[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 60 (Friday, May 3, 1996)]
[Senate]
[Page S4672]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                           ORDER OF PROCEDURE

  Mr. DOLE. Let me indicate, as I will do in the closing statement, 
there will be no votes today. There will be no votes on Monday. The 
first vote will occur at 2:15 p.m. on Tuesday, May 7.
  Let me also indicate, it is necessary to go through this procedure of 
filling up the tree so we can take action on this bill without having 
nongermane amendments offered to it. I would indicate we have made a 
proposal to the Democratic leadership with reference to minimum wage. I 
have asked Senator Lott to try to resolve that with Senator Daschle and 
others. We hope they can reach some agreement so we can start bringing 
up legislation and passing it. This bill should not take 5 minutes. It 
may take 2 or 3 days. But I hope that is not the case.
  I know there was some misinformation about the Senator from Arkansas, 
Senator Pryor, holding up the bill. That is not accurate. He did raise 
some questions last night about how we might treat other people who had 
the same problem, where they have incurred big legal expenses through 
no fault of their own because they have been called to testify or 
because of something being investigated. I suggested, rather than try 
to cure that on this bill, that we ask the chairman of the Judiciary 
Committee if he would consider general legislation, if he would take a 
look at it--it might be Whitewater, it might be Iran-Contra--because I 
can tell you, a lot of people in this country have incurred huge legal 
bills when they were called before committees and their reputation was 
at stake and when they were really not even under investigation or 
targets of investigation. That has been true through the years.
  So, if we want to change general policy, I suggest we do it through 
the process of hearings in the appropriate committee. I hope that will 
be satisfactory and that we can pass this bill quickly on Tuesday and 
move on to a couple of other bills--Amtrak authorization, which we 
believe is very important, and the firefighters discrimination bill, S. 
849--and, hopefully, then, on Wednesday, go to the constitutional 
amendment for a balanced budget.

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