[Congressional Record Volume 146, Number 115 (Monday, September 25, 2000)]
[Senate]
[Pages S9134-S9137]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                       COOPERATION AMONG SENATORS

  Mr. BYRD. Mr. President, I was sitting in my office when I heard the 
very distinguished Senator from Idaho speaking on the floor and using 
my name. He asked for cooperation, and, of course, we all want to 
cooperate. We want good will and we want cooperation. But one way to 
get cooperation from this Senator when his name is going to be used is 
to call this Senator before the Senator who wishes to call my name goes 
to the floor and let me know that I am going to be spoken of.
  I have been in the Senate 42 years, and I have never yet spoken of 
another Senator behind his back in any critical terms--never. I once 
had a jousting match with former Senator Weicker. He called my name on 
the floor a few times, and so I went to the floor and asked the 
Cloakroom to get in touch with Senator Weicker and have him come to the 
floor. I didn't want to speak about him otherwise, without his being on 
the floor. Frankly, I don't appreciate it. I like to be on the floor 
where I can defend myself.
  Mr. CRAIG. Will the Senator yield?
  Mr. BYRD. I am glad to yield.
  Mr. CRAIG. First, let me apologize to you that a phone call was not 
made. I meant it with all due respect. I did not misuse your name nor 
misquote you. Certainly, speaking on the floor in the Senate in an 
open, public forum is not speaking behind your back. That I do not do 
and I will not do.
  Mr. BYRD. Whatever the Senator wants to call it, in my judgment, it 
is not fair.
  Mr. CRAIG. OK.
  Mr. BYRD. I will never call the Senator's name in public without his 
being on the floor. I like to go face to face with anything I have to 
say about a Senator, and I would appreciate the same treatment.
  Mr. CRAIG. Will the Senator yield again?
  Mr. BYRD. Yes.
  Mr. CRAIG. You know how much I respect you, Senator Byrd.
  Mr. BYRD. I hope so.
  Mr. CRAIG. In no way do I intend to speak behind your back. It is an 
important issue that you and I are concerned about.
  I think it was important to demonstrate what the real record of 
performance here is in the Senate under both Democrat and Republican 
leadership--how difficult it is to bring about the final processes of 
the appropriations. You and I would probably agree that maybe we need 
to look at the process because it hasn't worked very well. We have not 
been able to complete our work in a timely fashion, and it does take 
bipartisan cooperation.
  I have been frustrated in the last couple of weeks by quotes such as 
the one on this chart, which would suggest if the other side does 
absolutely nothing, somehow we would cave. Last week appeared--I know 
you had a different argument, and I agreed with you--not to debate an 
appropriations bill on the floor separate from another. That is not 
good for the process, not good for the legitimacy of getting our work 
done. But it did seem to purport and confirm the quote on this chart.

  Again, if I have in some way wronged you, I apologize openly before 
the Senate. But you and I both know that that which we say on the 
record is public domain. But I did not offer you the courtesy of 
calling you, and for that I apologize.
  Mr. BYRD. It is for the public domain, no question about that. But if 
my name is going to be used by any Senator, I would like to know in 
advance so that I may be on the floor to hear what he says about me so 
I may have the opportunity to respond when whatever is being said is 
said. That is the way I treat all other Senators; that is the only way 
I know to treat them.
  Mr. CRAIG. That is most appropriate.
  Mr. BYRD. It is the way I will always treat Senators. I will never 
speak ill of the Senator, never criticize the Senator, unless he is on 
the floor. I would like to be treated the same way.
  Mr. CRAIG. Will the Senator yield one last time?
  Mr. BYRD. Yes.
  Mr. CRAIG. I have made statistical statements. When I prepared this 
today, I double-checked them, to make sure I was accurate, with the 
Congressional Quarterly Almanac so the Record would be replete. If I am 
not accurate, or if I have misspoken in some of these statements, 
again, I stand to be corrected. I was simply comparing the years of 
1986, a Republican-controlled Senate, and 1987, a Democrat-controlled 
Senate, when you were the majority leader--recognizing that in both of 
those years major budget battles ensued and we bundled tremendously in 
those years individual appropriations bills--in fact, in a considerably 
worse way than we are actually doing this year. I thought that was a 
reasonable thing to discuss on the floor.
  Mr. BYRD. Mr. President, I am not sure that is accurate.
  Mr. CRAIG. You can check it.
  Mr. BYRD. Mr. President, may we speak of another Senator in the 
second person?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator is correct. The Senator should 
address the Chair.
  Mr. BYRD. And speak to another Senator in the second person.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. And not refer directly to another Senator.
  Mr. BYRD. Exactly. I think that rule keeps down acerbities and ill 
will. I want to retain good will. So when I refer to the distinguished 
Senator, I don't want to point the finger at him by saying ``you.''
  Now, Mr. President, I am not sure the Senator is entirely accurate in 
everything he has said. I didn't hear everything he said, but I have 
the impression that what he was saying was that we bundled bills 
together in times when I was majority leader, and so on.
  I am not sure that is even accurate. But let me say to the 
distinguished Senator that I haven't complained about bundling bills 
together. That is not my complaint at all. My complaint is in avoiding 
debate in the Senate and sending appropriation bills directly to 
conference. That is my problem because that avoids the open debate in 
the Senate, and Senators are deprived of the opportunity, thereby, to 
offer amendments.

