[Congressional Record Volume 143, Number 144 (Thursday, October 23, 1997)]
[Senate]
[Pages S11015-S11018]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                          THE SENATE SCHEDULE

  Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, for the information of all Senators, under 
the provisions of rule XXII, the second cloture vote will occur 
immediately, unless changed by unanimous consent. We had the first 
cloture vote, which was not agreed to. Then we had the vote on the 
continuing resolution. I am glad we got that done now.
  My intent had been to have the second cloture vote later on in the 
day to give Members time to assess where we were on the ISTEA, and see 
if they would like to have an ISTEA bill and see if there is a way to 
sort of get things that are wrapped around the axle moved in such a way 
that we could go forward with this very important transportation 
infrastructure bill. But I understand our Democratic colleagues will 
not grant consent for the cloture vote to occur at 3 o'clock today. 
They want the cloture vote right now. I don't think that is wise. I 
think we need 3 hours here to sort of assess where we are, have some 
discussions, and then have a vote.
  So, with that in mind, I will shortly move to recess the Senate, 
then, until 3 o'clock today. Therefore, Senators can expect the next 
vote to occur at 3 p.m., on the second cloture motion with regard to 
the ISTEA highway infrastructure extension bill, and hopefully we will 
have some greater success there.
  If we don't get cloture--- and I had hoped we would on the second 
cloture vote--we have a cloture motion filed and we will have another 
cloture vote on Friday. I know some Senators have things they need to 
do. I know there will be some Senators absent and therefore it would be 
even more difficult to get the cloture vote to pass on Friday.
  If we don't get cloture then, as majority leader I have to make a 
call, after consultation with Members on both sides of this very 
important ISTEA transportation bill, as to whether we just pull it down 
and then next week try to move to other issues. We may have to have 
debate and votes on the Federal Reserve nominees. We have two Federal 
Reserve nominees that there is a hold on. It would be my intent to call 
those up because I don't think we ought to delay Federal Reserve 
nominees for any of our maneuverings around here. That could possibly 
be done on Monday.
  We also have a judge on the calendar that we have cleared, except a 
vote is going to be required. So we probably would have that vote on 
Monday at 5 o'clock. And again, I am not locking all these in. I am 
just trying to advise Members where we are.
  Then we could very well move to a variety of bills that are pending--
they are very serious--that we would like to get done before we adjourn 
for the end of the year. That would include, of course, Amtrak reform, 
which we need very badly. A lot of good work has been done on it. We 
have, of course, a threatened Amtrak strike that we may have to act on. 
We have the juvenile justice bill. We have the adoption and foster care 
bill. I thought we had bipartisan agreement on that, but there seem to 
be some problems with it. But we will begin to look at bringing up 
other bills. Also, then, next week we hope to begin the fast-track 
legislation, with the intent of completing action one way or the other 
on fast track early the first week in November.
  So that is kind of where it is. I think my inclination now is, if we 
don't get cloture this afternoon and we don't get cloture tomorrow, 
then we would have to just say, well, campaign finance reform took down 
the very important ISTEA infrastructure bill. That is kind of where we 
are, and I am prepared now to move that the Senate stand in recess 
until 3 p.m. today.
  Mr. DORGAN. Will the Senator yield for a question?
  Mr. LOTT. I will yield to the Senator for a question.
  Mr. DORGAN. The Senator mentioned fast track. I would not expect us 
to have fast consideration of fast track. I would expect that piece of 
legislation would take some significant time. But that wasn't the 
reason I asked the Senator to yield.
  There clearly is a wrench in the crankcase here and we are not 
moving. I suspect the Senator from Mississippi, the majority leader, 
feels the wrench is he's not able to get cloture on the highway bill 
and others feel that the wrench is that we are not able to get a vote 
on the McCain-Feingold legislation. I wonder whether we wouldn't, in 
the coming days, be able to accomplish both purposes. Are there 
circumstances under which we might be able to expect that we can 
proceed on the highway bill and proceed to find a way to have a vote in 
some fashion on the McCain-Feingold campaign finance reform bill?
  Mr. LOTT. We have already had votes on the McCain-Feingold issue. It 
may not have been the way that some Senators would have liked to have 
had it, but we have had votes on it. There is not a consensus on what 
to do on campaign finance reform at this time that could get the 
approval of the Senate, which requires 60 votes. I mean, that is what 
the Senator from North Dakota has indicated he is going to force on the 
fast track. He's probably going to have a filibuster and we'll have to 
get 60 votes on cloture to move on fast track. He may be successful in 
blocking fast track, which the President is very anxious to get and, in 
a meeting earlier this week, requested that I schedule it before we go 
out, and I want to do that. But he understands full well what the rules 
of the Senate are, and he's going to take full advantage of them, and 
that's his right.

