nominations -- result? all presidential nominations only require a simple majority now. on the c-span year in review, we show you some of the debate over the past year. comments from harry reid, mitch mcconnell, and even video by c- span viewers using the c-span video library. are dark days in the history of the senate. i hate that we have come to this oink. -- point. and now, our request for a joint at ang, all the senators time when attendance around here is frequently quite spotty, in an obvious effort to keep as members from hearing the concerns and arguments of the other side is possible. it remains our view that for this to be the kind of joint session of the senate that it tendencybe, given the of the senate to have sparse attendance on monday night, to have this meeting on tuesday, before it is too late. mr. president, i don't want him to feel sorry for the senate and certainly not for me. speak continue to try to in a tone that is appropriate. people start believing it. quiteesident, it is interesting that he thinks that richard cordray, nobody says there is a thing wrong with this democrats and republicans have both said he is a good guy. this man has been waiting 724 days. assistant secretary of defense, 292 days. 100 69y fund governor, days. upa, 128 days. 5 of them. average time waiting is nine months. we are with alex rogers, congressional reporter for time magazine. and mitchharry reid mcconnell after july, after the bubble up of the nuclear option discussion. what happened in july? what was the cause of concern that first brought it to everyone's attention? >> the national labor relations board, there were nominees that the republicans did not want to put on. inre was a historic meeting the old chamber where it seemed like everything had gotten back together. they were going to get nominees that they wanted and a majority of the rules for the filibuster were going to stay the same. fast forward to november and things have gotten a lot different. the government shutdown. there are four key nominations in three weeks. filibuster. have the agency that oversees fannie mae and freddie mac and three nominees for the d c circuit court of appeals. in terms of the july meeting and the old senate chamber behind closed doors, what came out of there that was, and? a lot of positive feedback. the issue dies down a bit and i believe you wrote about some discussions going on between harry reid and john mccain that were trying to work something out? >> before harry reid decided to , beforee nuclear button that, he had a conversation with senator john mccain who had replies the role he had already done in 2005 with the gang of 14. they talked about a similar deal. you will have your nominees for youd.c. circuit court if keep the filibuster rules in place. senator reid said no and went on with it. >> this applies to just the procedural votes that lead up to a final vote on the nomination. >> the vote before the vote. ,he changes that have been made the nominees for all executive branch nominees and judicial branch nominees with the exception of the supreme court. it is a big change and allows precedent in the future for legislation. >> this came to a head in november, so we will show viewers some of the debate that happened ahead of the nuclear option vote. the american people believe that congress is broken. they believe that the senate is broken. i believe the american people are right. , the unitedcongress states has wasted an impressive it did -- unprecedented amount of time with procedural hurdles. work in this country goes undone. ingres should be passing legislation that strengthens our economy, protect american and we are burning wasted hours and wasted days between filibusters. instead of wasted days and wasted weeks, even one of the most basic duties. confirmation of presidential nominees has become completely unworkable. there has been unprecedented obstruction. republicans routinely use the filibuster to prevent president obama from appointing a consecutive team or confirming judges. it is a troubling trend that they are willing to block executive nominations even when they have no objection to the nominee. toll, they block nominees circumvent the legislative process. nominationsualified to force wholesale changes to laws. they restructure entire executive branch departments. because theyminees don't want president obama to appoint any judges. the need for change is very obvious. it is clearly visible, it is manifest that we have to do something to change things. country,story of our 230 years and more, there have been 168 filibusters. have occurred during the obama administration. over 230 years. 50%. four and half years, 50%. is there anything fair about that? these nominees deserve at least an up or down vote. the republican filibuster denies them a fair vote. it denies the president his team. consequences and they are terrible. it is bad for president obama and bad for this body. it is bad for national security and bad for economic security. to get why it is time the senate working again. not for a democratic majority or a future republican majority but for the good of the united states of america. the senateto change before this institution becomes obsolete. at the beginning of this congress, the republican leader alleged that this congress should be more bipartisan than the last congress. told in scripture. take the old testament. pledges, one must not break his word. promised to work with the majority to process nominations and a timely manner by unanimous consent except in extraordinary circumstances. later, three weeks republicans mounted a first in history filibuster of a highly qualified nominee for