Wendell Ford

Mr. FORD

Mr. FORD. I announce that the Senator from Arkansas [Mr. Bumpers] and the Senator from Arkansas [Mr. Pryor], are necessarily absent.

Mr. FORD. I move to lay that motion on the table. The motion to lay on the table was agreed to. Mr. KOHL addressed the Chair.

Mr. FORD. Madam President, as Cochairman of the National Guard Association, I would like to make one point. Last year, we had $25 million in there for upgrade of the helicopters in the National Guard. It all went into one pot. Did we get to the upgrade of the helicopters? Of course not. They tried to use it some other way. And we were crying for help to make our helicopters better and bring them up to speed for training. The 123d in Louisville, KY, is all over the world, with C-130H's. We had to fight to get them and make them specific in the budget. And now they have a top grade in the whole United States. That is the National Guard for you. That is the support and the teeth and tail that we talk about in the military. So let us not cut the National Guard. There are 66 Senators in this Chamber that are members of the National Guard caucus. I just hope they listen and vote to support the National Guard.

Mr. FORD. I announce that the Senator from Arkansas [Mr. Bumpers] and the Senator from Arkansas [Mr. Pryor], are necessarily absent.

Mr. FORD. Would somebody give me 60 seconds?

Mr. FORD. I announce that the Senator from Arkansas [Mr. Bumpers] and the Senator from Arkansas [Mr. Pryor] are necessarily absent.

Mr. FORD. I announce that the Senator from Arkansas [Mr. Bumpers] and the Senator from Arizona [Mr. Pryor] are necessarily absent.

Mr. FORD

Mr. FORD. I announce that the Senator from Connecticut [Mr. Dodd], the Senator from Hawaii [Mr. Inouye], and the Senator from Louisiana [Mr. Johnston] are necessarily absent.

Mr. FORD. I announce that the Senator from North Dakota [Mr. Dorgan] is necessarily absent.

Mr. FORD. Mr. President, I make a point of order that the Senate is not in order. I know the Chair has a problem. But these are important amendments, and I hope the Chair will keep order.

Mr. FORD. Mr. President, may we have order?

Mr. FORD. On what?

Mr. FORD

Mr. FORD. I withdraw that suggestion.

Mr. FORD. Mr. President, I have enjoyed the statement by the Senator from Missouri related to welfare reform. I think that is one thing that this country is looking forward to. But I do object to no morning business. Now we have not had morning business, or been allowed morning business for over a week. We come in here on a defense authorization bill and we take 10 minutes to talk about welfare reform. I am sitting here trying to get an amendment on the bill. So we have morning business periodically during the day. That is fine. This is prime time, and I know it is a lot better than 8 o'clock in the morning or 9 o'clock in the morning. But we have a Defense authorization bill here. I would like to get that done. We are going to have welfare reform. You can talk all day Saturday if you want to, about welfare reform. As I say, I have enjoyed what the Senator said. I appreciate what he is trying to do. But we are also trying to get a Defense authorization bill through, and I think we ought either to have morning business and do it then, or we should have morning business late in the evening, instead of going through and interrupting the flow of business in the Senate. I thank the Chair and suggest the absence of a quorum. Mrs. KASSEBAUM addressed the Chair.

Mr. FORD

Mr. FORD. Mr. President, I hope that my colleague from Arizona will understand that there are some of us that just sincerely disagree with him--and I will be glad to yield to the Senator--that we disagree and sincerely disagree. And so I hope that somehow or other we can look at the defense of our country in another light. Now, this MilCon, as I understand it, met the criteria of the mission essential. It met the criteria of highest priority. And, Mr. President, one of the things we see as we downsize, we must support and improve the position of our Reserve, our National Guard. We have 66 Members of this Senate that are members of the National Guard Caucus. When we go back home we see the 130-H's and see them in Panama or Somalia or Bosnia and those places. Those are the National Guard. Those are the ones we want to train. These are the people in this MilCon that we are trying to support. So we are trying to strengthen the National Guard and give them the kind of training centers, the ranges, those things that would make them better military personnel. And I understand that you do not want to go to a fine house and talk to a widow. But I also understand that if you are going to have quality personnel in the military, if you are going to continue to get, keep and recruit high-quality personnel, then we have to have a quality of life for the military personnel. And housing is one of the most important things that you can do. And so, Mr. President, under this bill we have an appropriated amount. And we voted on that, 80-some-odd votes approving this particular amendment. Now, we want to approve this amendment in the authorization part of the DOD bill. And I think it is only fair that we put it in the authorization now so that we can go on with supporting the quality of life of our military personnel, to strengthen the National Guard and the Reserve to meet our highest priority and mission essential. So I hope that we will vigorously support this amendment as I believe and sincerely believe it is in our best interest in the defense of our country. I yield the floor. Mr. GLENN addressed the Chair.

Mr. FORD

Mr. FORD. Madam President, would the majority leader yield for a question?

Mr. FORD. I thank my friend from North Dakota. Let me compliment him, Senator Kohl, Senator Coats, Senator Breaux, and Senator McCain for the effort that is being put forth this evening. I wish to associate myself with the comments that have been made by my colleagues on both sides of the aisle. As I voted for line-item veto when it passed the Senate, I believe in March, I said I did not like the procedure, and I think my friend from Indiana agreed with that. The underlying legislation is there. We just need to refine the procedure. And I think it will get there. This is good policy. I used it as Governor of Kentucky, as other Governors have used it. It works. You just line the item, send it to the legislature with a message, and they either approve it or disapprove it. It is good policy. It ought to come sooner than later. So it is ironic to me that after we have been pounded, if I can use that word, by those on the other side for years now to pass line-item veto, now that we have an opportunity and we have joined together in a bipartisan fashion, we cannot get it done. We cannot arrive at the conference for purely political reasons. They do not want to give this President an opportunity to have the line-item veto as appropriations bills come, as the reconciliation bill comes. Now that we are on the verge of passing this into law, the Speaker says I do not have time to do it. But as we have heard, he can write two books. He can go out on the trail and sell his books. But he does not have time to sit down and pick a handful of friends to get on a conference committee and let us work it out. I think the Speaker should listen to his colleagues on the Senate side of the same party that are sending the same message. We need to get this done. But, Mr. President, as we try this bipartisan effort, when we talk about everything being bipartisan, we run into a bump. Mr. President, I believe we have finally found who runs the political agenda on Capitol Hill. And that is the Speaker of the House. I yield the floor.

Mr. FORD. I announce that the Senator from Nebraska [Mr. Exon] is necessarily absent.

Mr. FORD. I understand the Senator is trying to move this along and get Members out. Did we get a unanimous-consent agreement that Senator Wellstone's amendment would be the only remaining amendment, or a second-degree to that amendment, that has already been offered?

Mr. FORD. I wanted to be sure. There will be amendments in the second degree.

Mr. FORD. I announce that the Senator from Nebraska [Mr. Exon] is necessarily absent.

Mr. FORD. One, no more votes this evening; and two, probably no votes on this bill tomorrow. We will go to DOD authorization tonight with opening statements.

Mr. FORD

Mr. FORD. Mr. President, will the Senator yield for a question?

Mr. FORD. I know he is doing everything he can. But any Senator who has been on his way now for about 40 minutes--

Mr. FORD. We are holding a lot of things up, and I know the Senator from New Mexico wants to get through the bill and get it behind us so we can move on to the defense authorization bill.