Bill Frist

Mr. FRIST

Mr. FRIST. Mr. President, if there is no further business to come before the Senate, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate stand in adjournment as a further mark of respect for the late Frank Valeo.

Mr. FRIST

Mr. FRIST. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that when the Senate completes its business today, it stand in adjournment until 9:30 a.m. on Wednesday, April 26. I further ask that following the prayer and pledge, the morning hour be deemed expired, the Journal of proceedings be approved to date, the time for the two leaders be reserved, and the Senate then proceed to a period for the transaction of morning business for up to 30 minutes, with the first 15 minutes under control of the Democratic leader or his designee, and the final 15 minutes under the control of the majority leader or his designee; further, following morning business, the Senate resume consideration of H.R. 4939, the emergency supplemental appropriations bill, and that with respect to the consent agreement regarding the rollcall votes at noon tomorrow, there be no intervening action or debate.

Mr. FRIST

Mr. FRIST. Mr. President, a lot of people are asking what happened between the optimism of yesterday morning that centered on real progress, as people did come around working together, both sides of the aisle, on a Hagel-Martinez amendment, and this morning where it looks as if everything has been obstructed, stopped, stonewalled. There are talks of obstruction from the other side of the aisle. What has happened is no amendments have been allowed by the other side of the aisle to come to the floor to be debated, to be discussed, to be voted upon. Rollcall votes or voice votes--zero over the last 24 hours, where the clear understanding yesterday morning was that we would have an opportunity to allow Senators to express themselves on votes. The Democratic leadership has effectively stopped, put a halt to that great progress that was being made yesterday morning, by not allowing amendments. Yes, they put a stranglehold on the right of every Senator to offer amendments and to have his or her views expressed and acted upon. The facts tell the story. Over the last 9 days, on complex issues based on a very good, solid product generated by the Judiciary Committee, about 400 amendments have been filed and only 3 of 400 have been allowed by the other side of the aisle to come to the floor to be voted upon. Only 3 out of 400. That tells the whole story. In the process on a bill that is a challenging bill, a large bill, a bill that will affect almost 300 million Americans now and many more in the future, we have only been allowed to have three votes over the last 9 days. Viewers, I know, ask, people at home ask all the time: How can that possibly be, if you have good support and people look as though they are working together and all? And the answer is if anything takes unanimous consent around here, anything does, the Democratic leadership can effectively stop, put a halt to that debate and amendment process. Of 400 amendments, 3 have been considered over the last 9 days. It is a process that has been broken. It is a process we have to fix if we are going to be able to address the issues before us, whether it is immigration or other important bills. It has been interesting, listening to some of the comments this morning and last night, and as has been reflected in both the Democratic leader's statements and in mine and others, it is true the Democratic leader--to me this is almost laughable--has said we are going to dictate who is on the conference committee, the minority leader, the Democratic leader, saying we are going to dictate who is on the conference committee. It is absurd. It is laughable. It has never been done. But it is proposed as if that is even a reasonable proposal before allowing us to take up amendments and debate them and have them voted upon. I asked unanimous consent last night--because it is frustrating having 400 amendments over there and in 9 days only being allowed 3 votes--let's take up one of those amendments. That was refused. Let's take up another one. That was refused, my unanimous consent request, and a third was refused just to demonstrate--yes, it is frustration, and it is the right of the minority to obstruct, but that explains the difference between the optimism moving forward for a solution before we began the recess and now what is obviously going to occur; that is, we are going to have to postpone and delay full consideration of this bill. The Democratic leader earlier this morning asked: Why aren't we allowing these amendments to come forth from the other side? Indeed, out of 400, I said: Can't we consider 20 of them at some point in the future? The answer was no. Why don't we consider amendments? Why are we shutting down the amendment process because some Members might not agree with everything in that 425-page bill? There are going to be things in there that need to be fixed, modified. There may be some dangerous things in there in many people's minds. And to not even allow them to bring them to the floor to debate them is just flat out wrong. I can understand the other side trying to advantage themselves in the outcome in their favor, but to shut out all amendments, to say that only 3 of 400 amendments are to be considered is simply wrong. It really does come down to a matter of fairness. I began this debate a week and a half ago saying: Let's have a civil process, a dignified process. It is an important issue with many millions of people coming across our borders. We need to secure our borders. We need to have worksite enforcement and interior enforcement. We need to have a temporary worker program. There are 12 million people in the shadows. We need to bring them out. It has effectively been brought to a halt by the other side. It is unfair to deny Members on both sides of the aisle the right to express their voice and have their amendments considered. It is unfair to the authors of the bill and the Judiciary Committee that generated this bill. It is unfair to this body, and I believe to the institution as a whole and to the American people. Although I am strongly supportive of a border security bill--tighten those borders--a bill that addresses worksite enforcement, a temporary worker plan, and one that brings people out of the shadows, I feel it is important that we oppose bringing debate on the Hagel-Martinez amendment to a close in order to protect the rights of Members to offer amendments and to have them debated and voted on. I yield the floor. Cloture Motion

Mr. FRIST. Mr. President, I enter a motion to reconsider the vote by which cloture was not invoked.

