Since I arrived in Washington, I've been repeatedly astonished by the way business is sometimes done around here. A great example of this is the so-called secret hold. Along with my colleagues Mark Warner and Sheldon Whitehouse, I have been working to end the process of secret holds, which is when senators anonymously block legislation or nominations without explanation. We are sending a letter to both parties' leadership, currently signed by 42 senators, pledging not to anonymously block legislation or nominations and asking for an end to secret holds.
We work for the public and I believe that if a senator wants to block a piece of legislation or a nominee, they owe the public an explanation. Measures I helped pass as part of sweeping ethics reform legislation in 2007 were designed to clean up Washington and force members to be transparent about their objections, but my colleagues have continued to circumvent the rules for the past three years. Senators Ron Wyden and Chuck Grassley have recently introduced a bill to require senators to be open about their holds within 48 hours. While this is better than what we have now, I believe we should eliminate the process of secret holds all together.
As of last week, nearly 80 non-controversial nominees were being blocked anonymously and without explanation. Let me be clear about what I mean by non-controversial: that means that each nominee received the unanimous support of all the Senators on the committee responsible for reviewing the nomination - not one vote against; not even one public statement against. Senator Whitehouse and I went to the Senate floor last week and attempted to call up these nominees for consideration, but Republicans objected repeatedly. Someone, it seems, secretly has a problem with these nominations but they don't want to be open and transparent about it.
The letter remains open for additional signatures and I encourage all my colleagues, both Democrat and Republican, to sign.
Text of Letter
Dear Leader Reid and Leader McConnell,
We the undersigned Senators hereby pledge that we will not place secret holds on legislation or nominations.We further call upon you to bring an end to the practice of permitting secret "holds" on legislation and nominations for those Senators who are unprepared to make the same pledge. While we deeply respect and appreciate the importance of tradition in this institution, we believe the practice of the secret hold has no rightful place in the Senate or in an open and transparent democracy. When a member of the Senate wishes to hold legislation or a nomination, that Senator owes to this body and, more importantly, to the American public a full explanation. The Senate endorsed this principle in Section 512 of S.1, passed by a vote of 96-2 on January 18, 2007.
As you know, S.1 has failed in practice to end the use of secret holds. We, therefore, urge you to promptly consider further changes to the Senate rules in order to bring a clear and definitive end to secret holds on legislation or a nomination. We stand ready to work with you on such a rule change, as long advocated for by Senators Wyden and Grassley, the leaders of a decade-long effort to eliminate secret holds in the Senate. We applaud their work and believe it must now be pursued to its conclusion.
Again, in making this request, we pledge that we will not place secret holds on legislation or a nomination.
Sincerely,
Senator Claire McCaskill (D-MO)
Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI)
Senator Mark Warner (D-VA)
Senator Ben Cardin (D-MD)
Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT)
Senator Sherrod Brown (D-OH)
Senator Bob Casey (D-PA)
Senator Jim Webb (D-VA)
Senator Amy Klobuchar (D-MN)
Senator Jon Tester (D-MT)
Senator Mark Udall (D-CO)
Senator Tom Udall (D-NM)
Senator Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH)
Senator Kay Hagan (D-NC)
Senator Jeff Merkley (D-OR)
Senator Mark Begich (D-AK)
Senator Roland Burris (D-IL)
Senator Ted Kaufman (D-DE)
Senator Michael Bennet (D-CO)
Senator Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY)
Senator Al Franken (D-MN)
Senator Ron Wyden (D-OR)
Senator Debbie Stabenow (D-MI)
Senator Daniel Akaka (D-HI)
Senator Barbara Boxer (D-CA)
Senator Maria Cantwell (D-WA)
Senator Tom Carper (D-DE)
Senator Christopher Dodd (D-CT)
Senator Byron Dorgan (D-ND)
Senator Dick Durbin (D-IL)
Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-CA)
Senator Daniel Inouye (D-HI)
Senator Tim Johnson (D-SD)
Senator John Kerry (D-MA)
Senator Mary Landrieu (D-LA)
Senator Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ)
Senator Patrick Leahy (D-VT)
Senator Patty Murray (D-WA)
Senator Jack Reed (D-RI)
Senator Jay Rockefeller (D-WV)
Senator Chuck Schumer (D-NY)
Senator Arlen Specter (D-PA)
Cc: Senator Charles Schumer, Chairman, Senate Committee on Rules
Senator Robert Bennett, Ranking Member, Senate Committee on Rules
Senator Ron Wyden
Senator Charles Grassley
I applaud the effort- now- let us see what those who are excelling at obstructionism have to say about it!
Of course, you know who the "they" are, right?
You are ONE of the FEW and FAR BETWEEN actually doing your job.
Neither of my Senators do anything BUT OBSTRUCT, ALexander is a regular on Sunday Shows for some odd reason and Corker wants to be prez.
