News
Dec 06 2007
Coburn Determined to Cool Off the ‘Hotline’
With lawmakers focused on getting out of town for the holidays, one senator is threatening to put a leash on some of his colleagues’ pet bills.
Sen. Tom Coburn has warned fellow senators that he intends to halt their requests to pass bills quickly by voice vote if he hasn’t had enough time to read the legislation, or if the bills meet his definition for expanding the federal government.
The calendar often offers an assist to astute lawmakers: The bigger the end-of-session scramble, the more likely a savvy member can get something passed with little scrutiny.
But in a “Dear Colleague” letter, Coburn, R-Okla., said that he would object to “any unanimous consent requests to authorize or appropriate increased spending or expand the size and cost of the federal government.” He also made it clear that he wants other senators to see him before they try to “hotline” bills.
For years, Senate leaders have privately alerted lawmakers to planned unanimous-consent requests, so those who may have objections can say so in advance. The process takes its name from a dedicated telephone line set up to spread the word internally, while keeping the list of bills almost ready for action off-limits to the broader public.
Coburn, like every senator, may demand a recorded vote if any bill on the hotlined list is called up on the Senate floor.
A Congressional Research Service report ordered by a Coburn ally, Sen. Jim DeMint, R-S.C., shows that a lot of senators have not been exercising their right to demand recorded votes. The report found that 93 percent of all measures the Senate passed between the first of the year and the Thanksgiving Day break advanced by voice vote.
Generally, that has meant that at the end of a legislative day — often late at night — the majority leader called up a list of bills and submitted a request to bring them up by unanimous consent and pass them with no roll call.
Making ‘Hotline’ a Dirty Word
Coburn’s slow-down warning is part of a broader effort by the chamber’s most conservative Republicans — the DeMint-led Republican Steering Committee — to act as a dam against a rush of legislation before the end of the year.
Aides said that when Coburn and DeMint held up bills on the hotline list in recent months, they suffered the private wrath of their colleagues.
Now they hope to brand the hotline process with the same stigma they have attached to congressional earmarks in recent years.
The process works only if Republican and Democratic leaders cooperate, but DeMint reserved his criticism for the majority party.
“They have chosen to abuse the hotline system to secretly ram through controversial bills in the dead of night and dare others to object,” DeMint said. “We are barely given a few hours to read legislation hundreds of pages long and no opportunity to offer amendments. It is this type of cynical governing that is frustrating Americans.”
A spokesman for Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., did not reply to an e-mailed request for a response. An aide to Minority Leader Mitch McConnell declined to comment on the record.
The vast majority of the measures passed without a roll call before Thanksgiving were non-controversial, such as those naming post offices, dedicating space in the Capitol for special events and honoring college sports teams for winning national championships.
A handful, however, were more significant.
A year ago, when Republicans controlled the Senate, dozens of bills were hotlined in the session’s last week, including a sweeping rewrite of the Magnuson-Stevens offshore fisheries law (PL 109-479) that was appended to another, non-controversial bill without debate or even a roll call vote.
Sen. Ted Stevens, R-Alaska, who has achieved legendary status as a last-minute legislator, sponsored that measure.
The Anchorage Daily News reported late last month that it included a provision, written by Rep. Don Young, R-Alaska, that benefited three specific companies at the expense of others.
The letter that Coburn distributed Tuesday clearly targets add-ons like the fishery legislation, but without getting into specifics.
The letter also extends an olive branch — an offer to cooperate if Coburn is given adequate bill-reading time.
“If you intend to seek unanimous consent for any legislation in the next three weeks, I would encourage you to contact me as soon as possible so I have sufficient time to read and review your bill or bills and we can work out any differences, avoiding the frustration of last-minute, late-night negotiations,” Coburn wrote.
Sen. Tom Coburn has warned fellow senators that he intends to halt their requests to pass bills quickly by voice vote if he hasn’t had enough time to read the legislation, or if the bills meet his definition for expanding the federal government.
The calendar often offers an assist to astute lawmakers: The bigger the end-of-session scramble, the more likely a savvy member can get something passed with little scrutiny.
But in a “Dear Colleague” letter, Coburn, R-Okla., said that he would object to “any unanimous consent requests to authorize or appropriate increased spending or expand the size and cost of the federal government.” He also made it clear that he wants other senators to see him before they try to “hotline” bills.
For years, Senate leaders have privately alerted lawmakers to planned unanimous-consent requests, so those who may have objections can say so in advance. The process takes its name from a dedicated telephone line set up to spread the word internally, while keeping the list of bills almost ready for action off-limits to the broader public.
Coburn, like every senator, may demand a recorded vote if any bill on the hotlined list is called up on the Senate floor.
A Congressional Research Service report ordered by a Coburn ally, Sen. Jim DeMint, R-S.C., shows that a lot of senators have not been exercising their right to demand recorded votes. The report found that 93 percent of all measures the Senate passed between the first of the year and the Thanksgiving Day break advanced by voice vote.
Generally, that has meant that at the end of a legislative day — often late at night — the majority leader called up a list of bills and submitted a request to bring them up by unanimous consent and pass them with no roll call.
Making ‘Hotline’ a Dirty Word
Coburn’s slow-down warning is part of a broader effort by the chamber’s most conservative Republicans — the DeMint-led Republican Steering Committee — to act as a dam against a rush of legislation before the end of the year.
Aides said that when Coburn and DeMint held up bills on the hotline list in recent months, they suffered the private wrath of their colleagues.
Now they hope to brand the hotline process with the same stigma they have attached to congressional earmarks in recent years.
The process works only if Republican and Democratic leaders cooperate, but DeMint reserved his criticism for the majority party.
“They have chosen to abuse the hotline system to secretly ram through controversial bills in the dead of night and dare others to object,” DeMint said. “We are barely given a few hours to read legislation hundreds of pages long and no opportunity to offer amendments. It is this type of cynical governing that is frustrating Americans.”
A spokesman for Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., did not reply to an e-mailed request for a response. An aide to Minority Leader Mitch McConnell declined to comment on the record.
The vast majority of the measures passed without a roll call before Thanksgiving were non-controversial, such as those naming post offices, dedicating space in the Capitol for special events and honoring college sports teams for winning national championships.
A handful, however, were more significant.
A year ago, when Republicans controlled the Senate, dozens of bills were hotlined in the session’s last week, including a sweeping rewrite of the Magnuson-Stevens offshore fisheries law (PL 109-479) that was appended to another, non-controversial bill without debate or even a roll call vote.
Sen. Ted Stevens, R-Alaska, who has achieved legendary status as a last-minute legislator, sponsored that measure.
The Anchorage Daily News reported late last month that it included a provision, written by Rep. Don Young, R-Alaska, that benefited three specific companies at the expense of others.
The letter that Coburn distributed Tuesday clearly targets add-ons like the fishery legislation, but without getting into specifics.
The letter also extends an olive branch — an offer to cooperate if Coburn is given adequate bill-reading time.
“If you intend to seek unanimous consent for any legislation in the next three weeks, I would encourage you to contact me as soon as possible so I have sufficient time to read and review your bill or bills and we can work out any differences, avoiding the frustration of last-minute, late-night negotiations,” Coburn wrote.
