[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 158 (2012), Part 10]
[Senate]
[Pages 14616-14617]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




   MAKING CONTINUING APPROPRIATIONS FOR FISCAL YEAR 2013--MOTION TO 
                                PROCEED

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order, all postcloture time 
has expired. The question occurs on agreeing to the motion to proceed 
to H.J. Res. 117.
  Mr. LEVIN. I ask for the yeas and nays.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there a sufficient second?
  There is a sufficient second.
  The clerk will call the roll.
  The bill clerk called the roll.
  Mr. KYL. The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator 
from Oklahoma (Mr. Inhofe) and the Senator from Illinois (Mr. Kirk).
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Cardin). Are there any other Senators in 
the Chamber desiring to vote?
  The result was announced--yeas 67, nays 31, as follows:

                      [Rollcall Vote No. 195 Leg.]

                                YEAS--67

     Akaka
     Alexander
     Baucus
     Begich
     Bennet
     Bingaman
     Blumenthal
     Blunt
     Boxer
     Brown (MA)
     Brown (OH)
     Cantwell
     Cardin
     Carper
     Casey
     Coats
     Cochran
     Conrad
     Coons
     Durbin
     Feinstein
     Franken
     Gillibrand
     Hagan
     Harkin
     Heller
     Hoeven
     Hutchison
     Inouye
     Johanns
     Johnson (SD)
     Kerry
     Klobuchar
     Kohl
     Kyl
     Landrieu
     Lautenberg
     Leahy
     Levin
     Lieberman
     Lugar
     McCaskill
     McConnell
     Menendez
     Merkley
     Mikulski
     Murkowski
     Murray
     Nelson (NE)
     Nelson (FL)
     Portman
     Pryor
     Reed
     Reid
     Rockefeller
     Sanders
     Schumer
     Shaheen
     Stabenow
     Tester
     Udall (CO)
     Udall (NM)
     Warner
     Webb
     Whitehouse
     Wicker
     Wyden

                                NAYS--31

     Ayotte
     Barrasso
     Boozman
     Burr
     Chambliss
     Coburn
     Collins
     Corker
     Cornyn
     Crapo
     DeMint
     Enzi
     Graham
     Grassley
     Hatch
     Isakson
     Johnson (WI)
     Lee
     Manchin
     McCain
     Moran
     Paul
     Risch
     Roberts
     Rubio
     Sessions
     Shelby
     Snowe
     Thune
     Toomey
     Vitter

                             NOT VOTING--2

     Inhofe
     Kirk
       
  The motion was agreed to.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Cardin). The majority leader.
  Mr. REID. Mr. President, for the last several days I have been 
telling everyone that we needed to do a couple of things before we 
leave. We have to do the CR, and we have to do the sportsmen's package.
  Mr. President, just a second on the sportsmen's package. If we flip 
through the dictionary and find the word ``bipartisan,'' part of that 
definition would be Tester's sportsmen's package because it is a 
Republican and Democratic bill. It involves hunters, fishermen, and 
other sportsmen, including offroad vehicles. It is a very good piece of 
legislation for a group of people who are totally unrecognized most of 
the time. We are going to do those two things before we leave.
  In order to bring us to that result, I will fill the tree and file 
cloture on the CR. Unless we get consent, the cloture vote on the CR 
will occur sometime after midnight on Saturday, at 1 a.m. or 
thereabouts. Once we invoke cloture on the CR, the 30 hours postcloture 
will run until 7:30 a.m. on Sunday, give or

[[Page 14617]]

take an hour. We would vote at that time to pass the CR. Immediately 
thereafter we will vote to invoke cloture on the motion to proceed to 
the sportsmen's package.
  So here is where that leaves us: We file cloture on the CR and the 
motion to proceed to the sportsmen's package. That sets up two votes 
for very early Sunday morning in addition to tomorrow night, Saturday 
morning at 1 a.m. or thereabouts. We can do those votes now and finish 
everything today or we can wait. The choice is clear. We end up in the 
same place Sunday morning or we can get there today.
  I have had some Senators come to me and say, well, we are not going 
to vote on the sportsmen's package. Well, yes, they are. We have that 
set up. There is a clear path. The problem with the rest of the stuff 
is not our problem; it is the Republicans' problem.
  I worked something out in good faith with Rand Paul. He in good faith 
worked something out with me. I am not here to be a cheerleader for 
Rand Paul; I am here to tell everyone what happened. Now, if the 
Republicans don't want to vote on that, I think it would be too bad 
because Rand Paul, after all of this time--whether anyone agrees with 
what he wants to do or not--he and I in good faith worked something 
out.
  We had a number of Senators come here, including the senior Senator 
from Arizona to name one, who said we need more time on that. I have no 
problem with that. Yesterday when he said he wanted more time, I said 
just take the hour because Senator Paul has been here talking about 
this for weeks and weeks. We have heard a lot from him, and he said: I 
have talked a lot on this--and I am paraphrasing--and 15 minutes would 
be enough for me. I thought I was being generous by setting up an hour 
rather than 15 minutes. If the senior Senator from Arizona wants more 
time, I don't care. I really don't care.
  Also, I had some conversations with Lindsey Graham. He and Senator 
Lieberman have been pushing very hard on a containment resolution that 
deals with Iran. It is another bipartisan piece of legislation. Eighty 
Senators are cosponsors of it. The other 20, I bet, like it also. If 
not, the majority of the 20 do. It is something we overwhelmingly need 
to do. I think it would be good in that we are trying to work things 
out in Iraq, which is not stable at this time--at least not the way we 
want it to be. It would be nice if America had an ambassador to go to 
Iraq. That has been held up.
  With all the problems we see with Pakistan, I think it would be a 
good idea if we had an American ambassador to Pakistan. That has been 
held up for a long time.
  Again, to his credit, Senator Paul said have a vote on the 
containment resolution and have a vote on the two ambassadors. He is 
not standing in the way of that.
  Momentarily, I am going to file cloture and procedurally block any 
other amendments on the continuing resolution. We will vote on that 
whenever the Republicans want, but no later than Saturday morning at a 
time we will decide. When I say ``we decide,'' it is a statutory clock, 
and that is when it runs out. Following that, we will have a vote on 
final passage of the CR and a motion to proceed to Tester's sportsmen's 
package. That is what we have to complete. For people to try to get out 
their stuff is just unfair.
  I have seen newspaper accounts of Republican Senators who love the 
Tester legislation. I didn't ask them; I read it in the paper. They 
think it is good because it is good. It is bipartisan. It does 
something we have been trying to do for a long time; that is, a lot of 
these little bills have been held up--hundreds of them. Tester and the 
people who support this legislation have joined together 20 of these 
little bills into this one piece of legislation. It really is the right 
thing to do. I hope we can get this done.
  Remember the choice--I repeat for the third time--is very clear. We 
can quickly complete everything tonight or we can come back here 
Saturday morning in the middle of the night sometime and early Sunday 
morning. We will be at the same place. Those votes are going to take 
place. It is up to the Republicans and what they want to do with 
Senator Paul and the unanimous consent request they objected to 
yesterday.

                          ____________________