[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 36 (Friday, March 25, 1994)]
[House]
[Page H]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[Congressional Record: March 25, 1994]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]

 
                     THE PROCEEDINGS OF THE EVENING

  Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, I know many Senators are being 
inconvenienced tonight by having to come back to vote on invoking 
cloture on the conference report to H.R. 1804. However, I want Senators 
to know that Senator Helms--starting about 3 p.m. today--offered to 
forgo the need for the cloture vote tonight and allow a vote on final 
passage of this conference report if those on the other side would 
agree to a unanimous consent agreement to postpone the stalemate on the 
issue of school prayer a month or so from now until the Senate takes up 
H.R. 6, the Elementary and Secondary Education Reauthorization Act, or 
its Senate companion, S. 1513.
  Senator Helms proposed to limit amendments to H.R. 6 on the issue of 
school prayer to a single unamenable first degree amendment for each 
side. Senator Helms would be limited to offering the language of the 
Helms-Lott school prayer amendment and his opponents would be limited 
to offering either the language from the Danforth or Levin amendments 
adopted by the Senate on Feb. 8, or the Williams school prayer language 
that was substituted for the Helms-Lott language in this conference 
report. The Helms-Lott amendment would have been voted on first.
  The other side refused to accept this UC proposal--and the 
opportunity to avoid Senators having to come back for this vote--
because they wanted to be able to come up with new language on the 
issue of school prayer that no one has seen yet, and because they did 
not want the Helms-Lott language to be voted on first.
  Had the other side been willing to accept the UC offered by Senator 
Helms earlier today, the school prayer debate would have been frozen 
exactly where it is on this bill and transferred to the debate on H.R. 
6, and this conference report could have been passed so that Senators 
would not have had to come back at all tonight to vote on cloture. They 
could have stayed home.
  I do not understand why the other side would not agree to postpone 
the school prayer debate in this way until the Senate takes up H.R. 6. 
So I just wanted to note that it is in my opinion the other side that 
ultimately forced this debate in its unwillingness to accept the 
unanimous consent that was offered by Senator Helms this evening.
  Let me also ask unanimous consent that the text of the unanimous-
consent, as it was presented, become a part of the Record.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

       I ask unanimous consent that when the Senate considers the 
     Elementary and Secondary Education Bill, S. 1513, or its 
     House companion, H.R. 6, that the only amendments or motions 
     dealing with the subject of prayer in schools be a first 
     degree amendment to be offered by Senator Helms, which is the 
     exact language as adopted on H.R. 1804, in the Senate on 
     February 3, and one first-degree amendment consisting of the 
     exact language of the Levin amendment adopted by the Senate 
     February 8, or the exact language of the Danforth amendment 
     adopted by the Senate on February 8, or the exact language of 
     the Williams amendment offered on the House floor during 
     consideration of H.R. 6, to be offered by Senator Kennedy, 
     that no amendments be in order to either amendment and that 
     no tabling motions be in order with respect to either 
     amendment and that a rollcall vote occur first on the Helms 
     amendment.

  I yield the remainder of my time.

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