Christopher Dodd

Mr. DODD

Mr. DODD. I yield to the Senator from Montana.

Mr. DODD. Mr. President, I understand there is a minute on each side on the Burns amendment.

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 President, I ask unanimous consent the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. DODD. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. DODD. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. DODD. Mr. President, is the pending business now the Lieberman amendment?

Mr. DODD. I move to reconsider the vote.

Mr. DODD

Mr. DODD. Mr. President, I move to reconsider the vote.

Mr. DODD. Mr. President, we have the McConnell second-degree amendment, which we are going to accept, and then we are accepting the Kyl amendment, as amended, by the McConnell amendment. How do you want to proceed?

Mr. DODD. I thank my colleague for his answers to those questions. I point out, the Social Security Administration doesn't like the Social Security card being used for identification purposes. I know people do it, but it makes them nervous. Obviously, there are a lot of problems with it. I gather my colleague from Arizona, before coming over to the floor, was engaged in a hearing dealing with the issue of stolen Social Security numbers, the problem of 9-11 where people actually voted in the last election who, I am told, at least in some cases may have been terrorists themselves who were using Social Security identification numbers. There are real problems with this. We have tried to solicit from the Social Security Administration why they have, beyond what I have expressed, reservations about the use of the Social Security identification. I can understand from the secretary of state's standpoint why this identifier is attractive. It is there. It is one that is easily used. It is national in scope. But there are concerns about it. I say to my friend from Arizona, as we solicit from the Social Security Administration what these additional concerns may be, that we will certainly take that into consideration in conference as we craft a final version of this bill. And if there are some reasons with which I am not familiar, I would say we would certainly be amenable to listening to those concerns to modify this amendment so as to accommodate, to the extent possible, if it is reasonable, the Social Security Administration's concerns.

Mr. DODD. Secondly, any State that would use only a Social Security number as a means of identification would also be prohibited under the law; is that not correct?

Mr. DODD. Mr. President, I thank my colleague from Arizona. I have said it already--he has repeated it--but just to clarify, there is nothing in this amendment that would mandate the use of the Social Security identification number by any State; is that correct?

Mr. DODD. Let me describe what I think may occur. One is to accept the McConnell amendment to the Kyl amendment, first of all. That would be routine. Then I would like to engage my friend from Arizona in a colloquy about his amendment and what it does--there was some confusion about what the effect of the amendment would be in the earlier debate-- and to raise some issues which he and I have already discussed in private around this amendment. He is very sensitive to these questions. My intention is to accept this amendment with the McConnell second- degree amendment and then have a colloquy as to what the effect of this amendment would be, with the further understanding that between now and the completion of this bill, we may not be able to get all the answers we would like from the Social Security Administration of their views on this and what the effect of it could be. We will try and do that before we get to conference. If there are problems we can't identify at this moment that may emerge, we will try to address those in conference. That is really the gist of what I want to get to. Let me turn to my colleague to once again briefly describe his amendment. We will have a colloquy, and then we can move to accept that, my hope is, and then have the two recorded votes on the Lieberman and Burns amendments.

Mr. DODD. What is the pending business before the Senate?

Mr. DODD. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Lieberman amendment be temporarily set aside.

Mr. DODD. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. DODD. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. DODD. Why don't we wait for Senator Kyl to come. He is going to be here shortly. I would like to engage in a colloquy with him about some concerns about his amendment, ones I think he may be able to address in a colloquy. We might be able to then accept that amendment and then go to the Lieberman amendment and then the Burns amendment and vote on those. I think that is where we would be at that point. We would have cleaned up at least existing matters. We still obviously have outstanding issues. I made the point earlier, and would ask my colleague from Kentucky to join me in this request to our colleagues, please bring over or have your staff bring over amendments, if you care about them. We have a long list. It may be that you have decided you do not particularly want to offer your amendment, but I have it here. If I do not hear from you by 5 o'clock, I am going to assume you decided you will wait for another day. We can get a list made up so that either tonight--we may not have votes after 5:30, 6 o'clock, but that will be up to the leaders, but at least we will be able to dispose of some amendments that we can get an agreement on, or set up a schedule tomorrow, very early, so we might be able to dispose of this bill. I still hope that is possible. I realize that diminishes as each hour passes, but that may be the case. So unless you feel a burning, overwhelming desire to bring your amendment up--and if that is the case, please let us know immediately-- we are going to assume that you have decided to defer to another time. My colleague may want to join me in that request while we are waiting for Senator Kyl.