  So, the same is applicable here. There is no consensus yet on how we 
can come together on campaign finance reform. This issue will come up 
again. I don't think it makes good sense for it to come up again this 
year. It will come up again in the future. I assume it will come up in 
a very different form in the future. Maybe not.

[[Page S11016]]

 Maybe in many different forms. I realize Senators are going to try to 
have it considered again at a later time and, as the majority leader, 
the floor leader of the Senate, it would be my intent to try to 
schedule it in some orderly way, where Senators will know when it is 
coming. I have already indicated, and Senator Daschle has indicated, 
that we would like to see some action take place on it by the first 
week in March, either during that week or earlier perhaps. But we would 
need to look at the calendar for the year and look at the President's 
Day recess and work around that.
  I don't see right now an agreement on how that would come up, because 
I just think the atmosphere, again, is not such that we can get an 
agreement worked out. Some people said, ``Oh, well, let's just have it 
freewheeling and let everybody offer whatever amendment they want to 
and see what happens.'' I'm not sure that's going to do us any good or 
the country any good, where we have a bunch of amendments where we try 
to pin each other's ears back and at the end of the day we have a 
filibuster and get nothing and we start off the year in a cranky mood 
and had a great roar and accomplish nothing.
  I am prepared to continue to work with Senators on both sides of the 
aisle on both sides of the issue and look to how that is going to be 
handled next year. I am prepared to say now that I realize it is going 
to come up and I will schedule it. But I have not been able to get an 
agreement as to how that would be done, and I don't think we are going 
to get that done at this time.
  Mr. DORGAN. Will the Senator from Mississippi yield?
  Mr. LOTT. I will yield further.
  Mr. DORGAN. One additional comment. I understand the points the 
Senator from Mississippi makes. He indicates he would bring it to the 
floor, that is campaign finance reform. He did that. But when the 
Senator from Mississippi announces, ``I don't understand how it would 
come up,'' it would come up in the regular order, offered as an 
amendment. The dilemma we have at the moment is the regular order is 
not allowed because we have a procedure on the highway reauthorization 
bill to fill the tree, which prevents a second-degree amendment at some 
point to get back into consideration of it.
  I understand and accept all the points the Senator from Mississippi 
made about cloture and all those issues. I would just say this, that I 
think you only have to pick up the paper every single day to see the 
problems that exist all around in campaign finance reform. I think the 
Senator from Wisconsin and the Senator from Arizona have crafted an 
approach that we at least ought to be able to express ourselves on in 
some detail.
  Bringing the campaign finance reform bill to the floor did not 
include the opportunity to actually get to those votes. We hope very 
much to have that kind of opportunity one way or the other in the 
future. That was the reason I inquired of the Senator from Mississippi 
to see whether we might not get to that point at some early point in 
the consideration of the Senate in the final days.
  Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, again I want to emphasize that on this 
campaign finance issue, the idea of adding more laws on the books on 
top of the laws that are already there that are already impossible to 
comply with in many respects, and certainly not without lawyers and 
accountants and advisers to make sure that you are complying with the 
already convoluted, difficult campaign law requirements, we had three 
cloture votes recently on the campaign finance bill and we had two 
other cloture votes on the paycheck equity. We have had five votes. 
Cloture was not achieved, and cloture is very important. Just like what 
are we trying to do on ISTEA? Get cloture. What am I going to have to 
do on fast track? I am going to have to try to get cloture to cut off 
an extended debate so we can get to the substance of the issue and 
bring it to a head. We have had five votes. It's not as if we have not 
voted on this. Consensus is not there.
  As far as picking up the paper and seeing the problems, yes, you can 
