[Congressional Record Volume 148, Number 75 (Monday, June 10, 2002)]
[Senate]
[Page S5316]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                           ORDER OF BUSINESS

  Mr. DASCHLE. Madam President, I will have more to say about the so-
called hate crimes legislation tomorrow.
  This is a very important cloture vote we are having tomorrow. I am 
disappointed that we have not had more opportunities to debate 
amendments. This bill has been pending, yet no one has come forward to 
offer amendments.
  It makes my point as we file cloture. We indicated a concern for the 
reports that had been shared with us that some of our colleagues wished 
to offer--I think the phrase was--``hundreds of amendments'' to the 
hate crimes bill. We are working under very tight time constraints.
  It is my belief that we ought to have an opportunity to offer 
amendments, to have the debate on the amendments, to bring those 
amendments to closure, and then have a vote on the hate crimes bill. I 
have heard colleagues in the Chamber on the other side of the aisle say 
this has never happened before. If it has not been submitted, tomorrow 
we will submit for the Record the number of times our Republican 
colleagues did exactly what we did. I think it was 34 times--34 times 
the bill was offered, and cloture was filed immediately. I do not know 
how many of those times the Republican leader--the majority leader at 
the time--chose to fill the parliamentary tree as well, denying and 
precluding Democrats and others from offering amendments to the bill. 
This is by far not the first time.
  I announced at the very beginning of my tenure as majority leader 
that I would never fill the tree to preclude amendments. And I am going 
to hold to that promise. But there are times when in order to move 
legislation along, filing cloture on a bill is important. I intend to 
do that again this afternoon. It is unfortunate. But we are going to 
have to increase the debt limit. The administration has made its case 
publicly. They have talked to me privately on numerous occasions about 
the importance of increasing the debt limit.
  We can go into all the reasons it is necessary. But in an effort not 
to at least now politicize the issue, I think it is important for us to 
get the job done. It is the responsible thing to do.
  We are going to take up the debt limit and send it to the House as 
quickly as possible because time is running out. We are told that we 
only have a couple of weeks. We have to address this issue in that 
period of time.
  If we fail cloture tomorrow on hate crimes, it will be my intention 
to move as quickly as possible to the debt limit legislation. That will 
require procedural cooperation. I am hopeful that we can get procedural 
cooperation. The Republican leader and I talked today. It would be my 
hope to get a unanimous consent agreement to take it up. Failing that, 
of course, we would then have to go through the motion to proceed, and 
then the bill itself.

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