Mr. FRIST. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the next vote be a 10-minute rollcall vote.

Mr. FRIST. Mr. President, for the information of our colleagues, the next vote will be a 10-minute rollcall vote. If cloture is not invoked, we are working on an agreement that will have about 55 minutes-- hopefully less--before we will have another rollcall vote. That will be immediately followed by another rollcall vote, and then, depending on the outcome of that vote, that would either be the last vote or we might have one more vote. So a 10-minute vote, about 55 minutes, two rollcall votes, and then we will have more to say. Cloture Motion

Mr. FRIST

Mr. FRIST. Madam President, in a few moments, we will be voting on this cloture motion. We find ourselves this morning at an interesting moment in time based on what we had to do yesterday and last night. The procedure has been complex. Indeed, some have tried to play politics or use parliamentary rules to slow things down, speed them up, cherry-pick amendments that we address. I believe many of our colleagues have been unfairly treated in the sense that, in a very important debate, when they have amendments we know will advance the discussion and improve the underlying bill they have been denied the opportunity to come forward and even introduce their amendments, debate them, and have them voted on. In a few moments, we will have a vote on a motion presented by the Democratic leader that everyone knows will fail, and I think it is a real shame that some have felt it was more important to play these games to get to this point, but we are here and we are going to have a vote. On the other hand, I am very optimistic by a lot of the events that have occurred over the last 14, 18 hours in terms of making real progress. After this vote in 30 or 45 minutes, I think the decks will essentially be cleared in the sense that we can optimistically look at where we are going to go over the next 12 or 24 hours. I believe the Hagel-Martinez proposal introduced yesterday, which all of our colleagues have looked at over the course of this morning, gives us an opportunity to make a major step forward on the underlying bill. It gives a fair approach, a balanced approach. It gives priority to the security concerns about our national security interests that are always at the top of our list. It pays attention to the 9/11 recommendations. It respects the rule of law as well as that rich contribution and heritage provided by our immigrant population. It was last October that I met with Senators Cornyn and McCain and many others to discuss our intentions to take a 2-week block of time and focus on it here on the floor of the Senate. Publicly, at that point in time--again, it was October--I laid out a strategy, a plan to start with border security, where we have in this broad body agreement, and then build out by consensus a comprehensive plan that would include the two other very important components--border security; second, interior enforcement, enforcement of the workplace--and, third, a comprehensive immigration temporary worker plan that would address what has become the most challenging aspect of this discussion: the 11 million, 12 million, or 13 million illegal immigrants or undocumented people who are here. That is where we will find ourselves after this cloture vote. Shortly thereafter, I asked the Judiciary Committee, ably led by Arlen Specter and Senator Leahy, to produce a bill, to have the necessary hearings and markup, and consider legislation. Indeed, after six markup periods of designing and writing that bill, they did just that. I commend them. I thank the chairman. I know many Members were involved and participated, and I think they did a very good job. We began the debate last week. We started with border control, just as we laid out. We extended that to interior control enforcement and workplace enforcement and then comprehensive immigration reform including the temporary worker program. The American people expect it. To allow 2,000 or 3,000 illegal people to come across the border in the middle of the night, not knowing who they are or where they are going, is wrong. We can fix that, as well as comprehensive reform. I am optimistic that after today's vote, after we do that, if we stay focused, if we come together, if everyone takes a very careful look at the Hagel-Martinez proposal, we will finish with a bill which will make America safer, protect the rule of law, and recognize our interest in legal immigration. As I have said all along, I believe we cannot support amnesty. Amnesty, as I said before, is to give people who have broken the law a specialized, unique track to citizenship. But we do have 12 million people here today. We have to be practical. With the Hagel-Martinez approach, we will recognize and discuss the fact that these 12 million people are not a monolithic group. It is a group that can be addressed in different ways depending on where one falls within that group. I support a strong temporary worker program that allows people to fill what employment needs we have, to come here and to learn a skill, send money back home, and then return to their hometowns to build and contribute to their local community. I believe we need this three-pronged approach because only a comprehensive approach is going to fix this badly broken system we have today. For all we do on the border, at the worksites, we need to fix the immigration system and also to give us the real border security that so many know we need. Over the course of the day, people can study the approach which was put on the table by Senators Hagel and Martinez. It deserves discussion and focus. I believe it will be the turning point in the debate because it is time for us to act and not talk. It is time for us to no longer delay, no longer postpone. It is time for us to give our colleagues the opportunity to offer their amendments. So talk, yes; debate, yes. But then let us vote--let us vote in our States' interests, vote for what is in our country's interest but; above all, let us give people the opportunity to vote. I will close by saying again that I am very optimistic that by working together and applying a little common sense, we will come up with a plan that gets the job done and which makes America safer and more secure. I encourage our colleagues to vote no on cloture now, and then the Senate will really get to work. Cloture Motion

