[Congressional Record Volume 155, Number 16 (Tuesday, January 27, 2009)]
[Senate]
[Page S851]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                                SCHEDULE

  Mr. REID. Madam President, following leader remarks, the Senate will 
resume consideration of the Children's Health Insurance Program. At 
about 12:30 p.m. today, Kirsten Gillibrand will take the oath of office 
to become a Senator representing the State of New York. Following the 
swearing in of that Senator, the Senate will recess until 2:15 p.m. to 
allow for the weekly caucus luncheons to meet.
  This week, we are going to legislate. There will be no morning 
business. We want to have all the time that is necessary to work on 
this important legislation dealing with children's health. I hope 
people will be ready to offer amendments. We have worked with staff on 
the Republican side of the aisle, and we have it set up that we have 
three amendments that will be laid down very quickly. By that time, we 
should be able to even schedule some votes for this afternoon.
  I want to make sure everyone has the opportunity to offer any 
amendment they want to offer. What we are going to try to do is not 
have a bunch of them stacked up. I think that can sometimes be very 
troublesome. But we will work, as we proceed through the legislation, 
as to what amendments need to be pending. We are here to legislate. We 
hope that if people have concerns about this important legislation and 
they think it can be made better by taking something out or putting 
something in, that is what they should do. We want everyone, when they 
offer their amendments, to have ample time to debate them, as we did 
with the first piece of legislation we dealt with, the Lilly Ledbetter 
legislation. After there has been ample time for debate, there can be 
motions to table. There are some Senators who may, for various reasons, 
agree to have up-or-down votes. We are here to legislate.
  This morning is a little difficult because we have the Finance 
Committee meeting to complete their work on the recovery package. There 
are 200 amendments that have been filed in the committee, and they have 
to work their way through those amendments. That should take the better 
part of the day, at least many hours. It is estimated from 4 to 8 hours 
to complete the markup.
  The Appropriations Committee markup is at 10:30 a.m. also. There are 
people from the Finance Committee who will be coming here on a rotating 
hour-by-hour basis so there will be floor coverage. So there is no 
reason not to be able to legislate and talk about this legislation in 
any way Senators feel is appropriate. Rollcall votes are expected to 
occur throughout the day. There will not be any votes before we 
complete our caucus luncheons.

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