secretary of defense. despite being a former republican senator, being a decorated war hero, chuck hagel's nomination was pending in the senate for a record 34 days. or than three times the previous average. remember, our country was at war. republicans a block executive nominees like secretary hagel not because they object to qualifications but because they seek to undermine the very government in which they were takeed to serve here in the nomination of richard cordray to read the -- lead the financial protection bureau. there was no doubt about his ability to do the job. but the consumer financial protection bureau, the brainchild of elizabeth warren went for more than two years without a leader because republicans refused to accept the law of the land. they wanted to bring back a lot of protects consumers from the greed of wall street. you don't have to like the laws of the land, but you do have to respect those laws and acknowledge them and abide by them. similar obstruction continued unabated for seven more months until democrats threatened to change senate rules to allow up or down votes on executive nominations. in july, after dozens of executive nominees, republicans promised they would end the unprecedented obstruction. one look at the executive calendar shows that nothing has changed since july. they have continued the record of obstruction like no agreement had ever been reached. they continued obstruction as if no agreement had been reached. currently 75 executive branch nominations waiting to be confirmed by the senate and waiting an average of 140 days. to thecutive nominee agency that safeguards the water that my children and my grandchildren drink, the air they breathe, has waited almost 900 days for confirmation. we agreed in july that the senate should be confirming nominees to ensure the proper function of government. consistent and unprecedented obstruction has revised consent to deny obstruction. >> the american people have been witness to one of the most breathtaking indictments of big government liberalism and memory. i'm not just talking about a website. i am talking about the way it an forced onto the public by administration and a democratic led congress that we know is willing to do and say anything to pass the law. the president and his democratic allies were so determined to force their vision of health care on the public that they assured them up and down that they wouldn't lose the plan that they have. that they would save money instead of losing it. and that they would be able to use the doctors and hospitals they were already using. of course, we know that that rhetoric just doesn't match. stories on a daily basis range from heartbreaking to common. i saw a story about a guy getting a letter in the mail saying that his dog had qualified for insurance under obamacare. i would probably be running for the exits if i had supported this law. i would be looking to change the subject. just as senate democrats have been doing with their threat of going nuclear and changing the senate rules on nominations. one of them has not enrolled a single person. i would probably want to talk about something else, too. the problem with this latest distraction. ofdoesn't distract people obamacare, it reminds them of obamacare. it reminds them of all the broken promises. it reminds them of the power grab. reminds them how democrats set up one set of rules for themselves and another for everybody else. them andf rules for another for everybody else. actually, this is all basically the same debate. rather than distract people from obamacare, it only reinforces the narrative of a party that is willing to do and say just about anything to get its way. willing to do or say just about anything to get its way. that is what they are doing all over again. again, senate democrats are threatening to break the rules in order to change the rules of the senate. and over what? over a cord that doesn't even have enough work to do? millions of americans are hurting because of a law that democrats forced on them. what do they do about it? they cook up a fake fight over judges. if a fight over judges that aren't even needed. i wanted to be talking about too.hing else, but it won't work. the parallels between this latest skirmish are just too obvious to ignore. think about it. promisedity leader over and over again that he wouldn't break the rules of the senate. this is not an ancient promise. the 14th on meet the press, he said we are not touching judges. this year. we are not touching judges. then there are the double standards. democrats were in the minority and argued strenuously for the thing they now say we will have to do without. namely, the right to extended debate on lifetime appointments. they believe one set of rules , andd apply to them another set to everybody else. he may have just as well said if you like the rules of the senate, you can keep them. huh? if you like the rules of the senate, you can keep them? just the way so many of the democrats now believe that obamacare is good enough for their constituents, but when it comes to their political allies and staff, that is different. let's not forget about the raw power at play here. the similarities between the obama care debate and the threat to go nuclear are inescapable. they muscle through obamacare on the party line vote and did not care about the views of the minority. what theys just about are going to do here. the american people decided to give the democrats -- not to give the democrats the house or to restore the filibuster proof majority they had in 2009. democratic colleagues don't like that one bit. the american people are getting in the way. so they