Floor Statements

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the Judiciary Committee be discharged from further consideration and the Senate now proceed to S. Res. 44.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the resolution be agreed to, the preamble be agreed to, the motion to reconsider be laid upon the table, and I ask that a statement by Senator Nelson of Nebraska be printed in the Record.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that when the Senate completes its business today, it stand adjourned until 10 a.m., Tuesday, January 30; that on Tuesday, following the prayer and pledge, the Journal of proceedings be approved to date, the morning hour be deemed expired, and the time for the two leaders be reserved for their use later in the day; that there then be a period for the transaction of morning business for 60 minutes, with Senators permitted to speak for up to 10 minutes each, with the first 30 minutes under the control of the majority and the final 30 minutes under the control of the minority; that following morning business, the Senate resume consideration of H.R. 2, the minimum wage bill, and that the time until 12:15 p.m. be equally divided and controlled between the two leaders or their designees with the time from 11:55 a.m. to 12:05 p.m. under the control of the Republican leader and the time from 12:05 p.m. to 12:15 p.m. under the control of the majority leader; that at 12:15 p.m., without further intervening action or debate, the Senate proceed to vote on the motion to invoke cloture on the Baucus-Reid substitute amendment No. 100; that following the vote, regardless of the outcome, the Senate stand in recess until 2:15 p.m. in order to accommodate the respective party conferences; provided further, that Members have until 11 a.m. to file any second-degree amendments.

Madam President, does the distinguished Republican leader have anything this evening?

Madam President, if there is no further business today, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate stand adjourned under the previous order.

Mr. President, under an order entered last night, this morning we will immediately proceed to executive session to consider the Petraeus nomination. We will have 45 minutes of debate on that nomination. Senator Levin will control half of the time, and the other half of the time is under the control of the Republican leader or his designee. A vote on the confirmation will occur around 9:45 this morning. The vote on the nomination will be the only vote today.

As previously announced, there will be no rollcall votes Monday, January 29. There will be no votes the following Friday, a week from today, because the Republicans are having a retreat. We had ours earlier this year.

After we dispose of the nomination, we will return to H.R. 2. A lot of work was done yesterday. We voted on eight amendments.

Mr. President, before we get to the nomination, I want to say a couple things. Today is the graduation of the pages. There will be a ceremony at 10 o'clock honoring them in remembrance of their stay in the Capitol. The pages do invaluable work, and they have for many years. I depend upon them personally all the time. They do a lot of things that are unnoticed. In fact, almost everything they do goes almost unnoticed, but they are vitally important. They do many things, and over the decades we have come to rely upon them. I will speak later this morning at the graduation.

I want them to know, as well as the people watching today, how the pages are an integral part of this great institution.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that a list reflecting the names of the Senate pages be printed in the Record.

Mr. President, prior to the nomination being taken up, let me say that I met General Petraeus in Iraq. At that time, the Republican leader was Senator Frist, who is a doctor, as we all know. General Petraeus said, ``I want you to take this back to Dr. Frist and remind him that he saved my life.'' There was a training exercise going on with live ammunition, and somebody tripped and fell with live ammunition and General Petraeus was shot in the heart. Dr. Frist saved his life. The surgery was complicated and important.

So I wish Senator/Dr. Frist were here today to be able to express his appreciation for General Petraeus. I brought that medal back from Iraq to give to Leader Frist and he remembered the surgery. He saved the life of a great man.

Madam President, today is the fifth day of the debate on the minimum wage. Some of the days have been days that people have not talked a lot or offered a lot of amendments, but that is not the fault of the majority. It is not the fault of the minority. For whatever reason, they didn't offer them.

The question always arises as to when enough is enough. Have there been opportunities in this legislation before the Senate dealing with minimum wage, raising the minimum wage for the first time in 10 years? I know the Senate is not accustomed to the open process we have had on this legislation and on the legislation dealing with ethics in lobbying, but this is something we are going to get used to. My Members would rather not have had the votes we had this past week. They were tough votes. None of them related to minimum wage. That is the Senate, an open process. But someone has to make a decision at some time that enough is enough, and I think I have made that decision. I am going to file a motion to stop debate on this issue and move forward on this much needed legislation.

Ten years was a long time ago. During that period of time, the cost of food has gone up about 25 percent, the cost of health care about 45 percent, housing about 30 percent, gasoline about 135 percent, congressional pay during that same period of time has increased by $30,000. Ten years ago, Newt Gingrich was Speaker of the House, not Nancy Pelosi; Bill Clinton was starting his second term as President of the United States; the old movie ``Titanic'' was being released; a stamp to mail a letter was 32 cents.

Today, different than 10 years ago, the pay of the average chief executive is 821 times that of a minimum wage worker. The chief executive officer for one of these companies could go to work on Monday and by noon have made as much money as minimum wage workers, working their hearts out for a year, would get.

Yesterday and the day before, we voted on all kinds of amendments, amendments that totaled--I roughed them out--calling for tax cuts of about $350 billion. Madam President, how much more is it going to take in the way of tax cuts to get the minority to vote for a minimum wage bill? None of the tax cuts are paid for--$350 billion. That is a lot of money. If you took one-dollar bills and laid them end to end from my home in Searchlight, NV, to Washington, DC, it would take 14,000 lines of dollar bills to amount to $350 billion--14,000.

We have voted on health savings accounts, tax breaks for teachers, and Social Security tax breaks. My favorite was a $2.10 suggestion in legislation offered by one of the Republican Senators. You don't use the $2.10 to increase the wages of a minimum wage worker, but they could do other things with it--buy health care, for example. But it is so interesting; every one of these amendments that were offered were offered by someone who has no desire of voting for a minimum wage. It is an effort to divert attention from the real issue before this body, which is raising the minimum wage.

