Tom Harkin

Mr. HARKIN

Mr. HARKIN. I modify that unanimous consent request to ask unanimous consent that when the Senator finishes speaking on his amendment, Senator Bingaman be allowed to then offer his amendment at this point in time.

Mr. HARKIN. Reserving the right to object, Mr. President, I understand the Senator requested when we come back at 2:15 p.m. that he be recognized to continue to speak on his amendment. The amendment has been laid down; is that correct?

Mr. HARKIN. That is a big item.

Mr. HARKIN. While I support improving impact aid around the country, we are getting to the point where we accepted a $10 million cut in administrative costs, and we accepted some more before that, did we not?

Mr. HARKIN. Now we are going to accept $78 million in administrative costs, which we know we can't do? I know I have some people on this side of the aisle who want to come over and offer amendments that will cut administrative costs. I just ask my friend, the chairman, are we just going to accept them then? Are we going to accept every amendment that comes over that cuts administrative costs to increase education or whatever it might be? If we are going to do that, then I have no objection to the amendment of the Senator from Oklahoma. But if we are going to pick and choose, well, then, maybe we ought to think about which amendments and how we are going to balance these off between maybe amendments on that side and amendments on this side. Are we going to have a $100 million cutoff or a $150 million cutoff on administrative costs and say we will take the first ones out of the block up to that point? Where do we draw the line? We are going to have Senators on this side of the aisle come over here and offer amendments of the same magnitude, and they are going to take it out of administrative costs. I ask, will we just accept them?

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

Mr. HARKIN. Yes. I think all of us are committed on this side. I don't speak for the Senator from Pennsylvania. But in my conversations with him, I understand that he is committed to replacing the social services block grant. Clearly, we cannot live with those. We are going to restore those in conference. It was simply a matter of trying to get our bill together to meet the budget requirements because SSBGs were not fully funded. I can assure the Senator from Minnesota that they will be funded fully in conference.

Mr. HARKIN

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, reserving the right to object--and I don't want to object to my friend doing his 10 minutes--I would like to know what we are doing on the bill. I hope we will have some information so Senators will know whether we are going to go ahead and debate this and have amendments tonight or not, on our bill. I withdraw my reservation.

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

Mr. HARKIN. We had seven amendments. That was all that was on the list.

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, I find it interesting, my friend from New Hampshire making this argument. Four years ago, when the Senator from Texas offered a gun amendment on the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, I didn't hear a peep from my friend from New Hampshire, not a word. But now, when we want to address the issue of school violence and guns, the Senator from New Hampshire says: Oh, well, now we can't discuss that. It is not relevant. The Senator from New Hampshire knows, as well as I do, there is no rule in the Senate that demands relevancy. That is the House. That is why we are the great deliberative body that we are. We can debate and discuss things. If the Senator wants to go back to the House, where they have a Rules Committee, and they only discuss issues that the Rules Committee says are relevant--that is the House of Representatives. This is the Senate. We do not have such a rule. Thank God we do not because it allows us, as Senators, to have the kind of open and free debate and discussion that I think distinguishes the Senate from the House of Representatives. That allows us a time to cool things down, as Thomas Jefferson said. We are willing to bring up the Elementary and Secondary Education Act and agree to a time limit. We could be done in 1 day. But the Republicans do not want to vote on the gun issue. They don't want to have to belly up to the bar and vote to keep guns out of the hands of kids. They don't want to have that amendment. Therefore, all of the rest of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act is held hostage by the refusal on the Republican side to allow even 1 hour of debate and an up-or-down vote on the Lautenberg amendment. That is the essence of it right now. As my friend from Nevada said, we are willing to go to the Elementary and Secondary Education Act right now with a time limit, debate them, vote them up or down. It is the other side that won't let that happen.

Mr. HARKIN. That is right.

Mr. HARKIN. If the Senator from New Hampshire would agree that school safety and guns is a relevant amendment, we can make an agreement right now. Will the Senator agree to that?

Mr. HARKIN. No. A unanimous consent that the Lautenberg amendment is relevant.

Mr. HARKIN. Yes, I yield without losing my right to the floor.

Mr. HARKIN. I reclaim my time. The Senator says: Relevant.

Mr. HARKIN. You can have whatever seven you want, and we will take our seven amendments.

Mr. HARKIN. To these seven amendments?

Mr. HARKIN. All amendments that are offered here, seven on each side?

Mr. HARKIN. I yield without losing my right to the floor.

Mr. HARKIN. Oh, relevant amendments. See, there you go. The last ESEA bill we had up was 4 years ago. We had amendments offered on the Republican side that were not relevant. We didn't say anything. We debated them. We debated them and we voted on them. Oh, but now they don't want to do that. The Republicans say: It has to be relevant. And they will preclude us from offering amendments on that bill that are relevant--maybe not to education but relevant to what is happening in America today. Yet they do not want to do that. We would agree to time limits. Senator Daschle has here: 1 hour each, equally divided. That is 14 hours. In 14 hours, we could be done with the Elementary and Secondary Education Act.

Mr. HARKIN. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, I thank the Senator for yielding me a little bit of time. I appreciate what the Senator from Minnesota said a while ago. He is absolutely right. We are blaming these kids. Title I: Do my colleagues know how much each kid gets from title I? Somewhere between $400 and $600 a year. Go to the best schools in America in high-income areas where they have nice houses and high incomes. Do my colleagues know what they are spending on kids there? Six to eight thousand dollars. Yet we are going to put $400 to $600 into some of the kids who have the poorest lives. As the Senator said, they move around a lot. They have been denied the opportunity since they have been born, and we expect all these great results from $400 to $600 per student. If the Senator from New Hampshire wants to propose we spend $6,000 on each one of those poor kids, then maybe we will see them start to advance more rapidly, but on $400 to $600 we are not going to do it. The Senator's amendment would only get that up just a little bit more. We are still way behind in what we ought to be doing in this country to help low-income students attain the same opportunity in education as kids from better, higher income areas are getting. The Senator from Minnesota is right on with this amendment.

Mr. HARKIN. How much time is remaining, Mr. President?

Mr. HARKIN. No. But a unanimous consent.