Larry Craig

Mr. CRAIG

Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, before the Senator from Florida speaks--and neither the Senator from California nor I, who control time at this moment, object to that; it is my understanding he wants to speak on the crisis in Haiti--what I would like to consider is that we reconsider the unanimous consent from the Senator from California as it relates to time. Apparently there has been a misunderstanding on the part of some Senators, or their staff failed to inform them as to the time schedule that was agreed upon in the unanimous consent that was established to operate today. What is critical is a 5 o'clock vote on the Bingaman amendment and allocating necessary time for the Senators to speak to that prior to that vote, and for me to respond. I ask unanimous consent that time that is being used now, or that may not be used in quorum call, be taken equally from all sides and that that time be extended after the vote, at 5 o'clock, for those who were not given the opportunity to speak on the assault weapons ban or the semiauto ban who are missing it at this time, so we can keep the Senate running. Mr. President, I will withhold that UC for a while. There is another Senator who has an amendment that is in position at this time who would have to concur. Why don't I withdraw my UC and yield the floor to the Senator from Florida for speaking on Haiti as in morning business.

Mr. CRAIG. He would speak as in morning business.

Mr. CRAIG. Time charged on all sides.

Mr. CRAIG. Yes.

Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, we will not propound a unanimous consent request because time is burning on the clock equally. The unanimous consent agreement that brought us here this morning largely allocated 4 hours of time between 1 and 4 p.m. to debate both the assault weapons ban and the gun show loophole argument. At 4 o'clock, Senator Bingaman will be here to offer his amendment and that will be debated. We will vote at 5 p.m. Following that, the Levin amendment will be debated. Of course, we can debate into the evening on either of those two issues, if Senators so wish. Feeling they may not have gained time this afternoon to do so, there is no restriction in that. For a few moments let me discuss the issue that is at hand, the effort to reinstate the assault weapons ban. In September of this year the law expires, so there is urgency on the part of those who believe it was an effective law to get it reinstated. I will argue in the next few moments it has made no difference and that statistics do demonstrate certain things, but statistics have to be placed in the right context of understanding how they were gained to show the ineffectiveness of this law and the ineffectiveness of the ban itself. Semiautos are not the weapon of choice in the commission of nearly all the crimes in this country. What is important is to understand where we are with S. 1805, the underlying bill and the ability to keep that bill as clean as possible so that it can get to the President's desk. The semiauto ban, the gun show loophole, and a variety of other issues could simply drag this bill down and deny substantial tort reform in an area that is narrow, that is specific, that is clean, that says to the American people: Yes, we are becoming responsible in denying the kinds of junk lawsuits that some push through the courts to legislate a public policy that they cannot effectively gain by bringing it to the Congress of the United States. That is why the administration has been clear in its statement of administrative policy. On S. 1805, the administration strongly supports the passage of this legislation. The administration urges the Senate to pass a clean bill in order to ensure enactment of the legislation this year. Any amendment that would delay enactment of the bill beyond this year, in their opinion, is unacceptable. For myself, being the author of the amendment, I clearly agree with that. The manufacturers or sellers of a legal, nondefective product should not be held liable for the criminal or unlawful misuse of that product by others. This is a continuation of the statement of administrative policy: The possibility of imposing liability on an entire industry for harm that is solely caused by others is an abuse of the legal system, erodes public confidence in our Nation's laws, threatens the diminution of a basic constitutional right and civil liberty, sets a poor precedent for other lawful industries, will cause a loss of jobs and burden interstate and foreign commerce. S. 1805 would help curb frivolous litigation against a lawful American industry and the thousands of workers it employs and would help prevent abuse of the legal system. At the same time, the legislation would carefully preserve the rights of individuals to have their day in court with civil liability actions. These civil actions are enumerated in the bill and respect the traditional role of the States in our Federal system with regard to such actions. That is the statement from the administration as it relates to this legislation. It is important because they are asking for a clean bill. Listeners will hear me say time and time again over the course of today and tomorrow as we move to the vote on these amendments that are being debated today: Let's keep this bill clean. The legislative year is short. We have a bill that is supported now by a 2-to-1 vote margin in the Senate. This bill will pass this Senate by a fair margin. That expresses a bipartisan will of this Congress to get this bill to our President under the same context as the statement of administrative policy so spoke. Let's talk about the amendment at hand at this moment, the assault weapon or semiauto ban. I prefer to call it a semiauto ban, and during the course of the next few minutes you will see why. The word, ``assault,'' is by itself an image-getter. It is a cosmetic word that defines for some a certain type of firearm, at the same time sometimes as a weapon, obviously sometimes as a collector's piece. What more clearly identifies the issue at hand is the mechanism of the gun