Mr. FRIST. Mr. President, this morning, the time until 10:30 will be equally divided for debate prior to the vote on invoking cloture on the Specter substitute to the border security bill. I now ask unanimous consent that the final 20 minutes before the vote be divided so that the Democratic leader has 10 minutes, to be followed by the majority leader for the final 10 minutes.

Mr. FRIST. Mr. President, I don't believe that cloture will be invoked today on the chairman's substitute. Therefore, we have two additional cloture motions pending to the border security bill. There is a cloture motion to the Hagel-Martinez language that was offered yesterday and a cloture motion to the underlying border security bill. We will announce the exact timing of those votes a little later as we go through the morning and see how we progress. It is unfortunate that we had to set up these procedural challenges, but given the lack of progress and cooperation on getting amendments up and voted on, it was the only way to move ahead. We have very important Department of Defense nominations that have been pending on the calendar since last year. I have consulted with the Democratic leader, and I have scheduled cloture votes on those nominations this week to allow the Senate to vote on these important Department of Defense nominees. Needless to say, we have a lot to do before the Easter-Passover adjournment. Recognition of the Minority Leader

Mr. FRIST. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the time during the quorum call be equally divided, and I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. FRIST. Mr. President, I said this earlier this morning: we find ourselves at an interesting moment. This morning we had a cloture vote which gave us the opportunity to start afresh. We started in a very positive way in that we had a strong bipartisan show of support for an amendment, the Martinez-Hagel amendment. That is a good alternative. That is what we will be voting on tomorrow morning. We left that meeting with the understanding that we would be able to debate amendments and bring up amendments and discuss amendments to this issue of immigration given the fact that it is a complex issue. And I think this Senate has come to the real point where we agree it is going to take a comprehensive approach to address the illegal and undocumented people coming into this country across our borders. That is real progress over the last week. However, the problem we have, we have not been given the opportunity to treat each of these colleagues in this room fairly, allowing them to come forward and offer their amendments and to have them debated, to improve, to modify, to probably win some and to lose some, but to help shape legislation as we did on other bills, including the transportation bill, highway bill, other large, complex bills in this Senate. Over the course of the day it was my expectation as we set out this morning, we take a step forward in terms of debating an amendment and looking at the overall immigration bill and offering amendments on that immigration bill to improve it. Yet here we are, 10 hours later, and we have made absolutely no progress. The amendments that were first offered on this bill were a week ago, Wednesday of last week, the Kyl amendment. To this day, we have not been able to have a vote on that Kyl amendment, the Dorgan amendment, or the Isakson amendment, all of which have been on the table and discussed, but we are not allowed to vote on them. It takes unanimous consent, all of us working together to do that. The problem is, unless the Senate is able to work its will, we are not ever going to be able to finish a bill and all the good we want to do in addressing immigration will come to naught today or tomorrow and in the near future. That is the tragedy. I still think we have an opportunity to reverse that. What I recommend, and I will talk to the Democratic leader shortly, is that we proceed and take up the Kyl amendment and that we debate it, and we already have had sufficient debate. We can vote on it and dispose of that and take that next amendment, the Dorgan amendment, and vote on that, dispose of that, and take up the Isakson amendment, and vote on that, and then develop some good will. I think, again, most everyone in this Senate wants to move this bill forward, see where we are, and then continue through the evening and the night in order to consider other amendments. That would be the normal process and the process I would expect. I will be talking to the Democratic leader and I hope we can make progress and do just that.

Mr. FRIST. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be dispensed with.

