[Congressional Record Volume 149, Number 133 (Thursday, September 25, 2003)]
[Senate]
[Pages S11967-S11970]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
Order of Business
Mr. FRIST. Mr. President, after the next vote we will resume the DC
appropriations bill and expect to be on the DC appropriations bill
tonight and tomorrow. There will be further debate tonight. I encourage
Members with amendments to come forward so we can continue to make
progress on the DC appropriations bill.
I understand the two managers will not require any more rollcall
votes on any action on the bill tonight or tomorrow. Thus, the next
rollcall vote will be the last rollcall vote for tonight and for
tomorrow. Again, we will be in session tomorrow for further debate on
the DC appropriations bill.
With regard to Monday's schedule, we will be announcing what Monday's
schedule will be in terms of voting. We will have votes on Monday in
the late afternoon. We will have further announcements on that
tomorrow. The Democratic leader and I have had discussions over the
course of the day, and from where we started early this morning they
have settled a lot in terms of looking forward to the next week and a
half. I can tell all Members no more rollcall votes after this vote
tonight, no rollcall votes tomorrow; DC appropriations.
Mr. BYRD. Will the distinguished majority leader yield?
Mr. FRIST. Yes, sir.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from West Virginia.
Mr. BYRD. I would rather my leader propounded this question but
inasmuch as I am the ranking member of the Appropriations Committee,
the reason I hoped all Members would sit--although there is no
requirement they have to in the rules, unless the Chair insists on it--
we have a problem. I think the full Senate ought to know about it. That
is why I have urged Senators sit if they will; then they will be more
comfortable. I don't know how long it will last. I hope it will not
last long.
We have a problem in that we have the Iraq appropriations measure
before the Senate Appropriations Committee. We have had hearings
Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday in that committee. There have
been other committees that have been having hearings, too; I believe
the Foreign Relations Committee, and I know the Armed Services
Committee has had hearings.
Here is my problem as ranking member of the Appropriations Committee.
We had hearings this past Monday on the Iraq bill. Our members were not
fully informed that there would be hearings on Monday but we proceeded
with hearings, in any event. Several of the members could not get there
until very late. I have protested pretty consistently in that
committee, saying we need more hearings, that we do not need to rush
that bill through. It would be well to have the House act, let us see
that bill so we would better know what amendments we should try to
offer.
I have urged that outside witnesses be called. Why should we just
hear one side of the question, that being, of course, the
administration's position? But we could be wiser, I think, if we had
outside witnesses. That has been rejected. That proposal has been
rejected. So we have pressed on, against my wishes. I believe we ought
to have more hearings.
Now we come down to this point. We have completed what hearings we
are going to have, as I understand it, in the Appropriations Committee.
Now the pressure is on to have the bill marked up. When? Monday. We
all know that Senators, in recent years especially, are more likely to
be late getting in on Monday. They have faraway points of the compass
to come from, and some of them have made appointments that will cause
them not to get in until Tuesday morning perhaps. And yet we are being
forced to have a markup on this coming Monday. This greatly creates a
disadvantage to many of our Appropriations members.
So I have expressed the hope we would not have that markup on Monday.
There is no great reason to begin to have this markup. But we have been
pressed hard to get through these hearings, and now we are being
pressed to mark up the bill on Monday.
Many of our Members cannot be here Monday. So I have acquainted my
leader and my side of the aisle with this problem. And I have said we
could have a markup on Tuesday. But my wife--and I hesitate to continue
to inject my own personal problems into this matter--I said my wife has
to have an operation on Tuesday morning. Not a major operation, but any
operation at our age--if I were 40 or 50 or 60 again, I would say: You
go on and have your operation and I'll see you at suppertime; see you
tonight. That is not the way she wants it. That is not the way I want
it.
I have said this afternoon, speaking to Mr. Reid, and to Mr. Stevens:
If you want to have this on Tuesday, go ahead. If I am 2 hours there or
3 hours or 5, I will come when I can. But go ahead and have the markup
Tuesday. The word comes back that the Republicans say: OK, but there is
a little catch to that: We will wait till Tuesday, but you have to give
consent to take up the bill on the next day. That consent could be
objected to, of course, causing a little longer wait.
So now we are faced with: OK, you can take it up Tuesday--I hope I am
not misrepresenting anyone here; at least this is the way I understand
it--so you can have it on Tuesday, but you have to give consent to go
to it Wednesday on the floor.
I don't want to enter into that deal. In the first place, I don't
think there is a necessity for our having that markup on Monday or on
Tuesday. I think we ought to have more hearings. I think we are
entitled to more hearings. I see this bill as being ramrodded through
the Senate, when there is no necessity for that.