itself, the firearm itself. For the next few moments I will speak to that. At the time this law was first enacted, most in Congress were very skeptical it would work. That is why there was a sunset provision included in the law. OK, if the law is able to accomplish this, let's see if, in fact, it can accomplish that. Let's make sure that Congress has an opportunity to revisit it, as we do quite often with laws we are not sure of, and therefore a sunset provision. The year is at hand, the sunset provision is such that this bill will expire. The results are in. These firearms are not, nor have they been generally--and I use the word ``generally''--used in crime. The restrictions imposed by this law make no sense and only create a burden on law-abiding citizens and businesses. It is my opinion we ought to let it expire. Again, it is another one of the bureaucratic hurdles we love to put in front of the law-abiding citizens of this country, knowing full well that the criminal on the ground does not play by the rules, and that in a civil society is the law. My arguments of the next few moments will show just that. There continues to be a tremendous amount of misinformation about the firearms banned by this law and what the ban has accomplished, so let me go through some of the facts. Semiautomatic firearms were first introduced more than a century ago. The first semiautomatic rifle was introduced in 1885, the first small pistol in 1890. The first semiautomatic gun, the Browning automatic 5, was patented in 1900. Theodore Roosevelt, our United States President from 1901 through 1990, hunted with a semiauto shutgun. Today, Americans own approximately 30 million semiautomatic rifles, pistols, and shotguns across the landscape of this great Nation, approximately 15 percent of privately owned firearms in the United States. About 15 percent of all firearms owned in the United States meet the definition of semiauto. What are they doing with these firearms? Semiauto rifles, including many defined as assault weapons-- again, a definition of a term based on how a given weapon appears by the 1994 Federal gun ban--are used for formal marksmanship, competition, recreational target shooting, and hunting. Semiauto shotguns are very widely used for hunting, as well as skeet, trap and sporting clay shooting. Many of us enjoy that sport and engage in it. Semiautomatic handguns are used in formal marksmanship competition, as well as for recreational shooting and hunting. Many semiautomatic firearms, including some affected by the Federal assault weapon law, are highly valued by gun collectors. They are also commonly kept and used, as witnesses testified during the hearings before the House of Representatives Subcommittee on Crime in 1995, for protection against crime and criminals. There is nothing intrinsically more dangerous about these firearms than others. In fact, they do less damage to a target than a shotgun does. Clearly, the shotgun, given the range, has by far the greater force. And they are functionally identical to thousands of other guns being used for legal purposes in this country today, functionally identical. Many people mistakenly believe these are machine guns which fire more than one bullet when the trigger is pulled. If someone was listening to this debate and they heard the words ``spraying a crowd,'' they would think of a fully automatic weapon. That is simply not the case, and I think that fact needs to be clearly understood. On the contrary, semiauto firearms do not spray bullets. They fire one bullet per trigger pull. The mechanism simply ejects the shell and replaces it with another bullet, and you have to pull the trigger again. That is a semiauto. Let's remember that fully automatic machine guns have been banned since 1934. This Congress spoke to that in 1934. The Federal assault weapon law is set to expire, as I have said. It has prohibited the manufacture, since September 13, 1994, of a semiauto rifle equipped with a detachable magazine or two or more attachments, such as a bayonet lug or a flash suppressor, with similar guidelines imposed on handguns and shotguns. The manufacture of large ammunition magazines, holding more than 10 rounds, was also outlawed. Now we are beginning to get into what is, by those who understand it, viewed as an assault weapon. It is the physical attributes of two or more attachments, such as a bayonet lug and a flash suppressor. Assault weapons, large magazines manufactured before September 13, 1994, are exempt from the law. Before September 13, 1994, manufacturers accelerated production to increase inventories available for sale later. After the law took effect, the BATF informed manufacturers that they could produce firearms identical to assault weapons but without one or more of the prohibited features. And that is a reality today. So again, when I use the word, ``cosmetic,'' there is a lot more truth to that than fiction. If it does not look this way, if it does not have this particular item on it, but it shoots identically and it has the same firepower, well, then it is legal. Also, new models of semiautomatics have been introduced, and the production of some previously discontinued models has resumed. The ban affects firearms never widely used in crime, according to a study conducted by Congress--the Urban Institute, Impact Evaluation of the Public Safety and Recreational Firearms Use Protection Act of 1994. According to the FBI, rifles of any kind are used in only about 3 percent of homicides--only about 3 percent of homicides. Here is an explanation of why a law-abiding gun owner would purchase one of these firearms. Now, I pulled it out of my files because I thought it was a good one because the Senator from California said: Well, these weapons are not for hunting purposes. Yes, some people do hunt with them. Does it mean you simply machine gun down a deer? No, it does not mean that at all. It is because it is a weapon of choice, largely because it is lighter than many hunting weapons, and it can be carried by a smaller person. In this instance, this person's name is Mary. She happens to be a licensed hunter