Robert Dole

Mr. DOLE

Mr. DOLE. Mr. President, there will be one more vote tonight, and whatever it is, that will be the last vote. Then at 7 o'clock we will proceed to debate the rescission conference report, but that will not be voted on until tomorrow. The first vote tomorrow will be at 9 o'clock, if it is all right with the Democratic leader, on the conference report. Then we will start voting on amendments from 9 o'clock until some time late in the day, I assume. I would hope that some of my colleagues will take another look at their amendments and see if they really feel it is important. The point I want to make is I made a promise to the President we would try to do the counter--antiterrorism bill. I want to try to keep that promise. I do not know how we can do it if we spend all day tomorrow voting.

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 President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. DOLE. Mr. President, I move to reconsider the vote by which the amendment was agreed to.

Mr. DOLE. Mr. President, I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. DOLE. I send a second-degree amendment to the desk.

Mr. DOLE

Mr. DOLE. This only applies to first degree.

Mr. DOLE. Mr. President, I have had discussion with the distinguished Democratic leader. I would like to enter into a unanimous-consent agreement. I understand the amendments have climbed to 50, so there will be 50 votes. We started at 31, got down to 20, and now it has gotten up to 50. So I ask unanimous consent that the only first-degree amendments in order to the budget resolution be those submitted by 5:15 this evening. Is there objection to that?

Mr. DOLE

Mr. DOLE. I think it is fair to say we are trying to find some middle ground. We do not have to do anything. We do not have to let anybody explain them; just say nothing. We already have consent that the amendment cannot be read. So you will not have any debate. We are trying to accommodate everybody by going to the managers. If you have a 1-minute statement, let the manager read it. We are just trying to accommodate everybody at the same time to hopefully save some time. If Senator Exon, for example, had a statement that Senator Domenici disagreed with, then we have to understand the other manager, or whoever, would have the same rights.

Mr. DOLE. I agree with that. Mr. BAUCUS addressed the Chair.

Mr. DOLE. What would be your request?

Mr. DOLE. No; we have already had debate.

Mr. DOLE. We are just trying to cut down the time. If we have to stop and recognize everybody up and down--it seems to me you can tell the manager what it says, and they can read it. We will have the vote. We are trying to accommodate Senators, particularly on that side, because you have all the amendments, I understand. If you will just give the manager a one-sentence or two-sentence statement, we are just trying to save time. We thought it might save time.

Mr. DOLE. Mr. President, I want to make it clear we are talking only about those amendments that will not be debated. Those already debated we will not take another minute on. They have had plenty of time. This will apply to amendments that have not been debated because of the time constraints, and they will be explained briefly by the manager on either side.

Mr. DOLE. Mr. President, I have had a discussion with the distinguished Democratic leader and the managers of the bill. I now ask unanimous consent that votes be limited from here on to 9 minutes, and that the manager have 1 minute to explain the purpose of any amendment that has not been debated. Mr. DASCHLE addressed the Chair.

Mr. DOLE. Mr. President, let me say that for the first vote we will add the customary 5 minutes, so there will be 15 plus 5; after that it will be 15 minutes, period. No additional 5 minutes. I do not need consent for that. Amendment No. 1134

Mr. DOLE. I ask unanimous consent that after the first vote, all other votes be limited to 8 minutes in length.

Mr. DOLE. The last time we did this, I think we had an agreement that the staff would put ``purpose'' and they would read the purpose, such as tax relief, economic growth, or whatever. At least you had some idea what you were voting on. And it would be agreed upon by the two managers.

Mr. DOLE. So the clerk can state the purpose if we have the purpose.

Mr. DOLE. I ask unanimous consent that there not be a requirement that amendments be read.

Mr. DOLE. They are concerned about doing it in 7\1/2\ minutes, unless we remain in our seats. But I think the bottom line is that we are actually going to have to vote on 31 amendments on the other side. If that is the bottom line, and people--ordinarily, you would have a right to have your amendment read. If it is a delaying tactic, we can be here a couple more days. The last time around, I recall that Senator Mitchell advised the Chair that if we insisted on having the amendment read, the ruling of the Chair would be appealed. So we then decided that when the clerk called up the amendment, they would state the purpose, period, and that is it--you know, economic growth, tax relief, or whatever. That was all the explanation there was. If we start giving everybody 30 seconds, or 1, 2, 3 minutes, we are looking at another 2 or 3 hours, and we will never finish action on this budget resolution. We will be in recess this afternoon for at least 40 minutes, from 4:20 until 5 p.m. I will suggest the absence of a quorum briefly----

Mr. DOLE. Mr. President, I rise this afternoon to offer a Sense-of- the-Senate amendment regarding the Nations 26 million veterans. Over the past few days, some have argued that the budget resolution before us is mean-spirited in its treatment of veterans--that it does not take into consideration the real needs of those who served and sacrificed on behalf of our country. Well, I would like to set the record straight on this matter. Before the White House or those on the other side of the aisle start attacking Republicans on this issue, they had better take a hard look at the Congressional Budget Office's reestimate of the President's fiscal year 1996 budget request. Over 5 years, the President's own budget gives the Department of Veterans Affairs $339 million less for discretionary medical spending than it would receive under a hard freeze. However, a coalition of veterans' groups has put together a plan called the Independent Budget for Veterans Affairs: Fiscal Year 1996. The coalition claims that the recommendations set forth in the this document will help to improve the Department of Veterans Affairs' health care system while saving taxpayer dollars. The coalition--Which includes AMVETS, Disabled American Veterans, Paralyzed Veterans of America, and Veterans of Foreign Wars--submitted its plan to Congress and to the Clinton administration earlier this year. The amendment I offer today simply states that Congress should give this proposal careful consideration. It is a nonpartisan document, crafted by the people who know the system best--the veterans themselves. Let us consider their expertise and rise above partisan accusations as we work to improve the efficiency and quality of service to veterans.

Mr. DOLE. The clerk can state the purpose, to be agreed upon by the two managers.

Mr. DOLE. So we are talking about 5, 6, 7 hours of votes, right, which we will do today. We will save final passage until tomorrow sometime.

Mr. DOLE. Mr. President, we have discussed it briefly with the Senator [[Page S7334]] from New Mexico. I hope there will not be many amendments. We have had 50 hours of debate and a lot of votes. There may be one or two on this side. Is there a specific number on that side?

Mr. DOLE

Mr. DOLE. Mr. President, I submit a report of the committee of conference on H.R. 1158 and ask for its immediate consideration.