Mr. DODD. Lieberman is pending.

Mr. DODD. Mr. President, they have every right to those answers. We will do everything we can to craft a request to see to it they get those answers. Mr. President, the pending amendment is the Kyl amendment, as I understand it. And we made a request earlier that Senator Kyl of Arizona come to the Chamber.

Mr. DODD. I thank the Senator. Amendment No. 2904 Withdrawn

Mr. DODD. I appreciate my colleague's comments. I turn to my colleague from Kentucky for his comments.

Mr. DODD. Mr. President, I don't believe in negotiating in public. This is not just an intellectual exercise for our colleagues from Florida because the entire world inhabited their State for a number of weeks, and the entire world watched on an excruciating basis, hour after hour of voting precincts, what they went through. It was a tremendous ordeal that the State of Florida went through. My colleagues are being mild in their expression of the frustration their constituents felt. I also understand the point my friend from Missouri raised. We said over and over again that this bill is about the future and not about the past. We are trying to deal with not only the situation in Florida, or one election, but, rather, a condition that has grown over the years of a corroding and deteriorating condition of the election process in America, that was reflected by what happened in the year 2000 but not exclusively so. We wanted to get away from the notion of examining, through this vehicle anyway, what had happened last year. I think there is some frustration that my colleagues feel, however, about whether or not the Department of Justice is going to respond to inquiries they have made. I recommend that maybe there ought to be a willingness to sign onto a letter asking them to give answers, rather than getting involved in a debate, and a vote, however it breaks down on party lines, inviting more action. We all know the frustration in asking an agency of the Government to respond to us, and they do not do it. If that has been the case here, then maybe our colleagues, as coequals, deserve to be heard. If they are not responding to our colleagues, that is wrong. Whatever the results may be, they deserve answers. I think that is what they are asking; to be heard from and given answers. So I might suggest that maybe a letter could be crafted, on a bipartisan basis, which we could sign and get to the Department of Justice, and ask for those answers to come back to our two colleagues. If any of our States went through what they went through, we would want nothing less. So it is a way of maybe getting away from this particular process.

Mr. DODD. I yield back my time as well. I ask unanimous consent the amendment of the Senator from Montana be temporarily laid aside so we can stack some votes. We will turn now to my colleague from Florida to offer another amendment.

Mr. DODD. I say to my good friend from Montana, with whom all Members enjoy a wonderful relationship, a basic problem is not only should the people have the right to vote, they should all have the right not to vote. If people decide they do not want to vote--we would like them to vote, we hope they do, but citizens from time to time decide, for whatever reason, they do not want to participate in an election or two. That should not automatically result in their being purged from the list in the community in which they reside. We worked hard in this bill to come up with a centralized, statewide voter registration system, which is going to be a major step, as the Senator from Missouri has pointed out, in dealing with fraud. As part of that, we drafted a uniform standard for purging those lists so we have the same standards to apply around the country. Obviously, we know there are differences in the country from one place to the next. This is not an onerous burden at all, in our view. It is a provision that took a lot of time to work out. This would flip motor-voter on its head and allow jurisdictions to purge voters for not voting. That has never been the intent. With a great deal of respect for my colleague from Montana, I urge the defeat of this amendment. I think this would be a major setback for a carefully crafted bill. I point out to my colleagues, we tried to craft a piece of bipartisan legislation. In so doing, it means we have to accept provisions that you might not have written yourself, and you fight to have provisions you care deeply about to be included. That is what this legislation reflects. To change the purging requirements on this basis would be a major setback in that effort. For those reasons, I urge the rejection of the amendment.