[[Page S9135]]

  I don't mind bundling bills together in conference if they have 
passed the Senate. But if they haven't passed the Senate, I am very 
critical of sending those bills to the conference. I think the framers 
contemplated both Houses acting upon bills--and that is the way we have 
done it heretofore until the last few years; appropriation bills have 
passed the Senate; they have been amended and debated before they went 
to conference. That is my complaint.
  So I hope the Senator will not feel that I have been complaining 
about bills being joined in conference. I am not complaining about 
that.
  According to the CRS, all regular appropriation bills were approved 
by or on October 1 in 1977--the first year I became majority leader--in 
1989, in 1995, and in 1997. So I have the record before me that shows 
that four times in those years--that is not a great record, but four 
times in those years all of the regular appropriations bills were 
approved by or on October 1.
  The distinguished Senator, if I understood him correctly, said only 
twice. Am I correct that only twice had all appropriations bills been 
approved on or before October 1?
  Mr. CRAIG. Will the Senator yield?
  Mr. BYRD. I may have misheard the Senator. Yes. I yield.
  Mr. CRAIG. What I quoted was the Congressional Almanac--the CQ 
Almanac--that said since 1977 only twice, in 1994 and in 1998, has the 
Congress passed all 13 appropriations bills in time for the President 
to sign them into law before the October 1 deadline.
  Mr. BYRD. Therein lies the tale. The Senator uses the phrase ``in 
time for the President to sign them into law.''
  Mr. CRAIG. By October 1.
  Mr. BYRD. By October 1. The Record shows that in 4 years, all of the 
regular appropriations bills were approved by or on October 1.
  I can remember in 1977, I believe it was, that all of the 
appropriations bills were passed but the last one, which passed the 
Senate by just a few seconds before the hour of midnight at the close 
of the fiscal year. Obviously, it would not have been in time for the 
President to have signed the bill by the next day. But all bills did 
pass the Senate even though the last of the appropriations bills only 
made it by a few seconds or a few minutes. And in 1987, more than 100 
amendments were offered, debated, and disposed of in the consideration 
of the continuing resolution. We took up amendments, we debated them, 
and disposed of them.
  That is what I am complaining about. I will have more to say about 
this in a few days. But I am complaining about the fact that 
appropriations bills are brought to the Senate floor, and in many 
instances Senators don't have the opportunity to offer amendments and 
have them debated. They don't have the opportunity to debate the bills 
fully.
  Secondly, I am complaining about sending appropriations bills 
directly to conference without the Senate's having an opportunity to 
debate those appropriations bills and to amend them prior to their 
going to conference. That short-circuits the legislative process. We 
represent the people who send us here. This is the only forum of the 
States. I represent a State, the distinguished Senator from Idaho 
represents a State, and represents it well. But it doesn't make any 
difference about the size of the State. Each State is equal in this 
body--meaning that small, rural States like West Virginia are equal to 
the large States of New York, California, Texas, and so on.
  But when the Senate is deprived of the opportunity to debate and to 
amend by virtue of appropriations bills being sent directly to 
conference, this means the people of my State, the people of the small 
States, the people of the rural States--the people of every State, as a 
matter of fact, represented in the Senate--are deprived of the 
opportunity to debate and are deprived of the opportunity to offer 
amendments through their Senators.
  This is what I am complaining about. I have tried to avoid 
personalities. I could do that. I don't like to do that. I am just 
stating a fact that we are being deprived, the Senator from Idaho is 
being deprived of debating and offering amendments. His people are 
being deprived. That is the important thing--his constituents are being 
deprived. I think we ought to quit that. I think we ought to stop it.
  I hope the distinguished Senator will stand with me in opposition to 
what I call the emasculation of the appropriations process when that is 
done.