are trying to change the rules of the game to get their way anyway. they said so themselves. the senior senator said they wanted to fill up the d c circuit one way or the other. fill up the d.c. circuit one way or the other. and the reason is clear. agenda runsama's through the d c circuit. he can't get what you want through congress because the american people in november 2010 said they had had enough and issued a national restraining order after watching two years of this administration unrestrained. now the agenda runs through the bureaucracy and the d c circuit. now a legislative check on the president. the administration doesn't much like checks and balances. they want to circumvent the people with an aggressive regulatory agenda. our colleagues want to facilitate that by filling up the court that will rule on this agenda. a court that doesn't even have enough work to do if it means changing the subject from obamacare for a few days. they think they can change the rules of the senate in a way that benefits only them. do it so that the agenda gets enacted but a future republican president could get his or her picks confirmed using the same precedent. they want to have it both ways. >> we didn't have a chance to debate the change in rules, so i will speak now on some things that should have been said before we voted, not that it would change the outcome, but we ought to know what we are doing before we vote rather than afterwards. i will spend a few minutes discussing what the majority the nucleard option. this wasn't a new threat. leaderime the minority has chosen to exercise his rights under the senate rules, the majority has threatened to change the rules. this is the third time in just the last year that the majority leader has said that if he didn't get his way, he would change the rules. is as many that judicial nominees as our side has stopped through filibuster. attempt toe recent simultaneously add three judges to the d.c. circuit that aren't needed, republicans stopped a grand total of two judicial nominees. not 10, as they had by president not's fifth term in office, 34 as one of my colleagues tried to suggest earlier this week. stopped.been nominees, wee the stopped a grand total of five. not 10 as the democrats had done in 2005 or 34 as one of my colleagues tried to argue earlier this week. during the same time, we confirmed 209 more article three judges. a record of 209 judges approved the five that were not approved. this threat isn't based on any crisis. there is no crisis. today's wall street journal editorial entitled d.c. circuit breakers, the white house wants to pack a cord whose judges are underworked. it lays out a caseload pretty clearly and i ask this editorial be made part of the record. this is about a naked power grab and nothing more. this is about the other side not getting everything they want when they want it. the other side claims that they were pushed to this point because our side objected to the plan to fill the d.c. circuit with judges. but this side plans to forget history. let's review how we got here. after the president nominated three nominees for the d.c. arcuit that aren't needed, blatant political power grab in its own right, what did the republicans do? we did something quite simple. we said we want to go by the rules the democrats set in 2006. we would hold those democrats to the same standard they established in 2006 when they blocked a nominee of bushes. of why theear democrats are outraged. they are outraged because republicans had the temerity to hold the other political party to a standard that they established. did, because we insisted we all play by the same rules, they came right back and said, then we will change the rules. said, we side has don't want to be held to the standards we established in 2006. and if you don't give us what we want, we are willing to forever change the senate. that is what happened today. we hear a lot of ultimatums around here. but this is very different. this threat is designed to hold the united states senate hostage. it is different because it is designed to hold hostage all of the senate's history and traditions. itis different because relies on the goodwill of senators that don't want to see the senate as we know it destroyed or as the constitution writers intended. i will note that today's majority didn't always feel that way. the very way we have seen expressed today. on the other side described their fight to preserve the filibuster with great pride. in 2006, 1 of my colleagues said, "the nuclear option was the most important issue i have worked on in my public life. my proudeston was moment as the minority leader. i am urged with a renewed appreciation for the majesty of senate rules. i intend to run the senate with respect for the rules and for the minority rights the rules protect. another of my democrat colleagues had this to say. i will start the quote again. today, republicans are threatening to take away one of the few remaining checks on the power of the executive branch by their use of what has become known as the nuclear option. it is an assault on checks and balances and on the protection of minority rights. a lemonade in the filibuster by nuclear option would destroy the constitution's design of the senate as an effective check on the executive. you have had two quotes from democrats in 2005 and 2006, very senatey supporting the using the filibuster to protect minority rights. but then they went to the majority and the tradition of the senate doesn't mean much. have another quote from 2005. i detest this mention of a nuclear option. the constitutional option. there is nothing constitutional about it. but that was