[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 148 (2002), Part 14]
[Senate]
[Page 19255]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                   WORK TO BE DONE BEFORE ADJOURNMENT

  Mr. DASCHLE. Mr. President, let me thank the distinguished assistant 
Democratic leader for his characteristic leadership and cooperation as 
we have worked through so many of these procedural issues. I thank him 
so much for all he has done on the floor in the last few weeks.
  We have had the debate on the resolution now for a couple of days. 
They have been good days. I think Senators have used the time wisely 
and productively, and I think it has been very constructive and 
respectful debate, as we hoped it would be.
  I have indicated to Senator Lott it is my hope we can reach an 
agreement tomorrow about how we might proceed to the completion of the 
debate. I am hopeful we might propound a unanimous consent request that 
would accommodate the Senators who wish to offer amendments, that those 
amendments be debated tomorrow, Wednesday, and Thursday, and that we 
have a vote on final passage on Thursday night.
  That would allow an entire week to have debate on this resolution. 
Senators will have ample time to be heard and to speak tomorrow, 
Wednesday, and Thursday. We will go late into the night, if we have to, 
to accommodate Senators who wish to be heard. But I think that is 
sufficient time. So I will make such a request after further 
consultation with colleagues on both sides of the aisle.
  I hope Senators will accommodate our desire, recognizing first that, 
as important as this is, there are other issues that still have to be 
addressed prior to the time we leave. We have to deal with the 
continuing resolution; we have to deal with the budget enforcement 
resolution; we have to deal with homeland security.
  Given the fact that tomorrow will be 1 month to the day before the 
election, that is a lot to be done in a very short period of time. So I 
urge Senators to work with us to accomplish these legislative goals and 
recognize there are other issues as well that we hope to deal with, 
such as nominations, perhaps conference reports; the election reform 
conference report ought to be done. I would like to see bankruptcy 
done.
  In any case, we have work that cannot be done unless we are cognizant 
of the limited time available and make use of every day. Again, I 
appreciate everyone's cooperation to date. I hope we can reach that 
agreement tomorrow and we can complete our work on this resolution by 
sometime Thursday night.
  I yield the floor.

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