I will not go into that further except to say, I am willing to
proceed on Tuesday, but I am not willing for it to be in accordance
with a deal. Call it a deal. Call it whatever you want--an agreement,
whatever--``yes, we'll do that if.'' There are times when we do that
around here, but on this occasion I don't think we ought to take it up
on the floor that fast. We need more time on the floor. So I am
unwilling to say: OK on Tuesday, but we will agree to taking it up on
the floor on Wednesday.
So here we are, Thursday afternoon, with no votes tomorrow, I guess,
and many Members going home, and a Jewish holiday tomorrow. Here we are
[[Page S11969]]
under this kind of pressure: You can have it on Tuesday, but you have
to give us consent to take it up on Wednesday.
I understand now the--this is just my understanding--the other side
is not willing to go on Tuesday without such an agreement. As I further
understand it, they are saying--I may be wrong about this, but that is
what I understand--that the majority is saying: OK, you don't want any
deal; we will do it on Monday. So there is where it creates a great
hardship on the part of a lot of our Senators and, I suppose, on
Senators on the other side.
I think we are in a quandary, and we just ought to open it up here
and have a full discussion of it rather than have the onus on me as the
old plebeian soldier around here. OK. I don't want to cause my comrades
on either side to have to come here on Monday and mark this up.
There is some reason it has to be Monday or else. This bill is being
pushed through, rammed through, and I think we ought to take more time
on it. I think the American people are entitled to more time on it.
Why don't we have more hearings? Is it that the majority is afraid to
have questions asked? Do the questions hurt? What is the problem? Why
do we have to have this--we are just not up against it. We passed the
Defense appropriations conference report today.
I would like to know, I say to the leader, why we have to mark up
this bill in the Appropriations Committee Monday or Tuesday, and why,
if we push it--if the majority is willing to go over to Tuesday--why
they are going to exact that pound of flesh: OK, we will go over, but
let us take it up on the following day.
I am not willing to do that. If it were absolutely necessary to do
that, I would be willing to do it. But that is not necessary. And in
all my years here, I have never--I have never--seen the Appropriations
Committee of the Senate, and especially the minority--this place is for
the protection of the minority, a minority of Senators. I have said
that many times.
But to jam us up here against a Sunday and a Jewish holiday just
preceding it, and then to come in here and say, you have to have this
markup on Monday or you have to let us take it up on the floor on
Wednesday, I have to say, I think that is very unfair. I have argued
this out in the committee under the public eye, and I have talked with
my colleague, Senator Stevens. I know he is under great pressure.
I would hope to have a response to that. More than that, I would hope
we would not have to mark it up Monday or Tuesday.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The majority leader.
Mr. FRIST. Mr. President, the question is really centered on the
debate, which we want to do in a thorough way. And the distinguished
Senator from West Virginia, from day 1, has encouraged me to allow for
adequate time for debate and amendment.
Starting about 2\1/2\ weeks ago, I made it very clear that the
President of the United States would shortly deliver a supplemental--
which was now about a week ago--that I wanted to take 2 weeks--and it
could be longer or it could be shorter--that we can focus on it in an
organized way, and an organized way is to spend time in hearings.
Indeed, after a lot of discussion, we organized hearings in such a
way, as you pointed out, that the Armed Services Committee has had
hearings on it, the Foreign Relations Committee has had hearings on it,
the Appropriations Committee has had hearings on it. And, indeed, we
have had at least seven committee hearings in the Senate. The House is
having hearings at the same time.
We have had interested parties engaged in formal discussions coming
by your party lunch, coming by our party lunch to have the discussion
with the goal that we would focus on this issue. Indeed, we have done a
good job this week. My goal was expressed 9 days ago. I didn't know
about the surgery of your wife. Although the Jewish holiday begins
tonight, we are not voting tomorrow because of a request from your side
of the aisle. The Jewish holiday begins late tomorrow afternoon. But
because of very specific requests from two of your Members through the
assistant leader, we are bowing down once again to you for scheduling,
which is fine, and I agree. If they need to travel back and there is no
other way to get back, I am going to pay respect to their religion,
just as I want to pay respect to you in every regard we can.
So there goes your Friday. So don't blame us on that. I don't think
that is fair. It is not fair as we go forward, if you are looking at
equity or fairness.
On this floor about 2 months ago--it was a little bit later at
night--you came to me and said: We can't operate this place working 2
days a week or 3 days a week. And I agree. You have been in this
particular situation in terms of scheduling. You know it is
challenging, just like votes for tomorrow. That is why 9 days ago I
said, we are going to spend all next week on the floor, if possible,
debating and amending freely. And the Democratic leader and I talked
earlier today. We want to stay on the bill. We don't want any trips or
punches thrown that are not fair, but we will have a good discussion
through next week. My objective is to bring it to the floor.
