[Congressional Record Volume 155, Number 32 (Tuesday, February 24, 2009)]
[Senate]
[Pages S2389-S2390]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                                SCHEDULE

  Mr. REID. Madam President, today following leader remarks, the Senate 
will resume consideration of the motion to proceed to S. 160, the DC 
Voting Rights legislation, with the time divided until 11 a.m. between 
the two leaders or their designees. The designation we have is, of 
course, Senator Lieberman, the chairman of the committee. At 11 a.m. 
the Senate will proceed to a cloture vote on the motion to proceed to 
the bill.
  The Senate will recess from 12:30 to 2:15 to allow for the weekly 
caucus luncheons. We will likely not have a vote on the nomination of 
Solis, a cloture vote. It is my understanding that Republicans have 
almost cleared it. They have one more Senator to hear from to set this 
up. So there will be a vote at 4:30 from the time after the caucus. We 
are waiting for a phone call. Staff is waiting for a phone call. So 
what we would do if, in fact, that is granted, we would work until 4:30 
p.m. today on the Solis nomination. People can come and talk on that 
however they feel. At 4:30 we would have a vote on her confirmation.
  Now, that vote will be completed shortly before 5 o'clock. Chairman 
Lieberman will be the person who will be managing this bill. If people 
want to amend this, they have that right to do that. I have spoken at 
some length to the Republican leader. We have to get off this 
legislation as soon as we can, because a week from this Friday, March 
6, the funding for the Government runs out. So we have to pass the bill 
that will be coming from the House today, or at the latest tomorrow. We 
have to get that passed.
  We have scheduled a ``no-vote day'' next Friday. We would like to 
keep that. If, however, we see that this appropriations bill is running 
into trouble, we are going to have to cancel that because we have to 
continue working on the legislation until we complete it. But there 
should be no problem in that regard.
  I understand people want to offer amendments. That is fine. Let them 
offer amendments. But this bill has been around for a long time. It is 
now on the Web--people can look at it--as of last night. It has been 
around for a long time. We have had Republican input, both in the House 
and in the Senate. It has been scrubbed very closely. So I hope 
everyone would look at the legislation, determine what amendments they 
want to offer and recognize the deadline we have next Friday.


                              THE ECONOMY

  Members of Congress and all Americans look forward to hearing from 
President Obama tonight in his first address in the House Chamber. 
After we passed as a Congress, and he signed, the economic recovery 
plan into law, the President can confidently tell the American people 
that we have begun filling with dirt the deep economic ditch he 
inherited. That is especially so with the announcement he made in Mesa, 
AZ last Wednesday about the housing crisis.
  Throughout his campaign, and now the first weeks of his Presidency, 
President Obama has told it to us very straight. He has not sugar-
coated anything. He has not sugar-coated the challenges we face or 
tried to paint a rosy picture of a rapid recovery.
  He will surely call upon us to lend a hand, to put politics aside and 
continue working together, not as two parties but as one Congress for 
one country. In

[[Page S2390]]

the early days of the 111th Congress, we have done that.
  With the good-will and earnest hard work of Democrats and Republicans 
alike, we passed a historic wilderness bill, a lands bill that has been 
called the most significant environmental legislation in a quarter of a 
century.
  We passed the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act to help employees fight 
cases of wage discrimination and ensure the principle of equal pay for 
equal work.
  We passed the lands bill on a bipartisan basis. We passed the Lilly 
Ledbetter Fair Pay Act on a bipartisan basis. We passed a new 
Children's Health Insurance Program to provide health coverage to 
millions of low-income families, children of those families. We did 
that on a bipartisan basis. We passed President Obama's economic 
recovery plan on a bipartisan basis, a plan to begin creating jobs, 
investing in our workforce, and providing tax relief to working 
families.
  As I have traveled around the country these last 10 days or so, 
people said: Well, that was not bipartisan. It was. We had Governors 
from Florida to California, Republican Governors and Governors in 
between, being cheerleaders for this legislation. The day before the 
legislation passed in Florida, conservative Republican Governor Crist 
introduced President Obama, telling the people of Florida that this 
legislation was a must-pass for that State.
  People said: Well, what happened in the Senate? We got one more 
Republican vote than we needed. We had Republican input. It was a 
bipartisan bill. We may not have had a lot of Republican Senators 
voting for this legislation, but there was Republican input. Senator 
Voinovich from Ohio was involved in this legislation to the last hour 
that we worked on this. He asked for certain things in this legislation 
and, frankly, he got them. It was a bipartisan group of Senators, led 
by, on our side, Senators Nelson and Lieberman, on the Republican side 
by Senators Snowe, Collins, and Specter. So it was bipartisan.

  I appreciate the work we have been able to accomplish in this Senate 
up to this time. We are moving America forward. We are in the early 
rounds of this fight we have. Without further steps, our economic 
crisis will grow worse, not better. But there are going to be further 
steps.
  I heard on the radio this morning a tremendous interview about a 
person who was selling cars. He said, there is no question about it, 
that the stimulus is going to help him sell cars. I believe that is the 
case, that all through our economy, we are going to see improvement.
  That is why all of us--I repeat, Democrats and Republicans, Members 
of Congress--all Americans need to pick up that shovel and keep filling 
our economic ditch with dirt, so we can climb out of it. We and the 
Obama administration, we as Congress, and our White House, will help 
millions of American families keep their homes, stem the tide of 
falling home values for the tens of millions of families who have done 
nothing wrong yet continue to see their home equity disappear.
  We will implement banking reform to begin to unfreeze wheels of 
credit once again so that families can buy cars, send their children to 
college, and businesses can manage inventory and hire new workers, all 
while implementing new oversight, protecting the American people from 
any future banking crisis.
  We will pass a budget, and we will do it soon, that reflects the 
priorities of America's working families and safeguards every dollar of 
taxpayer funds. Throughout this recession, American people have been 
bombarded with bad news, but they remain patient for the tough choices 
and hard days still to come, and feel good about the progress that has 
been made.
  The people of my State, Nevada, a State hit harder than most any 
other, understand this turnaround will not happen tomorrow or the next 
day, but they expect that Congress will put progress over politics in 
every decision we make.
  Yesterday, President Obama said it all when he said: It is the 
obligation of the majority party to be inclusive. And he is right about 
that. But he also said: It is the obligation of the minority party to 
be constructive. Inclusive and constructive, if we keep those words in 
mind, these critical next weeks of legislating will provide us with an 
opportunity to again fill this economic ditch that has been dug these 
last many years and begin building the mountains once again to get us 
out of there.

                          ____________________