way back then. the mineajority was in nor any and there was a republican in the white house. today, the shoe is on the other foot. to other side is willing forever change the senate because republicans have the to hold the majority party of today to their own standard. why would the other side do this? clearly is not a crisis on the circuit. they say if we confirm any more judges, there would not be enough to go around. as if all these nominees are mainstream and census picked. despite what the other side would have you believe. the professor has written this about motherhood. productive rights, and looting the rights to contraceptive and abortion lay a central role in freeing women from conscription in the maternity. is that mainstream? she has also argue this about motherhood. antiabortion laws not only enforce women's incubation of unwanted pregnancies, but also prescribed a vision of a woman's role as mother and caretaker at a way that is at odds with equal protection. what about our views on religious freedom? the evangelical lutheran church that challenged saidterial discrimination it was a substantial threat to the american rule of law. that, the supreme court rejected her view 9-0. is court held that it impermissible for the government to contradict a churches determination of who can act as its ministers. do my colleagues believe that mainstream america believes that churches should not be allowed to choose their own ministers? i could go on and on. voting to change the senate rules is voting to remove one of the last meaningful checks on the president. any president. and voting to put these views on this important court. i ask again, why would the other side do this? of completeg short and total power grab. it is the kindest thing we have seen again and again throughout this administration and their allies. you can sum it up this way. do whatever it takes. >> i congratulate senator reid for leading the senate into the 21st century. much for your courageous action, making sure that the senate can now work and get our work done. i have waited 18 years for this moment. 1995 when we were in the minority. i proposed changing the rules on filibuster. i have been proposing it ever since. is that really happened this war has escalated. time that it was like an arms race. that if we didn't do something about it, the senate would reach a point where we wouldn't be able to function. i thought my words were a little apocalyptic but it turns out they weren't at all. so this is a bright day for the united states senate and for our country. to finally be able to move ahead. nominations for any president can put together his executive branch. under our constitution. should have the tople that he or she wants form the executive branch. every senator here gets to take his or her own staff. have the houseo vote on it or anybody else. the judiciary, they can hire their clerks and staff without coming to us. appropriateit is that any president can form their executive branch with only 51 votes needed, not a super majority. step in the right direction. ,nd now we can confirm judges again, with 51 votes and without this super majority. i listened to the republican leader during the run-up to these votes. said that we will somehow break the rules. we did not break the rules. had, the rulese provide for a 51 vote, non- debatable motion to overturn the ruling of the chair. we have done it many times in the past. we did not break the rules. to make sureles that the senate can function. and that we can get our nominees through. writer gailthe collins said in her column this morning in the new york times about these rule changes. she has had a lot of good things, but she talked about how we were calling it the nuclear option. said it is called that because changing the rules here is worse than nuclear war. but it's not. it is time that we change these rules. and the republican leader said it was the democrats that started this. me of a schoolyard fight between a couple of adolescents. and the teacher is trying to break it up. he hit me first. who cares? it is time to stop it. fact thataccept the democrats started a, maybe we did way back when. it has escalated and it turned from a punch here and there to almost extreme fighting. it got to the point where we can't function. just on nominations alone. we have had 168 nominations since 1949. that is when this filibuster stuff really started. 82 have been under this resident. if they want to say we started it, fine. but it has escalated and gone beyond all bounds. it turned into an arms race and it is time to stop it. that is what we did this morning. we took a step in the right direction. a congressional scholar wrote about the broken senate. how we couldn't function. you can go back beyond that in 1985. eagleton, he said the senate is now in a state of incipient anarchy. think we had something like 20 or 30 filibusters in the congress before that. over as been escalating long time and it is time to stop it. that is what we did this morning. this is a big step in the right direction. and now we need to take it another step further and change filibuster on legislation. we just had a spectacle of a bill that i reported out of our committee unanimous. househe floor of the unanimously. and one the senate senator held it up for 10 days. it finally passed by unanimous consent. should one senator be able to stop things around here like that? it is time to move ahead. get rid of the legislature at the same time to protect the rights of the minority. offer amendments that are relevant and jermaine, debate them and have a vote on it. the minority should be able to offer debate and have a vote on relatives