[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 82 (Friday, June 24, 1994)]
[Senate]
[Page S]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[Congressional Record: June 24, 1994]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]

 
                           ORDER OF PROCEDURE

  Mr. MITCHELL. Mr. President, before proceeding, I want to state that 
it is my intention to proceed to consideration of the foreign 
operations appropriations bill on next Wednesday upon the disposition 
of the product liability fairness bill.
  I also wish to make clear that the provision in the unanimous-consent 
request just approved, relating to no other bills, amendments, or 
motions relating to the subject matter of S. 687 be in order for the 
remainder of this Congress, does not apply to the aviation liability 
legislation and related amendments thereto, which the Senate acted on 
earlier this year.
  Further, Mr. President, I wish to advise Senators that the Senate 
will be in session on Monday from 1 p.m. on to debate the product 
liability bill and to give Senators who wish to do so the opportunity 
to offer amendments to that bill on that day.
  There will be no rollcall votes on Monday, and any rollcall votes 
required on amendments offered on Monday will be stacked to occur 
beginning at 10 a.m. on Tuesday, June 28.
  The Senate will then have the entire day on Tuesday within which to 
receive, debate, and consider amendments which any Senator who wishes 
to do so may offer on that day.
  So there will be 2 full days for Senators who wish to do so to offer 
amendments to the product liability bill--Monday, all day, beginning at 
1 p.m. and extending for as long as Senators wish to offer amendments; 
and then Tuesday, beginning after any votes which occur at 10 a.m.
  Next, I wish to make clear that the procedure which has just been 
agreed to by the Senate for the handling of this bill was based upon a 
proposal I made in an attempt to accommodate the competing interests of 
the Senators on the two sides of the issue. I met separately with 
Senators in groups--those who support the bill; those who oppose it. 
And after hearing their request for how best to proceed, I made this 
proposal which accommodates both, but also requires both to accept 
something other than the procedure that they would have preferred. That 
is to say, it is a compromise, and I think it represents the best and 
most reasonable way to proceed under the circumstances.

  Finally, I wish to say that I earlier stated the Senate will complete 
action on certain measures before we leave for the Fourth of July 
recess at the end of next week. I wish to restate that now and to 
expand briefly on my remarks. Those measures include certain 
nominations, the product liability bill, the foreign operations 
appropriations bill, the energy appropriations bill, and the Defense 
Department authorization bill, which, of course, we have begun and been 
debating during this week, which will now be set aside for these other 
matters, and we will return to it later next week. I believe we can do 
this if Senators are present and voting on the days required. We are 
not going to be able to do it if Senators do not attend.
  Earlier today, I commented on the catch-22 situation in which the 
Senate found itself today. That is a situation where a certain number 
of Senators leave the Nation's Capital and then prevail upon some 
Senators who remain not to permit any votes to occur during the absence 
of those absent Senators. The result is that the Senate is unable to 
dispose of any of its pending business.
  The only alternative I have, since I cannot compel a Senator to be 
present in the Senate, and since I cannot compel a vote on a 
substantive matter under the Senate's rules, is to compel votes on 
procedural matters. Two such votes were held today.
  But I hereby give notice to all Senators that from now until the rest 
of the year, if we are in a comparable situation, there will be no 
limit to the number of procedural votes which will occur. So that if a 
Senator takes it upon himself or herself to leave the Nation's Capital 
while the Senate is in session, there may be 6, 8, 10, 12 procedural 
votes which that Senator will miss in that circumstance.
  As all Senators know, the number of procedural votes which have 
occurred since I have been majority leader have been very few--far 
fewer than at any previous time since I have been in the Senate. But we 
now have just a few months to go before this legislative session ends, 
and we have a very large amount of important business to act upon. 
Therefore, no alternative remains to me but to take whatever action is 
necessary to compel the presence of Senators so that we can act on that 
important business in the limited time available.
  Therefore, I want it clearly understood that if we get a situation 
again as we had today, there will be no limit on the number of 
procedural votes which occur, and a Senator who leaves under those 
circumstances henceforth runs the risk of missing as many as 10 or 12 
votes a day.
  Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, will the distinguished leader yield for 
just one comment?
  Mr. MITCHELL. Yes.
  Mr. STEVENS. I did note the listing of items that must be completed 
by next Thursday, if we are to have the recess as scheduled, and I am 
constrained to remark as I think my colleague did in the Chamber last 
night that we have reservations to go home for the Fourth of July, but 
we were told today that they are extremely limited. In other words, I 
do hope somehow or other we can get some certainty as to when we will 
be able to plan to leave Washington to go home for that holiday.
  I do understand what the leader is saying. I count 9 weeks, Mr. 
President, that we will be in Washington according to the current 
schedule, and that is a very difficult proposition. But my real reason 
for inquiring is, does the leader still intend that we would finish by 
Thursday evening?
  Mr. MITCHELL. Mr. President, under the previously announced schedule, 
the recess is scheduled to begin at the close of business on Friday.
  Mr. STEVENS. Close of business on Friday.
  Mr. MITCHELL. On Friday, July 1. Now, if we can somehow complete 
action on these items prior to that, then we will leave as soon as we 
complete action. I think it is possible, but, of course, it requires a 
degree of cooperation which has not existed.
  I wish to make clear here, Mr. President, what I have been describing 
is not a matter of partisanship. Presence or absence is unrelated to 
party affiliation. I am not suggesting that the problems we encountered 
today have anything to do with either party. It is a problem that 
exists across the entire Senate.
  We could have, for example, Mr. President--my colleague is here and I 
am--we could have disposed of important amendments today, but what 
happened, as the Senator knows, several Senators left and the Senators 
who were here, who had amendments to offer, would not offer them, or 
those who did would not permit a vote to occur on their amendments 
because they said, well, other Senators are not here. So the departures 
trigger a self-fulfilling prophecy of inaction.
  If that is permitted to continue, as it did today, then 9 weeks would 
not be enough to do any bills. So what I am saying is that in this busy 
time it takes some cooperation, and it means a very busy week next 
week. But I believe we can get it done, Mr. President. I am advised 
that on both of the appropriations bills, the managers hope and expect 
that they can be completed in a relatively short period of time. I know 
they are important, and they may have some controversial aspects to 
them, but most of them are things we have debated many times before. As 
the Senator knows, we tend to debate the same issues year after year 
after year. And with the defense authorization bill, I know the 
managers hope with two or three major amendments--frankly, I had hoped 
we would have disposed of one of them today, but we did not--once we do 
those, they can complete action hopefully rather swiftly on the bill.
  Mr. STEVENS. May I inquire, Mr. President, of the leader, is it the 
intent to go back to the defense authorization bill on Tuesday at any 
time?
  Mr. MITCHELL. No.
  Mr. STEVENS. It will not be until Wednesday now?
  Mr. MITCHELL. It may be even later. What we hope to do is to complete 
action on the product liability bill by not later than Wednesday 
morning, then go to the foreign ops appropriations bill, then the 
energy appropriations bill, and then return to and complete action on 
the defense authorization bill.
  Mr. STEVENS. That will be the last bill.
  Mr. MITCHELL. That will be the last bill, yes. And we will stay until 
we finish it. As I said, I talked with the managers today and talked 
with the managers of both the foreign operations appropriations bill 
and the energy appropriations bill, and they are working very hard now 
and will early next week to try to limit the number of amendments and 
the length of time devoted to both bills, and they were reasonably 
hopeful that they could do so.
  Mr. STEVENS. I thank the leader.

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