On the recordJanuary 5, 2011
I wish we were getting this done today, largely because this would give us a chance on the first day of the Senate's new session to send a message that once and for all we were deep-sixing secrecy, that we were saying public business ought to be done in public. As I have indicated, there are obviously significant differences between the parties about how to reform the rules of the Senate. What I hope will be done--certainly the very first day that the Senate comes back and is in a position to formally act, which appears to be January 24--is once and for all we would bring Democrats and Republicans together around an extraordinarily important change in the Senate procedures that Senator Grassley and I have been trying to change for literally 15 years. It has been clear that if you walk up and down the Main Streets of this country, people do not know what a secret hold is. Probably a lot of people think it is a hair spray.
