Ted Kennedy

Mr. KENNEDY

Mr. KENNEDY. Yeas and nays, Mr. President.

Mr. KENNEDY. Yeas and nays.

Mr. KENNEDY. The yeas and nays, Mr. President.

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 President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, if I could have the attention of the Senator from New Hampshire, we were necessarily absent during the earlier presentation by the Senator from New Hampshire at a meeting with----

Mr. KENNEDY. I withdraw the motion to table.

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I was under the impression we had gone through the debate and discussion. I had indicated I was going to make a motion to table. When the Senator from New Hampshire came to the floor, I was glad to withhold as the Senator remembers. The Senator, as I understood it, had finished his comments, and I made brief comments. I am more than glad, if the Senator wants to address the amendment. We have just been in the process of trying to move along. I have no intention of cutting him off. We have not attempted to cut anyone off. So if he had that impression, I regret it. I say to the Senator from New Hampshire, we have been longtime friends, and we have been trying to have a process of moving this along. I had not known, at least on our side, we had other people prepared to speak. I had not heard there were others who were prepared to speak on the other side. So that was basically the reason for moving ahead. But I am glad to withdraw the motion, as I was earlier. I would hope the Senator would understand, and we would hear from the Senator, if he so desires. We want to, at some time, reach some judgment on the amendment, but I am glad to work that out with the Senator, as I have tried to over the years.

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

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 President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to vitiate the yeas and nays on the Gregg amendment.

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, we are prepared to vote.

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I thank the good Senator from New Hampshire. We continue to make progress. I thank him. I know his strong views on this, and we will continue to work on it as a matter of enormous importance. I know the Senator from Arizona and others feel very strongly. We want to have a secure border. People have differing views, but we will work very closely to try and achieve the objectives, and we will work very closely with him as we go to conference and in conference as well. We all understand this is a work in progress. Now, for the Members, I know Senator Cornyn wanted to offer an amendment. As I understand it, he is still in the Armed Services Committee. We were ready to go on our side. We had an amendment of the Senator from North Dakota which is going to sunset the temporary worker program. He is giving thought to that. If he would like to--I see Senator Cornyn is here now. We may go out of sync here, but if we wanted to go ahead with that--I see my friend from Arizona. I yield the floor.

Mr. KENNEDY. Sure.

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I think we would like to try to at least get another vote, possibly two. I think we will know more clearly in about 15 minutes and we will notify our colleagues. I think we have made some good progress. We had several of our colleagues--as always, these are enormously important--from the Armed Services Committee and others. We will probably have a brief window tomorrow. The Senator from Arizona, Senator McCain, was here earlier and wants to do an amendment on back taxes, and I have indicated I thought we could probably do that in the morning and we will try to work out a time with him. We are trying to follow going back and forth, but if there are people here from a particular party who are prepared to go ahead, we want to try to deal with that. I think we will have a limited time in the morning. I don't know when we are going to get the supplemental, but I am hopeful we would have at least a window in the morning.

Mr. KENNEDY. That would be fine. I see the Senator from Iowa here who wanted to make a comment as well.

Mr. KENNEDY. That is always possible. We would like to check with the leadership. Senator Cornyn has been extremely patient through this process and has indicated at the start of the day that he would like to be able to address the Senate on an issue. He has now returned. I would like to see if we can't have maybe a short period here and then I could try and make an assessment and let the Senator know. But I would be very hopeful that we would be able to address Senator Cornyn tonight, and then I could talk to the Senator from North Dakota and Senator McCain. If we can get those lined up for the morning, maybe we will be able to give an announcement about where we are.

Mr. KENNEDY. If we could proceed with the Senator from Tennessee for 5 minutes and the Senator from Iowa for 10 minutes, and then we will announce what the plan is for the evening and for the morning. I ask unanimous consent to do that.

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I see my friend and colleague from Hawaii who has an amendment which I hope we will be able to consider and accept. I have talked briefly to the Senator from Arizona and others. I ask unanimous consent that the Senator's amendment be in order.

