Senator Mike Rounds’ Weekly Column: News Year’s Resolutions for the Senate

News Year’s Resolutions for the Senate
By Senator Mike Rounds

As we ring in 2016, many South Dakotans will make New Year’s Resolutions for themselves. Oftentimes, these resolutions are self-improvement goals for the year ahead. As I began thinking about what lies ahead for the Senate in 2016, I started to think about New Year’s resolutions the Senate could adopt to help it operate more efficiently, so that we can better deliver on our promises to the American people. These suggestions, which we already do in South Dakota, are simple tactics to help suppress some of the Washington dysfunction that runs all too rampant.

While the list is undoubtedly long, two ideas in particular jump out: passing a budget and appropriation bills without waiting until the last minute–in Washington, they call this regular order–and operating under a senate calendar that will allow us to attend all our necessary committee hearings each week, as well as get our work done in a timely fashion.

For too long, Congress has failed to operate under regular order when it comes to the budget process. Reviving and staying committed to a normal budget process – in which all 12 appropriations bills are passed individually – is important for a number of reasons. Not only will it prevent us from having to rush another last-minute, thousands-page long omnibus bill through Congress just before the holidays, it will allow us to affect policy, which is what you sent me here to do in the first place. Crafting legislation behind closed doors is not an effective way to change policy provisions that previous congresses enacted. A regular budget process is also the best tool we have available to make certain the federal government is being a responsible steward of taxpayer dollars. This will help us rein in spending and address our bloated debt.

Earlier this month, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said that his top priority for 2016 is to pass all 12 appropriations bills through regular order, which hasn’t been done in more than 20 years. We made progress in 2015 by passing all 12 bills out of the Senate Appropriations Committee for the first time since 2009, and by passing one appropriations bill out of the Senate. But attempts to bring other appropriations bills to the floor were repeatedly blocked by Senate Democrats, who would prefer to maintain the status quo on spending and policy. This is a tactic we have pledged to reject in 2016.

Which brings me to my second resolution: operating under a calendar. Doing so will make certain our work gets done in a timely fashion. If the Senate had started considering appropriation bills in the spring and made considering them a priority, public pressure would have worked in our favor to get our work done and I believe we may have had some success in passing individual appropriation bills. If we set an appropriations calendar ahead of time, it would incentivize both parties to work together early on.

I would also prefer a set calendar for committee hearings so that they do not overlap with each other. This would allow us to attend all our hearings each week. I serve on four committees, and more times than not two or more of them schedule hearings for the same time. We shouldn’t have to pick and choose which hearings to prioritize as all our hearings are important. They allow us to ask questions and hear important testimony from expert witnesses about the issues before us.

As we look ahead to 2016, there are many policy issues that the Senate must address. Enacting a budget through regular order and operating under a predetermined calendar are two resolutions I believe could help the Senate operate more efficiently so we can make the best decisions for our country.

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