  Mr. CRAIG. Will the Senator yield?
  Mr. BYRD. Yes. I yield.
  Mr. CRAIG. The State of West Virginia and my State of Idaho are very 
similar. Both are small, rural States. Both the Senator from West 
Virginia and I are very proud of the fact that we have equal power in 
the Senate. Our Founding Fathers assured that. That is what created 
this marvelous balance. Both the Senator from West Virginia and the 
Senator from Idaho serve on the Appropriations Committee. Obviously, 
the Senator from West Virginia has tremendous seniority and is former 
chairman of that committee. I am still pretty much a freshman. We 
appreciate that debate process. There is no question about it.
  At the same time, I am one of those Senators who, before the August 
recess, turned to my majority leader and said something he didn't want 
to hear. I said: You know, I am going to start researching the need for 
a lame duck session because we are not going to get our work done. We 
have not been allowed to move bills to the floor without 100 amendments 
or 50 amendments. The Senator from West Virginia can certainly 
characterize those amendments the way he wants. I will characterize 
them by saying at least 50 percent of them are political. They come 
from both sides.
  I cannot say that the other side is any more guilty than we are for 
making a public political statement on an amendment that never passes. 
We are all frustrated by that. But when you subject a bill to full 
debate on the floor without being able to get a unanimous consent 
agreement to govern the time, then we could go on for days and 
sometimes an entire week on the floor on a single bill.
  Is that necessary?
  Mr. BYRD. May I regain the floor for just a moment?
  Mr. CRAIG. It is the Senator's time.
  Mr. BYRD. We have had those experiences. That is not an unheard of 
experience.
  Mr. CRAIG. That is correct.
  Mr. BYRD. That is part of the process.
  When I was majority leader of the Senate in 1977, 1978, 1979, and 
1980 and, again, when I was majority leader of the Senate in 1987 and 
1988, not once did I attempt to say to the leader on the other side of 
the aisle that I will not take this bill up if you are going to call up 
amendments, or if you call up 5 or 10 or whatever it is, I will not 
call it up; or having called it up, if Senators on the other side of 
the aisle persisted in calling up amendments, I didn't take the bill 
down. That is part of the process.
  That is where we differ. There are now Senators in this body who 
think that that is the way the Senate has always been. I would say to 
Senator Baker, or to Senator Dole, let's have our respective Cloakrooms 
find out how many amendments there are. And the Cloakrooms would call 
Senators. They would bring back a list of the Senators on the 
Republican side and a list of the Senators on the Democratic side who 
indicated they had amendments. I never said: Well, we ought to cut them 
down. I said: Let's list them.
  Sometimes there would be 65 amendments, sometimes 80, or whatever. I 
would say: Let's get unanimous consent that the amendments be limited 
to those on the list. I never attempted to keep Senators from calling 
up their amendments, or to insist the leader of the other side cut down 
his amendments before we would call up the bill. We listed the 
amendments. Then we sought to get unanimous consent. Usually we could 
because we worked well together. Once we had the finite list of 
amendments and got unanimous consent that that would be all of the 
amendments, we began to then work with each individual Senator--Mr. 
Dole and Mr. Baker, through their staff on that side, and myself on my 
side. Our staff attempted to get time limitations on those amendments. 
Many of the amendments just went away. Senators would do as I have done 
on several occasions: I had my name put on the list just for a 
``germane'' amendment and just for self-protection. So that is the way 
it is. Many times, amendments fall off.

  I have to say that this new way of doing things here is not the way 
the

[[Page S9136]]