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Hawaii for offering this amendment. He offered this amendment in the last immigration bill. We accepted it at that time. I am confident that will be the case on this time, but given the hour of the evening, we are unable to get this cleared. Basically, as he has expressed so well, he is talking about the immediate family members of those who served with American forces in World War II. Under the broad scope of the underlying legislation, they would be included to be able to come to the United States. Under the bill, it would take an 8-year period. What the Senator from Hawaii is saying is these are older men and women who would otherwise be able to come here. They are the brothers and sisters of those who fought with American forces in World War II, and we want to move them up and have them come more quickly, given the fact of their age. It is a very decent thing to do. We would be entitled to do it under the underlying framework of the bill. It doesn't change the underlying framework of the bill. It is a humanitarian gesture. It is a noble gesture. It is typical of the Senator from Hawaii to be thoughtful about this, always being concerned not only about individuals but members of the Armed Forces. He continues to be a champion on the Veterans' Committee. I speak for the veterans of my State as well as in this case the veterans of World War II for their immediate family, and I am very hopeful we can get this cleared at an early time tomorrow. I wish to commend him for this amendment. He had indicated to us early on that this was a matter of high importance to him, and it is, I think, and should be a high priority here. So we would ask the Senator if we may move along, and I will try to get the clearance for that amendment on tomorrow, and we will notify him when that happens. We thank him again for bringing this to the attention of the Senate and for being thoughtful about these extraordinary family members of those who served so nobly, courageously, and heroically in World War II. So I thank the Senator. He can be assured of my support and help and assistance and hopefully we will have good news for him tomorrow on this amendment. Mr. President, I think we have probably reached about as far as we are going to go this evening. We are examining in some detail Senator Coleman's amendment, and we would like to try and see if we can't work that out through the evening. There is one aspect of it I would like to understand more completely in terms of whether it deals with emergency services and others. So I think we probably, for all intents and purposes, have gone about as far as we can go tonight. We have a number of amendments. We are very much aware that we have the supplemental that will be here. We have been told so by the majority leader. But we will have a good opportunity in the morning through noontime and into perhaps the early afternoon to continue our progress. We have made good progress today. I thank all the Members for their cooperation. We have several amendments which are lined up. We will probably start with Senator Dorgan's amendment tomorrow. We have a number of amendments, including Senator Cornyn's amendment which he offered this evening, and there will probably be side-by-side consideration sometime in the late morning. There are a number of other amendments that have been brought to our attention. We are in the process of prioritizing those and notifying their sponsors to make sure they can be here in a timely way so we will have a productive time and as few quorum calls as possible. As I mentioned, we will continue on the Cornyn amendment and the Dorgan amendment. There is a Feingold amendment on the study of refugees; a Sanders amendment, scholarship for Americans in connection with the H-1B program. There are some of the family amendments which Members have talked with us about and the McCain amendment as well. So we have talked to most of these Members, and we will do as much as we possibly can to move these along. They are all important matters. I think, as far as today is concerned, we are very grateful for the cooperation we have had from all Members. I think we have made some important progress. We look forward to making further progress in the morning. I see my colleague here who would like to address the Senate on other matters. We look forward to further consideration of the underlying legislation tomorrow.

Mr. KENNEDY

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that we have a period of morning business, with Senators permitted to speak therein for up to 10 minutes each.

Mr. KENNEDY

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Armed Services be authorized to meet during the sessions of the Senate on Wednesday, May 23, 2007 at 2:30 p.m. in closed session to mark up the national defense authorization act for fiscal year 2008.

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation be authorized to hold a hearing during the session of the Senate on Wednesday, May 23, 2007, at 10:00 a.m., in room 253 of the Russell Senate Office Building. The purpose of the hearing is to address the current moratorium that bars state and local taxes on Internet access.

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources be authorized to hold a business meeting during the session of the Senate on Wednesday, May 23, 2007, at 11:30 a.m. in room SD-366 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building. The purpose of the business meeting is to consider pending calendar business.

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Finance be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Wednesday, May 23, 2007, at 10:00 a.m., in room 215 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building, to hear testimony on ``Funding Social Security's Administrative Costs: Will the Budget Meet the Mission?''

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate Committee on the Judiciary be authorized to meet to conduct a hearing entitled ``Rising Crime in the United States: Examining the Federal Role in Helping Communities Prevent and Respond to Violent Crime'' on Wednesday, May 23, 2007 at 9:30 a.m. in Dirksen Senate Office Building Room 226. Witness list Ted Kamatchus, President, National Sheriffs Association; Russ Lane, Vice President, International Association of Chiefs of Police; Tom Nee, President, National Association of Police Organizations; Douglas Palmer, Mayor of Trenton, NJ, President, United States Conference of Mayors, Trenton, NJ; James Alan Fox, Criminologist, Northeastern University; Rick Gregory, Chief of Police, New Castle, DE.