[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 153 (2007), Part 12]
[Senate]
[Pages 17292-17293]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                  COMPREHENSIVE IMMIGRATION REFORM ACT

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order, the motion to 
proceed to S. 1639 is agreed to.
  Under the previous order, the Senate will proceed to the 
consideration of S. 1639, which the clerk will report.
  The assistant legislative clerk read as follows:

       A bill (S. 1639) to provide for comprehensive immigration 
     reform and for other purposes.

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The majority leader is recognized.


                             Cloture Motion

  Mr. REID. Mr. President, I send a cloture motion to the desk.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report the motion.
  The assistant legislative clerk read as follows:

                             Cloture Motion

       We, the undersigned Senators, in accordance with the 
     provisions of rule XXII of the Standing Rules of the Senate, 
     do hereby move to bring to a close debate on Calendar No. 
     208, S. 1639, Immigration.
         Ted Kennedy, Russell D. Feingold, Daniel K. Inouye, Tom 
           Carper, Sheldon Whitehouse, Pat Leahy, Richard J. 
           Durbin, Benjamin L. Cardin, Ken Salazar, Frank R. 
           Lautenberg, Joe Lieberman, Dianne Feinstein, John 
           Kerry, Charles Schumer, Ben Nelson, B. A. Mikulski, 
           Harry Reid.

  Mr. REID. Mr. President, I now ask unanimous consent that there be a 
limitation of 26 first-degree amendments to S. 1639, the immigration 
bill. This is the list of the 13 Democratic amendments, the 12 
Republican amendments, and 1 managers' amendment, which each are at the 
desk; that there be a time limitation of 1 hour equally divided for 
each amendment; that they be subject to relevant second-degree 
amendments under the same time limitation; and that upon the 
disposition of the amendments, the bill be read the third time and the 
Senate vote on passage of the bill, with no intervening action or 
debate.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
  Mr. DeMINT. I object, Mr. President. We just received the substitute.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from South Carolina objects.
  Mr. REID. Mr. President, I renew my request and ask that we have an 
hour and a half per amendment, with the same conditions I just 
propounded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
  Mr DeMINT. Mr. President, I object.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Objection is heard.
  Mr. REID. Mr. President, how about 2 hours per amendment, with the 
same conditions and provisions in the previous unanimous consent 
requests I made.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
  Mr. COBURN. Reserving the right to object, Mr. President, with all 
deference to the majority leader, this procedure has excluded many of 
us from our right to offer amendments on the floor. I think he 
understands our discomfort with this process. There will not be an 
amount of time that will pave over the loss of our rights to offer 
amendments on this very important bill that needs to be dealt with. So 
it is not in terms of trying to delay what the majority leader is 
trying to do, but there is not going to be a period of time on this 
particular set of amendments, unless there is a set of amendments that 
we will be allowed, as Senators in the United States of America, to 
offer on behalf of our constituencies.
  Mr. REID. So I take it there is an objection.
  Mr. COBURN. Yes.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. There is objection.
  Mr. REID. Mr. President, I say to my distinguished friend, the junior 
Senator from Oklahoma, he always comes directly to the point. I 
appreciate him and his objection.


                           Amendment No. 1934

  Mr. REID. Mr. President, I tried to line up these 26 amendments for 
debate and vote. We have been told that no matter what the time per 
amendment is that would be allocated, that is not good enough. I also 
included second-degree amendments. That was objected to. I have no 
choice but to offer, after consultation with the Republican leadership, 
an amendment that contains these Democratic and Republican amendments 
and ask that it be divided so that these 26 Senators may get votes in 
relation to their amendments.
  I now call up that amendment, which is at the desk, on behalf of 
Senators Kennedy and Specter.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report the amendment.
  The assistant legislative clerk read as follows:

       The Senator from Nevada (Mr. Reid), for Mr. Kennedy and Mr. 
     Specter, proposes an amendment numbered 1934.

  Mr. REID. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that reading of the 
amendment be dispensed with.
  Mr. DeMINT. I object.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Objection is heard. The clerk will continue to 
read.
  The assistant legislative clerk continued with the reading of the 
amendment.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Menendez). The Senator from Louisiana.
  Mr. VITTER. Mr. President, in light of our discussion with the 
distinguished majority leader under which we won't take further action 
until tomorrow, so we can begin to digest this mammoth amendment, I 
move to waive reading of the amendment.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  (The amendment is printed in today's Record under ``Text of 
Amendments.'')
  Mr. REID. Mr. President, I did have a conversation with the junior 
Senator from Louisiana and a number of his colleagues. I think it is 
only fair that they have the evening and night to work on this big 
piece of legislation. It took a lot longer to get here, as always 
happens. It is ``always on its way,'' be here ``right away,'' ``another 
5 minutes.''
  Of course, it took several hours. I think in fairness, it is only the 
right

[[Page 17293]]

thing to do. We are going to come back at 10 o'clock in the morning. 
There will be no morning business tomorrow. I would say to all 
Senators, there is a briefing that starts at 10 o'clock with Admiral 
McConnell. I have not had the opportunity to speak to him yet. But I am 
confident that for any Senators who are unable to go to that briefing 
because of being obligated to be here on the Senate floor, another time 
can be arranged that he and/or his staff would be happy to come and 
visit with another group of Senators. So we are not going to be in 
recess during the time of that briefing. But I would hope tomorrow we 
can get some movement on this bill, and the Senator from Louisiana and 
others will better understand this tomorrow, and make a decision of how 
if, in fact, they want to proceed, along with a number of others.
  So that being the case, I express my appreciation to the Senator from 
Louisiana and his colleagues we met with earlier today.

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