[Congressional Record Volume 143, Number 1 (Tuesday, January 7, 1997)]
[Senate]
[Pages S17-S19]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                          LEGISLATIVE SCHEDULE

  Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, it is customary on this opening day of 
Congress to lay out the highlights of the legislative schedule ahead of 
us and discuss whatever procedural problems or changes might be in the 
offing.
  First of all, I am not going to give today a finite list, or a list 
that we will have on the agenda that we will try to complete before the 
Easter recess, but I will do that on the 21st. I do want to mention 
some of the bills that I think have a high priority that we will be 
taking up early on in this session.
  It is no great secret that I would like to make the schedule of the 
Senate more predictable. I think that will help us all do a better job. 
One of the things that I could not understand when I first came to the 
Senate was the inability to make any kind of plans as to when we would 
begin; when would we end; could I get home for supper with my family; 
would I be able to go back to my State and be with my constituents. The 
uncertainty is killing in many respects, and so I am going to work very 
hard as majority leader this year to try to give some greater degree of 
predictability. I will not always be able to do it, but I will work 
with the minority leader as he leads the Democrats to try to make that 
information available as to when we will come in. We will try not to go 
late every night.
  We will try not to go late every night. In fact, my hope is we will 
finish up at a very reasonable hour, hopefully 6 o'clock every week, 
Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday. We may have to go late to some extent on 
Thursday. We will need to be in on some Fridays and some Mondays, but I 
will try my best, again cooperating with the Members of the other side 
of the aisle and their leadership, to make that information known to 
the Members as early as possible so they can make some plans as to when 
they can be with their families or be with their constituents.
  As a first step in that effort, last month I provided the Democratic 
leader and to all the Members on the Republican side of the aisle and 
to the Democratic Members, a calendar outlining the recess periods for 
the first session of the 105th Congress. I strongly intend to follow 
that calendar. But, obviously, any Senator who tries to delay our 
session or cause us problems can mess up those good intentions. But, 
barring emergencies, there is no reason why the Senate should not be 
able to function with a high degree of predictability about the 
timetable. That will require cooperation from our colleagues all 
throughout the year, as we get ready to have the President's Day recess 
period, or as we go to the Easter period, or even later on in the year.
  With that in mind, I want to mention, in a general way, several 
matters I hope the Senate will be able to consider prior to the 
scheduled Easter recess. It is not inclusive, and it may not be that we 
will be able to get to these issues. It will depend on conversations on 
both sides of the aisle, communication with the leadership on both 
sides, meetings with the chairmen, and it will also depend on the 
ability of committees to act. I will be more specific later on this 
month, as I indicated.
  By early February, the President should have submitted to us a 
detailed budget for fiscal year 1998. How that will take shape--and 
what degree of cooperation might be involved there--remains to be seen. 
But, one way or the other, the Senate will have to consider a budget 
for the year ahead. I hope that we will come to an agreement on 
balanced budget over a period of years. It will take a lot of effort, 
but a lot of progress, I believe, was made last year and the gap 
between the Congress and the President was closed perceptibly over 
those past months there, the last months of 1995 and early 1996. We 
ought to pick up where that ended and see if we cannot come to an 
agreement that would lead us to a balanced budget over a period of 
years. Needless to say, that budget is going to be one that will be 
negotiated between the parties in the House and the Senate, and with 
the President.
  Toward the same goal the Senate should, I believe, in due course, 
consider, again, a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution. I 
know there are those who do not agree with that here in the Senate and 
they will certainly have ample opportunity to be heard and make their 
case. But I have noticed that good intentions do not accomplish the 
job. Even a plan to get us to a balanced budget does not always get us 
there, and we have not had a balanced budget now in some, I guess, 28 
years or so; 1969 was the last balanced budget. So it looks like it 
will have been 30 years that we will have gone as a Federal Government 
without a balanced budget. I think the plan is not enough. I think that 
the constitutional amendment will add a great deal of weight to that 
desire and, in fact, require us to have a balanced budget.
  The Senate will, also in due course, consider the numerous 
nominations in the executive branch as the President restructures his 
administration for a second term. It is my intention to deal with those 
nominations expeditiously and fairly. I think the President is entitled 
to make his selections for Cabinet Secretaries and other administration 
positions and expect them to be considered early and in a fair manner 
by the Senate. We will do that. As I indicated earlier, we will begin 
hearings, either this week or certainly next week, and we hope to begin 
to have votes on those the week of January the 20th and 21st, right 
after the inauguration. Some of them may have some difficulty, may take 
more time, but, we are going to move forward as rapidly as we can.
  On both sides of the aisle there is considerable interest in taking 
up some of the reauthorizations that come due this year. These should 
not be diminished. They are very important. Certainly one of those is 
the ISTEA or Inter-service Transportation Efficiency Act; that is the 
highway bill. This legislation is as complicated as it is important. It 
will not be partisan. It will not be regional. It will not even be 
philosophical. It will vary from State to State. Sometimes you have 
States right next to each other that have different views on how those 
funds should be distributed between highways or mass transit, and what 
the formula would be for distribution between the States. I think a lot 
of work needs to be done, but it is very important. Transportation and 
infrastructure in America is essential to our economic growth and 
development, and the free movement of Americans all over this country. 
I hope we can get this done, out of committee and on the floor of the 
Senate and completed by the Easter recess. It will take an 
extraordinary degree of cooperation and consensus, but the only way you 
get that done is to get started.

