up--it came out of committee unanimously. They would not bring it up before the election mainly because we needed to fix the sequester. Senator Reid did not want to talk about that, so he refused, for the first time in 50 years, to bring up the Defense bill. But it finally got brought up. It went through a fairly regular process. People got their amendments, and the bill passed overwhelmingly and will become law. So that is what the Senate is all about. Talk to people who have been around here, and they will tell you that. I remember standing right there. Senator Specter was a great Senator with a fabulous legal mind. I wanted something. I wanted him to agree to put something in the bill, and he would not agree. He did not want any more amendments. He wanted to wrap it up and get the final vote. We argued a bit back and forth, and he looked at me and said, in effect: Well, you are a Senator. If you want your amendment, you get your amendment. It interrupted his day, his schedule. But if I insisted, I got my amendment. You are a Senator; you get your amendment. Well, Senator Paul, he files a lot of amendments. But he is a Senator. He got elected in Kentucky saying he was going to come to Congress and shake up this place. But he does not get an amendment? Senator Reid says: No, you do not get amendments, or you only get this one. They tried to hold him off from offering an amendment to cut foreign aid. Do you remember that? He would not yield. It went on. He was threatened: You are stopping the bill; you are going to kill the bill. He would not back down. Finally--finally--they gave him an amendment. It went down by a big vote. It did not pass, but he got to advocate and ask why we were giving aid to a country that was abusing the rights of its citizens, and so forth. So that is what the Senate is all about. That is all I am saying. This idea of speed is dangerous if it is denying the right of members to debate and offer amendments--if it is altering the nature of this great institution. Colleagues, I think as a practical matter we have had good success with stacking votes. So if a person wants to speak on a bill, they can speak at 6 or 7 or 8 o'clock at night, and the votes could be held the next morning. It does not take long to have votes, 15 minutes or so to have a vote. We could have more votes and people would be satisfied. With regard to nongermane amendments, I would suggest they do not come up again and again and again. Somebody campaigned on not giving foreign aid to Egypt, and they came here and they wanted to have an amendment. No, you cannot have it. Well, they are not going to offer the amendment on every bill. They are not going to offer it every year. They just needed to be able to have the American people see this Congress vote on that issue. I think we are better off allowing that to happen than not.

Mr. SESSIONS. I will.

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, reclaiming the floor.

Mr. SESSIONS. Reclaiming the floor, because I will yield the floor in a little bit, and the Senator can have an opportunity to talk, but I just want to follow up on that. Was the final vote by two-thirds or not?

Mr. SESSIONS. I know we lowered the filibuster; a different Congress did. My question is, Was it a two-thirds vote or not?

Mr. SESSIONS. Right.

Mr. SESSIONS. I like that.

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, reclaiming the floor.

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, regaining the floor.

Mr. SESSIONS. There is no constitutional power for a leader. I love Mitch McConnell. He does not get to pick my amendments. Where did this come from? You just got elected. You have ideas. You ought to be able to come down here and advocate for your ideas. Traditionally, it has always been any Senator can offer an amendment. As Arlen Specter said to me: Well, I do not agree, but you are a Senator. You want your amendment, you get your amendment. That is the way the Senate is supposed to work. We will have done something dangerous if we get to the point where now I have got to go to Senator McConnell and plead with him, and then he has got to go to Senator Reid and say, well, Senator Sessions wants this amendment, he is insistent on it. Senator Reid would then have to approve and then he comes to me and he approves? Where did this come from? I am just telling you--you need to think about how the Senate is supposed to operate. It may take a few more votes; it will take some more votes. But that would be better than this process of groveling around here, pleading with somebody to give you a minute. Amendments--we have spent days, I think, since both of you have been here--think about it--days-- squabbling over amendments and not a single vote occurring. To my colleague from Oregon, would the Senator disagree with this?

Mr. SESSIONS. Would the Senator disagree? Without yielding the floor, I yield for a question.

Mr. SESSIONS. Right. I think that is true.

