[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 202 (Sunday, December 17, 1995)]
[Senate]
[Page S18788]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                  UNANIMOUS-CONSENT REQUEST--H.R. 2127

  Mr. DOLE. Mr. President, let me indicate that I have met with the 
Speaker, and I think it is unlikely that there will be any continuing 
resolution. In fact, there will not be a continuing resolution coming 
from the House tonight, and I do not see any reason for the Senate to 
be in session. If there was any hope that there might be a continuing 
resolution coming over from the House side, we would have stayed here 
as long as we could.
  Then I understood that earlier the Senator from North Dakota, on 
behalf of the minority leader, Senator Daschle, was going to propound a 
unanimous-consent request which would in effect be a 5-day extension 
until December 22. It is an S.-numbered bill, which the House can 
refuse.
  But, in any event, it occurred to me that maybe a better way to 
approach that would be to add the continuing resolution to the Labor-
HHS bill which has been pending here since September 15. We have had 
two cloture votes so far. We have had a number of unanimous-consent 
requests rejected. We will have another cloture vote sometime on 
Tuesday. That is one appropriations bill that has not left the Senate, 
and it is because of objections on the other side of the aisle. It has 
been along party lines, and I would hope that we could resolve it. It 
involves I think about 150,000 Federal workers, and if we could do that 
tonight, I understand again from the Speaker that he will use every 
effort to take the bill that we send to him and pass it in the House 
and send it to the President for his signature tomorrow.
  So on that basis, I will propound a unanimous-consent request. I ask 
unanimous consent that the Senate turn to consideration of Calendar No. 
189, H.R. 2127, the Labor-HHS appropriations bill, that the committee 
amendments be considered and agreed to, en bloc, the bill be further 
amended with language to change section 106(c) of Public Law 10-456 to 
strike ``December 15th, 1995'' and insert ``December 22nd, 1995,'' that 
the bill be then immediately read a third time and passed.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
  Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I object.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Objection is heard.
  Mr. DORGAN addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The assistant minority leader is recognized.
  Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, the majority leader has just offered a 
unanimous-consent request that included a number of things, including 
consideration of an appropriations bill that he knows contains an 
extraneous item that is very controversial that has held up that 
legislation for some long while. It also includes a continuing 
resolution.
  We believe there ought to be a continuing resolution adopted by the 
Senate. There is no need for a shutdown of the Government. We would 
hope that the majority leader would accept the unanimous-consent 
request that I will propound in a moment that will provide a clean 
continuing resolution for 5 days, and in 30 minutes from now the 
Government shutdown will end.
  There is no reason for a Government shutdown. It does not make any 
sense. It, in effect, penalizes the American people for our failure to 
reach agreement on a budget issue here in the Congress, and it 
certainly makes no sense at all to penalize both the American taxpayer 
and also Federal workers.
  I was constrained to object to the unanimous-consent request by the 
majority leader because the request that he made included not only a 
continuing resolution but also an appropriations bill, one of the 
largest--the largest--appropriations bill that would come to the floor 
and that would be deemed to have been passed, which includes an issue--
striker replacement--which he knows is very, very controversial. It is 
an extraneous item to the appropriations bill that should not be there. 
If it was not there, we would have passed this appropriations bill. It 
would have gone to the White House, and presumably it would have been 
negotiated before and signed into law, and we would not have these 
issues in front of us with respect to both Labor and HHS.
  But we do have these issues dealing with the shutdown, and it does 
affect Labor-HHS and other appropriations. The way to solve that--not 
only for Labor and HHS, but for all other areas that are so affected--
would be for us to at this moment agree to a 5-day continuing 
resolution, clean, without any riders, without any extraneous 
provisions.
  So I will propound the unanimous-consent request on behalf of the 
minority leader, the Democratic leader, Senator Daschle.

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