[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 155 (2009), Part 1]
[Senate]
[Pages 220-221]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                           ORDER OF BUSINESS

  Mr. REID. Mr. President, I have notified a number of Members--I had a 
meeting with them at 9 o'clock this morning--that because of a Senator 
not allowing us to move forward on this legislation last night and 
throwing every procedural hurdle in the way of these bills, which is 
now in the form of one bill, we are going to have a vote Sunday morning 
in the Senate. So everyone should understand, Sunday morning we are 
going to have a vote in the Senate.
  I have had a number of meetings with President-elect Obama. We have a 
lot to do. I spoke with Senator Mikulski right before coming in. I have 
spoken with Senator Kennedy today. The Ledbetter legislation, to make 
things more fair for people, especially women, is the next piece of 
legislation we are going to move to after this bill. We have just a few 
days to do all this work.
  As President-elect Obama has said, there are people out there who 
would love to work on Sunday. We are going

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to have to spend time on Saturdays, Sundays, and nighttime, especially 
during the first several months of this difficult time in which we find 
ourselves in this country. Everything that should be up is down. Alcoa 
is laying off 13,500 people today. The word is out that they expected 
about 400,000 jobs to be lost this month. They are reporting within the 
next few hours almost 700,000 jobs were lost this month. Do you think 
we can work a weekend, maybe take a Saturday vote or a Sunday vote? I 
think we better do that. Senators should cancel their travel plans this 
weekend.
  I have a family just like everyone else does, and I would rather not 
be here this weekend. But I want everyone to understand--I am glad 
Republicans are on their retreat. That is important. We are going to 
have one later on. I hope the staff will alert them that on Sunday we 
are going to have a vote. I am sorry for the inconvenience, but as 
President-elect Obama has said, there are people out there who would 
like to be able to work on Sunday. They would like to work anytime; 
they don't have jobs. Mr. President, 670,000 people this month have 
lost jobs. Think about that--670,000 people have lost jobs.
  Mr. President I want to say just one thing. This is Senator Byrd's 
50th anniversary. I spoke at some length yesterday about his record. I 
don't want this day to go by without having acknowledged the 50th 
anniversary of Senator Byrd's service in the Senate. Senators will be 
coming to the floor today to talk about Senator Byrd's 50 years of 
service. At a later time, we will put that into a document and have 
that available for the public and individual Senators.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll
  Mr. TESTER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so 
ordered.

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