John Glenn

Mr. GLENN

Mr. GLENN. It would take action by the Senate to undo what we just did, I gather. Is that correct?

Mr. GLENN. Since it was just tabled, can we legally do that without further action of the Senate, to put back in what was just tabled? I guess that is a parliamentary question. Will the Chair give us advice on that?

Mr. GLENN. Mr. President, we have a total of 14, in answer to my distinguished colleague from West Virginia.

Mr. GLENN

Mr. GLENN. I move to lay that motion on the table. The motion to lay on the table was agreed to. (At the request of Mr. Daschle, the following statement was ordered to be printed at this point in the Record:)

Mr. GLENN. Mr. President, I want to associate myself with the remarks of the distinguished Senator from Iowa in giving credit to those who worked long into the night and do so much work in putting something like this together. It is not easy. They have to do a lot of work on the amendments that were proposed over here, and they did a lot of work over the last couple of years in putting this whole package together. It finally came together in a way, with the provisions in here, that took care of some of the previous concerns about separation of powers between the branches of Government that literally has held up consideration of this legislation since 1978, when I introduced held up all this time. Last year, as majority leader, Senator Mitchell indicated to me that he wanted us to move this, if we possibly could, out of committee and the best bill we had was the Grassley-Lieberman bill. We worked with them on that and we put it in the form that was passed here this evening. I am proud to have worked with them on that and to be part of the team that got it together. But I want to particularly give them credit for it, as well as the other people who worked so hard on the staff through this. On our staff of the Governmental Affairs Committee, Larry Novey, who is with me right here, has done yeoman's work on this. Len Weiss, who is our minority staff director, worked on this, but Larry, in particular, really has dedicated himself to this and did a terrific job on this. So I want to give him credit for working out a lot of the details on this and making it into what I think is a very important piece of legislation that says now for the first time we treat our people here on Capitol Hill with the same fairness, the same rights, that we have thought in the past were important enough to apply to all the rest of the country. And now we have some 36,000 employees here--I just received a rundown on that a moment ago--36,000 employees total on Capitol Hill or in the instrumentalities that work for the Senate here and the House of Representatives. Those people now have the same protections and same rights under the law, through a different appeals process that we worked out here. But I just wanted to give credit to those who worked out all these details. I think it is a great step forward. Thank you very much and I yield the floor. Mr. LOTT addressed the Chair.

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

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

Mr. GLENN. I thank the Chair. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. GLENN. Mr. President, what is the pending business?

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

Mr. GLENN. Mr. President, I have worked together with Senator Grassley on this. It is a technical amendment and makes all sections conform to other sections and conform grammatically. We are glad to accept it on this side of the aisle.

Mr. GLENN

Mr. GLENN. Mr. President, that is correct. The majority leader said when we were finished now, we will go into recess until 4:30 when he will come to the floor and have a colloquy with Senator Bryan.

Mr. GLENN. Mr. President, I thank the Chair. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. GLENN. Parliamentary inquiry, Mr. President. Are we back in legislative session now?

Mr. GLENN

Mr. GLENN. Mr. President, I appreciate very much the comments of my distinguished colleague from Maine. Mr. President, I understand that the Senator from Nevada is ready and I think he was awaiting the arrival of the distinguished majority leader, who was to have a colleague with him, on the subject that he will present. Until the majority leader arrives, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. GLENN. Yes.