Mr. FRIST

Mr. FRIST. Mr. President, the leader is aware that one amendment could be pending during that entire 30 hours. The minority could deny Members the right for votes on their germane amendments. I guess I would ask, would the minority leader agree to allow amendments be given 30 minutes of debate, equally divided, so we can be assured that we can debate and vote on that and other important amendments?

Mr. FRIST. Yes.

Mr. FRIST. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to votes in relation to the following amendments: The Kyl amendment, the Dorgan amendment, and the Isakson amendment. I further ask that before each vote there be 30 minutes of debate equally divided in the usual form. Before the Chair rules, I note that two Republican amendments in this agreement have been pending for over a week.

Mr. FRIST. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that there now be a period of morning business with Senators permitted to speak for up to 10 minutes each.

Mr. FRIST. Mr. President, we are about to close in a few moments. We have some business to do. But I want to comment briefly on the events of today with respect to what I think is tragic in the sense that we are, in all likelihood, not going to be able to address a problem that directly affects the American people. What the Senate does best is to identify a problem, to develop and take a solution through committee, and then bring that product to the floor of this body and allow 100 Senators--the body itself--to modify, to take away, or to add to that product and produce a bill. And it becomes especially important when you are addressing very complicated issues, tough issues, tough challenges that you produce a product that reflects the intent and the will of this entire body, the Senate. In this particular case, when we are discussing immigration, the problem has been clearly identified. Our borders are broken. Our immigration system does not work, Our laws that are on the books are not being enforced. Again and again, we have heard over the last 2 weeks that we are a nation of laws, a proud nation, a rich nation because of our immigrants and our history of immigrants. But with those laws not enforced, our workplace is not protected, and with employers not having the tools available to enforce those laws, with too many people living in the shadows, we have a set of problems that have to be addressed. This body has moved in the direction of addressing that in a comprehensive way. We developed a product in the committee, we took that product to the floor, but when we came to the point where the minority, using their rights, which I would argue is abusing those privileges, caused the system of deliberation and amendment to fail, that resulted in postponement, it resulted in blocking amendments, not having votes, obstruction. They did not allow amendments to be offered--the substantive amendments, the really important amendments--or to be voted on. Everybody watching this debate over the last week and a half asked-- we all have that telephone call or that question in town meetings: How in the world could the Senate possibly operate that way? How can a handful of Senators or a minority of Senators--fewer than 50 in this body--actually stop progress on an important bill? The American people are baffled by it, and appropriately so. The answer lies in that the rules of the Senate allow them to do that, and if those rules are used in that manner, then things can be stopped, postponed, and blocked. People call it tyranny of a minority. Is that an overstatement? Not really, because the tyranny means that you have something bad happening, and the strength is of the minority, and that has actually taken place. We have seen it play out over the course of the last 12 hours, almost exactly 12 hours after a vote today to oppose a bill that gives illegal immigrants, undocumented people, a direct special path to citizenship. Many thought it would be a new day and, indeed, shortly thereafter, a large number, a bipartisan group of people, rallied in support of proceeding to an amendment put forth by Senators Hagel and Martinez, broadly supported with a number of cosponsors on both sides of the aisle. That amendment, coupled with the work that the committee had done to date, that the Senate had done, did everything pretty much in terms of tightening the borders, worksite enforcement, looking at 12 million undocumented, illegal immigrants here and saying it is not a monolithic group and has to be addressed in a certain way and developing a temporary worker program. However, at that point, the minority, having said the amendments could be offered, reversed course, and over the course of today we have not had any amendments offered. We have had them offered--in fact, 396 amendments are at the desk--but we are not allowed to take any of those amendments out and debate and vote on them. And we did not do any amendments today. We all know a lot of people say they will file amendments, and they do not ultimately even want to debate them, but 396 amendments reflect a lot of Members with interest, on both sides of the aisle, with an interest in modifying or attempting to modify or discussing how they might modify the underlying bill. I have been consistent in my remarks over the last several days, actually at the end of last week, as well, that it is important we begin debate and we begin that amendment process and get votes on some of those amendments. People say, well, you had three votes. There are 396 amendments, and we did have three votes. They were fairly noncontroversial. The problem is that we have a lot more substantial amendments. The amendment that we talked about earlier tonight, the Kyl amendment, was offered Wednesday of last week; and another amendment, the Dorgan amendment, was offered last week; and the Isakson amendment was offered last week. These are amendments we have not been allowed to vote on. Earlier tonight, a couple of hours ago, when the Democratic leader and I were both on the floor, I suggested we go ahead and take up the Kyl amendment. Even if we could not come to all the agreements about what will happen weeks or months from now, let's go ahead and take up an amendment and maybe we could capture the good will of the Senate, show progress, and after that take up the Dorgan amendment and the Isakson amendment, and hopefully at some point--maybe it even could have been now--we could see how we could proceed with other amendments. That proposal was refused and, thus, we are here now a couple of hours later. A lot of other proposals have gone back and forth, and without talking too much about what the Democratic leader and I have talked about, we have tried to put together packages or groups of amendments that might be considered. I have been quite open. We would like to see about 20 amendments, out of 396, about 20 be considered at some point in the future, in a package, and ultimately have passage of the bill after those amendments. How they fall is important, but voting is important. And however they fall, if we can vote on the underlying bill, I think it would pass. But the response to that, again, was ``no.'' I mention that because we have seen this flow over the course of the day, a lot of optimism earlier today, but now, since we have had no amendments over the course of today, I don't see how cloture can be invoked tomorrow morning. We will have to wait and see how the votes go, but I would think all of the people who have been denied the opportunity to offer their amendments are not going to want to proceed where, in a process, they are being shut out, totally shut out. But we have to wait and see how that vote goes tomorrow morning. Now, where do we go from here? I always say that tomorrow is a new day, and we do not know what exactly will happen tomorrow morning. I do see little progress on this bill possible tomorrow because of the obstruction that we have run up against. What is disheartening to me is that we do have a huge problem along our borders today. As I have said many times before, when I was last at the Rio Grande border, 400 people were caught that night. That means 400 people will probably be caught tonight in that one little sector. But in addition to those 400 people being gone, there are probably about 800 or 1,200 people who are going to get through that border tonight--just that little sector tonight--and tomorrow night and the next night and the next night because we did not act and because we are not acting and not moving forward. I think that is a disservice to the people living along those borders. It is a disservice to the people who are going in those hospitals along the borders in the border States, who have to wait hours, sometimes several hours, maybe even a whole day, because these waiting rooms are crowded with people who have come illegally across the border over the preceding days. But we will have to see how the vote goes tomorrow morning. If cloture is not invoked--and I don't see how it can be, the way the process has proceeded--we will have a cloture vote on a strong border security bill, a bill that does deserve to be passed. If we cannot pass the comprehensive bill, because of obstruction, we will have the opportunity after that to vote on a strong border security bill that also has interior enforcement and worksite enforcement tomorrow morning as well. I do hope we can turn the corner here at some point and address these problems which do affect the American people. We have to stay above partisanship. We have to work together and be able to debate in a civil way. I stressed that initially when we began the debate, saying we have to be civil and dignified, but then I found that we were not even really able to debate because we have not been allowed to vote on these amendments. Mr. President, does the Democratic leader want to have any comment? If not, I will proceed on with business. I do not want to cut off anything.

