[Congressional Record Volume 152, Number 29 (Wednesday, March 8, 2006)]
[Senate]
[Pages S1881-S1882]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                            LOBBYING REFORM

  Mr. FRIST. Mr. President, both the Democratic leader and I will have 
a few comments, but what I have just done is filed a cloture motion, 
which I have done so reluctantly because I really have been very 
pleased over the past couple weeks as we addressed a very important 
issue on lobbying reform and ethics reform, an issue that is critical 
to restoring the faith the American people really deserve to have in 
their Government. We have been working together, as I said, in a 
bipartisan way. I thought until a few hours ago we had a very good 
chance of completing this bill this week.
  At the leadership level, we worked together very well, and the four 
managers--we have four managers because we merged the two bills--have 
been working together effectively and lined up a number of amendments 
to vote on today and tomorrow as well. As I said, I thought we would be 
able to finish it.
  Having said that, what happened today is an amendment came to the 
floor under circumstances that I am not going to go through right now, 
but it is such that it really would take us off the course of this 
bipartisan lobbying reform bill. We had discussions as to whether that 
amendment would be withdrawn, but it was made very clear after the 
discussions among us that the amendment would come back later tonight, 
tomorrow, or the next day.
  Again, this amendment has nothing to do with lobbying reform or 
ethics reform of this body, something that is important, something that 
is the business of the Senate right now on the floor.
  So what I have done is filed a cloture motion which will ensure we 
finish this bill. We have had reasonable time for people to offer 
amendments, and postcloture, once cloture is obtained, germane 
amendments can still be considered.
  Let me also add that we still have the opportunity to get the bill 
done. What I would suggest is that with this cloture motion, since it 
will ripen on Friday unless we are able to work out some other 
agreement to have it ripen before that, we do have the opportunity 
tomorrow to work over the course of the morning, really through

[[Page S1882]]

the day, and address amendments--we have to do so by unanimous 
consent--but address amendments on the lobbying reform bill.
  The managers were about to have us vote on some other amendments 
which we would be able to vote on. It will take unanimous consent. We 
could bring them up one at a time if that is the case.
  Without going into all the details of what happened, that is where we 
are today. The cloture motion now has been filed, and it does give us a 
road to completing this bipartisan bill.
  I will be happy to yield to the Democratic leader for a comment.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Democratic leader.
  Mr. REID. Mr. President, the one thing that I will do is work very 
hard over the next few hours to see if we can have the cloture vote 
tomorrow, sometime tomorrow. I will see if we can get that done. I 
think it would be to everyone's advantage if we could resolve this part 
of the situation we have on the floor.
  I would say that the Leader and I have had many discussions during 
the day and in the weeks prior to this matter coming to the floor in an 
effort to move this lobbying reform bill along. I think we can get a 
lobby reform bill; it is now a question of when we will do that.
  But in the morning, cooler heads will prevail, and we will see what 
we can do to move the country along on these things that need to be 
done.

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