Senate has always done it. There are 59 Senators today in this body--I 
believe I am correct--there are 59 Senators out of 100 Senators who 
never served in the Senate prior to my giving up the leadership at the 
end of 1988.
  Rules VII and VIII--there are two rules I just happened to think of 
that have never been utilized since I was majority leader. Never. And 
there are other rules that have never been utilized since I was 
majority leader. Fifty-nine Senators have come into the Senate not 
having seen the Senate operate as it did when Mr. Mansfield was here, 
when Lyndon Johnson was here, and when I was leader. What they see is a 
new way of operating in the Senate.
  Many of those Senators--I believe 48 of the Senators--here I am 
speaking from memory; I may have missed one or two--have come over from 
the other body. I am one of them. But there are 48, maybe 47 or 52, or 
thereabouts, of today's Senators who have come over to the Senate from 
the House. They have never seen the Senate operate under its rules, 
really, unless we call operating by unanimous consent operating by the 
rules--which would be accurate to say, up to a point. But 48 Senators 
have come over from the House and many of those Senators would like to 
make the Senate another House of Representatives. The Senate was not 
supposed to be an adjunct to the House.
  I have been in the other House. I have long studied the rules and the 
precedents and worked in the leadership in one capacity or another in 
this Senate. I served in the Democratic leadership 22 years here, as 
whip, as secretary of the conference, as majority leader, as minority 
leader, as majority leader again.
  I grieve over what is happening to the Senate. I say we need to get 
back to the old way of doing things because we are short circuiting the 
process. In so doing, we are depriving the people of the States of the 
representation that they are entitled to in this Senate. By that I mean 
that the people's Senators are not allowed to call up amendments, they 
are not allowed to debate at times. This way of operating would 
certainly, I think, bring sadness to the hearts of the framers because 
they intended for this Senate to be a check on the other body. They 
also intended for this Senate to be a check against an overreaching 
executive. But if Senators can't call up bills from the other body and 
debate them and amend them, then the Senate cannot adequately check the 
other body against the passions that may temporarily sweep over the 
country. The Senate cannot bring stability to the body politic and to 
the government that the framers intended.
  I am happy to yield again.
  Mr. CRAIG. If the Senator will yield for one last question.
  Mr. BYRD. Yes.
  Mr. CRAIG. I made this comment, and the Senator made a corresponding 
comment that appears to suggest that my comment is in conflict with his 
and they may not be. I want to correct this for the record.
  The Congressional Quarterly Almanac says that only seven 
appropriations bills had passed the Senate on October 1 of 1987. But we 
did not provide for the President an omnibus bill with 13 in it until 
December 22, 1987.
  I am not suggesting by this statement that the Senate didn't go on to 
debate those individual bills on the floor between October 1 and 
December 22; I didn't draw that conclusion.

  Mr. BYRD. May I comment?
  The Senator is only telling half the story.
  Mr. CRAIG. I am only quoting the Almanac.
  Mr. BYRD. Well, my memory, which is not infallible, reminds me that 
the President of the United States asked for an omnibus bill that year. 
He didn't want separate bills. Mr. Reagan didn't want separate bills 
that year. He wanted an omnibus bill. I hope I am not mistaken in the 
year that we are discussing.
  But does the Senator not recall one year in which Mr. Reagan did not 
want--he wanted one bill because we were entering into some kind of an 
agreement amongst us; he wanted one bill to sign rather than several. 
So we accommodated him.
  Mr. CRAIG. If the Senator will yield.
  Mr. BYRD. Yes.
  Mr. CRAIG. I don't recall what President Reagan did or did not want. 
I know what the record shows he got.
