[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 161 (2015), Part 9]
[Senate]
[Page 11840]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                             CLOTURE MOTION

  Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the 
mandatory quorum call be waived.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Pursuant to rule XXII, the Chair lays before the Senate the pending 
cloture motion, which the clerk will state.
  The bill 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 the motion to 
     proceed to Calendar No. 19, H.R. 22, an act to amend the 
     Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to exempt employees with health 
     coverage under TRICARE or the Veterans Administration from 
     being taken into account for purposes of determining the 
     employers to which the employer mandate applies under the 
     Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.
         Mitch McConnell, Roger F. Wicker, Shelley Moore Capito, 
           Rob Portman, John Cornyn, James M. Inhofe, Daniel 
           Coats, John Boozman, Johnny Isakson, Pat Roberts, John 
           Barrasso, Mike Rounds, Mike Crapo, Roy Blunt, Thom 
           Tillis, Deb Fischer, Richard Burr.

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. By unanimous consent, the mandatory quorum 
call has been waived.
  The question is, Is it the sense of the Senate that debate on the 
motion to proceed to H.R. 22, Hire More Heroes Act of 2015, shall be 
brought to a close?
  The yeas and nays are mandatory under the rule.
  The clerk will call the roll.
  The senior assistant legislative clerk called the roll.
  Mr. CORNYN. The following Senators are necessarily absent: the 
Senator from South Carolina (Mr. Graham) and the Senator from Florida 
(Mr. Rubio).
  Mr. DURBIN. I announce that the Senator from Florida (Mr. Nelson) is 
necessarily absent.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mrs. Ernst). Are there any other Senators in 
the Chamber desiring to vote?
  The yeas and nays resulted--yeas 41, nays 56, as follows:

                      [Rollcall Vote No. 250 Leg.]

                                YEAS--41

     Alexander
     Ayotte
     Barrasso
     Blunt
     Boozman
     Burr
     Capito
     Cassidy
     Coats
     Cochran
     Collins
     Cornyn
     Cotton
     Crapo
     Daines
     Enzi
     Ernst
     Fischer
     Flake
     Gardner
     Grassley
     Hatch
     Heller
     Hoeven
     Inhofe
     Isakson
     Johnson
     Kirk
     Lankford
     McCain
     Moran
     Portman
     Risch
     Roberts
     Rounds
     Sasse
     Sullivan
     Thune
     Tillis
     Vitter
     Wicker

                                NAYS--56

     Baldwin
     Bennet
     Blumenthal
     Booker
     Boxer
     Brown
     Cantwell
     Cardin
     Carper
     Casey
     Coons
     Corker
     Cruz
     Donnelly
     Durbin
     Feinstein
     Franken
     Gillibrand
     Heinrich
     Heitkamp
     Hirono
     Kaine
     King
     Klobuchar
     Leahy
     Lee
     Manchin
     Markey
     McCaskill
     McConnell
     Menendez
     Merkley
     Mikulski
     Murkowski
     Murphy
     Murray
     Paul
     Perdue
     Peters
     Reed
     Reid
     Sanders
     Schatz
     Schumer
     Scott
     Sessions
     Shaheen
     Shelby
     Stabenow
     Tester
     Toomey
     Udall
     Warner
     Warren
     Whitehouse
     Wyden

                             NOT VOTING--3

     Graham
     Nelson
     Rubio
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. On this vote, the yeas are 41, the nays are 
56.
  Three-fifths of the Senators duly chosen and sworn not having voted 
in the affirmative, the motion is rejected.
  The majority leader.
  Mr. McCONNELL. Madam President, I enter a motion to reconsider the 
vote.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The motion is entered.
  Mr. McCONNELL. Madam President, it is my understanding that many of 
our colleagues on the other side have voted against cloture at this 
particular point. They wanted to have further time to read the bill. I 
want everybody to understand that the text is filed, it is at the desk. 
There are detailed summaries available online on the EPW Committee Web 
site.
  As everyone knows, Senator Boxer, I, and others have been discussing 
this in great detail.
  I am hopeful that by tomorrow we will have cloture on the bill and an 
opportunity to go forward.
  Let me just say to everybody that I know I haven't threatened a 
Saturday session all year, but there will be a Saturday session and 
probably Sunday as well. Let me tell you why. We have a chance to 
achieve a multiyear, bipartisan highway bill. Senator Inhofe and 
Senator Boxer reported out a 6-year bill. This is a 6-year bill. We 
have paid for the first 3 years. I believe our colleagues on the other 
side will find these pay-fors credible. They may not love every single 
one of them, but there is not a phony one in there.
  If we can get this bill over to the House, it is my belief they will 
take it up. Give the House of Representatives an opportunity to express 
itself on this bill. Imagine the scenario if we actually were able to 
produce a multiyear highway bill and get it to the President's desk for 
signature before the August recess. It is something we could all feel 
proud of. In my view, there has been outstanding bipartisan work on 
this, and so we need to keep at it, and that will require us, most 
definitely, to be here this weekend.

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