[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 149 (2003), Part 5]
[Senate]
[Page 6845]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                           ORDER OF BUSINESS

  Mr. NICKLES. Mr. President, we have agreed to have votes on several 
pending amendments. I tell my colleagues, I am disappointed we are 
going to go out of session shortly. We stated our intention to stay in 
session, stay in business, to receive amendments late into the night, 
to work to pass and/or to modify, to accept or to come up with second 
degree amendments. We did not get as many amendments done as I had 
hoped.
  We plan on being on this resolution from 9:30 in the morning until 
midnight tomorrow. So I do not want colleagues coming to me and saying 
they did not have a chance to offer their amendment. They had a chance 
tonight. They will have a chance tomorrow. I am trying to avoid a 
calamity towards the end called a ``vote-athon'' that we have had in 
the past. My colleague from Nevada and I know that is not the way the 
Senate should work, and we should avoid it if we possibly can.
  We are going to be in on the bill tomorrow morning at 9:30. I urge 
Members, if they have amendments, please share those amendments with 
us. I have not seen any amendments that are expected to be offered by 
our colleagues on the other side of the aisle. I would like to see 
them. We would like to review them. We would like to analyze them. We 
would like to know what we are voting on.
  I urge our colleagues on the other side of the aisle, if they have 
amendments, please share those with us. Likewise, I say to any of my 
colleagues, if they have amendments, I would like to share them with 
the managers on the other side so we can cooperatively work and manage 
this budget. It is very much the leader's intention and my intention to 
finish this budget this week.
  As with most budgets in the past, I expect we will have a lot of 
votes. It needs to be done in a way that we know what we are voting on. 
So I make those editorial comments. Again, I want to thank my 
colleagues from Nevada and North Dakota. Both have been a pleasure to 
work with. I hope we will have greater progress in moving amendments.
  I mentioned in our unanimous consent request, which has already been 
agreed upon, we have three votes. My expectation would be that we would 
have several other votes tacked on in addition to those. I hope we will 
have substantive amendments.

                          ____________________