I appreciate the hard work of the leadership and my partners in this effort, Senator Grassley and Senator McCaskill. We would not be here today without them. We have a strong, bipartisan bill that will bring greater transparency to the…

Mr. President, I want to correct the record on something that has been said on the other side of the aisle; that is, the abuse of the filibuster has been a response to filling the tree. In the last 2 years, we had the tree filled once. We…

Mr. President, I rise to continue the debate on this set of rule proposals, but specifically to talk about the talking filibuster. There is one scene from an American movie that captures everyone's attention, and that is the scene of Jimmy…

Madam President, I thank my colleague from New Mexico for his leadership on the constitutional option. Some may ponder how it is that we have come to have this constitutional argument at this moment. As he has noted, under the…

Mr. President, I thank Senator Lautenberg for introducing the concept of a talking filibuster 2 years ago, and I thank all colleagues who have worked to end the abuse of our current filibuster. The fact is, we have not done any…

I strongly oppose H.R. 359. This bill terminates the Presidential Election Campaign Fund, which provides grants and matching funds during a presidential campaign for primary candidates, general election nominees, and party conventions…

Earlier this year, I was pleased to cast a vote that would reduce the legislative appropriation as a symbol that no part of the budget should be off limits as we attempt to deal with the issues of government efficiency and deficit…

Mr. President, for purposes of having the resolution go over, under the rule, I object. The PRESIDING OFFICER. Objection is heard. The resolution will go over, under the rule.

Mr. President, I thank my colleague from Tennessee for coming to the floor. I applaud his long service. When I first came to the Senate, Senator Hatfield asked me to bring greetings to his former colleagues, and I had the chance to sit…

Mr. President, it has been the tradition of this Chamber, when there are rules proposals, to put them on the floor for debate and to hold that debate. Then if the body does not like that, either to defeat them outright or to table them or…

I believe, one vote short needed to close debate on the motion to proceed to get to the DISCLOSE Act. So we could not even get onto the bill. So here is a Supreme Court decision that allows unlimited-- unlimited--secret foreign donations…

Well, I say to Senator Harkin, I think that is a tremendous example. I believe we actually had 59 votes twice----

So if I might explain, if there is something critical to my State, the talking filibuster enables me to find a couple of other Senators who share my views. Perhaps they have similar issues in their States. For example, the citizens of…

Mr. President, it is quite a contrast that the Senator is drawing between an era in which in a 2-week period the bulk of the team was in place, ready to do the work they were elected by the people to do--the executive branch, headed by the…

I would certainly like to thank Senator Harkin for the many years he has pursued reforming the rules of the Senate, especially from the perspective of being in the minority and then maintaining that same effort in the majority. I believe…

Madam President, the Senator from New Mexico is telling me it has become a common practice on the floor of the Senate for an individual Senator who wants to oppose something to not have the courage to stand here and tell the world their…

If I may interrupt for a moment, I wish to clarify what the Senator from New Mexico just said, which is, a supermajority of the Senate, after 1 week of debate, is required just to get to the point where we might start debate on the bill…

Thank you, Madam President. The reason I am rising to talk about rules is because we are at the start of a new 2-year period for Congress. This is the appropriate time to be considering how well the Senate is working and whether we should…