pick up the paper and see how the existing laws are being violated or 
maneuvered. Without saying who did it, which side, the fact of the 
matter is, what we need to do is to see if we can find ways to 
encourage people and get people to comply with existing laws before we 
start trying to add a whole bunch more on top of it that would limit 
free speech, that would limit people's abilities to have a fair shot at 
getting elected. That is what is at stake here. That is what I would 
like to be able to do, is maintain the ability to get my message 
across.
  In my State, if I cannot raise the money to get my message across, 
there are those who are going to try to get it across for me, some of 
those same newspapers you are talking about. Yes, if I had to depend on 
them, I wouldn't be here. So what you are talking about is trying to 
find a way where a guy like Trent Lott can't get an opportunity to get 
his message across to the constituents. I don't want to give that up. I 
think I have a right to be able to raise the funds to try to make my 
case to the constituents of my State. I don't think--we cannot limit 
advocacy. We can't do that. This is still America.
  But, again, to put it back in the calmer voice, we know it's going to 
come back up. Maybe someday we will quit trying to trump each other and 
try to see if there is some way maybe there might be some things that 
need to be done that we can agree on. I don't think we are there yet.
  I would be glad to yield to Senator McCain.
  Mr. McCAIN. I have just one comment. I understand the position the 
majority leader is in and the majority on this side of the aisle. I 
think we would all agree that the way we are going to move forward on 
this issue is if we all sit down together and try to work out something 
that is agreeable and fair, not only in our minds but in the minds of 
objective observers. I would, again, urge--the Senator from Kentucky is 
here on the floor--if we could just agree that we will take up this 
legislation sometime next year, with a certain amount of amendments and 
a cloture vote, leaving on both sides the right to filibuster if it is 
not agreeable to either side. But to not allow a single amendment that 
addresses this issue is what is frustrating, I think, clearly to the 
Senator from Wisconsin and me.
  So, I urge all of my colleagues on both sides of this issue, if we 
could just sit down and say, ``OK, we will take up this issue at a date 
certain and we will give it a certain amount of consideration.'' It 
doesn't have to be unlimited amendments. It doesn't have to be even a 
large number of amendments. But, then, if at the end of that debate and 
voting and having Senators on record on the issue, we could then either 
filibuster or, which I think is the most likely result, is we could 
agree on a campaign finance reform that would be agreeable to all 
sides, we could move forward to the benefit of the American people. I 
want to thank the Senator, the distinguished majority leader. I thank 
the Democrat leader. I think that good effort has been made.
  But all of us need to sit down and agree on this so we can address 
this issue, and the reality is, as the distinguished majority leader 
knows, we are going to address it sooner or later. I hate to see it 
hold up ISTEA. I don't like to see it hold up fast track. Clearly, it 
is in all of our interests not to have to impede the progress of the 
Senate.
  I thank the majority leader for yielding to me, and I thank him for 
his continued courtesy to me on this issue which, obviously, he just 
displayed he feels very, very strongly about.
  (Mr. GREGG assumed the chair.)
  Mr. LOTT. I yield to Senator McConnell.
  Mr. McCONNELL. Let me say, I agree with Senator McCain. I think the 
issue at this point is really whether we are going to finish the 
highway bill and some other important legislation pending in the 
Senate. We had 7 to 9 days of debate on campaign finance reform. The 
majority leader is absolutely correct, there is no way he can or any of 
us can prevent further debate on this issue. As a matter of fact, we 
have been debating it for 10 years. It comes back almost every year.
  I don't object to that. As someone who has not been in sympathy with 
McCain-Feingold, I certainly don't object to the debate. I enjoy it. We 
had 27 speakers on my side of the issue when we debated it a few weeks 
ago, and I don't mind debating it again.