and jermaine amendments. i proposed 18 years ago, a formula that was first proposed by senator dole many years before that. that was, on a cloture vote, the first time had to be 60 votes. then you could wait three days to file a new petition with requisite signatures. then you needed 57. if you didn't, you could wait petitions and file a and it would require 54 votes. daysyou would wait three and you would need 51. at some point, the majority could act. but the minority would have the right to slow things down. as the senator said in 1897, to give sober second thought to legislation in the senate. sober second thought. not to stop it or block it. maybe things shouldn't be rushed into. i understand that. maybe things ought to be amended. offer amendments relevant and jermaine to the legislation. on how wedecide proceed. what we vote on. and the outcome of the vote. i hope that the vote today leads the senate to adopt an approach in january of 2015 when the new senate comes in. i won't be here for it, but i hope the senate will take that down on the cutting ontant use of the filibuster legislation. the action just taken here today, here is what i predict. i predict the sky will not fall and oceans will not dry out. a plague of locusts will not cover the earth and the vast majority of americans will go on with their lives as before. i do predict that our government will work better. a president will be able to form an executive branch. our judiciary will function better. the u.s. senate will be able to move qualified nominees through the senate in a more responsible manner. >> as i mentioned earlier, this country did really well for 140 years. speech ofvote on filibuster was 1919. the filibuster was put in place to get things done. but now it has been turned on its head. have really tried extremely hard. i have been criticized by a lot of people for having gone through two congresses. and i wanted it to get along. as i try to explain on the floor today, they have simply not told the truth. look what has happened. the thing about this is they don't deny why they are doing it. we understand all the considerations. to slow downey do the country? stopcould they do more to legislation? we have all been in congress for a long time. senator murray has been in the senate a long time. there was a time when we used to do that. but not anymore. and all of this talk coming from why don'tcan friends, you vote the way you do? together on everything and it is only to discourage the president of the united states. if you're majority were to change the filibuster rules, you would do it for everything? >> let him do it. the country did pretty dam well for 140 years. seeing whoare beyond can out talk the other. let's just get some work done. let him do whatever he wants to. >> will this come back to bite you? >> no, this is the way it has to be. the senate has changed. if we have a republican president and we think he shouldn't have the team that he wants, one thing people don't understand and i will try to aplain this a little bit -- simple majority is not going to be a piece of cake and every instance. few situations where the democrats don't like the nominees. good, we can work on that. house, theed in the different body, the majority vote is not so bad. we have had this threat for some time now. at the beginning of each of the last two congresses, we had a discussion about rules changes. senator alexander was right in the middle of those and will give you an update on what happened back in january. we majority leader said that set the rules for this congress. commitmentthat was a not cap. we thought he said if you like the senate rules, you can keep them. but in fact, we ended up having another discussion with another threat of the so-called nuclear option and you have seen what they have done today. we have confirmed 215 judges and wo.eated to it was related to the size of the court and the s size of the docket. we took the view that there was no rationale for extending or increasing the membership of the d.c. circuit. the letters signed by schumer and kennedy and others saying there was no need for an additional judge. this was nothing more than a power grab in order to try to advance the regulatory agenda. they just broke the senate rules in order to exercise the power grab. with alex rogers, congressional reporter for time magazine. to change 52-48 vote the filibuster rules for nominees. we heard from mitch mcconnell and harry reid. back and the rate of approval in terms of nominees comparing to the george w bush administration, what does it look like gecko >> president obama's nominees have seen a wait time of around 140 days. under george w. bush, those same nominees saw a wait time about a quarter of that amount. nominees, they have waited around 100 days. times the weight time of george w. bush's nominees. you have seen significantly longer wait time from court approval. the difference was the senate democrats had it different strategy mixing the process up. they would try to hurt the nominee's chances before they even got to committee. reid went on to the this in the midst of nuclear debate, they talked about how half of the cloture motions have come under president obama's term. which is a startling statistic. think only for cloture motions were ever invoked the past 13 years. were on theinees floor and they had to bring this to a vote? >> right. they nominated what they thought would be the best candidate possible. >> those people passed the committee. >> they are approved in that process within they have to wait to get to the final confirmation days, and 10040 days on average. onwe do this interview friday, december 13. the