[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 155 (2009), Part 19]
[Senate]
[Pages 25859-25860]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                         GETTING OUR WORK DONE

  Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, my good friend the majority leader used 
to say frequently when he was in the minority that the price of being 
in the majority in the Senate is you have to take votes in order to 
advance bills in a smooth process.

[[Page 25860]]

  My understanding is that we were within one amendment of reaching an 
agreement several days ago. I think we are not that far away from an 
agreement that would allow us to expedite consideration of the bill, 
move it along, and be fair to the minority. I think everyone knows it 
is not uncommon in the Senate--in fact, it is routine--for there to be 
amendments offered by both sides that are not directly related to the 
bill. So there is nothing extraordinary about this.
  Let me repeat, we would be more than happy to enter into a short time 
agreement on the amendments we were discussing with the majority and 
try to wrap up this bill at the earliest possible time, certainly 
earlier than we would wrap it up if we let all of this time run until 
after midnight tonight.

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