[[Page S11017]]

  Mr. McCAIN. Will the Senator yield for a question?
  Mr. McCONNELL. Yes.
  Mr. McCAIN. Will he allow votes on amendments? That is the key to 
this. It is fun to debate. I enjoyed it, but at sometime or another, 
the Senate has to be on record on this issue.
  So I respectfully request that he agree to some kind of format that 
we could agree on where there are votes, and if the Senator still does 
not agree, then he can filibuster or the majority on either side can 
filibuster depending on the result. That is the question I ask.
  Mr. McCONNELL. I say to my friend from Arizona, I am open to 
discussion about having lots of amendments on both sides and lots of 
debates, lots of votes. But it seems to me the issue here, 3 weeks 
before we get out, is whether we are going to finish other important 
legislation the majority leader would like to advance and I am sure the 
minority leader would, too.
  We will have that debate next year. I am more than happy to discuss 
the context of the debate, the timing of the debate. I am confident 
that an issue this controversial will always be determined in a 60-vote 
context, as much as the Senator from North Dakota will assure that is 
what will happen on fast track. I am open to that discussion.
  What I would like to see us to do is go on and pass some of the much-
needed legislation the majority leader would like to push forward in 
the remaining weeks of the session.
  Mr. KERRY. Will the majority leader yield?
  Mr. LOTT. Yes, and after that, it will be my intention to yield the 
floor so Senator Daschle can make some comments and then after that, I 
will move the Senate stand in recess until 3 o'clock. I would like for 
Senator Daschle to have some time first.
  Mr. KERRY. I say to the majority leader, obviously the leader takes 
precedence.
  Mr. LOTT. Did you want to ask a question? I can yield the floor so he 
can have some time.
  Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, it was my intention, before the leader came 
to the floor, and also in response to the Senator from Kentucky, to 
point out that the issue is not really simply whether or not we can 
finish the so-called important business of the Senate if that business 
is limited to the definition of the Senator from Kentucky, which is 
ISTEA and a few other matters.
  Mr. LOTT. If you will yield, it is ISTEA, it is fast track, it is 
Amtrak, it is juvenile justice, it is foster care and adoption, even 
maybe the Endangered Species Act--I have not had a chance to meet with 
the interested parties there--product liability. We have a lot of stuff 
we can do here in the next 2 weeks if we can get a process to achieve 
that.
  Mr. KERRY. And I think every Senator on this side agrees with that, 
but the question is larger than just that. The question is whether the 
entire caucus on the Democratic side and a portion of the Republican 
caucus is going to be permitted to know with certainty that an issue of 
equal and, in many people's judgment, greater importance, campaign 
finance reform, is going to receive its proper hearing on the floor of 
the Senate.
  I think what the Senator from Arizona was asking the Senator from 
Kentucky didn't really get an answer. It is one thing to say we are 
willing to sit down and discuss this. That discussion has to come to 
cloture before we are able to proceed, because we are determined to 
know that we are going to have adequate capacity to be able to bring up 
amendments and have that kind of a thorough vetting of this issue.
  Now, I agree with the Senator from Kentucky. This will take 60 votes. 
I think everybody over here understands that. And clearly we are going 
to have to come together in this process to arrive at those 60 votes. 
That is going to require us to do precisely what the leader said, which 
is not to be jockeying for advantage one over the other, and to find an 
evenhanded way to approach this. Right now we are not even having that 
discussion. So we are operating in a vacuum where we are being asked to 
accede to going forward on certain legislation without the 
understanding that we will be able to vote and to have these amendments 
come to the floor.
  This can be resolved in 1 hour. It can be resolved in half an hour if 
the majority leader were permitted to simply say to us, we will have a 
date certain when we return in the winter, and with that date certain, 
we will have x number of amendments with a period of time to vote, and 
we will be able to take up campaign finance reform.
  Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, I have said I know this issue will come up 
again, rightly or wrongly, and I would like to schedule it in a way for 
everybody to know when it is coming up. I think Senator Daschle and I 
can agree on that. What I can't guarantee the Senator from 
Massachusetts is a process that would match or fit his word ``proper'' 
or ``adequate.'' It is in the eye of the beholder. What you think might 
be proper may not be what some other Senator thinks is proper as to how 
it should be considered. And also, if you are talking about setting up 
a process where at the end you win on the McCain-Feingold version, 
whether it is the first or second one, we don't think that is proper.
  So if the idea is you have to have a process where we can have a 
great big fight, after which nothing happens, or whereby you can be 
relatively assured you are going to be able to win the issue, we can't 
agree to that.
  Mr. KERRY. But, if the majority leader will yield for a minute, I 
think we just agreed it is going to take 60 votes. The question is, we 
are never going to get to the point of understanding whether we can 
muster the 60 votes if we can't even have one vote on one of the major 
amendments that begins to sort out where people are and where you can 
find the common ground.

  Mr. LOTT. We tried to get the vote on the paycheck equity amendment, 
and cloture was defeated twice on that. The situation may be different 
3 or 4 months from now. I think the atmosphere is charged now in a way 
that makes it difficult for us to define now what the process will be. 
By the end of February, the first of March, something that might appear 
impossible now we might be able to work out. We can continue to talk 
about how we would do that.
  Now, in the meantime, time marches on. The calendar is moving on. We 
are struggling to have committees meet that, by the way, need to meet 
so they can confirm Foreign Service or Ambassador nominations and 
judges. We are having trouble with that. We are trying to see if we can 
continue to move some of these people on the Executive Calendar. We 
have Members who are working on the highway transportation bill. 
Senator Chafee has been here now for a week and nothing has happened. 
Senator Byrd is very interested in this bill and has an amendment on 
which he has been working with Senator Gramm and others. Senator Baucus 
is very anxious to see if we can't get going forward.
  It is the usual process around here. Sometimes you get just 
completely bollixed. The only way you change that is you start moving--
you move a little here, you move a little there. Senator Daschle and I 
have been trying to do that a little bit this week. We made a little 
progress here, a little progress there. If we can get these wheels 
creaking and moving forward, then who knows what will happen.
  As long as we are hunkered down, saying, ``We've got to get this 
agreed to before we do that; if we don't get that, you don't get 
this,'' and we wind up getting nothing. I hope that is not what we will 
do. We can see. I hope we can get cloture on ISTEA. If we got cloture 
this afternoon, we would still be performing a miracle if we finish 
this bill by next Thursday, and if we don't get it done next week, how 
do we get fast track where we have been assured we are going to have 
extended debate on that, and maybe other games being played with that 
one?
  I think we need to move the ball forward, get cloture, get on this 
bill, get some of these amendments offered that are very important and 
very critical to various States, the entire country. There are some 
other issues that will be hotly debated on this bill. We will still be 
here, and we will still have time to have meetings and talk about what 
we are going to do.
  I think I just saw probably the greatest exchange between my two 
great friends of Scottish descent, McCain and McConnell, a moment ago. 
Who knows