  Also, in the same area of transportation, there are a number of other 
proposals we need to consider such as the problems that we are finding 
with airbags in passenger vehicles. Parents throughout America now are 
concerned about the safety of their children in their cars. How do we 
go as long as we have without realizing the danger that they impose? 
Now it seems like every week we hear of another incident where some 
child was injured as a result of the airbag. There are, I presume, some 
solutions. But we need to think about that and work on it.
  We should also address the crisis in American education. I am a 
product of what I think was a good public education system in America. 
My mother was a schoolteacher for 11 years. I worked for the University 
of Mississippi for 3 years, in their placement

[[Page S18]]

and financial aid office and in the alumni office. I worked with the 
student loan programs. I worked with the work-study program. I know the 
importance of financial aid. I know the importance of good, quality 
education.
  But over the years, since the 1960's, as we spent more and more 
money, it seems that the quality of education has continued to go down. 
You have children in high school who cannot read. You have children who 
do not have discipline. You have children assaulting teachers. You have 
drugs in junior high school. I am sure it is even in elementary school. 
These are major concerns. We may not have the answers in Washington. I 
think probably the answers really are at the local level. But we need 
to think about this problem and work with State officials and local 
officials, administrators, teachers, parents, and children to see if we 
cannot find some ways to improve education, the accessibility of 
education in America, the safety of education in America. We cannot 
tolerate violence and drugs in our public schools, so we need to focus 
on this issue and we need to do it soon.
  The Senate should affirm as a matter of principle that no child has 
to attend a school where he or she is in danger of assault or is 
exposed to narcotics. I therefore hope that we will bring legislation 
to the Senate soon that gives youngsters and their families the same 
choice in education that more affluent families enjoy in America.
  The Senate should also consider ways to give families the flexibility 
they need to balance their responsibilities at home and on the job. 
Employers and employees should be able to arrange comp time, flex time, 
and family-wage provisions without interference from Government. The 
President has indicated that he supports the flextime and the comp 
time, at least the flextime, and I think we ought to find out exactly 
what we can do in terms that have flexibility for parents on the job, 
but work with the employers and employees together to find these 
solutions.
  By the same token, employees should have the flexibility to work in 
concert with management for their mutual benefit. They should not be 
locked into an approach to labor relations that presumes conflict and 
discourages cooperation. So I hope we will be able to bring the TEAM 
Act to a vote in the near future.
  Other legislative items that we might be able to work on during the 
next 2 months should include reauthorization of IDEA, the Individuals 
with Disabilities Education Act. This legislation is a very difficult 
balancing of conflicting interests. To his great credit, Senator Frist 
came close to working it out last fall, but, frankly, the clock kind of 
just ran out and we could not complete the job. This time I am 
confident that we will bring in more consideration of various views and 
complete this very important legislation.
  In the area of criminal justice, the Senate should allow the death 
penalty for drug kingpins. There continue to be tremendous problems in 
this area and this is one place where we can provide some additional 
penalties that will hopefully allow us to deal with the drugs that are 
pushed upon our children.
  For small businesses, we should permit the electronic filing of forms 
with SBA and other Government agencies. This is the 20th century. It is 
almost the next millennium. Let us get with modern technology. It saves 
money, it saves time, and it probably saves jobs, if we will move to 
this opportunity for small businesses.
  For adoptive families, we should make it easier and more secure for 
adoption to occur. Senator DeWine and others have been working along 
those lines.
  Finally, to fulfill a provision of the omnibus appropriations bill of 
last September, the Senate will vote sometime during the month of 
February on a Presidential recommendation concerning the AID's 
population program. This vote is locked in and required by law.
  This is not--again I repeat--not an exclusive list. By the time the 
Senate settles down to legislative business on January 21st, it is 
likely to be revised after I have had the benefit of the views of 
Members on both sides of the aisle and the committee chairmen and 
committee leaders on both sides.
  We might add other items or delete some I mentioned as being just too 
time consuming as we try to deal, certainly, with the budget agreement 
and other issues that are going to be required by law or by their 
urgency, in terms of possible treaties, as well as confirmations.
  Both the Democratic leader and I are hopeful this can begin a pattern 
of advance notification of recesses and floor agenda. But we have to 
stress that its successful implementation will require all Members to 
act in a cooperative and courteous manner with respect to the needs of 
all other Members.
  Let me mention one case in point. Members should be aware there is a 
15-minute limitation with respect to rollcall votes. Past practice has 
allowed for an additional 5 minutes, so-called overtime, for Members 
who are running late. However, the 5-minute overtime soon turns into 7 
minutes, 8 minutes, 9 minutes, or even more. The entire Senate 
repeatedly has been inconvenienced in that way.
  We try to be reasonable: Senators don't hear the bells; sometimes 
they get caught on the subway; sometimes the elevators are not 
operating; sometimes for very good and valid reasons they are out in 
the city or across State lines and they are trying very hard to get 
back here, and we have had to use some judgment.
  But, as we try to allow that latitude, it continues to grow and 
expand, and the time to take a vote can easily run up to 30 minutes, 
and that inconveniences all the other Senators who are here ready to do 
business and go on to the next amendment or perhaps the next vote.
  So we are going to try very hard to stick with the 15-minute vote 
with a 5-minute overtime. Once again, the leaders will have to be 
willing sometimes to say, ``We have to cut this vote off.'' I have had 
to do that when it has involved Senators on this side of the aisle, as 
well as the other side. I think maybe if we make it clear we mean 
business a couple of times, Senators will be more inclined to come over 
and vote when the time begins and within the allotted time. But, again, 
we will use discretion wherever it is really necessary.
  I hope we can continue to provide all Senators advance information 
about scheduling, especially such matters as evening sessions and 
Mondays and Fridays. If we all are able to plan in advance, our work 
will be better, I believe, because we will have certainty and will not 
be as exhausted as we sometimes get when we go late into the night. Our 
constituents will be better served, and our families will be much 
happier as a result of it.
  I look forward to the challenges we have before us in the Senate. I 
had some people say when I was home in Mississippi, ``You must get 
tired thinking of getting back and getting to work.''
  I said, ``Absolutely not.'' This is what it is all about. This is a 
great opportunity to try to make a contribution for the people you 
love, your family, your community, your State, and your country. If we 
approach it that way, if we decide we are going to work together, hard 
going as it may be sometimes, to do what is right for our country, 
there will be no limit to what we can accomplish.
  Mr. BYRD. Mr. President, will the Senator yield?
  Mr. LOTT. I will be glad to yield to the Senator from West Virginia.
  Mr. BYRD. Mr. President, I congratulate the distinguished majority 
leader on the speech that he has made outlining what he hopes to 
achieve in a general way, without going into specifics, in the months 
and weeks and days ahead.
  May I say, as one who has been majority leader, who has been minority 
leader, who has been President pro tempore, who has been a chairman of 
a committee, who has been a Senator like all 100 Senators, that I am 
particularly encouraged by these two leaders that we now have in the 
Senate.
  I think that with respect to the minority leader, no one could be 
more considerate of his colleagues, more thoughtful, more eager to 
reach out and to bring them in to hear what they have to say, to work 
with them. No one is more eager to work with the majority leader than 
our current minority leader.
  And may I say with respect to our current majority leader, I think we

