[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 149 (2003), Part 13]
[Senate]
[Pages 17606-17607]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                   EVENING AT NATIONAL GALLERY OF ART

  Mr. REID. Mr. President, while the majority leader is on the floor, I 
have something that is not directly on point but I wish to say for the 
entire Senate. I congratulate the majority leader and the Democratic 
leader. It is so rare that we, as a Senate, are able to get together at 
a social event. Last night, we were able to have an event where we went 
to an exhibit at the National Gallery of Art to see paintings by a 
great western artist, Remington.
  I applaud and congratulate the two leaders for bringing this together 
because so much of what we do is adversarial in nature. It was a 
tremendous evening last night to be able to have our spouses and to sit 
down to dinner and listen to some short, but good, speeches and look at 
great exhibits that were painted almost 100 years ago by this great 
artist.
  I speak for the whole Senate and extend my congratulations to the two 
leaders for arranging that event last night.


                    Foreign Relations Authorization

  Mr. President, through you to the majority leader, we have an 
amendment about which I have talked with the two managers of the bill 
that is going to be offered this morning dealing with Mexico. We will 
do that as soon as there are amendments cleared. We have an amendment 
by Senator Murray. We have already hotlined our Members as to what 
amendments they have.
  As I indicated, either I or the Democratic leader will be in touch 
with the majority leader this morning to go over generally the list of 
these amendments so he has an idea of what we have at this time. That 
certainly would not prevent people offering them at a later time. But I 
think we have a pretty good list of all the amendments that are going 
to be offered. At that time, the majority leader can make a decision as 
to how we proceed.
  We believe this is an important bill, and we think it should be 
completed. We think it should be completed as soon as possible, and as 
the leader indicated, every Senator has a right to offer amendments on 
any subject they want, and a few of them are going to do that. We hope 
that will be kept to a minimum so we can move to the amendments that 
are germane and relevant to this matter, not because it is required by 
Senate rules but because we want to try to move this bill along.
  I have a couple of housekeeping issues. We have a briefing at 4 
o'clock today by Secretary Rumsfeld. I am sure a lot of the Senators 
need to go to it, including the two managers of this bill. I ask that 
the leader consider, as the day progresses, maybe putting us in recess 
during that period of time--whatever decision you make in that regard.
  We have spoken at length with the two managers. They have a pretty 
good idea of where we are coming from on this side.
  The PRESIDENT pro tempore. The majority leader.
  Mr. FRIST. Mr. President, we will have to make some big decisions 
this

[[Page 17607]]

morning in terms of planning for the day, and we will be in touch, both 
on the floor and off the floor, out of respect for completion of this 
bill as soon as possible. I appreciate it.
  Mr. REID. Mr. President, I was just told Secretary Rumsfeld's meeting 
has been rescheduled for a later time. It is not going to be this 
afternoon.

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