in Idaho, and she happens to use a Colt AR-15. It is a semiauto that uses a 20-round clip. That is what she hunts her deer with. That is what she kills her deer with. So she and her boyfriend wrote us and sent a picture, saying: Look, what the semiauto ban of 1994 does is it eliminates this kind of firearm, and, in essence, it eliminates the ability of a smaller person to go out into the brush to hunt deer and to recreate in that fashion. Now, the ban in 1994 did a couple of things. First of all, it named certain guns specifically. And I could go through that list of particular firearms that it actually named. Of course, the Senator from California is very well aware of that in crafting a specific list of firearms at that time. Some guns it only named by features. A semiautomatic rifle that can accept a detachable magazine and has at least two of the following is included within the ban: a folding or telescoping stock, a pistol grip that protrudes conspicuously beneath the action of the weapon, a bayonet mount, a flash suppressor or threaded barrel, a grenade launcher. But, then again, of course, the National Firearms Act already outlaws those, so even if this law expires in September of this year, it still is going to be illegal to have a grenade launcher, as it should be, unless you are a bona fide collector and have been given the authority to collect for collection purposes. A semiautomatic pistol that can accept a detachable magazine and has at least two of the following: again, an ammunition magazine that attaches to the pistol outside of the pistol grip; a threaded barrel capable of accepting a barrel extender, flash suppressor, forward handgrip, or silencer; a shroud that is attached to, or partially or completely encircles the barrel, and that permits the shooter to hold the firearm with the nontrigger hand without being burned; a manufactured weight of 50 ounces or more when the pistol is unloaded; and a semiautomatic version of an automatic firearm. That is how technical this law has become. Here is another one: a semiautomatic shotgun that has at least two of the following: a folding or telescoping stock, a pistol grip that protrudes conspicuously beneath the action of the weapon, a fixed magazine in excess of five rounds, and an ability to accept a detachable magazine. But here is something that is important to understand. You know the old phrase, ``Let's make the record perfectly clear.'' I think it is appropriate. What were banned by other laws that will still be banned after this law expires? I think I heard reference to the popularity of the AK-47, a foreign rifle, and Uzis. Well, they were banned from importation in 1989, under Federal firearms importation law--now 18 USC 925(d)(3). The use of gun parts to assemble the same guns in the United States was prohibited by the Unsoeld amendment in 1990. In 1993, the so-called assault pistols, like the Uzi pistol, were banned under the importation law. In February of 1994, revolving cylinder shotguns--I have heard the words used here, and they were commonly called ``Street Sweepers'' and ``Striker-12s''--were banned under the National Firearms Act. So those will still be illegal firearms to traffic in, to commerce in. And as a result of that, it is important that we make the record perfectly clear that ownership of these prior to the passage of the law but after the passage of the law, these do not go away. Again, as I have said, after the assault weapons law expires, here is what will happen. American-made rifles, such as the AR-15, will once again be made in their original configurations. Private citizens will also, once again, be able to buy standard capacity ammunition-- magazines usually between 13- and 17-round capacity--instead of the arbitrarily reduced capacity 10-round magazines the law imposed, a change that will assist in defending themselves against criminals and for recreational purposes. In other words, what a difference a law makes. Well, in this instance, the difference the law made was it kept firearms of these type and by definition out of the hands of law- abiding citizens. But if you are a criminal, if you want to deal in the back streets and in the black market, as most criminals do, then you are not going to walk in and try to buy one of these off the shelf. That is why criminals will have them, because you cannot acquire them off the shelf because it is illegal under the current law, and you would not be able to anyway if you were a criminal. It is the law- abiding citizens who subject themselves to the laws, as they should. Now, is this statistic that I have in front of me accurate? The Senator from California had a chart a few moments ago that would indicate quite the difference. In fact, she showed a declining number in the statistics. This statistic is accurate. Bureau of Justice statistics, Department of Justice: Before the semiautomatic firearms ban, less than 2 percent of crimes in this country were semiauto. After the ban, 1997 and forward, less than 2 percent were. Same figure. How is it possible, then, that the Senator from California gets the statistic and the chart that shows the decline? I am not suggesting she misrepresents this chart, because I believe this chart to be accurate, and I believe it is accumulated in a nonbiased way. Let me try to talk about the use of and/or the misuse of what is known as tracing data. There is a problem when using firearm commerce tracing reports justifying any assault weapon law. Let me try to walk you through this. Is this technical? It is a bit technical. But the CRS looked at it and they agree with this figure. That is the research service that we employ in a nonpartisan way to give us accurate facts and statistics about those items we debate on the floor. More than a decade ago, the CRS examined the firearms tracing system in the context of the assault weapon issue and determined that information derived from traces should not be used to determine how often any kind of guns--not just assaults or semiautos--were used by criminals. One of the key limitations of the tracing system is the fact most guns that are