{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["https://www.roberts.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?p=PressReleases&ContentRecord_id=c583154c-4a9c-4819-a22a-dd1fc2dbdd56", "Senator Roberts: Democrats Have Reduced Senate to a Rubber Stamp of the Obama Administration", "2013-11-21", "2013", "2013-11", "Republican", "House", "KS", "Pat Roberts", "R000307", "www.roberts.senate.gov", null, null, "legacy", "WASHINGTON, DC \u2013 U.S. Senator Pat Roberts (R-Kan.), Ranking Member of the Senate Committee on Rules and Administration, today spoke on the Senate floor against Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid\u2019s (D-Nev.) use of the nuclear option to radically change the rules of the U.S. Senate.\r\nAudio and video of Senator Roberts\u2019 floor speech is here.\r\nThe following is text of the Senator\u2019s prepared remarks:\r\n\u201cMr. President, under the rules of this body, it takes 67 votes to end debate on a rules change.\u00a0 As a continuing body, our rules carry on from one Congress to the next - or at least they used to - and can only be changed pursuant to those rules.\u00a0\r\n\u201cOur rules have always ensured a voice for the minority in this body. Unlike the House, where a simple majority has the power to impose a rule change at any time, in the Senate the minority has always been protected. Here, the rules protect the minority and cannot be changed without their consent.\r\n\u201cUnless, of course, the majority decides it wants to break the rules to change the rules.\u00a0\r\n\u201cThat is what happened today.\r\n\u201cMr. President, the Washington Post reported the other day that President Obama\u2019s approval rating has hit a record low. His disapproval rating has hit 55 percent, the worst of his presidency.\u00a0\r\n\u201cThis is obviously the result of the disastrous roll out of Obamacare which has caused Americans to question both the President\u2019s trustworthiness and his basic competence.\u00a0\r\n\u201cYou would think, in light of these developments, that my friends on the other side of the aisle might be reconsidering the wisdom of some of their past decisions.\u00a0\r\n\u201cYou would hope it would occur to them that maybe it was a mistake to pass a healthcare reform bill on a straight party line vote \u2013 on Christmas Eve.\u00a0\r\n\u201cYou might expect them to have some doubts about the competence of this Administration, as most Americans clearly do.\r\n\u201cAnd if it dawned on them that maybe now might be the right time to reassert Congressional authority to reign in and redirect the Administration, you would think they would be using the power of this Senate to move the Administration in a different direction.\r\n\u201cWell, I\u2019m sorry to say, that hasn\u2019t happened.\r\n\u201cInstead, in the face of the obvious failures of this President, and his plummeting approval ratings, the majority has decided it would be a really good idea to GIVE HIM MORE POWER.\r\n\u201cThat\u2019s right \u2013 the majority thinks our biggest problem is that the President just can\u2019t do whatever he wants and we should change our rules to allow him to do that.\u00a0\r\n\u201cThat is incredible.\u00a0\r\n\u201cThe majority has permanently undermined this body, robbed it of a vital tool to check the untrammeled authority of this or any other president, so this sinking ship of an Administration can make whatever appointments it wants.\r\n\u201cWhat a tragedy.\r\n\u201cYou know, Mr. President, in Kansas, when you walk old ghost towns, you will often see buildings where nothing remains but the fa\u00e7ade. Literally, the entire building is gone and all that is left is the fa\u00e7ade. To prevent that fa\u00e7ade from collapsing, you may see beams propping it up.\r\n\u201cIn recent weeks, this Administration has been exposed as a fa\u00e7ade.\u00a0 It still looks nice at first glance \u2013 the slick campaign style appearances go on as usual \u2013 but when you look behind it you see that there is nothing there.\u00a0\r\n\u201cIt cannot perform the most basic tasks. It cannot even fulfill the responsibilities it has assigned to itself.\u00a0\r\n\u201cIt is collapsing.\r\n\u201cSo now we, the Senate, are going to prop it up.\u00a0\r\n\u201cThe United States Senate, the world\u2019s greatest deliberative body, has been reduced to a prop.\u00a0\r\n\u201cWe have reduced ourselves to rubber stamps, forfeited our historical and constitutional authority to subject Presidential appointments to advice and consent, so this Administration can do whatever it wants.\u00a0\r\n\u201cWhat a tragedy.\r\n\u201cNever has so much been given for so little.\u00a0\r\n\u201cWe have permanently undermined this body, FOR WHAT?\u00a0\r\n\u201cSo this President can appoint a few more judges?\u00a0 And stack the DC Circuit who oversees the constitutionality of federal regulations? Yes, Obamacare regs, IRS regs, EPA regs.\r\n\u201cIt is unbelievable.\r\n\u201cWhat happened today will surely lead to complete control of this institution by the majority.\r\n\u201cDo not listen to those who would seek to minimize the importance of what has been done here.\u00a0\r\n\u201cThe claim that what they have done is limited \u2013 applying only to executive nominations \u2013 misses the point.