Mr. SESSIONS. Reclaiming the floor, I think the Senator is correct. I would say both--it is not good. Why should they be picking your amendments? Why should Senator McConnell be picking your amendments? It is flabbergasting to me about how we came to this point. It is like a frog in the warming water. You have come to the process in the middle of it where the traditional rights of a Senator have been eroded, and you are trying to deal with that situation and craft a solution that is dealing with an alteration of our historical procedure. We should go back to those. When I asked the question about time--and how few amendments we have and actually get votes on--I think people should understand what I am saying. The Senate will not slow down. It will not slow down if we have amendments. Most Senators will agree to make their arguments at a time when something else isn't happening on the floor. They get their vote, maybe the next day. I don't think that is the problem. The problem is leaders want to control the debate. I think those of us underlings sitting at the kiddie table, as somebody said, need to get in the game. There is no constitutional power given to the majority leader or the minority leader. It is a matter of courtesy. As far as I am concerned, they work for us. They work for the Members of the Senate. We don't work for them, they work for us. They are supposed to facilitate our rights as Senators. We have acquiesced and allowed an erosion of those rights. A person is not going to offer his amendment every month, every year. In a 2-year term, Senator Paul stood in there and finally got his amendment on foreign aid to Egypt. He is not going to offer it again next week. He had his vote and he lost. I think there is just as much a hullabaloo about nothing if we would turn, quit filling the tree, quit attempting to control the flow of amendments in this body, we would shock ourselves how much better this body operates. I am tired of having to ask people for permission to file an amendment. That is where we are, and you should not have to do it. The majority leader has got 1 vote out of 100, and I have got 1 vote out of 100. They meet in secret; they plot this bill on taxes. It comes up at the 11th hour. We don't get to read it and we don't get to amend it. Every Senator here and their constituents has been diminished in power by having that happen. We have got to stand up, all of us, Republicans and Democrats, liberals and conservatives, and defend the system. It will be better if we let it run as it is supposed to run-- good debate, good amendments, stand before the American people, be accountable for what you did, and go back home and defend your record. I know there are some tough votes. It was a tough vote for me last night. I voted for that bill. I am not sure I did right, but I was confident it was the right thing to do. But I didn't like it because I didn't get to read it sufficiently. I didn't get to know what was in it sufficiently. It had things in it I didn't like. But in the long run I thought it was going to be best for the country to move this issue behind us and move on, so I would say that also. The majority leader's sole power and strength comes from the ability to be recognized first. The majority basically selects Senator Cardin to preside. They trust him to preside. When the majority leader hits the floor, Senator Cardin is going to recognize the man who selected him. The majority leader of the majority party and all the presiding officers are members of the majority party--and I used to preside in that fashion when we had the majority. That is the way the system works. I would conclude by telling my colleagues I have enjoyed this discussion and leave one bit of warning. If this were to go to the nuclear option and substantial changes were made to the free debate and the free right to amend in the Senate, this will not be accepted. It will be a historic and dramatic change in the nature of the Senate. This Senate--I have now talked to Members--will not go quietly. It will not be treated as a legitimate change. We will resist in every way possible, and we will have a most disagreeable and difficult time in the body. So I would urge my colleagues, keep working with this compromise and maybe something could come out of it. Everybody can accept advancing some of the ideas you would like and maybe dealing with some of the concerns I would like. One more example of how this political body should operate was the Democratic majority--the minority, when President Bush was elected-- decided to filibuster Federal judges for the first time, systematically filibuster them. They were holding up nine, I believe, judges of high order. It went on for weeks, over a year, as I recall. Senator Frist threatened that they would use this procedure, or something like it. The result of that was a Gang of 14 reached an agreement and said there wouldn't be a filibuster of judges except in extraordinary circumstances. So the nuclear option never took place, the rules were never changed, but Members of the body in a collegial fashion agreed that, okay, we won't eliminate filibusters entirely, but we will only do it in extraordinary circumstances. I think the best wisdom at this point is to draw back from the nuclear option to see if we can improve the way the Senate works and at that point we could perhaps improve the institution without endangering its fundamental character. Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, would the Senator yield briefly?

Mr. SESSIONS. I will tell the Senator my concern and ask the Senator if he has a thought about it. I am uneasy about giving, for the first time, explicit power----

Mr. SESSIONS. My concern, which I have expressed in my conference, is I don't like the idea that we codify in the rules explicit supersenatorial power to a chairman and a ranking member of a committee, and we have almost no recognition in our rules of the majority leader. This is a tradition; this is a way we operate. Each one of us is 1 of 100. We are equal in our responsibilities and in our ultimate voting power if we don't allow it to be eroded. As I understand the rule, there would be four amendments, you know, guaranteed up front by leaders. Think about that, as I know you will be active, both of you, in the discussion of how to write these compromises, and I am hopeful we will reach one. But I wouldn't, in a nonpartisan comment--I am not sure we ought to further embed in our rules superpowers to one Senator or another group of Senators. Has the Senator thought about that? I yield the floor.

Mr. SESSIONS

Mr. SESSIONS. Madam President, I object to the voice vote and ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. SESSIONS. Madam President, I ask for time to speak on this point.

Mr. SESSIONS. Madam President, this is the result of a compact that, to my knowledge, has not been brought before the Foreign Relations Committee. It commits us to direct spending permanently for entitlement-type spending that I do believe needs more careful review.

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I appreciate Senator Tester's energy on this issue and desire to move forward with it. We do have a process for this kind of funding to occur. He would add $653 million in prospective wildlife mitigation spending and declare that as an emergency. This spending is better if handled through the regular appropriations process. It is actually moving forward faster. He is trying to make sure this money is set aside. This is not the time to do it, but I appreciate his interest. I raise a budget point of order pursuant to section 314(e)(1) of the Congressional Budget Act. I raise a point of order against the emergency designation provisions contained in amendment No. 3350 to amendment No. 3395, the substitute amendment to H.R. 1, the vehicle for the Supplemental Appropriations Act. I appreciate the Senator's efforts but do not believe this is the appropriate process at this time.

Mr. SESSIONS

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I respect my colleague's desire to get this matter done, but the language he is advocating is already in the Farm bill. We need to get the Farm bill passed, and I think we will soon. It is paid for and is within the budget limits, which was done by the Agriculture Committee. This amendment defines ``disaster'' so broadly that it would include almost anything that results in a livestock death, and the taxpayers would be better served if we opposed this budget-breaking amendment. It is not an emergency since legislation is already in place that would take care of this issue. There are also other problems with this amendment. Mr. President, pursuant to section 314(e)(1) of the Congressional Budget Act of 1974, I raise a point of order against the emergency designation provisions contained in amendment No. 3367 to amendment No. 3395, the substitute amendment to H.R. 1, the vehicle for the Supplemental Appropriations Act. I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. SESSIONS. To further extend my point of order, I ask that the budget point of order lie against both emergency designation provisions that are contained in amendment No. 3367 to amendment No. 3395.