[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 150 (2004), Part 10]
[Senate]
[Pages 12625-12626]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                                 VOTING

  Mr. REID. If I could ask, through the Chair, to the distinguished 
majority leader, it is obvious we have a number of amendments to 
dispose of. As we talked publicly last night with the two managers, we 
have four missile defense amendments over here. There will be at least 
two second degrees, maybe more, that will be offered on those 
amendments. As we have said, as soon as we see them, I am sure we can 
set out a reasonable period of time to debate them and vote on them, 
and we should get rid of these with--I do not mean that in a negative 
sense but move on past these in a fairly short period of time.
  We also have indicated that Senator Biden wishes to offer the 
amendment that has been no secret around here to take some of the 
higher bracket tax cuts and use those moneys for what is going on in 
Iraq.
  Anyway, all of this stuff is fairly known now, what we have to do. I 
believe we can move through these at a fairly decent rate.
  Senator Levin mentioned last night that people have been waiting for 
several days to offer amendments, and we have to make sure they have 
that opportunity. The main reason for rising

[[Page 12626]]

now is to say I hope that--I should not say I hope; I guess it should 
be in the form of a question--on Monday that we are going to have some 
votes on some substantive defense-related amendments, and I do not know 
what time the distinguished majority leader wants to do that. If it is 
going to be at the regular time, 5:30, we should know that. If it is 
going to be earlier, we should alert our folks to that now. Because of 
certain things that also are quite known around here, we will not have 
votes tomorrow, unless the majority leader decides to have a cloture 
vote. Other than that, there will not be any other votes, I am very 
confident of that.
  Does the majority leader have an idea whether he is going to move 
things up on Monday?
  Mr. FRIST. It is absolutely critical that we make today a productive 
day, and I think we have a good plan for today. Tomorrow needs to be a 
productive day. The scheduled cloture vote for tomorrow would likely be 
the only vote tomorrow, and again I think we need to discuss that over 
the course of the day and then see what the plan would be for Friday 
and Monday. We will be voting Monday absolutely. We will probably do it 
later in the day. Again, we will defer to the managers about that.
  We need to make Monday a very full and productive day if we are going 
to finish this bill.
  Mr. REID. Mr. President, I want to make sure everyone understands 
that tomorrow will be a tremendously good day to offer amendments. 
There would be time to debate whatever they want to lay down, and even 
though there would not be votes scheduled on them tomorrow that would 
sure be a good way to get things done. Some Members have already 
expressed to me that they would be willing to lay down their amendments 
tomorrow. So tomorrow, in addition to Monday, should be a productive 
day on this legislation.
  Mr. FRIST. I agree, tomorrow would be a great day to lay down 
amendments if they are absolutely necessary and important amendments, 
but for amendments we do not need to consider or that can be considered 
later, we do not need to lay down too many amendments tomorrow because 
I want to be able to finish this bill. But tomorrow is going to be a 
productive day.

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