[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 159 (2013), Part 8]
[Senate]
[Page 10649]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                                SCHEDULE

  Mr. REID. Mr. President, following leader remarks the Senate will 
resume consideration of the immigration bill. The time until 11:30 will 
be equally divided between the two managers of the bill, Senators Leahy 
and Grassley. At 11:30 there will be three rollcall votes--one on 
confirmation of the Secretary of Transportation, Anthony Foxx; the next 
vote will be on adoption of the committee-reported substitute 
amendment; and then we will have cloture on the final bill, as amended, 
if amended. We hope to complete action on this immigration bill--I will 
talk about that in a minute.
  Everyone knows we are poised to pass a historic immigration bill. It 
is landmark legislation that will secure our borders and help 11 
million people get right with the law.
  I have indicated that we have three votes this morning. We hope to be 
able to work something out so we can have a vote sometime late 
afternoon or evening. There is no reason, after these votes today, to 
delay this. If people want to delay it, they can, but it will point 
toward the inevitable, which will be about 6 o'clock tomorrow evening. 
We can either wrap this up today, have some final speeches, vote on it, 
or wait until tomorrow because during this 30 hours postcloture nothing 
can happen procedurally.
  I once again applaud the Gang of 8 for their work, which is 
commendable and very important for this institution. Without their 
diligent efforts, we would never have been able to come this far.
  I commend Chairman Leahy for the work he did in the committee with 
the markup, which took place over many weeks. I commend him for his 
work on this bill as manager during the weeks it has been on the floor, 
and my friend Charles Grassley. Senator Grassley and I disagree on 
occasion about substantive issues but never on a personal issue. He is 
a very remarkably good Senator and a fine man. I have enjoyed my 
relationship with him all these many years.
  Whenever the vote is scheduled, whether it is tomorrow or today, I am 
going to ask that Senators be seated for the vote. I have had a number 
of requests from Democrats and Republicans that we do this. They are 
absolutely right. This vote is important. No matter how you feel about 
the legislation, it is important enough that we should do that. When it 
comes time for the vote, whenever it is worked out, we are going to 
have Senators here on the floor. If not, I am going to have a live 
quorum to get everybody here. This is not a vote where people should be 
straggling in and raising their hands at the Chair. We should have this 
in an orderly fashion.
  I repeat, whenever we are able to schedule this vote, we are going to 
have people here before the vote starts or we will have a live quorum 
and get some activity in the Senate so we can do that.
  My friend the Republican leader is not here. I would ask the Chair to 
announce the business of the day.

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