Congressional Record, Volume 142 Issue 117 (Friday, August 2, 1996)

[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 117 (Friday, August 2, 1996)]
[Senate]
[Pages S9498-S9499]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]

UNANIMOUS-CONSENT AGREEMENTS

Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that immediately
following the disposition of the safe drinking water conference
report--which we have just done--the Chair lay before the Senate the
health insurance reform conference report, and it be considered as
having been read, and it be in order for Senator Wellstone to make a
point of order that the conference exceeded the scope with respect to
section 281 of title II, subtitle H, and following the ruling of the
Chair, Senator Wellstone be recognized to appeal the ruling of the
Chair, and that appeal be limited to 10 minutes to be equally divided
in the usual form, and following the vote on the appeal, if overturned,
the point of order be null and void, and the Senate immediately deem
agreed to a Senate Concurrent Resolution now at the desk correcting the
enrollment of the conference report.

To put that in everyday language, there will be a point of order
made, and the Chair will rule after 10 minutes of debate equally
divided. Then action would be taken, and then that would go as a Senate
Concurrent Resolution over to the House for disposition. We believe we
have everything agreed to, both here and over there. And this is the
way to deal with this issue as it now stands.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection? Without objection, it is
so ordered.
Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, I further ask unanimous consent that
following the adoption of the correcting resolution, there be 85
minutes--85 minutes--for debate under the control of Senator Kennedy,
70 minutes under the control of Senator Kassebaum, with 30 minutes of
the Kassebaum time under the control of Senator Domenici, and following
the conclusion or yielding back of time, the conference report be laid
aside to be made the pending business at the direction of the majority
leader, after notification of the Democratic leader.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
Mr. DOMENICI. Reserving the right to object, and I shall not. Fellow
Senators, I have been heard to say I would do anything I could to kill
this bill because of what happened with reference to the mentally ill.
But I have conferred with our distinguished leader. And, frankly, I am
very proud of what he is doing around here. He is making the Senate
work, and we are getting some things done. And to be honest, the only
thing I could do is make you all stay around here tonight and tomorrow,
if a couple of us could stand on our feet all night. And I do not
choose to do that because I think, in the end, this bill is so good for
the American people, and that will be expressed by the votes of this
body.
But I would like those who have resisted a very modest amendment
which we agreed to, which was a compromise, to know--and I told our
leader this--that this issue is not going away. In fact, I will
introduce a freestanding bill today with many cosponsors. And it will
just be on the very simple proposition that we attempted to resolve
this on, not the full amendment that came about here on the floor.
I would like everyone to know, including our distinguished leader,
during the month of September there will be opportunities to vote
again. And I do not intend to let this issue go by. So all of you can
be looking at it because you are going to be voting again, except the
next vote is a very simple one, just so, so small in dimension that
hardly anybody can really object on the grounds of costs. So everybody
should know that. And with that, I agree to the unanimous consent
request.
I understand, I say to Senator Kassebaum, of your 70 minutes, in the
event you have a few of them left over, you would yield those to me,
also in the event those on my side need more than the 30 minutes. Is
that correct?
Mrs. KASSEBAUM. Yes.
Mr. DOMENICI. Thank you for what you are doing.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection to the request? Without
objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, I want to thank the distinguished Senator
from New Mexico, the chairman of the Budget Committee, for his
comments. And Senator Daschle, both he and Senator Wellstone, I thank
for their cooperation. We know how strongly you feel about it. The
Senator has been very fair. We appreciate it very much.
I further ask unanimous consent that the time on the conference
report to accompany the small business tax relief bill, H.R. 3448, be
limited to 60 minutes under the control of Senator Moynihan, 30 minutes
under the control of Senator Kennedy, and 60 minutes under the control
of Senator Roth, and the conference report be considered as having been
read, and following the conclusion or yielding back of the time, the
Senate proceed to vote on adoption of the conference report without
further action or debate.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. LOTT. I further ask unanimous consent that at 6 o'clock this
evening, if the House has adopted the correcting resolution with
respect to the House insurance reform conference report, and consent
can be granted to postpone the above-listed debate time, then the
Senate proceed to two back-to-back votes, the first on the adoption of
the health care conference report, to be followed by a vote on adoption
of the small business tax relief conference report, and any remaining
debate time not previously consumed be in order following the vote with
respect to the small business tax conference report.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. LOTT. I further ask if the Senate receives an identical
concurrent resolution correcting the enrollment, it be deemed agreed to
and the motion to reconsider be laid upon the table, all without
further action or debate.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. LOTT. Would the distinguished Democratic leader have any comment
at this time?
Mr. DASCHLE. I thank the distinguished majority leader. This
unanimous consent agreement is designed to try to accommodate all
Senators. There are a number of Senators, as the distinguished Senator
from New Mexico has indicated, who wish to be heard on both of these
conference reports, but there are a lot of other Senators who would
like to be able to plan their travel for early this evening.
What this could do is provide us the opportunity, if we can do it, to
have two stacked votes at 6 o'clock, one on the conference report on
the minimum wage-small business package, the other on the health bill.
I hope we can get cooperation on both sides to accommodate those two
votes no later than 6 o'clock. I believe we can, and I applaud the
majority

