[Congressional Record Volume 147, Number 44 (Thursday, March 29, 2001)]
[Senate]
[Pages S3069-S3070]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                                SCHEDULE

  Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, today the Senate will resume 
consideration of the DeWine amendment regarding issue advocacy ads. 
There will be up to 15 minutes of debate prior to a vote at 9:45. 
Following the vote, Senator Harkin will be recognized to offer an 
amendment regarding volunteer spending limits. By previous consent, 
there will be up to 2 hours of debate on the amendment. Senators should 
be aware that the vote on the Harkin amendment is expected to occur 
prior to noon today.
  Further amendments will be offered throughout the day. There will be 
numerous votes, with the goal of completing action on the bill by this 
evening.
  I yield the floor.
  Mr. REID. Mr. President, I have been in contact with the two managers 
of the bill, and I have indicated that Senator Dodd and I have worked 
to cut down the list. We have several amendments. I think there has 
been a civil debate in this 2-week period of time. There have been very 
few quorum calls in effect. We are going to do what we can.
  I alert everyone, to finish this bill today is going to be extremely 
difficult. We had 21 amendments yesterday on this side. We are down now 
to about 14. We picked up two during the night. I am sure most of them 
will work with time limits on the amendments. But that having been 
said, it is going to be very difficult to finish today. I think the 
leadership should consider we will have to have something else either 
going into tomorrow or Saturday or finishing next week.
  Mr. McCONNELL. I must say while the amendments seem to be multiplying 
on the other side, they are vanishing on this side. There are a couple 
of amendments, but there is really only one, I think, that has any 
serious drama attached to it, and that is the nonseverability amendment 
which we hope to vote on later today, to be offered by Senator Frist, 
in coordination with a member of the Democratic Party from the other 
side of the aisle.

  I say to my friend, the Democratic whip, we don't have many 
amendments left to go over here, so we may at some point just be 
dealing with Democratic amendments.
  Mr. REID. We will do our best to cooperate with the manager of the 
bill.
  Mr. McCAIN. Will the Senator yield?
  Mr. McCONNELL. I am happy to yield.
  Mr. McCAIN. Over the last 2 weeks, literally every day I have been 
standing on the floor with the Senator from Kentucky and the Senator 
from Nevada saying we are going out early, we have a lot of amendments 
to go, and we need to get this done, and everybody wants to get it done 
by the end of this week, particularly by this evening. Apparently that 
is going to be very difficult to do.
  My suggestion to the Senator from Kentucky and the leadership on both

[[Page S3070]]

sides is stay in tonight until we get it done or--that is my first 
choice. My second choice would be tomorrow and then on Saturday. I 
think we are all aware that the leadership wants to move to the budget 
debate. I think that is appropriate. We all agreed at the beginning 
that 2 weeks was sufficient time to address this issue.
  One thing I suggest to the Senator from Kentucky and the Senator from 
Nevada is tabling motions, but clearly first-degree amendments have at 
least an hour and a half, even if all time is yielded back on the other 
side.
  I hope most Members appreciate that there are a couple or three 
issues, the main one being severability, but the rest of them either 
have been addressed in some fashion or are not of compelling impact, 
even though the authors of the amendments may believe that is the case.
  I urge my colleagues to be prepared to stay in very late tonight 
because we need to finish this legislation.
  I yield the floor.
  Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, I say to my friend from Arizona, he 
will notice I have not filed a cloture motion. I have said that there 
is only one major amendment left, the nonseverability amendment, which 
will be offered on a bipartisan basis, and that there are few to no 
amendments left on this side.
  From my point of view, as someone who is certainly unenthusiastic 
about this bill and will vigorously oppose it, nevertheless I realize 
it is time to get to final passage sometime today. I say to the Senator 
from Arizona we will not have a problem getting to final passage 
because of this side. We cleared things out on our side and are ready 
to go to final passage. I am happy to finish it up sometime today.
  Mr. McCAIN. I thank the Senator from Kentucky.
  Mr. REID. Mr. President, I don't want to belabor this. I briefly say 
to the Senator from Arizona, the votes for this reform have been 
supplied by this side of the aisle. We appreciate its bipartisan 
nature. We are doing our very best, and we have people who believe in 
campaign finance reform who have amendments. They believe they 
strengthen the bill, and we will work with them to try to cut down 
their time. Some of them have waited, they haven't been off the Hill 
doing something else, they have been waiting to offer these amendments. 
We will do everything we can to protect them so they can offer these 
amendments for what they believe will strengthen this bill.
  Mr. McCAIN. Hopefully, we can collate the number of the amendments, 
perhaps work out some time agreements on each one, so we can have an 
idea as to when we can finish.
  Mr. REID. We will do our very best.
  Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, one final item: I want to notify the 
Senate that about 4 o'clock I am planning to address the Senate on the 
implications of this bill on our two parties. I know we frequently 
don't show up to listen to each other's speeches, but I recommend that 
Senators who are interested in the impact of this bill on the future of 
the two-party system and on their own reelections might want to pay 
attention to what I have to say. My current plan is to deliver that 
speech around 4 o'clock, and I want to notify people on both sides of 
the aisle and the staffers who may be listening to the proceedings on 
the Senate floor.
  I think this is one speech that maybe Senators on both sides of the 
aisle ought to listen to. So maybe just to give notice, I ask unanimous 
consent I be allowed to address the Senate for up to 30 minutes, 
beginning at 4 o'clock.
  Mr. REID. I have no objection as long as there is 30 minutes reserved 
to respond to the Senator from Kentucky by someone from this side of 
the aisle.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Does the Senator so modify his 
request?
  Mr. McCONNELL. I say to my friend from Nevada, I don't think there 
will be anything to respond to. I am sure it will be a factual 
presentation of the impact.
  Mr. REID. I am sure that will be the case, but we ask for 30 minutes.
  Mr. McCONNELL. I have no objection.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so 
ordered.

                          ____________________