The question as to why? Because we are in a war. We are in a war
against terrorism that our President has done, I think, an excellent
job of spelling out. He has delivered to us, on behalf of the 150,000
military men and women there, a call for emergency funding through a
supplemental that, although there is disagreement, the administration
has said it is urgent we address.
Thus, when we can work on Monday, we should work on Monday. And I
would argue Tuesday, Tuesday morning, Tuesday night, Wednesday morning,
Wednesday night, Thursday morning, Thursday night, Friday morning and
Friday night, in response to that emergency request for funding that
the experts have told us is an emergency.
To say, well, people aren't going to be back Monday and therefore
let's do Tuesday, but, no, we can't do it Tuesday because of other
scheduling reasons, therefore, let's put this off later. I can tell
you--you know this; again, I should be speaking to the Chair--if we say
Monday it is just too difficult for people to come back, when there are
people at war and there are people dying every day when we turn on the
news, because of a lack of security, and we know this funding supports
security, how can we say, it is inconvenient Monday and Tuesday?
Although, again, I say this with deep respect for your personal
situation and your wife's surgery in the morning, but we need to
respond.
I think you know, if we wait until Wednesday to mark it up, or
Thursday, the same thing, maybe a little bit different, Thursday, and
you know this, Thursday people will say, we are getting out of here. We
don't have time to debate this. Let's do it 2 weeks from now.
Once again, we are on recess during that period of time. I am going
to have a hard time leaving here on recess with the American people
saying: The President of the United States delivered this urgent
request to you for funding, and have the news every day of people
dying, with people having told us that it does have to do with security
and the war on terrorism. That is the why and the reason.
I think we just need to be addressing this up front. The dialog
between our leadership has been good. I know it is challenging our
committee members with all of the hearings we have had day in and day
out. I know people are worn out. But it is a war, and it is a war on
terrorism. I think the American people deserve that debate on the floor
of this body--freely debating, freely amending, starting as soon as we
can that is reasonable. That is why I continue to request that the
Appropriations Committee mark up the bill Monday, if it can--if it
can't, it is just convenience. I think that is hard to answer--or
Tuesday. And then there is no quid pro quo. I would like to get it to
the floor so people can debate it before we go on recess in the next
few weeks. But if there is objection to bringing it to the floor, that
is your right as we go forward. But I do want the American people to
know we are ready to address this bill and debate it fully, looking at
everybody's schedule in a very personal way. The reason is, we are at
war. That is it.
Mr. BYRD. Mr. President, will the distinguished leader yield further?
Mr. FRIST. Yes.
Mr. BYRD. Let me emphasize I am not asking that it be put off until
[[Page S11970]]
Tuesday because of my wife's little problem. I said, go ahead, if I am
2 hours or 3 hours or 5 hours, I will get there when I can. I would
rather you didn't, but in any event, if you do, I am going to be with
her. That is an easy choice for me. But I didn't intend to get into the
debate about the so-called war on terrorism as being the war in Iraq. I
won't do that now. But the distinguished majority leader has opened an
avenue for a great deal of debate in which I will partake, if the good
Lord lets me live. I am not going to lie down and roll over for that
argument that, oh, we are in a war and we have to press ahead here; we
have people dying and so on, and we have to do this on Monday or
Tuesday. I am as concerned about the people dying as is the
distinguished majority leader. I was not for sending our people over
there to die. But we won't get into that here. The distinguished
Republican leader brought that up.
I am only saying I would hope that we would stage the markup at a
time when we could have full attendance on both sides.
Mr. NICKLES. Will the majority leader yield?
Mr. FRIST. I am happy to yield.
Mr. NICKLES. There is a nomination of Judge Mosman. I wonder if it
would be possible to vote on that nomination by voice vote or begin
that vote momentarily for the convenience of all Members?
Mr. FRIST. Mr. President, I am happy to propound that unanimous
consent request for a voice vote on the judge under consideration.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Democratic leader.
Mr. DASCHLE. Mr. President, the ranking member is not here. I am sure
if he was, he would ask that we have a rollcall vote. We ought to.
Let me just say, I don't think there is any question that we have to
move forward and have an opportunity to debate this in a much more
meaningful and thorough way. The way we will do that is through a
markup in the Appropriations Committee and through votes on the Senate
floor. Throughout the day the majority leader and I have been trying to
figure out a way to work through the schedule, and it is obvious there
are differences of opinion about what the schedule should entail. Yes,
there should be more hearings. Yes, there ought to be more
accountability as to how we make these decisions. If we had our choice,
we would bifurcate this request, send the money to the troops to make
sure they get all they need to conduct their responsibilities, but then
have a more deliberate and thoughtful debate about this aid for
reconstruction. That would be our desire. We will have amendments in
that regard whenever the bill comes to the floor.
We need to get on with the vote on the judge, and then we will talk
further about schedule as the schedule presents itself.
____________________