[Congressional Record Volume 149, Number 164 (Wednesday, November 12, 2003)]
[Senate]
[Page S14920]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                        THIS WEEK IN THE SENATE

  Mr. FRIST. Mr. President, in looking over the course of the last 
week, much of the focus of the last 40 hours or so, the last 2 days, 
has been on the issue of judges. The three cloture votes failed this 
morning.
  Earlier in the week, we really accomplished a reasonable amount, as I 
look over what we have done. The Syria Accountability Act--Chairman 
Lugar and Senator Santorum and many others in the body who brought that 
forward had it debated, and it was passed. The MILCON conference report 
was completed this week, and the Defense authorization conference 
report. We had another bill, the armed cargo pilots bill. We had the 
District of Columbia Retirement Equity Act by Senator Collins and 
others.
  Today, we had the OPIC reauthorization, which we just did, with a lot 
of bipartisan work done by Chairman Lugar and others; a bill that has 
been worked on for a long period of time in a bipartisan way with 
Senator Mike Enzi, the Workforce Investment Reauthorization Act, a lot 
of work reflected in that bill. I am glad we have completed action on 
that bill today.

  With regard to the last 48 hours, I want to extend the comments that 
were made earlier by the Democratic leader a few hours ago in thanking 
everybody, expressing my heartfelt appreciation to all of the people 
who participated over what was a very long and challenging schedule the 
last couple of days: The Secretary of the Senate, Emily Reynolds, and 
her staff, Dave Tinsley and Allen Frumin, along with their team of 
legislative clerks and Parliamentarians; the folks in the Official 
Reporters of Debates and in Closed Captioning Services who worked 
around the clock; the Sergeant at Arms Bill Pickle, and all of his 
support staff, including Skip Rouse and his crew with Capitol 
facilities, for the around-the-clock services, everything from cots to 
different bedding materials; Myron Flemming and his doorkeepers who 
kept control of the galleries because we had a lot of people through 
over the course of the last 2 days; the Capitol Police who, as always, 
do such a superb job watching over this Capitol complex, keeping it 
safe, and very long hours through the night and through the morning 
with a lot of visitors in and out of the building; Margo Conner and 
Jorge Castro, along with the Senate restaurants that helped provide 
food and made sure we were all well fed over the course of the last 
couple of days; Joy Ogden and the women of the appointments desk for 
ably handling all of the many guests who came through; the Press 
Gallery, the folks in the Senate Library, Printing and Document 
Services, Information Systems, and the Senate pages with whom I was 
just talking a few moments ago, all for their willingness to help in 
any way; we have the floor staff here, the cloakroom staff in the 
cloakrooms behind us, all who helped to make things run as smoothly as 
possible.
  A lot of staff are involved for each Senator. Behind each and every 
one are a number of staff members on both sides of the aisle who worked 
very long hours.
  As I got home very late last night, when I said hello to Karen, my 
wife, I realized I hadn't seen her in quite a few days. It made me 
realize, once again, that the Senators on this floor work long hours, 
and there is a lot of patience and a lot of understanding by Senate 
spouses who sacrifice their time for their loved ones, especially with 
a lot of understanding.
  I thank my own staff who have worked with a lot of dedication, 
including Manny Miranda, Marty Gold, Ramona Lessen, Holly Nass, Brook 
Whitfield, Tom Craig, Meg Gregory, and Abby Clinton. I thank everybody 
who has participated in the last several days. It has been 
extraordinary in many ways, made possible by a lot of hard work.

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