Floor Statements

Mr. President, under the previous order, at 11:45 a.m., the Senate will vote in relation to the McCain amendment.

Mr. President, if there is no further business to come before the Senate, I ask unanimous consent that following the statement of Senator Alexander, the Senate adjourn under the previous order.

Mr. President, I express my appreciation to my friend from Tennessee for his courteousness, which is always the case.

Mr. President, I would say to my friend who has been Governor of his State and a Cabinet Secretary, ran for President, and now a Member of the Senate, I think he has a foundation of understanding how important it is that we move these appropriations bills. This is a difficult situation. We have done it quite a few times in recent years, and it is not the best way to legislate. The Senator from Tennessee and I agree on that.

I have to say to my friend, there are a number of people in my caucus who come to me and say: Why are you making us take these tough votes and why are you talking about more votes on this bill? Because in keeping with what the Senator from Tennessee said, I hope we can continue doing this. I think the Republicans have not offered some easy amendments--I wish they had been a little easier on us--but that is the way it is. That is why I wanted to spend a little time this evening talking about the range of amendments we already have which have been hard votes and perhaps hard for both sides in many respects.

I support the statement of my friend from Tennessee that we are all going to try to arrive at the same place. It is just that how we get there sometimes doesn't correlate.

Mr. President, following leader remarks, if any, the Senate will proceed to a period of morning business, with Senators permitted to speak for up to 10 minutes each.

We are going to move to the omnibus spending bill, which is a bill to fund the Government until October 1. The committees of jurisdiction in the House and the Senate, the Appropriations Committees, have worked very hard to come up with bipartisan legislation. No one can ever suggest there was not participation by Democrats and Republicans on this legislation. We hope to be able to move to that Monday. We are going to move to it Monday. We hope to do it without having to have a cloture vote. If we cannot get consent to move to the matter within the next few hours, we will file cloture on the motion to proceed to that bill. That will occur early in the morning on Monday. We have to do that so that we can have the 30 hours run as quickly as we can. We have to finish the bill next week because the funding runs out on March 6. So we hope that can be accomplished. If we can move to the bill, then we would leave Monday for the opportunity for people to speak about the legislation.

The bill would be managed, of course, by Senators Inouye and Cochran, two of the most experienced legislators we have. Monday would give us an opportunity for people to offer amendments, and we would be able to have those votes prior to the regular caucus luncheon on Tuesday. So we will await as to what happens during the day to determine what is going to happen on Monday. We could have a Monday morning cloture vote if we cannot get permission to move to that. If we do get permission, then we will have no votes on Monday and have that for debate and offering amendments, no votes.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to executive session to consider Calendar Nos. 19, 20, and all nominations on the Secretary's desk in the Air Force and Navy; that the nominations

be confirmed, en bloc, the motions to reconsider be laid on the table, en bloc, that no further motions be in order; that upon confirmation, the President be immediately notified of the Senate's action and the Senate resume legislative session; and that any statements relating to any of these nominations be printed in the Record.

Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that on Monday, March 2, at 2 p.m., the Senate proceed to the consideration of Calendar No. 26, H.R. 1105, the Omnibus appropriations bill.

I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, following leader remarks, the Senate will resume consideration of the District of Columbia House Voting Rights Act. At 10:30, the Senate will proceed to a rollcall vote in relation to the Kyl amendment regarding retrocession. Additional rollcall votes are expected to occur throughout the day.

Last night, I filed cloture on the bill. If we are unable to complete action on the bill today, the cloture vote will occur tomorrow. Under rule XXII, the cloture rule, the filing deadline for germane first- degree amendments is 1 o'clock today.

Mr. President, I understand there are three bills at the desk due for a second reading.

Mr. President, I would object to any further proceedings with respect to these bills en bloc.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the vote commence upon completion of my statement.

Mr. President, we have had a good debate on this bill. It has gone on all week. I thank my colleagues on both sides of the aisle for a very productive, intelligent conversation. The Senate today is moving to right a century's-old wrong. It is inexcusable and indefensible that nearly 600,000 people who live in the District of Columbia don't enjoy a voice in Congress as do other American citizens. We are the only democracy in the world that denies citizens of its capital--our capital, Washington, DC--the right to vote in a national legislature in any way. Residents of Washington, DC pay taxes. They sit on juries. They serve bravely in the armed services. Yet they are provided only a delegate in Congress who is not permitted to vote. This injustice has stood for far too long. Shadow representation is shadow citizenship and is offensive to our democracy.

I hope the bill will pass today. It is a bill that is fair, bipartisan, and long overdue. If we can send American soldiers to fight for democracy around the world and ensure citizens of other nations that they have a right to vote, the least we can do is give the same opportunity to fellow Americans in the shadow of this great Capitol. We will shortly vote on a bill that honors the residents of the District who responsibly meet every single expectation of American citizenship but are denied one of the most basic civil rights in return.