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have a leader who is interested in the Senate, who is interested in 
putting the Senate where it ought to be--first--and who is interested 
in improving the decorum in the Senate so that the people who view this 
Senate, through that all-seeing electronic eye, will see a truly 
premier upper House.
  We have students, we have professors, we have young people in high 
school, we have lawyers, State legislators, and people in all walks of 
life watching the Senate daily when it is in session, and they expect 
to see the best.
  I have been a member of the State legislature in West Virginia, in 
both houses, but even in the State legislatures--and they are closest 
to the people--even there they will look to the U.S. Senate and to the 
other body across the way for inspiration.
  It saddens me to see a Presiding Officer in this Senate reading 
magazines or a newspaper or books when he is supposed to be presiding. 
Millions of people are watching, as well as visitors in the galleries, 
and I wonder if they go away thinking the Presiding Officer doesn't 
have much interest in the body if he is not listening to what is being 
said. He should be aware and alert to what is going on and ready to 
protect the rights of every Senator while debate is under way.
  I think we have a majority leader now and a minority leader who are 
going to bring these things to the attention of the Members. We, all 
100 of us, owe these leaders our very best support when they are trying 
to do the right thing: Trying to make the Senate what the framers 
intended it to be.
  I really am encouraged, because I think that Senator Lott is a man in 
that mold. He is bright, he has an endearing personality, he has an art 
of persuasiveness that will win many battles. He is considerate, he is 
patient, and a leader has to have all of these attributes. I thank him 
for all of these things.
  Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, I renew my great appreciation for the 
Senator from West Virginia, and I appreciate very much his remarks. I 
hope we can live up to his comments and expectations; we are going to 
work very hard to do that. I yield the floor.
  Mr. DASCHLE addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The minority leader.
  Mr. DASCHLE. Mr. President, I, too, would like, again, to express my 
gratitude to the distinguished Senator from West Virginia for his kind 
remarks throughout the day, again most recently. I appreciate very much 
the manner with which he has expressed himself. It is an honor for me 
to be complimented in public by the distinguished Senator from West 
Virginia, and he has done so generously.

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