traced have not been used to commit violent crimes, and most guns that are used to commit violent crimes are never traced. The tracing system was designed to collect statistics. The Congressional Research Service said this: Fire arms selected for tracing do not constitute a random sample and cannot be considered representative of the large universe of all firearms used by criminals or of any subset of that universe. CRS also noted that: A law enforcement officer may initiate a trace request for any reason. No crime need be involved. It pointed out that the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms and Explosives admitted: It is not possible to determine if traced firearms are related to criminal activity. In other words, it is just a matter of gaining certain statistics on certain items. One problem with the tracing system in the context of assault weapons is that before the assault weapon law was enacted, traces on those guns were requested disproportionate to their use in crimes. That is because there was so much political interest in the guns at the time. It was the talk of the day, if you will. It was the placebo of action in 1994 that gave us the political law we have today that still represents those figures, known as the assault weapons ban. That is why it was disproportionate. Why? Political interests, a lot of questions being asked. Certainly crimes that were committed using a semiauto or an assault weapon in this percentage of 2 percent or less were highly dramatized at the time. That is because there was, again, so much action today. A decade later, they constitute a smaller share of traces because there has been less interest in them and because other guns are now being traced more heavily. In other words, the decline in the Senator's chart, in my opinion, represents that shift in attitude and in attention, if in fact you use tracing data as a way to determine that semiautos/assault weapons are being used in the commission of the crime. That is the reason for this statistic from the Department of Justice. While they look at these kinds of statistics, they don't believe them valid. Because of the method by which they are collected, they are viewed as heavily inaccurate if used in certain contexts. To determine the extent to which assault weapons have been used in crimes, we have to look at State and local law enforcement agency reports on prime weapons. That is the Department of Justice's felony survey and the congressionally mandated study on the assault weapon law. They all show assault weapons have been used in only a very small percentage of violent crimes. That is the reason for that statistic. Well, getting technical about a technical issue is important. We can talk about all of the dramatics and the tragedies that happen when firearms are misused. We can talk about Columbine, and there are a lot of kinds of things that are, appropriately so, to emote the kind of emotion all of us feel and understand when these kinds of firearms are used improperly and illegally. But what happens when we start banning them, we have all learned, is that it is the law-abiding citizen who may own them and use them responsibly and who may be collecting them that is blocked by the law. The criminal is not. In this survey that the Department of Justice uses, they go out and survey criminals. They surveyed 14,000 of them locked up in prison and, as a result of that, that figure, along with a good many others, I think clearly demonstrates the dramatic and important side of this issue. Well, I will talk through the balance of the day on this issue. But I think it is important that we demonstrate in its appropriate context the information we are providing. In my opinion, based on CRS's studies, based on the Department of Justice studies, to say the assault weapons ban law has dramatically worked since 1994 is inappropriate. The reality is that it was less than 2 percent in 1991, and less than 2 percent after its passage in 1997 and beyond. That statistic holds today, in my opinion, based on the sources that I quote, which I believe are valid and justifiable. There are a good many more statistics that I can talk about, and we will throughout the course of the day. Let me return to my initial argument. I think we have the opportunity to, in a very narrow and specific way, protect law-abiding people--gun manufacturers, licensed gun dealers who play by the rules that this Congress has laid down, and provide a quality product to Americans under their second amendment rights. But what we now see is a class of lawsuit out there that is designed for one reason: to control guns. It is a new form of gun control, because the gun control advocates of this country who continually came to Congress through the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s, saying we have to have gun control to save people's lives, found out that we read the statistics, we looked at the facts, and we said no. They decided they would go through the courts and they would begin to, by law or by action of the court, attempt to legislate those kinds of actions--in this case, by penalizing a law-abiding citizen for a third party action. Let me close with this thought. It happened to me once again this morning. I was on the phone to my State of Idaho in a radio interview. The interviewer said: Senator, we watch what you are doing on the floor of the Senate. How is that any different from suggesting that-- And he used the particular automobile, the Chevy truck. He said: How is what you are doing any different from suggesting if a drunk driver uses a Chevy truck and runs over someone and kills them, that Chevrolet is responsible for that third party action? I said: Frankly, there is no difference. That is why it is important that this Congress reinstate the historic tort law as we understand it. Individuals are held responsible for their actions. That is what the administration is asking us to do. That is what we are doing in S. 1805. Let's not extend the assault weapon ban, add it to S. 1805 and risk a failure to pass this very important piece of legislation. I yield the floor.