Mr. FRIST. Mr. President, I want to, one more time, make it clear that we have tried to move to take up the Kyl amendment tonight, but the other side refused that opportunity, and the Dorgan amendment and the Isakson amendment, to proceed with debate. The Democratic leader and I have had the discussion. I want to make it clear that not supporting cloture tomorrow is the only way we can support our right to be able to offer amendments and to debate them. It is important for everybody to understand that because it comes on the heels of broad support for the underlying amendment.

Mr. FRIST. Mr. President, the intent is to start down the path of amendments and allow the debate and then to allow the votes. We have stopped short because I have said that our side, since 396 amendments have been offered, needs about 20 amendments--and this doesn't have to be right now; this could be at some point in the future--that we could put into a package and then debate the bill. With that, we have not been able to reach agreement. That is where we are. But this willingness to debate and vote, I want to make it crystal clear we have attempted again to do that. I keep mentioning it because with cloture in all likelihood not being invoked tomorrow, it is solely because we have not been given that opportunity to offer amendments to improve the bill. Some of them would win; some would lose.

Mr. FRIST. I am happy to.

Mr. FRIST

Mr. FRIST. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the concurrent resolution be agreed to, the preamble be agreed to, the motion to reconsider be laid upon the table, and that any statement relating to the concurrent resolution be printed in the Record.

Mr. FRIST. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of H. Con. Res. 371, which was received from the House.

Mr. FRIST

Mr. FRIST. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of H. Con. Res. 360 which was received from the House.

Mr. FRIST. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the concurrent resolution be agreed to, the motion to reconsider be laid upon the table, and that any statements relating to the concurrent resolution be printed in the Record.

Mr. FRIST

Mr. FRIST. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the resolution be agreed to, the preamble be agreed to, and the motion to reconsider be laid upon the table.