  I guess the question I ask the Senator from West Virginia, from 
October 1 to until December 22, did the Senate debate and pass out the 
remainder of the appropriations bills that had not been completed by 
October 1, which would have been a total of six, I believe, if the 
Congressional Quarterly Almanac is correct, and we only worked up seven 
prior to the deadline?
  Mr. BYRD. I am looking at the chart, ``Final Status of Appropriation 
Measures, First Session, 100th Congress.'' That would have been 1987. 
Every bill was reported. I think I am getting now to the question that 
the Senator asked.
  Some of the bills were reported but not taken up, but floor action 
shows that the Senate continued to act upon appropriations bills: 
Treasury-Postal Service was acted upon on the floor September 25; 
Transportation, October 29; military construction, October 27; 
legislative, September 30; Labor-HHS-Education, October 14; Interior, 
September 30; energy and water, November 18; Commerce-Justice, October 
15.
  So they were all acted on. And, yes, the answer is, the Senate 
continued to act upon those bills even through the latter months of the 
year.
  Mr. CRAIG. Will the Senator yield?
  Mr. BYRD. Yes.
  Mr. CRAIG. Those records comport with what I have said. I wanted to 
make sure I was not inaccurate. My concern is that we will have not 
completed our work on the floor by the deadline unless we can gain the 
kind of cooperative effort to move these pieces of legislation.
  And by your observation, I was accurate in the sense that five were 
debated and passed or voted on after the October deadline of 1987.
  Mr. BYRD. Mr. President, let me respond to that. The Senator] speaks 
of cooperation from the other side. I note that 1, 2, 3, 5, 6--9 of 
these appropriations bills--10, 11--11 of them were reported from the 
Senate Appropriations Committee this year no later than July 21, 
reported and placed on the calendar--11 of them.
  Why weren't they called up in the Senate? The Appropriations 
Committee, on which the distinguished Senator from Idaho and I sit, the 
Appropriations Committee, under the excellent leadership of Senator Ted 
Stevens, reported those bills out; 11 of them, I believe--no later 
than--what date was that? No later than the 21st of July. Why weren't 
they called up? We had plenty of time. Why weren't they called up?
  May I say, in addition to that, the Senate certainly had the time to 
act on those bills. We were out of session on too many Fridays. We come 
in here on Monday, many Mondays, and we do not cast a vote, or we cast 
a vote at 5 o'clock, or we go out on Fridays, we don't have any session 
at all, or we go out by noon with perhaps one vote having been taken.
  The Senator and I could talk until we are each blue in the face, but 
it seems to me that someone needs to explain in a reasonable way as to 
why we don't act on Mondays and Fridays, act as we ought to as a 
legislative body--be in session. We are getting paid for the work. Why 
don't we act on these appropriations bills?
  When I was majority leader, I stood before my caucus in 207. I can 
remember saying it: ``We are not here to improve the quality of life 
for us Senators. Our constituents send us here to improve the quality 
of life for our constituents. I am interested in the quality of work.''
  My own colleagues were doing some complaining. I said: We are going 
to be here, we are going to vote early on Mondays, and we are going to 
vote late on Fridays. You elected me leader. As long as you leave me in 
as leader, I am going to lead.
  Now, I said, we will take 1 week off every 4 weeks, and we can go 
home and talk to our constituents, see about their needs. So we will 
have 1 week off and 3 weeks in, but the 3 weeks that we are in, we are 
going to work early and we are going to work late. And we did that in 
the 100th Congress.
  If one looks over the records of the 100th Congress, one will find 
that Congress was one of the best Congresses, certainly, that I have 
seen in my time here in Washington. The productivity was good, we 
worked hard, there was good cooperation between Republicans