Mr. CRAIG. Reserving the right to object, we have a time problem. That is, at 4 o'clock we go off these two amendments that have been offered, and we go to Senator Bingaman. And we have a 5 o'clock deadline in which there will be a vote on the Bingaman amendment. So any time you use now, you are eating somebody's time because of the fixed times we have set before us. I will not object to your inquiry at the moment but understand you cannot effectively allocate yourself time without changing the underlying unanimous consent, which I do not want to allow to happen for the sake of the 5 o'clock vote and the debate on the Bingaman amendment.

Mr. CRAIG. Let me yield the distinguished Senator 2 minutes of time for the purposes of this question.

Mr. CRAIG. I believe that is the unanimous consent; that is correct.

Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, with that discussion I understand the unanimous consent is still operative? Until I understand clearly where we are, so that none of this language in any way undererodes the underlying unanimous consent, which means that all amendments that might be up but have not yet been disposed of by the opening of business on Tuesday morning fall, I would have to object at this point because that underlying agreement cannot be eroded.

Mr. CRAIG. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. CRAIG. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. CRAIG. I yield to the Senator from Virginia for an inquiry.

Mr. CRAIG. Madam President, time is running on both sides, and running out rapidly, because at 4 o'clock Senator Bingaman will have the floor for the purpose of offering an amendment. So I want to make some concluding remarks, at least for today, as it relates to the gun show loophole amendment. I think, clearly, we have established that there are well over 1,000 gun shows commercially in this country that are registered and abide by the law, some 300 exhibitors on the average, and some 4,000 people who attend each show on a regular basis. And the law that is currently on the books outside of the gun show is appropriately and legally and necessarily on the books inside the gun show. So how does the word ``loophole'' appear? Well, it appeared out of a special study that said, yes, rarely but on occasion--those are my words, not the study's words--does somebody get a gun out of a gun show that is used by them or someone else in the commission of a crime. And the answer is, yes, around 1 percent. Oh, therefore, there must be a loophole. Well, there is a loophole, and it is also outside of a gun show, if you want to argue it from that standpoint. It is called the back streets and the alleys and the car trunks and the drug traffickers who deal in this illicit commerce for not good will, but for profit. Usually many acquire their firearms who then use them in the commission of a crime in another way. Here is our problem with any kind of failure to do instant check. That is, the 3-day waiting period is still in place. We know that. Gun shows, by their own activity, are a 2-day event. If you drive 100 miles or 200 or 300 miles to a show, you want to buy a gun that day. You want an instant background check. There is a waiting period involved in normal commerce--I should put it this way: the Lautenberg amendment allowed a 3-day waiting period, the same as current law. That is the only uniqueness I know to a gun show. It is like a flea market, from the standpoint that you go there to buy, not to look and think and buy later. You need instant capability to say yes or no. You are legitimate in that commerce. We are working hard to get there with federally licensed firearm dealers. Also, I argue those who are collectors and casual dealers at gun shows should not be tied to that law because they are not involved in major commerce. Those are some of the complications involved in this type of restriction. Then the last argument I place is a great frustration. Much of what we do is impulse buying. But, then again, much of what we do isn't impulse buying. If you are buying a $200 or $300 or $400 or $500 item, sometimes you have to go home and talk to somebody else about that kind of acquisition. So if you