[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 152 (2006), Part 15]
[Senate]
[Page 20263]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                             TIME TO SPEAK

  Mr. REID. Mr. President, it is my understanding we have basically 
3\1/2\ amendments remaining. We have one on which debate is nearing 
completion, and then we have three other amendments. We have an hour 
equally divided on each of those three amendments. On the amendment 
that is before the Senate dealing with the habeas corpus aspect of this 
legislation, we have a number of people--and we have conveyed this to 
the majority--who wish to speak. It takes up about an hour of extra 
time.
  I say to everyone within the sound of my voice--namely, 44 Democrats, 
especially those who have indicated to the cloakroom they want to speak 
on this issue--we had time lined up yesterday, and because of quorum 
calls time was lost. Unless we get more time from the majority, there 
will be no time to speak, other than the time that is in the unanimous 
consent agreement that is the order before the Senate on the three 
amendments, and whatever time is remaining on the amendment being led 
by Senator Specter and Senator Leahy.
  Again, if somebody wants time, they can't always have it so when they 
get here, they can walk on. Senators might have to wait around for a 
little while because yesterday we lost a significant amount of 
Democratic time as a result of Senators not being available to speak.
  We have a couple more days. Hopefully, we can finish this tomorrow or 
Saturday, but we have a lot to do. We will need cooperation from all 
Senators if, in fact, they want to cooperate.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The majority leader.
  Mr. FRIST. Mr. President, to expand a little bit on the Democratic 
leader's comments, we entered into a unanimous consent agreement to 
address this bill with a reasonable amount of time. We are going to 
need to stick to that in large part because we have, as I outlined, the 
Hamdan legislation, we have the other three amendments, we have the 
fence border legislation, which has been pending for several days, DOD 
appropriations, the Child Custody Act, Homeland Security 
appropriations, and possibly the port security bill. We have an 
important Cabinet nomination, the Peters nomination, and then we have 
an adjournment resolution. That list is big.
  As the Democratic leader and I have repeatedly said, we are going to 
finish this week, and it is already Thursday morning. Once we set a 
plan, we need to stick with a unanimous consent agreement set out. As 
we go through these issues, it is going to take a lot of cooperation to 
accomplish what has been laid out.
  With that, I think we will begin a period for morning business.

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