[[Page S9137]]

and Democrats. We all worked, and appropriations bills didn't suffer. 
Appropriations bills were never sent to conference without prior action 
by this body. Every Senator in this body on both sides of the aisle was 
allowed to call up his amendment, to offer amendments, as many as he 
wanted to. Nobody was shut off. We just simply took the time. We stayed 
here and did the work.
  Nobody can say to me, well, we don't have the time to do these bills. 
Mr. President, we have squandered the time. We have squandered the time 
already. I used to have bed check votes on Monday mornings at 10 
o'clock, bed check votes so that the Senators would be here at 10 
o'clock. It didn't go over well with some of the Senators, even on my 
side. But one leads or he doesn't lead. When one leads, he sometimes 
runs into opposition from his own side of the aisle. I was not unused 
to that. But nobody can stand here and tell me that we have fully 
utilized our time and that we have to avoid bringing bills up in the 
Senate because Senators will offer amendments to them. I am ready to 
debate that anytime.

  I thank the distinguished Senator. I will yield again if he wishes.
  Mr. CRAIG. I have one last question because you have got your ledger 
there, which is very valuable, making sure that statements are 
accurate, because I focused on 1987, the year of your majority 
leadership.
  We talked about the bills. I think we confirmed one thing. The 
Congressional Quarterly Almanac also goes on to say that foreign ops, 
Agriculture, and Defense were never voted on on the floor and never 
debated, that they were incorporated in the omnibus bill. So, in fact, 
the practice you and I are frustrated by was incorporated that year 
into that large 13-bill omnibus process; is that accurate?
  Mr. BYRD. This is accurate. During Senate consideration of the 
continuing resolution for fiscal year 1987, which contained full year 
funding for all 13 appropriations bills, more than 100 amendments were 
offered, debated, and disposed of.
  Mr. CRAIG. But my question is: The individual foreign ops, 
Agriculture, and Defense bills were in fact not individually debated on 
the floor and amended?
  Mr. BYRD. They were in the CR and therefore subject to amendment.
  Mr. CRAIG. I see. But not individually brought to the floor? I 
understand what you are saying. I am not disputing what you are saying 
about incorporating them into a CR.
  Mr. BYRD. The Senator--my distinguished friend from Idaho--misses the 
point. There may be CRs this year. There have been CRs before.
  Mr. CRAIG. Yes.
  Mr. BYRD. I have never denied that. The point is that the CRs were 
called up on the floor, they were debated, and they were amended 
freely. That is what I am talking about. The Senate had the opportunity 
to work its will even if those bills, two or three, were included in 
the CR. That is the point. The Senate was able to work its will on the 
CR and to offer amendments and debate and have votes.
  Mr. CRAIG. No, that is not the point.
  If the Senator will yield, we are not in disagreement. We are not yet 
to the CR point. If we get there, I have not yet heard any leader on 
either side suggest that we not amend it. We hope they could be clean. 
We hope they could go to the President clean, without amendments.
  But if we are going to incorporate in them entire appropriations 
bills that have not yet been debated--and that was my point here with 
bringing that up; they were in CRs but they were not brought to the 
floor individually and debated. There was an opportunity--you are not 
suggesting, you are saying--and it is true--that there was an 
opportunity at some point in the process for them to be amended.
  Mr. BYRD. Yes.
  Mr. CRAIG. Yes. We are not in disagreement.
  Mr. BYRD. Except this: The Senator says we hope they can go to the 
President clean. I don't hope that.
  Mr. CRAIG. Oh.
  Mr. BYRD. No, indeed. Never have I hoped that. I would like to have 
seen a time when Senators didn't want to call up amendments. Maybe I 
could have gone home earlier. But I have never thought that was a 
possibility. And I wouldn't hope they would go to the President clean 
because I think Senators ought to have the opportunity to clean up the 
bills, to improve them. Surely they are not perfect when they come over 
from the other body, and Senators ought to be at liberty to call up 
amendments and improve that legislation. That is the legislative 
process. Let's improve it.
  I thank my colleague.
  Mr. CRAIG. I thank the Senator for yielding. You see, we do agree on 
some things but we also disagree on others. There we have a point of 
disagreement.
  Mr. BYRD. The Senator ought not disagree with me on saying that 
Senators ought to have an opportunity to call up amendments and that we 
don't necessarily wish to see clean bills sent to the President. I 
didn't want to see a clean trade bill sent to the President.
  Mr. CRAIG. If the Senator will yield just one last time?
  Mr. BYRD. Yes.
  Mr. CRAIG. If we are attempting to complete our work on a bill-by-
bill basis and we extend our time to do that with a clean CR, simply 
extending the processes of Government and the financing of Government 
for another week or two while we debate individual bills--that is what 
I am suggesting.
  If we are going to incorporate other bills, appropriations bills, in 
the CR, I am not objecting to amendments. I am saying that if we are 
going to deal with them individually on the floor, as you and I would 
wish we could and should, then the CR that extends us the time to do 
so, in my opinion, should be clean in going to the President so he will 
not argue or attempt to veto something because we would stick an 
amendment on it with which he might disagree.
  Mr. BYRD. I think we are ships going past one another in the dark, 
the Senator and I, on this. I am for having full debate, having 
Senators offer their amendments. Whether or not bills sent to the 
President are clean, to me, I think, is not a matter of great import. I 
think the framers contemplated that each House, the House in the 
beginning on revenue bills and then the Senate on revenue bills by 
amendment and the House and Senate on other bills, sometimes one House 
would go first, sometimes the other House would go first except on 
revenue bills, by practice, appropriations bills.
  To me, in the legislative process, the people are getting their just 
rights, the people are getting what they are entitled to, and the 
Republic will flourish and the liberties of the people will endure if 
Senators have an opportunity to debate fully--disagree, agree, offer 
amendments, have them tabled, have them voted up or down. This Republic 
will be in a much safer position and in a much better condition if the 
Senate is allowed to be what the Senate was intended to be by the 
framers.
  I hope the Senator will join with me in protecting this Senate and in 
doing so will protect the liberties of the people. Protect the Senate. 
Forget about party once in a while. George Washington warned us against 
factions and about parties. I have never been such a great party man 
myself, and the Senator will not find me criticizing the ``other side'' 
very often, or the ``Republicans'' very often. I can do that and have 
been known to do it, but there are other things more important, and the 
Senate is one of the other things that is more important. We are 
talking about the Senate. We are talking about the cornerstone of the 
Republic. As long as we have freedom to debate in the Senate and 
freedom to amend, the people's liberties will be secured. I thank the 
Senator.
  Mr. CRAIG. I thank the Senator for yielding.
  Mr. BYRD. I yield the floor.

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