Carl Levin

Mr. LEVIN

Mr. LEVIN. I hope not. I don't even know what is in the amendment. But we are trying to accommodate the process where everybody could have a chance, hopefully, to call up their amendments. We have to do it in order where we know what is in the amendment, we have to have our staffs have an opportunity to make sure we understand what is in the amendment. We are working on this amendment. So I have no objection whatever to the Senator talking about the amendment. We are working hard on the amendment to get it in order.

Mr. LEVIN. And we are working on it. But if the Senator could just not proceed to call it up but speak to it, we would appreciate it.

Mr. LEVIN. I ask unanimous consent that the filing deadline for first-degree amendments to S. 3254, the Department of Defense authorization bill, be set at 9:45 tonight.

Mr. LEVIN. I know of no further debate.

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

Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, let me thank Senators Durbin and Inhofe for again focusing on a critical issue. I know Africa seems far away and some of these events seem far away, but they have tried to bring them home to us and, hopefully, we will be listening, all of us, to what they have accomplished and what they have done tonight. I hope the American people realize the importance of this issue and that the message will be clear to those who are violating civil rights so horrendously. I yield the floor and note the absence of a quorum.

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 President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. LEVIN. We are going to be making a unanimous consent request, and would like to do it right now, that tomorrow morning there be debate and votes on the following five amendments: Senator Sessions on bilateral discussions with Afghanistan, Sessions amendment No. 3009; Cardin amendment No. 3025 on civilian personnel; Menendez amendment No. 3232 on Iran sanctions; Bill Nelson amendment No. 3073 involving widows and orphans; and Coburn amendment No. 3254 involving second amendment rights for veterans. My request is that we have--I will make a unanimous consent request now that tomorrow morning, at whatever time is allotted for morning business by the leaders----

Mr. LEVIN. There will be no morning business--that we then proceed. Now we don't have time agreements yet on these five. That is going to take a few minutes. My unanimous consent request is that immediately after prayer tomorrow we move to these five amendments. We will allocate as little time as we can tonight after this unanimous consent agreement is agreed to, if it is.

Mr. LEVIN. This will.

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

Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, the last unanimous consent which was objected to listed the five amendments. I am now going to list the first four of those five amendments so everybody knows what I am doing. I ask unanimous consent that it be in order for the following first- degree amendments to be offered tomorrow, with no more amendments tonight: Sessions 3009, Cardin 3025, Menendez 3232, and Nelson of Florida 3073.

Mr. LEVIN. Tonight is open for debate.

Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, along the same lines, I would hope that at least with these four amendments--which are now ready to be debated and voted upon--that our friend from Oklahoma would allow that to proceed, with the notice that from thereon he would not allow any unanimous consent agreement. But this has been worked on for so long and these four amendments are lined up so nicely for debate tomorrow that I would urge him to relent and allow us to at least proceed to those four amendments. And he has now put the body on notice that he would not agree to any additional beyond that. I happen to agree with my friend from Arizona. We are going to debate, folks. Sooner or later, these amendments are going to be debated, unless a cloture motion--which is going to be filed tomorrow-- is approved on Monday. And then we are right back in the same problem we have had, which has just been eloquently described by Senator McCain. And if we don't vote cloture, this bill isn't going anywhere. If we do vote cloture, then we will have made it impossible for some people to offer amendments, which they should be allowed to offer. Let us be clear on what is happening tomorrow, to the extent it is possible--which is not very extensive. And I want to get the Chair to confirm this. There is a pending amendment. It is a modified Kyl amendment. This has been modified so that it was been worked out with Senator Kerry. That is pending. Is the Senator correct?

Mr. LEVIN. It is pending and will be modified tomorrow. At that point the Chair is going to ask whether there is any additional debate on that amendment. If there is no additional debate, then the Chair is going to put the question. If there is a request for a rollcall, there will be a rollcall. If there is not, it will be voice voted. At that point, the floor is open. And I intend to then offer the Sessions amendment, the first one on this list, and then that is going to be open to debate. And if our colleagues want to come here tomorrow and filibuster or prevent a vote on the Sessions amendment, they are going to have to come here and debate. But we have tried the best we know how to move this bill forward. We have done everything we know how, and we have made great progress, with the Members of this body being extremely cooperative. We are not giving up. So the only technique left to us, given these two objections, is the one I just identified: to have the pending Kyl amendment, after it is modified, debated. If no one wants to debate, the Chair is going to put the question, or we will have a rollcall on it if people want it. And then the floor is open, and I will be offering the next one in line, which is the Sessions amendment. Then if people want to debate that or filibuster that, the rules of the Senate allow you to do it. But I don't think that is what is going to happen.

Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent it be in order for the following first-degree amendments to be offered: Sessions No. 3009, Cardin No. 3025, Menendez No. 3232, Nelson of Florida no. 3073; that at 9:30 a.m. on Friday, tomorrow, November 30, following the prayer, that the Senate proceed to votes in relation to the amendments in the order listed; that there be 2 minutes equally divided prior to each vote; that there be no amendments in order to the amendments prior to the votes.

Mr. LEVIN. That is correct. We will work out time agreements----

Mr. LEVIN. The only time agreement we have in yet is the time we come in, not a time for a vote.

Mr. LEVIN. Oh, I did not state that correctly. I believed, and I am now wrong, that there would be a time agreement on each amendment that we would attempt to arrive at. That is not what this says. This provides, and I am going to read it again, and I did not listen to my own reading--that at 9:30, following the prayer tomorrow, the Senate proceed to votes in relation to the amendments in the order listed and that there be 2 minutes equally divided prior to each vote; and there be no amendments in order to the amendments prior to the votes. I think we ought to have more debate on some of these amendments than that. The debates could take place tonight.

Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, I now call up a list of 17 amendments which have been cleared by myself and Senator McCain. I am going to list these amendments: Blumenthal amendment No. 2940, Brown of Massachusetts amendment No. 3036, Toomey amendment No. 3064, Levin amendment No. 3114, Casey amendment No. 3193, Risch amendment No. 3213, Wicker amendment No. 3220, Johanns amendment No. 3222, Coburn amendment No. 3237, Levin amendment No. 3243, Lieberman amendment No. 3256, Cornyn amendment No. 3260, McCain amendment No. 3261, Kyl amendment No. 3271, Webb amendment No. 3275, Nelson of Nebraska amendment No. 3279.

Mr. LEVIN. I ask unanimous consent that regarding these amendments, which I believe by the Chair's ruling have been--are to be considered en bloc, also that the motion to reconsider be laid on the table.

Mr. LEVIN. I thank the Presiding Officer. My understanding is now that the Senate floor is open to debate. Hopefully people who want to debate on these four amendments will debate tonight so the 2 minutes tomorrow will be adequate. I yield the floor.

Mr. LEVIN. No. Amendment No. 3232

Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, what Senator McCain and I and our staffs are going to attempt to do tomorrow morning is that shortly after the fourth vote that is now scheduled, the fourth rollcall vote, we hope to be able to announce a finite list of amendments which would need to be disposed of before completion of this bill. That is going to be our goal, and we are going to repeat that goal the first thing in the morning. But it is important people know that. That is now something that is important that we do because we expect there will be a cloture motion tomorrow that will be filed, and if we can put together a finite list of amendments that need to be disposed of before final passage of this bill, that step may be unnecessary.