I commend Chairman Lieberman, who has taken leadership on this issue for no reason or agenda other than he believes it is right to do this.

I urge all Senators to vote for this measure.

Mr. President, I move to reconsider the vote.

Mr. President, this will be the last vote this week. We hope to be able to get to the omnibus on Monday. We are going to be on the omnibus one way or the other on Monday. I will file cloture on the matter if I have to, but I think we are going to move to that Monday. We have a lot of work to do. The CR expires on Friday. I have had conversations today with the Republican leader. We both understand the urgency of trying to get this done. We are going to try to have as many amendments as time will allow. People should be here ready to move on this bill as soon as we are able to get to it. I have already heard from a couple of Senators who have amendments ready to go. What we will try to do is alternate sides on amendments and hopefully finish it on Thursday. Next Friday is supposed to be a nonvoting day. We hope we can keep it that way, but this is an important piece of legislation we must complete.

This is the last vote for the day.

Mr. President, following leader remarks, if any, the Senate will resume consideration of S. 160, the District of Columbia House Voting Rights Act. Rollcall votes are expected to occur today and tomorrow in an effort to advance this bill to passage this week so we can turn to the consideration of the omnibus appropriations bill next week.

Mr. President, you will note that we have had no morning business. The reason for that is we are very in tune to finish this legislation. I want everyone to have ample opportunity to offer any amendment that they want on this bill. There should be no excuse. We have got all morning, all afternoon, all evening, all day tomorrow, but we are going to finish the bill one way or the other.

I hope we can do it the right way, the easy way, so we do not have to file cloture on it. This is a bill that should advance. Senator Lieberman is so knowledgeable about Senate procedures that he will protect everyone's rights. But we cannot imagine what the amendments are going to be; they have to be offered. We have heard a lot of talk about amendments being offered, some germane, some not germane. But let's get it done and move on.

I do not want to have to file cloture on this bill. There is no reason to file cloture. If people have amendments, they want to improve the legislation, let them offer the amendments. But if we do not have a lot of activity on this legislation, I will file cloture today for a Friday cloture vote. If we are unable to complete action on the bill tomorrow, Senators should be prepared to vote on Friday, even though it was previously announced that there would be no votes on that day. So everyone should be alerted that we may have votes on Friday.

There is no reason in the world that this simple piece of legislation cannot be completed. I am surprised we have to go into this tomorrow, quite frankly. We should finish it today--that would also be good--and we could do our work that we have scheduled for the weekend, and we could move this bill so we can start on that on Friday, because, as I said yesterday, we have to complete action on the omnibus spending bill by next Friday, the reason being that the continuing resolution runs out at that time.

Senator Cochran and Senator Inouye have worked hard to get the bill to this point. It has been available for everyone for days now. It is on our Web site. Everyone can read every word of it. All of the so- called earmarks, the congressionally directed spending are there. We can look at them, know who asked for them.

The earmarks are down by 50 percent from what they were. The amount of dollars in earmarks, congressionally directed spending, is way down from 4 percent to 1 percent. So let's move forward on the legislation we are dealing with here today and get this done as quickly as possible.

Because this is a 6-week work period, we have a lot of work to do. Some of us were out late last night at President Obama's speech.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

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

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the mandatory quorum call be waived.

Mr. President, I would like to announce to everyone where we are in regard to this bill. We have been working through the amendments. Senator Lieberman has done a terrific job. I understand there will be a few more that may be offered. We expect to have votes throughout Thursday on pending amendments, and those that are offered on Thursday we are going to try to dispose of those tomorrow.

I filed cloture today, but I hope it isn't necessary to have this cloture vote. However, if necessary, we will look forward to seeing if we can get a consent agreement to have the vote tomorrow; otherwise, we are going to wind up coming in Friday morning. I hope that is not necessary. This is a piece of legislation that has been talked about for a long time. We have had it on the Senate floor before. I think everyone has had the ability to offer whatever they believe is appropriate.

I really express my appreciation for the cooperation of all Members, both Democrats and Republicans, but especially Senator Kyl, who did some very good work with Senator Lieberman this afternoon.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that we now proceed to a period of morning business with Senators permitted to speak for up to 10 minutes each.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Rules Committee be discharged from further consideration of S. Res. 53 and the Senate proceed to its immediate consideration.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the resolution be agreed to, the preamble be agreed to, the motions to reconsider be laid on the table en bloc, and that any statements be printed in the Record.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to consideration of S. Con. Res. 8.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the concurrent resolution be agreed to, the preamble be agreed to, the motions to reconsider be laid on the table, with no intervening action or debate, and any statement be printed in the Record.