\r\n\u201cThe change itself is less important than the manner in which it was imposed. Once you assume the power to write new rules with a simple majority vote \u2013 to ignore the existing rules that require a supermajority to achieve such a change \u2013 you have put us on a path that will surely lead to total control of this body by the majority.\r\n\u201cBefore today, there was only one house of Congress where the majority has total control.\u00a0\r\n\u201cNow there are two.\r\n\u201cWe have become the House.\r\n\u201cBy its action today, the majority has ensured, for years to come, that Members will not have any rights beyond those which the majority is willing to grant.\u00a0\r\n\u201cWhen he was in the minority, our current Majority Leader recognized this himself.\r\n\u201cIn The Good Fight, Senator Reid wrote about the battle over the nuclear option in 2005.\u00a0\r\n\u201cThis is what he wrote \u2013\r\n\u201c\u2018once you opened that Pandora\u2019s box, it was just a matter of time before a Senate leader who couldn\u2019t get his way on something moved to eliminate the filibuster for regular business as well.\u00a0 And that, simply put, would be the end of the United States Senate.\u2019\r\n\u00a0\u201cSenator Reid further wrote \u2013\r\n\u201c\u2018there will come a time when we will all be gone, and the institutions that we now serve will be run by men and women not yet living, and those institutions will either function well because we\u2019ve taken care of them, or they will be in disarray and someone else\u2019s problem to solve.\u2019\r\n\u201cHe described the nuclear option this way then \u2013\r\n\u201c\u2018In a fit of partisan fury, they were trying to blow up the Senate.\u00a0 Senate rules can only be changed by a two-thirds vote of the Senate, or sixty seven Senators.\u00a0 The Republicans were going to do it illegally with a simple majority, or fifty one\u2026.\u00a0 Future generations be damned.\u2019\r\n\u201cIf only TODAY the Majority Leader had recalled his own words.\u00a0\r\n\u201cInstead, by his own hand, he has brought on the end of the United States Senate as we know it.\r\n\u201cInstead of taking care of this institution, he will leave it in disarray \u2013 future generations be damned.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\r\n\u201cOur former Parliamentarian, Bob Dove, and Richard Arenberg , a professor and one time aide to former Majority Leader George Mitchell, wrote a book on this subject \u2013 Defending the Filibuster.\u00a0\r\n\u201cThis is what they said \u2013\r\n\u201c\u2018If a 51-vote majority is empowered to rewrite the Senate\u2019s rules, the day will come, as it did in the House of Representatives, when a majority will construct rules that give it near absolute control over amendments and debate.\u00a0 And there is no going back from that.\u00a0 No majority in the House of Representatives has or ever will voluntarily relinquish that power in order to give the minority a greater voice in crafting legislation.\u2019\r\n\u201cDo not be fooled by those who would try to minimize the impact of what happened today.\u00a0\r\n\u201cThe rule change itself is less important than the manner in which it was imposed.\r\n\u201cNow that the majority has decided it can set the rules, there is no limit to what it, or any future majority, might do in the future.\r\n\u201cThere are no constraints.\r\n\u201cThe majority claims these changes are necessary to make the Senate function.\r\n\u201cIf it decides further changes are needed \u2013 it will make them.\r\n\u201cThe minority will have no voice.\u00a0\r\n\u201cNo say.\r\n\u201cNo power.\r\n\u201cThat has never been the case in the Senate.\r\n\u201cNever.\r\n\u201cUntil now.\u00a0\r\n\u201cIt saddens me that we have come to this point.\u00a0\r\n\u201cIt saddens me that Members on the other side of the aisle who should know better have taken this course.\r\n\u201cWe have done permanent damage to this institution and set a precedent that will surely allow future majorities to further restrict the rights of the minority.\u00a0\r\n\u201cThat is not a threat, it is just a fact.\r\n\u201cWe have weakened this body, permanently undermined it, for the sake of this incompetent Administration.\u00a0\r\n\u201cWhat a tragedy.\r\n\u201cThis is a sad day Mr. President.\u00a0\r\n\u201cWhen the future generations we have damned by today\u2019s action look back and wonder, \u201cWhy are things in such disarray?\u00a0 When did it go wrong?\u00a0 When did the demise of the Senate begin?\u201d the answer will be:\u00a0\r\n\u201cToday \u2013 November 21, 2013.\u201d\r\n-30-", 1, "2026-03-30T12:14:52Z", "2026-03-30T12:14:52Z"]], "columns": ["url", "title", "date", "year", "month", "party", "chamber", "state", "member_name", "bioguide_id", "domain", "scraper", "source", "date_source", "text", "has_text", "collected_at", "updated_at"], "primary_keys": ["url"], "primary_key_values": ["https://www.roberts.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?p=PressReleases&ContentRecord_id=c583154c-4a9c-4819-a22a-dd1fc2dbdd56"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 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