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The Senate continued with the consideration of the bill.
Mr. Dole: Mr. President, I will just take a moment. I want to get an update on where we are on the pending legislation.
We hope to finish this today. I appreciate the President's efforts, along with the Democrat leader and the manager on the other side, to reduce the number of amendments on that side of the aisle. We have been making the same effort here.
I wonder if the distinguished chairman of the Judiciary Committee, Senator Hatch, might be in a position to indicate how many amendments are remaining on this side or on both sides, if he knows.
Mr. Hatch: We have only disposed of three amendments. We have disposed of a few others by unanimous consent. But of the 32 GOP amendments, only 1 as been accepted; 5 are pending. I expect at the most, only 3 more. We are basically down to a very few on the Republican side. On the Democrat side, they have only offered five amendments. We voted on one of them. That was the taggants amendment. That would leave over 60 unknown or unoffered Democrat amendments.
We have to, it seems to me, if we are going to finish tomorrow, we have to break those down and come up with a limited list, as the Republicans are doing.
Mr. Dole: It is my understanding that maybe after the policy lunches that we have every Tuesday that maybe there will be an announcement on the other side that a number of the amendments have been dropped.
It seems to me, and I have not seen the list that may be remaining, a number of these amendments are not directly related to antiterrorism or what happened in Oklahoma City or anywhere else.
If there will be a pattern of amendments offered just for the purpose of making points which we believe can be made at another time--I do not suggest people should not have a right to make whatever point they want to make--this is legislation that the President has asked for. It is nonpartisan. It is bipartisan. We have worked together on it. It is part of Senator Hatch's efforts, part of my efforts, part of the President's efforts, part of the efforts of my colleague on the other side. We want to pass it.
The President complains about delay in the Senate. Much of the delay is because of a number of amendments on the other side. It may be the only way we can finish this bill is A, to start tabling amendments that are not directly related to this bill, and I will let the chairman of the committee, Senator Hatch make that decision. That would be one way to expedite passage, to table those amendments which can be offered at a later time, or, B, to invoke cloture. A cloture petition has been filed, and the cloture vote will occur if for some reason we do not finish the bill late this evening, early in the morning. By 8:30 or 9 o'clock, we will have a cloture vote.
Hopefully, that would eliminate a lot of the nongermane amendments. I urge my colleagues on both sides, not just one side, both sides of the aisle, if there are amendments that are somewhat related or Members would like some political point or some other point, let Members pass this legislation.
The other bill is up this year and those amendments can be offered. This legislation is important. We would like to dispose of it today. I hope we can have the cooperation of Members on both sides of the aisle.
I ask that the Senate stand in recess according to the previous order.
