[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 149 (2003), Part 2]
[Senate]
[Page 1797]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                                SCHEDULE

  Mr. FRIST. Mr. President, today the Senate will be conducting morning 
business to allow Senators to speak and to introduce legislation. Under 
the previous order, at 12:30 p.m., the Senate will recess until 2:15 
p.m. for the weekly party lunches. As previously announced, there will 
be no rollcall votes today.
  This evening, the President will deliver his State of the Union 
Address. I ask all Members to be in the Senate Chamber by 8:30 p.m. so 
we can proceed as a body to the House Chamber for the President's 
speech which will begin promptly at 9 p.m.
  For the remainder of the week, the Senate will consider any 
legislative or executive matters that become available. There may be 
some additional nominations that are reported by the committees of 
jurisdiction, and it is my hope that the Senate will be able to act on 
those nominations in a timely way.
  In addition, it will be necessary to act on a further continuing 
resolution this week. Therefore, rollcall votes are possible this week.
  Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the morning business time 
ordered for today be divided as follows: The time from 10:30 a.m. to 
11:30 a.m. be under Republican control; the time from 11:30 a.m. to 
12:30 p.m. be under Democratic control. I further ask unanimous consent 
that upon reconvening from the party lunches recess, the time from 2:15 
p.m. to 3:15 p.m. be under Democratic control; the time from 3:15 p.m. 
to 4:15 p.m. be under Republican control; finally, that the time from 
4:15 p.m. to 5 p.m. be equally divided between the two parties.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
  Mr. REID. Reserving the right to object.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Nevada.
  Mr. REID. Mr. President, can we modify the request so that we lock in 
which Democrats expect to be here? Some of the times are more than 10 
minutes, so we will need to ask unanimous consent to do that. I will go 
over that now with the consent of the Republican leader: From 11:30 
a.m. to 11:45 a.m., Senator Durbin; 11:45 a.m. to 12 noon, Senator 
Boxer; from 12 noon to 12:15 p.m., Senator Stabenow; from 12:15 p.m. to 
12:30 p.m., Senator Biden; from 2:15 p.m. to 2:45 p.m., Senator Kennedy 
will be in control of the time. There will be some other Senators who 
will speak, but Senator Kennedy will allot the time. From 2:45 p.m. to 
3:05 p.m., Senators Boxer and Jeffords; from 3:05 p.m. to 3:15 p.m., 
Senator Schumer.
  This throws morning business off by 15 minutes. If the leader wants 
to take 15 minutes for the Republicans at 5 o'clock, that will be 
appropriate, but from 4:15 p.m. to 5 p.m., Senators Dayton and Dorgan 
control that time.
  Mr. FRIST. Mr. President, the reason there is some discussion is that 
we do need to be out of the Chamber by 5 o'clock to prepare for this 
evening; so if we can have some modification of the time----
  Mr. REID. Mr. President, the note I was given had the wrong time. It 
will be from 4:45 p.m. to 5 p.m., Senator Dayton.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Does the majority leader so modify his 
request?
  Mr. FRIST. I so modify my request.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. FRIST. Mr. President, over the course of the week, as I 
mentioned, we will likely have votes. We will be dealing with the 
continuing resolution and, I am very hopeful, nominations as they come 
forward.
  With respect to Friday, I expect there to be no rollcall votes, and 
we likely will not be in session on Friday out of consideration for the 
Democratic gathering and planned meeting. That will be similar to the 
following Friday as well. We will have further announcements on that 
schedule during the course of the week.
  Mr. REID. Mr. President, if I may say before the leader leaves the 
floor, I believe we had a productive week last week. It was extremely 
difficult and contentious at times. When it ended, I think it was good. 
I hope the leader will use whatever influence he has, which is 
significant, to have the conference move forward. We need to get this 
bill done. I hope the leader will do whatever he can to have the House 
and the Senate begin meeting immediately, and, of course, the way it 
works is the administration is heavily involved in those conferences. 
This is so important. I hope we start that ``yesterday.''
  Mr. FRIST. Mr. President, I, too, will encourage our colleagues in 
the Senate and in the House of Representatives and the administration 
with regard to having an expeditious process. We all did work very 
hard. We had a recess that had been initially planned, and with the 
goal of being able to accomplish what we all set out to accomplish--and 
that is completion of these appropriations bills--all of us came back 
from that recess, worked together hand in hand, and accomplished a lot. 
So over the course of today, we will be talking to our colleagues on 
both sides of the aisle, and bicamerally, so we can expeditiously bring 
this legislation to a conclusion.

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