[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 152 (2006), Part 6]
[Senate]
[Page 8145]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                                SCHEDULE

  Mr. FRIST. Mr. President, this afternoon we begin consideration of S. 
2611, a comprehensive immigration measure. Chairman Specter is here 
today to manage amendments to the bill. We have several Senators on 
this side of the aisle who have indicated they are prepared to pose 
their amendments during today's session. I encourage Members to come 
forward and bring their amendments to the managers just as soon as 
possible so that we will be able to consider them. Exactly how we 
handle amendments over the course of the afternoon, the Democratic 
leader and I and the chairman and managers will be discussing in a few 
minutes. We do expect a full session on the immigration bill today.
  On Tuesday we have an order to have a rollcall vote at shortly after 
10 o'clock on the confirmation of a circuit court nomination. I expect 
after that we would have some other votes that could be stacked and 
voted upon before our policy luncheons.
  I do want to say, once again, that we need Senators to offer their 
amendments, to give us language on their amendments just as soon as 
possible. The debate itself will be fair, will be dignified. We have 
all agreed we want to be able to dispose of these amendments in a way 
that allows time for effective debate, whatever time is necessary for a 
debate, but that we would expect to be voting about every 2 hours--and 
that could go to 3 hours on some and could go to 10 minutes on others. 
But in order to consider the range and number of amendments that have 
been proposed, we do need people to come forward and we will deal with 
those accordingly.
  This is an important bill. It is a bill that we have talked a lot 
about on the floor for a couple of weeks already. There has been much 
good discussion, both on and off the Senate floor. I think everybody 
has spent a lot more time with the bill and with the proposed 
amendments. Thus, I think we should be able to address the issue in a 
careful, deliberate way, a complete way, and finish this bill before 
Memorial Day.
  It is an important bill. It is an important bill to our national 
security. It is an important bill to our values, to our economy, and to 
our safety.
  I have a brief statement to make on another topic, but I turn to the 
Democratic leader, if there is any comment on scheduling, of course.

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