[[Page S11018]]

what great things might happen once we start moving things forward?
  Mr. FORD. Don't bet on that.
  Mr. LOTT. Don't bet on that? The Senator from Kentucky will make sure 
that doesn't happen. I yield the floor so Senator Daschle can comment 
on his own time, and then I will move to stand in recess after that.
  Mr. DASCHLE. Mr. President, I thank the distinguished majority leader 
for his comments and applaud him for making the effort that he has over 
the last several days in working with us to see if we can't find a way 
with which to resolve this impasse.
  I want to clarify a couple of matters that I think ought to be 
understood as we work our way through the impasse. The first is that a 
cloture vote, a victory on cloture on the Chafee amendment may move the 
ball ahead slightly, but there are scores of Chafee amendments, all of 
which will be subject to the same cloture vote process, each taking 30 
hours. So if you multiply 30 hours times 30 amendments, that is a lot 
of time, and we don't have a lot of time.
  It is not only the amendments, but it is the titles themselves, the 
banking, the finance, the commerce titles that have to be added to the 
trunk of the bill. They, too, will be subject to cloture and will 
require a substantial amount of time.
  So unless we get an agreement, even if the caucus, even if our 
Democratic caucus would vote for cloture, there are Senators who would 
oppose moving the ISTEA bill forward without an agreement, which brings 
us to the need to vote for cloture in any case.
  So it is with unanimity the Democrats are hoping that we can work 
with our friends in the majority to see if we can't reach that 
agreement.
  As to the agreement, the clarification I wish to make goes along the 
lines of what the distinguished Senator from Massachusetts has just 
noted, and others. What do we want? Well, we want a date certain. We 
would like the assurance that the so-called parliamentary tree is not 
filled; that we have an opportunity, as Senator McCain noted, to offer 
amendments. We would like to take the bills in sequence--the McCain-
Feingold and then perhaps the Lott bill having to do with the labor 
unions. That would be the desirable approach, a sequence of 
consideration, first of McCain-Feingold and then of the Lott bill.
  We recognize that every amendment and the bill itself would be 
subject to the rules of the Senate which means you have to have 60 
votes. It would seem to me that if you don't get 60 votes, you pull the 
amendment and would move on to another one. If we filed cloture on an 
amendment or required a 60-vote threshold, you could get through these 
amendments pretty quickly. If you don't get it, it falls, and we just 
keep going. Ultimately, if we don't get 60 votes on McCain-Feingold, it 
falls; it is over.
  I do not think it would take that long. I think we could work through 
a procedure that would bring us to some closure on this bill. That is 
all we can ask. We cannot do anything more than make our best effort to 
persuade and come up with a parliamentary process that will allow us 
the right to protect Senators as Members of the minority, whatever the 
minority may be, on a given issue. And I believe a process like that 
would work.
  Senator Lott has been, I think, fair in his willingness to consider 
almost anything. We have Senators who are unable to agree at this 
point. But like others before me, I am hopeful that we can get an 
agreement, that cloture votes will not be necessary, that we can then 
finish ISTEA, that we can then move on to nominations and another array 
of issues next week. That is within our grasp, but it will take an 
agreement.
  I think it is fair to say that it will not matter how many cloture 
votes we take, I do not think the votes will be different. A majority 
of the Senate voted against cloture this morning--a majority. Forty-
five Democrats and seven Republicans voted against cloture. A majority, 
it seems to me, now want to resolve this matter.
  So I am hopeful, Mr. President, we can do that. I think we can do it. 
I will stand ready to meet with anybody to come to some conclusion on 
how we might proceed. But I hope we do not give up.
  Under the rules, as I understand them, we will go into a recess until 
3 o'clock?

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