fallout from the nuclear option vote is longer wait time. republicans are insisting on the full number of hours of debate. as you look at it in the couple of ending weeks of december, what is ahead for nominees? i think a quarter of the senate is 70 or more and they have been sleeping on couches and watching action movies in between votes. the only thing republicans can do now is delayed for 30 hours for some of these votes. harry reid said we will vote in the middle of the night if we have to. year, how the next that is going to affect the senate, there will be a relationship change. other senators that call each other friend, it will be interesting to see if that relationship has changed. >> alex rogers, also writes covering the hill. thank you for joining us for the year in review. before we wrap up our look at to nuclear option, we wanted show you some video pulled by c- span viewers using the video library. different views from harry reid and mitch mcconnell. kerry reid was majority leader in 2008 and then you will hear from mitch mcconnell. assistant authority leader in 2005. >> i have my own ideas about working with john mccain for many years. option, describe the circumstances with the nuclear option just so our viewers can better understand what the nuclear option was and what likelihood is there we will have to face those questions again? >> the republicans came up with a way to change our country forever. they made a decision if they didn't get every judge they wanted, they would make the senate like the house of representatives. a legislature were a simple majority could determine whatever happens. wanted, they get done. the rules allow that. the senate was set up to be different. that was the genius. that this legislature had two different duties. coffee.to pour the that is why you have the ability to filibuster and to terminate filibuster. they wanted to get rid of that. >> is there any likelihood we will face circumstances like that? >> as long as i am the leader, the answer is no. we should forget that. it is a black chapter in the history of the senate. i really do believe it will ruin our country. thatd during that debate in all my years of government, it was the most important thing i ever worked on. >> i give you great credit for the way you handled it then with extraordinary repercussions. time a is not the first minority has not upset a tradition or practice. the current majority intends to do what the majority has often done. to constitutional authority reform senate procedures by a simple majority vote. incredulous protestation of our colleagues, the senate has repeatedly adjusted its rules as circumstances dictate. the first senate adopted rules by a majority vote. might add which specifically provided a means to end debate by a simple majority vote. that was way back at the beginning of our country. the ability to move to the previous question and end debate. later, and possibility of a filibuster arose. renew in 1806 on the grounds that the senate had hardly needed to use it in the first place. in 1917, the senate adopted its first restraint on filibuster. first cloture rule. a means for stopping debate after a democrat from montana forced the senate to consider to simply change senate procedure. specifically in response to concerns that germany was to begin unrestricted submarine warfare against american shipping. armident wilson sought to urchin ships so that they could defend themselves. however, a 11 senators that wanted to avoid american involvement filibuster the bill. in 1917, there was no cloture rule at all. the senate functioned entirely by unanimous consent. so how did the senate overcome the determined opposition of 11 isolationist senators who refused to give consent to president wilson to arm ships? senator walsh made clear that the senate would exercise its constitutional authority to reform its practices by a majority vote. leaderink the majority deserves more respect. >> the senate is not in order and the senate will be in order. the senator from alabama is correct. the senator from kentucky is recognized. >> senator walsh made clear the senate would exercise its constitutional authority to reform its practices by a simple majority vote. a past senate could not take away the right of the future senate by tying the hands of the new senate. he said a majority may adopt the rules in the first place. it is preposterous to assume they can deny the right to change them. made goody -- said sense. [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2013] edward snowden, congressional hearings, and we talk to new york times reporter mark the seti. -- versetti. coming up on the next washington journal, an examination of what is working and what is not with the affordable care act. guest is editor for politico. keythe discussion on supreme court cases in 2013. we are joined by author of in the balance. live everyjournal is morning at 7:00 a.m. eastern on c-span. next, our first ladies series featuring eleanor roosevelt. then a discussion on female veterans in iraq and afghanistan on the challenges they face at home. it is followed by a roundtable on the role of religion and faith in politics. >> good evening. i am speaking to you tonight at a very serious moment in our history. the cabinet is convening and the leaders are meeting with the president. the state department and navy officials are meeting with the president all afternoon. in fact, the japanese ambassador was talking to the president at the time that japan was bombing our citizens in the philippines and sinking one of our transports. by tomorrow morning, the members of congress will have a report and be ready for action. ?