Mr. GLENN. Mr. President, we will check and see if he is on the way over, and while he is on the way over I might make some remarks particularly addressed to people on our side of the aisle in that we on the Democratic side are the ones who have had the amendments on this legislation. The distinguished majority leader, Senator Dole, was able on his side to convince everyone to keep amendments off, with the idea of treating this whole thing expeditiously and getting it through. I certainly share his desire. At the same time, it is within the right of every Senator to put forward amendments under Senate rules, whether germane or not. And I do personally think there will come a time in the future when we do adopt germaneness rules so we can keep a lot of extraneous legislation off of the floor. What I wanted to say in addressing our side of the aisle in particular on this bill, we had a number of amendments and people lost on those amendments. We did not succeed in passing any of them. Sometimes when you get into debate in the Chamber, it gets into a rather heartfelt situation. We have issues about which people care very strongly, and they are not willing to give up easily. And there is a tendency sometimes to vote against the underlying legislation because people are in a state of semipique or disagreement or unhappiness because their particular amendment, which may or may not have been germane, did not pass. Now, I hope if we have anyone on our side of the aisle who is taking that attitude and plans to vote against this bill because their particular amendment was not accepted, we can convince them to put aside that attitude and vote for this bill. I think this bill is right. I think it is fair. There are a couple of things that are addressed by this bill. One is the perception out there in the country that somehow we are above the law; that we treat ourselves differently, and that is a perception, of course, about which we all must be concerned. But second, the importance of this bill, quite apart from dealing with perceptions, it seems to me, is that you come back to the question, is it right or is it wrong that we pass this legislation? And I say it is right because what it does, it gives the same protection to our own Hill employees, those who work for us on Capitol Hill, that we have passed here in years past and said it is good for the rest of the country; we want to protect the workers out there with OSHA laws and we want fair employment laws and the right to organize--all these things that we say, yes, sir, under the American justice system, this is right for the rest of the country. I would say if it is right for the rest of the country and if people need that kind of protection out there or have rights that need protection, then our Hill employees have those same rights and to treat them fairly we need to pass this kind of legislation. Mr. President, I was asked earlier today by one of the leading reporters here that covers the House and covers the Senate on a regular basis, just what difference does this bill make? Well, I think in some areas it makes a substantial change and in some areas it does not. Through the years, we have provided some protections in laws in a rather haphazard manner, and the haphazard manner has extended also to the process by which an employee could file a grievance of some kind and have it dealt with, with various procedures. So what this bill does is to two things. One, it takes all of these different laws--in fact, under the antidiscrimination laws we apply four laws, some of which were covered before, some of which were not: Civil Rights Act of 1964, Age Discrimination, Americans With Disabilities Act, Rehabilitation Act, all under antidiscrimination; under public services and accommodations under ADA: title II, Americans With Disabilities; title III, Americans With Disabilities; workplace protection laws: Fair Labor Standards Act regulations to be promulgated that will track executive branch regulations on people that work irregular schedules or whose schedules depend directly on the Senate schedule, OSHA laws, Family and Medical Leave Act, Employee Polygraph Protection Act, Worker Adjustment and Retraining Act, Veterans Reemployment Act. Under labor-management relations, chapter 71 of title V will apply now. So all of these are laws that we now say will apply, and we give a very specific grievance process that employees can use to address whatever problem they are having or however they feel they are being discriminated against or dealt with unfairly. So it covers everything. And second, it provides this grievance process which we have not had before that takes care of some of the objections our Members have had through the years about this separation of powers from one branch of Government to the other. Mr. President, I see our distinguished colleague from Nevada in the Chamber, and I am happy to yield to him anytime he is ready to go. I was filling in momentarily here with some comments to people on our side of the aisle while the Senator prepared.

Mr. GLENN. Mr. President, under the unanimous-consent agreement, what is the next order of business?

Mr. GLENN

Mr. GLENN. Mr. President, I do not think the Senator is missing anything. We are trying to correct that loophole in the law with this amendment and with the underlying amendment by the Senator from Kentucky [Mr. Ford]. This would close that loophole so the House could not misuse what I view, just as the Senator from New Mexico says, as public property.

Mr. GLENN. I move to lay that motion on the table. The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.

Mr. GLENN. Mr. President, I send to the desk an amendment in the second degree to the Ford amendment and ask for its immediate consideration.

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

Mr. GLENN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Ford amendment be set aside to provide time for this vote.

Mr. GLENN

Mr. GLENN. Mr. President, let me rise to strongly support the proposal by the distinguished Senator from Massachusetts. We have had this before us several times, as to what kind of limitation we should put on funds that are gathered for specific purposes and wind up being used for other purposes; where money that was given for a particular election use winds up feathering the nests or lining the pockets-- however you want to say it--anyway, being used by the former candidate for his or her own personal use. That was not the intent of the giving in most cases, that the funds could be converted for that purpose. That is what the Senator addresses, basically. This is a small step forward. It does not try to encompass all of the difficulties involved with the problems of campaigns and campaign finance reform. It is a small step forward, and I hope we will have support on both sides of the aisle for this, so I rise to support the proposal. I yield the floor.

Mr. GLENN. I would respond to my good friend by saying I think it should. We discussed that at the time, as I recall, and our exact reasoning why we did not make it apply that way, I do not quite recall at the moment. Looking at what is in the procurement bill this morning--and I think you have a copy--I would like to see that same provision go all across Government and apply to everybody. We gave some time to work this thing out. In that procurement bill, section 6008, entitled ``Cost Savings for Official Travel,'' it says: (a) Guidelines: The Administrator or General Services Administration shall issue guidelines to ensure that agencies promote, encourage, and facilitate the use of frequent traveler programs offered by airlines, hotels, and car rental vendors by Federal employees who engage in official air travel, for the purpose of realizing to the maximum extent practicable cost savings for official travel. It goes on to say: Any awards granted under such a frequent traveler program accrued to official travel shall be used only for official travel. I think it should apply across the board. We gave them 1 year to report on how they would enact this. I would like to see that same thing applied all across Government. We were discussing this morning whether to try to put this in as an amendment to this bill or subsequent legislation. The same thing should apply, and the Senator is absolutely correct.