Robert Dole

Mr. DOLE

Mr. DOLE. Mr. President, I understand that the Federal Trade Commission is considering filing a complaint challenging the PGA Tour's conflicting event and media rights rules as unfair competition. I question whether the public interest would be served by eliminating the foundation for the success of the tour, which has worked well for a very long time and enjoys the support of players, fans, and sponsors. I understand that the PGA tour has generated more charitable contributions from its events than all other sports combined. I am concerned that forcing the tour to alter its rules may put these charitable activities at risk. Mr. President, I have today sent a letter to Federal Trade Commissioner Starek outlining my concerns. I ask unanimous consent that this be printed in the Record.

Mr. DOLE

Mr. DOLE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that there now be a period for the transaction of morning business, not to extend beyond the hour of 9:30 p.m., with Senators permitted to speak for up to 5 minutes each.

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 President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.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

Mr. DOLE

Mr. DOLE. Mr. President, if there is no further business to come before the Senate, and no other Senator is seeking recognition, I now ask unanimous consent that the Senate stand in recess, under the previous order.

Mr. DOLE

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

Mr. DOLE

Mr. DOLE. Mr. President, we have had a good debate on this amendment, as we promised the distinguished Senator from Nevada we would have. I do believe now we have come to a point where we would like to conclude action on this very important legislation this week. We have been on it now, this is the 11th day, as I calculate. And I hope, I think, the votes are there. Or they are not there. The 67 votes are there or they are not there. I think there is broad bipartisan support for protecting Social Security, though I must say, personally, sometime--the Entitlements Commission pointed out earlier--we will have to face up to some of these issues. Senator Danforth and Senator Kerrey issued a report last December. But I think for the moment, everybody is willing to protect Social Security. We voted 83 to 16 to adopt a sense-of-the-Senate amendment stating we should not raise Social Security or cut Social Security benefits in order to balance the budget. On Friday, we adopted a motion reaffirming that commitment by a vote of 87 to 10. We will be putting forward--and in fact, Senator Domenici is working on it right now--a 5-year plan to put the budget on a path to balance by 2002. Our plan will not raise taxes. Our plan will not touch Social Security. Everything else, every Federal program, from Amtrak to zebra mussel research, will be on the table, including agriculture, which talk show hosts always ask me about, since I am from Kansas. Everything will be on the table. I urge my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to vote to table the Reid amendment. Mr. President, I move to table the Reid amendment. I ask for the yeas and nays.

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

Mr. DOLE

Mr. DOLE. Mr. President, I appreciate the debate we have had. I listened to part of it in my office. It seems to me this amendment would create a gaping loophole in the balanced budget amendment. According to the language of the amendment, if the President declares that a major disaster emergency exists ``a simple majority vote in both Houses of Congress would waive the balanced budget requirement for that year.'' The balanced budget amendment already contains a safety valve. If there is a major disaster emergency, a three-fifths supermajority vote could raise the debt limit to cover the potential cost of disaster relief. I think, as everybody pointed out on the floor, I think I voted for every disaster we had in America, whether it was California, Florida, or the Midwest. It is not difficult to achieve the three-fifths vote. After all, we are going to be responsive wherever the disaster may be. I think that will be true in both Houses of Congress. So it seems to me we want to move on with this effort. We would like to pass the balanced budget amendment this week and get it out to the 38 States. I think you will see the States quickly ratify the amendment. They understand the importance of it. I hope we can speed up the process. Therefore, I move to table the amendment and ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. DOLE

Mr. DOLE. Mr. President, I am advised this is the 12th day, not the 11th day. I stand corrected. It will be 3 weeks Thursday we have been on this. I think we have spent far too much time on congressional coverage and unfunded mandates. It took 1 hour and 20 minutes in the House, we spent at least a week on congressional coverage. Unfunded mandates, we had people extending debate when they were for unfunded mandates. It passed 86 to 10. You kind of wonder what all the fuss was about. That took a couple of weeks. Now we are in almost 3 weeks on the balanced budget amendment. What it will mean is we will not have any recesses this year. I can say very clearly, we can eat up all the time we want but it is going to come out of the calendar. It is not going to come out of anything else. If that is the wish of the membership--my view is we get paid for being here every day and we will be here every day. You can count on that, as I think one ad used to say, if we cannot move this legislation. People are opposed to this amendment. They do not care if they talk for a week. They do not care how long they talk if they think they can kill the amendment and frustrate those who are for it on both sides of the aisle. This is a bipartisan effort. I have not gone back to check to see the length of debates we have had in previous years on this amendment, but I doubt it has taken any more time or as much time as we have spent now. So I would just say to the Democratic leader, I certainly understand the need for full debate. But I am prepared now to have a time agreement, if there is going to be an amendment by the Senator from California, for 2 hours for the Senator from California, 30 minutes on this side, and then have the vote. If not, we will just have to move to table at the earliest possible time and that time will come sometime today or sometime during the night. So I hope we can work it out. Those who are opposed to the balanced budget amendment, we know they do not want to do anything but to frustrate the efforts of a clear majority in this body, hopefully 67 or more, who support the amendment. So I ask the Senator from California if she intends to offer an amendment, and if so, if she is prepared to enter into a time agreement?

Mr. DOLE. Mr. President, I send a cloture motion to the desk.

