[Congressional Record Volume 149, Number 171 (Saturday, November 22, 2003)]
[Senate]
[Page S15514]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
RECOGNITION OF THE MINORITY LEADER
The PRESIDENT pro tempore. The minority leader is recognized.
Mr. DASCHLE. Mr. President, it is my understanding that we already
have an agreement where we will alternate in recognition of Senators on
either side of the aisle as we debate the Medicare bill. We have
several hours of requests already from our colleagues. I will not
propound a unanimous consent request, but I might propose that we
consider limiting at least comments today on the floor to 15 minutes to
accommodate as many Senators as possible.
I know there are a lot of Senators who are going to be attempting to
schedule their day around their opportunity to come to the floor. If we
have that understanding, if there are four or five in line, it would
seem to me it would work. As I say, I will talk to the majority leader
about that. I do hope Senators on this side of the aisle will call the
cloakroom or call Senator Reid or myself to let us know their
intentions with regard to speaking so that we can coordinate the
effective use of time.
As the majority leader has already announced, we will be in tomorrow
as well. So Senators will have an opportunity to speak throughout the
weekend in addition, of course, to Monday. We will work with him to
accommodate all Senators who wish to speak. We will work on a time
certain for a vote at a later date.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDENT pro tempore. The majority leader.
Mr. FRIST. Mr. President, as our colleagues are well aware, the
Democratic leader and I have set aside all day today, and we can stay
as late today as necessary. We initially said around 5, but this issue
is so important, and there are so many people, as the distinguished
leader implied, who do want to come to the floor, and it is the only
opportunity for some to come, therefore, we are going to spend all day
today on it, as much time tomorrow as necessary, and in all likelihood
Monday morning.
I hesitate a little bit trying to limit people to 15 minutes because
I do know some people have 30 minutes of comments, but I think that we
should stress keeping the comments to as short a period as possible to
make their points because we have a lot of people on both sides of the
aisle who have called and said we are going to be there all day
Saturday; we want to be able to participate.
With this many Senators, it does mean that people need to keep their
remarks fairly short. I understand we will be alternating back and
forth. We do want to keep the time equally divided so that both sides
will have the opportunity over the course of the day to speak. Then if
there are a number of people who have waited and are unable to talk
today or tonight, if we need to go into later tonight, we can come in a
little bit earlier tomorrow or stay longer tomorrow as well.
Again, I appreciate the cooperation of all of our colleagues because
it is not customary for us to be in session on Saturday, and certainly
not on Sunday, but in order to pay respect to people's schedules over
the holidays and to address this very important issue, we have elected
to spend all day today and possibly tomorrow.
The PRESIDENT pro tempore. The minority leader.
Mr. DASCHLE. I ask the majority leader if it is his intention to set
aside a moment of silence this afternoon in commemoration of the 40th
anniversary of the assassination of President Kennedy. It is my
understanding that some thought had been given to that time, and I
think it would be helpful, if that time has been set aside, if we could
make that announcement in the interest of all Senators.
Mr. FRIST. Mr. President, I believe the time will be set aside at
12:30 today. If there is a change in that particular time, we can make
that announcement very shortly.
Mr. President, I do have a statement on an unrelated issue, which I
can do now or we can proceed.
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