Every one of these amendments we voted on is important. I am not, in any way, indicating that people do not have the right to offer amendments. They can offer them on any subject they wish. That is what this Senate is all about. But I think it is about time a decision is made whether we are going to give the poorest of the poor who are working, not on welfare, the opportunity to keep working and not have to go to welfare.

Sixty percent of the people who draw minimum wage are women, and for over half of those women, that is the only money they get for themselves and their families. People think that minimum wage is for a bunch of kids flipping hamburgers at McDonald's, but that is not the way it is. About 3 weeks ago, Business Week had a very good piece on the minimum wage. What this piece said is that raising the minimum wage raises the boat for everybody.

I hope my friends on the other side of the aisle will allow this legislation to go forward, to stop talking about it and vote on it. It is important that we do that. Ten years is too long.

We have had a lot of amendments. Is this enough? When is enough? Could we have worked longer hours? Perhaps so. All I know is Wednesday we worked very hard to try to get some of the people in the minority to agree to votes--and we couldn't get that done--on their amendments, not our amendments their amendments.

We have a lot of important things to do and I understand that. I sure hope we can move beyond minimum wage to other issues.

Cloture Motion

Madam President, I send a cloture motion to the desk.

Madam President, I send a cloture motion to the desk.

Madam President, I have other business to conduct on another matter. It is my understanding the distinguished Republican leader wishes to speak at this time.

Mr. President, we all have memories. My memory is that during the time that Senator Lott was the majority leader we had very few opportunities to amend bills because he, in the vernacular in the Senate, filled the tree and there weren't opportunities to do that. Senator Frist did not do that nearly as much as Senator Lott when he was the leader, but certainly it was done a lot of times. We have chosen not to do that. We have chosen the amendment process. That is why I said earlier today: When is enough enough?

I have sent the cloture motions to the desk, and we will make that decision at noon on Tuesday.

While the distinguished Republican leader is on the floor, I will say a few more words on another subject.

The Republican leader and I have talked on several occasions about this Iraq situation. Anyone who reads the newspaper, listens to the radio or watches TV--we all know there are a number of resolutions around the Senate dealing with the escalation of the war in Iraq. The leader and I have talked about them.

We have pending in the Senate now, S. Con. Res. 2, which is a bipartisan resolution. Upon disposition of the minimum wage bill--and I have spoken to the leader, Senator McConnell--he is unable to clear consent to move S. Con. Res. 2 now. Members may not be available to clear it at the moment, and I understand that, so I am not going to put any unanimous consent request before the Senate because the distinguished Republican Senate leader has told me he is not able to do that. But in an effort to save time, I intend to move to proceed to the concurrent resolution today and file cloture on that motion. If on Monday the Republican leader is still not able to grant consent to proceed to it, we will be in a position, then, to look forward to the Tuesday vote. If he is able to give me consent to move forward to that, then we can vitiate the cloture motion.

Mr. President, I will be filing that motion on cloture today to proceed to a bipartisan resolution reported out by the Foreign Relations Committee earlier this week. We are moving forward to demand a new direction in Iraq, as we have spoken about a number times. Senator Lautenberg finished a speech on that today. We hope Republican leadership will join with us to fully debate this issue, permit votes on amendments, and ensure an up-or-down vote on the President's plan. Our troops and the American people deserve no less.

Mr. President, at this time, I move to proceed to consideration of S. Con. Res. 2. I send a cloture motion to the desk.

Mr. President, I have filed this bipartisan cloture motion. Because of that, I withdraw the motion to proceed.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that there be a period for morning business, with Senators permitted to speak for up to 10 minutes each.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to Calendar No. 14, S. Res. 24.

I ask unanimous consent that the resolution be agreed to, the preamble be agreed to, the motion to reconsider be laid upon the table, and that any statements relating thereto be printed in the Record, without further intervening action or debate.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Banking Committee be discharged from further consideration of S. 172 and that the bill be referred to the Committee on Foreign Relations.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to Calendar No. 13, S. Res. 21.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the resolution be agreed to, the preamble be agreed to, the motion to reconsider be laid upon the table, and that any statements relating thereto be printed in the Record, with no intervening action or debate.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the consideration of Calendar No. 15, S. Res. 29.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the resolution be agreed to, the preamble be agreed to, the motion to reconsider be laid upon the table, and that any statements relating thereto be printed in the Record, without intervening action or debate.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to executive session to consider the following nominations: Calendar Nos. 2 through 5 and all nominations placed on the Secretary's desk; that the nominations be confirmed, the motions to reconsider be laid upon the table, the President be immediately notified of the Senate's action, and the Senate return to legislative session.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that when the Senate completes its business today, it stand adjourned until 2 p.m. January 29; that on Monday, following the prayer and the pledge, the Journal of proceedings be approved to date, the morning hour be deemed expired, and the time for the two leaders be reserved for their use later in the day; that there then be a period of morning business until 3:30 p.m., with Senators permitted to speak for up to 10 minutes each, except that Senator Dorgan be recognized for up to 45 minutes and Senator Specter be recognized for up to 30 minutes; that at 3:30 p.m., the Senate resume H.R. 2 for debate only until 5 p.m.; at 4 p.m., Senator Sessions be recognized for up to 1 hour; that Members have until 3 p.m. today to file any first-degree amendments. Provided further that the live quorum under rule XXII with respect to cloture motions be waived.