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

Mr. DOLE. Mr. President, we have had, I think, now 10 or 11 days of debate. Nobody has been crowded. Everybody has been given all the time they need. It seems to me, if we are going to continue with our work in the Senate--we have a number of matters we would like to bring up--we need to come to a vote one way or the other, a final vote on the balanced budget amendment. Knowing it takes 67 votes, and knowing there is bipartisan support, we have tried to approach it on that basis. I congratulate the Senator from Utah, Senator Hatch, and others, Senator Simon and others who have been debating some of the very important issues--including Senator Reid who has just completed I think 3 days of debate on an amendment. What we would like to do--obviously we want to finish action on this measure by Thursday evening, this Thursday evening, if at all possible. That will be our intent. If not, we will come back on next Wednesday and finish it next week. I do not believe anybody--there was some misunderstanding on unfunded mandates. We thought we understood what was happening but then there was this big flap about there was not any committee report, even though in the Record that would satisfy concerns. So in this case it was the intention of the leadership on this side to make certain that would not happen. We did not want any misunderstanding. We wanted to protect every Member's rights. Hopefully we have done that. Some just do not want the balanced budget to ever pass. They could care less if we ever vote on anything as long as we are eating up time. But we have the line-item veto, we have other measures that we would like to take up. So I hope, if the Senator from California intends to offer an amendment, we can get a time agreement. If not, we will have no recourse but to move to table amendments from here on to try to bring this matter to a conclusion. I think we have spent ample time. Some people have criticized us for spending too much time. I hope we could have some agreement to bring this matter to a conclusion by Thursday evening.

Mr. DOLE

Mr. DOLE. Mr. President, for the information of Members, following the time for the two leaders, which will be reserved, there will be a period for morning business not to extend beyond 1 o'clock with Senators permitted to speak for not to exceed 10 minutes each. At 1 o'clock we will resume consideration of House Joint Resolution 1, the constitutional balanced budget amendment and the pending Reid amendment. At 5 o'clock today, there will be a rollcall vote on adopting the committee funding resolution, Senate Resolution 73. Further rollcall votes are possible today. We have not made that determination yet. We are trying to get an agreement to have some of those votes tomorrow morning to accommodate some Senators who are necessarily absent. We are not going to accommodate those who are just absent. But there are some necessarily absent. I think we can understand that on Mondays and Fridays we will have votes, and anybody who is not here on Monday and Friday will just take that risk. Certainly they have a right to do that. I also hope that we can bring to a conclusion the debate on the balanced budget amendment. We have been on it for 2 straight weeks. There has been no effort on this side to slow down the debate. We spent hours and hours and days and days on a couple of amendments. My view is that it is time that we bring this to a conclusion. We would like to do so before late Thursday evening. So I just suggest to my colleagues that there will be late sessions tomorrow night, Wednesday night, and Thursday night. We will not be in session on Friday. We will not be in session on next Monday or Tuesday. But we will be in session on next Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday, unless the two leaders can reach some agreement on disposition of this, and additional matters. I thank the Chair.

Mr. DOLE

Mr. DOLE. Mr. President, on the weekend of February 4, the annual Wehrkunde Conference was held in Munich, Germany. This conference is a gathering of government representatives from NATO countries and leading experts on alliance security. Not surprisingly, one of the main topics of discussion was the situation in Bosnia and NATO's role in that conflict. This year, the Senate delegation to the Wehrkunde Conference was led by the distinguished Senator from Maine, Bill Cohen. In his remarks to the Wehrkunde delegates, Senator Cohen underscored the serious weaknesses of the U.N. protection forces in Bosnia and Herzegovina, as well as the erosion of NATO's military credibility as a result of the dual-key arrangement between the United Nations and NATO. His bottom line is that if we are unable to provide the U.N. forces with the necessary authority and firepower, these forces should be withdrawn. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that Senator Cohen's insightful remarks to the conference be included in the Record.

Mr. DOLE

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

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

Mr. DOLE. Mr. President, this motion presents us with another opportunity to demonstrate to America's seniors that there is broad bipartisan support for protecting Social Security as we move toward a balanced budget. On January 26, the Senate voted 83 to 16 to adopt a sense-of-the-Senate amendment stating that we intend to protect Social Security. The House of Representatives endorsed a similar concurrent resolution to protect Social Security by a vote of 412 to 18. Mr. President, we need to put a halt to the scare tactics and reassure America's seniors. Later this year, Republicans will put forward a detailed 5-year plan to put the budget on a path to balance by 2002. Our plan will not raise taxes. Our plan will not touch Social Security. Everything else, every Federal program from Amtrak to Zebra Mussel research will be on the table. Mr. President, I urge my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to go on record to reassure America's seniors and vote for this motion. Mr. President, I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. DOLE

Mr. DOLE. Mr. President, I thank my colleagues.

Mr. DOLE. I will take a moment and then be happy to yield the floor. Motion to Refer Mr. President, I send a motion to refer to the desk and ask for its immediate consideration.

Mr. DOLE. I thank my colleague from South Caroline and other colleagues for yielding to me.

Mr. DOLE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the reading of the amendment be dispensed with. THe PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

Mr. DOLE. Mr. President, I send an amendment to the desk in the second degree to my amendment and ask that it be reported.

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

Mr. DOLE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the reading of the amendment be dispensed with. ordered.

Mr. DOLE. Mr. President, I send an amendment to the desk to the motion to refer.