[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 3 (Thursday, January 29, 1998)]
[Senate]
[Page S190]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                                SCHEDULE

  Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, this morning the Senate will proceed to 2 
hours of morning business with several Senators recognized for 
individual periods of time.
  At 12 noon it is my hope that the Senate can consider the Ronald 
Reagan Airport naming bill and/or the Senate concurrent resolution 
condemning Iraq's threat to international peace and security. It was my 
hope that the minority leader would be able to enter into a reasonable 
time agreement on both of these issues which would allow for the debate 
to occur today and any amendments and votes on those amendments and 
final passage to occur on the morning of Tuesday, February 3rd. I am 
now informed at this point that will not be possible. Therefore, those 
votes could occur today.
  Now, there are some ominous signs on the horizon that really bother 
me. This is the first week that we are back. It takes a little time to 
get back in the swing of things. I understand that. I know Senators 
didn't expect a lot to occur in terms of votes this week. But already I 
have had numerous Senators come to me and say, ``Oh, could we not have 
votes on Thursday? Certainly we will not have them on Friday and 
Monday, and, by the way, I can't vote on Tuesday morning.''
  There is a limit to how much the Democratic leader and I can 
cooperate with Senators in protecting their schedules. I certainly have 
a record that shows that I am sensitive to that. I would like for the 
Senate to work during the daylight instead of night, for instance, and 
we achieved that to some degree. But if every Senator thinks that he or 
she can inconvenience 99 Senators because they have some little bit 
they want to do somewhere, that is not the way it is going to work this 
year. They should not start out that way.

  So I urge my colleagues on both sides of the aisle, don't do this. 
Don't even come to leadership on both sides of the aisle and say, ``Can 
you defer a vote on Tuesday or Wednesday or Thursday?'' or, for that 
matter, late Monday afternoons or Friday mornings. We have legislative 
days this year that will probably add up to around 100 days and a lot 
of work to do--a lot of important budget issues, infrastructure issues, 
foreign policy issues that we can't ignore or delay.
  So I am not threatening. I am not complaining yet. This is the 
kickoff. We will get going here pretty quickly. But I am having 
difficulty getting Senators to be ready to go to work. I have at least 
four bills that we should consider this week or next week, and for one 
reason or another I am being told, ``Well, we are not quite ready.''
  The recess is over. It is time for the class to get back to work, and 
let's work to do that.
  Mr. DASCHLE. Mr. President, will the majority leader yield?
  Mr. LOTT. I would be glad to yield to the Senator from South Dakota, 
the Democratic leader.
  Mr. DASCHLE. Mr. President, I sympathize with the majority leader's 
problem and tell him that I share the same frustration. I have had 
Senators come to me this week who indicated that they can't be here on 
a particular day this week. I have noted, while we will try to 
accommodate those problems this week, that people need to be here. They 
need to be prepared to vote. They need to recognize that we have very 
limited time and that we have a lot of work ahead of us. We are not 
going to be able to do it if all we have is Wednesday afternoon. But 
that in essence seems to be the attitude: we will try to do all of our 
work on Wednesday afternoons. That isn't going to work around here.
  Whether you are in the minority or the majority, we have a lot of 
things we know we must do. We can't afford the luxury of having more 
and more of these scheduling conflicts and relegate the Nation's 
business and the Senate's business to Wednesday afternoon.
  So I want to assure the majority leader of my determination to see 
that we put in a full week, that we get the work done, and that we try 
to accomplish all that I know he and the rest of us would like to 
accomplish this year.
  I thank him for yielding.
  Mr. LOTT. I thank Senator Daschle for his cooperation in this. This 
is not just on one side of the aisle. We are both working this problem. 
We will fulfill our obligation as leaders in ways that have not always 
been the case around here.
  Senators have already been told when they can expect to be in session 
or have recess periods for the whole year. We will indicate as far in 
advance as we can when we may not have a vote on Friday or Monday if we 
know for sure, for instance, that there is a conflicting conference. We 
will also try to have a legislative calendar that really shows the 
bills we are going to be dealing with all year.
  So we will give everybody as much advance notice as we possibly can, 
and then we would expect cooperation in return.
  On the Iraq resolution, this is an important resolution. This is a 
sensitive time. I think we should think about it carefully. There is no 
need to rush to judgment. We ought to talk about it. We ought to think 
about it. We ought to make it clear what our concerns are about Saddam 
Hussein and the fact that the inspectors are not in Iraq. We need to 
think about its ramifications not only for the region but the world. We 
need our allies to be with us--not just the British but the French, the 
Russians, and the Chinese, and everybody else because this is a threat 
to the whole world. We need to make it clear that the present situation 
will not stand.

  This resolution that Senator Daschle and I have been working on, as 
always you have to craft it with words of art. You have to make sure 
that you have the right words in there. And we do not want to go beyond 
what is responsible. But I think that it is timely. I think we would 
have been doing this resolution sometime in the first 2 weeks at the 
beginning of this year regardless of other events unrelated to this. 
This is something that the Senate usually does.
  So again, I urge Senators to look this resolution over. Let's do the 
responsible thing and let's do it very quickly. We need to have a full 
discussion. We need to do it today. And we can do it again on Monday. 
But we should vote on it on Tuesday. If not, it could be overrun by 
other events maybe not as important. But we already have the schedule 
set for Tuesday in terms of some debate and some votes on nominations. 
We have a couple of other bills that we are considering for next week.
  Senator Daschle will work with me. And let's just talk today about 
how we can proceed today and whether or not we know we are going to 
have votes today or when we can be assured we will have votes on 
Tuesday morning.
  Thank you, again, and I thank you, Mr. President.
  I yield the floor.

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