[[Page S9499]]

leader for his effort in getting us to this point.
Mr. LOTT. I thank Senator Daschle for his comments and his frankly
suggesting we could do the two votes at 6 o'clock, as well as his
cooperation.
I know a lot of Senators have a lot of other issues they are
interested in. We are still working some other issues and some, I
believe, for instance, the Emerson food donation bill, a food bank
bill, which I think we can get that cleared. We will be talking about
other issues, so I hope rather than ask about all these bills, maybe we
can go ahead and get started on the debate. I see Senator Nunn, and I
know he is very much interested in some nominations.

Mr. NUNN. If I could just take 2 seconds here, I am glad progress is
being made.
I join the chairman of the committee, Senator Thurmond, in his plea
that we pass the defense authorization bill. It will take a total of
about 20 minutes, based on what I know now.
Even more urgently, I urge that we clear the nominations, the
military nominations. We have posts all over the world that depend on
these nominations. It is extremely important that we do the nominations
this evening. Whatever else is still in dispute when we go home
tonight, I hope the nominations on the military side are cleared.
I can assure my colleagues that if Senator Thurmond and I are given
20 minutes, equally divided--we will probably cut that down, if
necessary--we can finish debate on the defense authorization bill and
conference report, which passed the House last night, have the stacked
votes at 6 o'clock, and have that vote right after that.
I hope we would be able to get agreement on both sides.
Mr. LOTT. I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection to the request of the
majority leader?
Mr. LEVIN. Reserving the right to object, would the majority leader
yield for a question?
Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, I thought all the unanimous-consents had
been agreed to.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The last consent was not agreed to. The
Senator from Michigan has reserved the right to object.
Mr. LOTT. I am happy to yield.
Mr. LEVIN. Earlier in the week, the majority leader indicated there
would be an effort made to offer up the nominations of the circuit
judges as well as the district court judges. Is that effort going to
continue?
Mr. LOTT. I will continue to work on those nominations. We have shown
an abundance of good faith. We have confirmed 17 judges. We are not
going to be able to get more of them cleared tonight, but we will
continue to work on these as we go on into the fall.
Mr. LEVIN. As the majority leader knows, one of the judges I am
familiar with, Eric Clay, has the support of both the Republican and
the Democratic Senators from Michigan, and he is from Michigan. Is
there any possibility now that would be offered this evening?
Mr. LOTT. We will continue to work with the Senator on that. Senator
Abraham has talked to me about that. We will continue to work on that.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection to the request? Without
objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, I join the distinguished chairman of the
committee, Mr. Thurmond, and Mr. Nunn in their petition to the
leadership of the Senate that we do address the authorization bill. I
spoke earlier on that, and that particular military measure, coupled
with the nominations pending before the Senate, are absolutely
essential pieces that have to be passed before we depart.
I yield the floor.
Mr. THURMOND. Mr. President, I wish to thank the able Senator from
Georgia, Senator Nunn, for his remarks on these defense matters, and
also Senator Warner of Virginia.

Defense, I say again, is nonpartisan; military matters and
nominations are nonpartisan. Why there is an objection here to the
taking up of nominations of the President of the United States for
military nominations is beyond me. Why there is objection here to the
taking up a defense bill agreed to on both sides, that we can finish in
20 minutes, an objection to taking it up is beyond me. After all,
defense is for the whole country. These military nominations are for
the whole country.
I hope that the leadership on the Democratic side that is objecting
to taking up these matters would relent and let us go ahead and pass
these matters. The House yesterday passed this defense conference
report in 1 hour. I think we can pass it in 20 minutes.
Again, I ask the leadership on the Democratic side to reconsider this
matter and take up these defense matters which are for the benefit of
the whole country.

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