[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 153 (2007), Part 11]
[Senate]
[Page 14765]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                              IMMIGRATION

  Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, as I think my good friend, the majority 
leader, already knows, we are ready to work with the other side to 
schedule votes on pending amendments. I think the two managers are 
working together this morning to set up a schedule of votes for this 
afternoon. All of that is a step in the right direction.
  Many of the amendments we hope to schedule, however, for the 
afternoon are amendments that were offered prior to the recess. My 
concern with cloture being filed last night is that we do not want to 
deny Members who have yet to offer--and many of them have been denied 
the right to offer their amendments this week--and those who have been 
denied the right to offer their amendments should still get their 
opportunity prior to being shut out.
  Now, I am counting progress on this bill not by calendar days--that 
is one way of looking at it--but by the ability of Senators to debate 
and to vote on their respective ideas is the way that I would consider 
progress on the bill. So I hope we can clear out the amendments that 
are currently pending and that we will also work together to schedule 
debate and votes on additional amendments that are going to be offered.
  Let me remind everyone again, on the day my conference elected me 
leader I said that I thought we ought to do two big important things, 
at least, in this Congress. And one of the issues I mentioned was 
immigration. So I am among those in the Senate who would like to see us 
accomplish something on a very difficult, some days seemingly 
intractable, issue. Nevertheless, I am in favor of trying to pass an 
immigration bill. But there is going to be widespread reluctance on 
this side of the aisle to support cloture and thereby bring the bill to 
a conclusion unless amendments, a significant number, are being allowed 
to be considered.

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