[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 150 (2004), Part 4]
[Senate]
[Page 5039]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                                PROGRAM

  Mr. FRIST. Mr. President, tomorrow, following morning business as 
just outlined, the Senate will begin consideration of the Unborn 
Victims of Violence bill. We had previously worked out a unanimous 
consent agreement and under that agreement there will only be two 
amendments in order, one by Senator Feinstein and one by Senator 
Murray. In addition, there will be a total of 6\1/2\ hours of debate on 
the amendments and underlying bill. Senators should expect several 
rollcall votes during tomorrow's session as the Senate completes action 
on the Unborn Victims of Violence bill.
  Mr. President, I will turn to the assistant leader if he has any 
comments to make.
  Before we close, I do want to say I was disappointed in the earlier 
cloture vote today. As has been outlined, the sanctions have begun. 
They began on March 1 and will continue with each passing day, just 
underscoring the urgency that we must address this JOBS bill, the FSC/
ETI bill, the bill we know now will jumpstart jobs.
  I did enter a motion to reconsider that vote. I hope Members will all 
rethink their desire to offer unrelated amendments and bring unrelated 
issues to the floor which have stalled the measure. If we are unable to 
come to some resolution, we will do what we are doing now and proceed 
to other Senate business with the Unborn Victims of Violence Act. If we 
are able to refocus--and I pledge to work with the Democratic 
leadership over the ensuing hours and days--our attention on the 
underlying measure, then we will return to that bill and finish it as 
expeditiously as possible.
  Mr. REID. Mr. President, if the distinguished majority leader will 
yield for a brief comment, we recognize, as has been stated by this 
Senator and other Senators on this side of the aisle, this is a bill 
which we have been on for 3 days. As the distinguished majority leader 
has stated, he wants Members to reconsider having cast their vote 
against cloture. We would also ask that the majority through the 
distinguished majority leader reconsider allowing us to have a vote on 
the overtime matter. As I have stated, we can dispose of that with 10 
minutes of debate on our side. There are some other amendments. We had 
75. But we have told managers of the bill if we can work that down 
significantly, we would do that with each amendment; we could have a 
short time agreement. And we think we can dispose of this bill very 
quickly, which I hope through the intercession of the distinguished 
majority leader we can do.
  I would simply refer to the chairman of the committee, Senator 
Grassley. This is a quote from him where he said:

       I prefer to vote on things up or down and move on. My 
     feeling is sometime we have to face this issue. So we might 
     as well face it now.

  Added Grassley:

       If Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist had his druthers, it 
     might be to give Democrats a straight vote on the amendment 
     to allow the corporate tax bill to proceed.

  I think Senator Grassley, who is the sage farmer of the Senate, 
speaks as always with a lot of wisdom. I think those two sentences 
speak volumes. We need to vote on overtime and move on to this most 
important tax bill.
  Mr. FRIST. Mr. President, let me very briefly respond.
  The implication is one amendment is holding this bill up. It is not. 
Reference has been made to overtime over the course of the day. As I 
said in yesterday's opening statement and closing statement, we are 
willing to consider other amendments on the bill that are really 
germane to the bill. It is not just one amendment. These are message 
amendments, and we have voted on overtime in the past. There are other 
amendments which the other side of the aisle wants to bring to make 
messages and to score political points. I notice it did start at 75, 
and maybe it is down to 15 or 12 or 10. It is not down to just one 
amendment.
  I pledge to keep working both sides of the aisle to get it down to a 
manageable number. Nobody is locked down on what we will do or what we 
will not do. I want to be able to complete this bill by staying on the 
bill itself. There is going to be a lot of legislation coming through.
  I believe we have a good agreement for tomorrow to proceed and finish 
that bill. I think next week we may be going to the welfare bill, if we 
can't come back to the JOBS bill.
  There is going to be plenty of opportunity to offer these messages, 
politically driven amendments. This FSC/ETI Jumpstart JOBS bill is not 
the bill to do it on. It is an important bill. We need to finish it 
expeditiously. We have Members on record today who want to finish this 
bill as written. It came out of committee 19 to 2 under the excellent 
leadership of Chairman Grassley and Senator Baucus, who wants to 
continue to offer a whole number of message amendments--not just one, 
and not just two, and not just overtime.
  I say all of that so there is no misunderstanding. I will continue to 
fight to get this bill through. I am disappointed by the vote today and 
by actions which have held that up. As majority leader, I need to keep 
the body moving along.
  We are going to address, beginning tomorrow morning, a fresh issue on 
the floor of the Senate. I think we will have a very good debate, and 
we will complete action on that bill. If we can work through this, 
hopefully we can come back and address the JOBS bill in an orderly way. 
Then we can really have the end in sight and try to get it down to a 
manageable number of amendments that relate to the bill.

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