do and days later you call the individual who may not be--well, if he or she isn't a dealer, they are not required to comply with the background check, but are very legitimate and honest. The question is, if their amendment were law, would you in fact be causing that person to violate the law or forcing that individual to find a way to do a background check when they were the collector or the casual seller of a particular firearm? Those are, I believe, legitimate questions that speak to the complication and frustration of stepping into a commerce in which there are no Federal regulations today, other than existing Federal law that governs the sale of firearms by licensed dealers. Those are our concerns. Once again, I appeal to my colleagues to turn down this amendment with a no vote, to keep S. 1805 clean, so we can get it to the President's desk, hoping it will become law. I understand Senator Cornyn is on his way to the floor and hopes to speak for a few moments on this issue. We hope he will be able to get here before 4 o'clock when our time runs out on this particular amendment.

Mr. CRAIG. Madam President, I understand my colleague has reserved the balance of the time to be granted to both Senators Feinstein and McCain.

Mr. CRAIG. Madam President, I thank the Senator from Texas for what I think is a very sensible and responsible amendment as he proposed it. I wish it could become part of S. 1805. It will not have that opportunity at this time. I do believe in protecting law-abiding citizens and not allowing our Federal Government to develop a paper trail of the kind that has no value other than to know what a private law-abiding citizen may own in relation to a firearm. These records ought to be destroyed, as the Senator clearly spelled out, in a 24-hour period. That is what is important about it. We are not going to be able to get to this particular segment of the issue at this time. I hope we will have the opportunity to do so. I yield back the remainder of my time.

Mr. CRAIG. Let' see. Madam President, I have 10 minutes remaining?

Mr. CRAIG. Madam President, I yield 5 of those minutes to the Senator from Texas.

Mr. CRAIG. Madam President, I thought it was important that the Senator from Texas be allowed to keep the tradition. My only observation is, if that fight had occurred under modern law, and with gun control advocates, it would not have been a gun fight; it would have been a knife fight. But I do thank my colleague. That was an awfully important part of Texas history that became American history. I retain the remainder of my time and yield the floor.

Mr. CRAIG. I move to reconsider the vote.

Mr. CRAIG

Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Governmental Affairs', Subcommittee on Financial Management, the Budget, and International Security be authorized to meet on Monday, March 1, 2004, at 11 a.m., for a hearing entitled, ``Oversight of the Thrift Savings Plan: Ensuring the Integrity of Federal Employee Retirement Savings.''

Mr. CRAIG

Mr. CRAIG. Madam President, let me place a unanimous consent request to facilitate actions of the two Senators on the floor. I ask unanimous consent the Levin amendment be temporarily set aside for the purpose of allowing the Senator from Virginia to offer his amendment. Once that amendment is offered and discussed, the Warner amendment would then be set aside for the purpose of returning to the Levin amendment.

Mr. CRAIG. I thank the Senator for his cooperation and turn to the Senator from Virginia. Amendment No. 2624

Mr. CRAIG. If the Senator will yield, we had hoped to conclude the offering of amendments. I know there are many on your side who asked for morning business time today, some to make fairly extensive statements. I would not object to this happening. I hope you can get another Senator here for the offering of that amendment. Then we could step off the bill into morning business and open up other opportunities.

Mr. CRAIG. It is our belief, it is my purpose today to disallow any votes from occurring. There will be no votes today.

Mr. CRAIG. Madam President, let us try to sort this out so that the Senator from Virginia is not left out. I suggest the absence of a quorum.