Hey Lamar, while you and Spence are enjoying your DC luncheon, TENNESSEE IS FLOODING, REALLY and TRULY FLOODING. Your mansion in Belle Meade is under water. My office is 5 blocks from your mansion and hopefully you will send for me to get to work tomorrow.
We need legislation that ABSOLUTELY FORBIDS ANY lawmakers from pulling this kind of crap, while being paid with taxpayer dollars, TO DO NOTHING BUT OBSTRUCT, for no other reason than - the republicans thinks that this is some 'genius' strategy to get back in control of this country. Get real!!
If the ELECTED repubs/gopers wants to listen to their "genius repub think tank" & TRUE LEADERS of the repub party, which consists of clowns, jokes, cra zed people and war criminals (palin, limbaugh, beck, o'reilly, hannity, kristol, the cheneys, rove, bachman, gingrich, wingers & some of the baggers) who couldn't get elected at the local ASPCA, but tries to manipulate power in some sort of their own "little shadow government" - THEN LET THEIR "TRUE LEADERS" PAY THEIR SALARIES AND BENEFITS FROM THIER OWN POCKETS! Plain and simple.
ENOUGH OF THE REPUBLICAN GAMES/BS!
p.s. I wouldn't trust Chuck Grassley as far as I can throw him to draft bills. He has proven to be.... how can I put this so it get's past the mods.... well.... schz iophr enic. Today he'll work on a committee, and seem perfectly san e... tomorrow, he'll be in his home town, on a microphone, looking "cr azed" in front of a crowd and talking dea th panels and
I applaud your efforts towards "putting an end to secret holds" in the Senate's legislative process, which are extremely undemocratic & anti-democratic practices.
Just as fundamentally, and every bit as important, is the need to dispense with another "secret" in Washington - the "secretization" against fully explaining to the American people where our taxpayers monies & government expenditures are going.
This trend, to keep government expenditures secret is in blatant defiance of the US Constitution itself - Article 1 is of course the heart and soul of both American democracy & American constitutional government, and (all politics & power ultimately being about money), there it is,
right there in Section 9, Article 1 (the core article of the entire Constitution, placing all ultimate legislative powers in the most representative of bodies, the Congress/House)
< NO money shall be drawn from the treasury, but in consequence of appropriations made by law; AND A REGULAR STATEMENT and ACCOUNT of RECEIPTS.... AND EXPENDITURES of ALL PUBLIC MONEY SHALL BE PUBLISHED from time to time. >
Unfortunately, due to the "Bailouts" process, the opaqueness and lack of "RECEIPTS... for ALL.. expenditures" now means that the American public is in the dark about the true, total bailouts costs.
Which run somewhere between $10 trillion in taxpayer "socialized" bailouts for Wall Street according to Nomi Prins low-end tabulations, to over $23 TRILLION American taxpayer extorted dollars in the already year old TARP Special Inspector estimates -
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aY0tX8UysIaM
Mr. Murdoch's WSJ failing to INFORM readers about the rest of the TRUE costs of "the bailouts" illustrative of how, when it comes to "bailouts," SECRECY still rules.
Today's US Senate is FAR MORE UN-DEMOCRATIC than it was a the time of the founders,
(today) giving vastly MORE disprapportional representation to small population states, than it did in 1787, because of the addition of new states, most of which are rural.
The reactionary forces of the right have hijacked this already unrepresentative (of the total population) tendency, to, using SECRECY in senate affairs (and the "filibuster" process, which is NOT enshrined in the Constitution), to increase even more their anti-democratic agenda, which of course at all times is _the concentration of wealth and power_ at the expense of those whose voices are frozen out of Congressional & Senate legislation - and oversight.
(For example the vast majority of Americans who opposed those October TARP "bailouts" in the first place, have in the year & half since then seen banks SIT on "bailouts" billions, and NOT refinanced struggling homeowners.)
Let's see how factual that statement is:
Of the largest (population-wise) states
1. California - 31st state admitted, thus not part of the original 13
2. Texas - 28th state admitted to the union, thus not part of the original 13
3. New York - one of the original 13
4. Florida - 27th state admitted to the union, thus not part of the original 13
5. Illinois - 21st state admitted, thus not part of the original 13
The country was founded in 1776. The Constitution took effect in 1789. Four of the five largest (population wise) states were admitted to the union after the Constitution took effect.
Yep. You sure nailed it when you said "because of the addition of new states, most of which are rural."
I'm curious as to why you would think the GOP would support this letter, given it clearly goes AGAINST the Party Of NO's stated policy?
Hmmm. Come to think of it, this analysis applies to every bill or other business that reaches the Senate. I guess what we need are 100 honest Senators. THAT'S likely to happen!