Trent Lott

Mr. LOTT

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

Mr. LOTT. Briefly, for the information of all Senators with regard to the schedule for the balance of the week and the first of next week, in just a moment we will have the final 2 minutes, equally divided, to make comments before final passage. That will be it for the night and for the week. I commend Senator Reid, Senator Coverdell, and others for the good work they have done in getting us to this point. Because we have been able to finish all the amendments and go to final passage, we will not be in session tomorrow. We will be in session on Monday and Tuesday, but the next recorded vote will not occur until approximately 5 o'clock Tuesday afternoon because of the 13 primaries that are occurring across the country between the two parties. We will be in session Tuesday. We will be in session on Wednesday and Thursday with votes likely into the night, and we may have votes on Friday. So do not be scheduling departure on Thursday night. We have to finish a couple of very important issues next week and have some votes on the Executive Calendar. I thank my colleagues, and I yield the floor.

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

Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, I move to reconsider the vote and to lay that motion on the table. The motion to lay on the table was agreed to. Amendment No. 2876

Mr. LOTT. Has the motion to reconsider been tabled?

Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, are we ready for debate time on the next amendment?

Mr. LOTT. Reserving the right to object, Mr. President--and I do not intend to object--I just want to determine how much time is left on this amendment.

Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, I would like to clarify the results of the last vote so there will be no misunderstanding. I have the impression that the vote was defeated.

Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, I ask consent the motion to reconsider be deemed to have been tabled and the vote now occur on the Boxer amendment, which would be the same vote that occurred earlier. That way, we will have a definite clarification of what the vote was and is.

Mr. LOTT

Mr. LOTT. With these final negotiations going on, then, I ask the bill be open for debate only until 4 p.m. and that at 4 p.m. I be recognized.

Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, I realize we have at least one more Senator on the floor who wishes to speak, but I want to take a moment to speak on this legislation. This is legislation about which I feel very strongly. I believe the American people support it. It is a bill we debated a couple of years ago. It did pass the House and Senate, but it was vetoed by the President. At that time, I had some discussions with the White House that indicated they understood this had a lot of appeal and, while it is opposed by some people-- specifically, I guess, teachers' unions--that it has overwhelming appeal. And it does. Let me explain to those who may be listening basically what this legislation will do. It is not just about tax relief, although tax relief is very important for parents who want to help their children. It also is very much about education, quality education. Under this legislation, parents would be able to save up to $2,000 a year per child for their educational needs, K-12. That is the gist of it. I cannot understand some of the comments I have heard about how this is bad educational policy, that it was bad education policy 2 years ago, and it is still bad educational policy. Excuse me. What is bad about this? To allow people to save for their own children's educational needs? We are not talking about a massive amount of money. We are talking about a bill, also, that has offsets to pay for it. But you are talking about up to $2,000 a year, with the interest of course receiving special tax consideration, where that money can be used for children's educational needs at the fourth grade, if they need some remedial reading attention, or at the eighth grade, if they need a computer, or maybe it is even just clothes, I guess. Whatever the educational needs of your children would be--and I am not sure it would be applicable to clothes but supplies, tutors--I can think of a lot of things that could be done for our children at a critical age. We talk now about the need to have early intervention, that a lot of children by the time they start the first grade or kindergarten, they are already 2 years behind the curve. So we are looking now at what can we do for early intervention to help our children be ready to begin school. We are also continuing to look at statistics that are not very encouraging when it comes to reading and arithmetic and basic education at the elementary and secondary level: Fourth grade, eighth grade, tenth grade. What really is amazing to me is we do allow for tax considerations for parents to save for their children's educational needs in college. So it is OK for college, but it is not all right for elementary and secondary. Yet for higher education in America, there are scholarship programs, there are loan programs, there are grant programs, and there are supplemental grant programs. For any student in America who wants to get a college education, whether it is a community college or whether it is a special training program or higher education, there is financial assistance available but not for elementary and secondary. I do not understand that. A lot of the needs are at that level. So we are saying yes to higher education but no to K-12. If we do not help our children, our own children, along the way when they have extra needs, then they are not going to be ready for college or, when they graduate from high school, they are not going to be ready to be trained. I meet with corporate executives, people from the high-tech industries, and they say: We are really worried; the children now coming out of high school are not even ready to learn. They cannot be trained to work in Silicon Valley because they do not have the basics. I am not saying this one bill will totally solve that, but I am saying it is one more option, it is one more part of improving education in America. So I think it is good educational policy. I think it is good for our parents. I think it also provides tax relief. Some people will say that a lot of workers cannot save for their own children. Maybe that is true, although I think it would be a real incentive for people, even at a low income level, to be able to put aside just a little bit. It does not have to be $2,000; maybe it is only a couple of hundred. But it would be their money which they could use to help their children. Should not we provide that incentive? By the way, what about middle-income parents? There are a lot of programs that will help low-income children. Of course, children of parents who have plenty of income, they do not need our assistance. But what about the family where the father works in a shipyard and makes $37,000 a year? Should he not be able to do a little something for his own children? I urge my colleagues, as I know Members on both sides of the aisle already recognize this is important legislation, take a look at it. Tell me you can go back and tell your constituents you are against parents of children K-12 being able to save a little to help their children at that level. I do not believe you can do that. This is not a costly bill. This is a bill that has offsets. This is a bill that is a plus all the way down the line. I believe before we are done, this legislation is going to pass and it is going to pass overwhelmingly when we get to the final vote, as it should. I commend Senator Coverdell and the bipartisan group that has worked on this legislation, brought it to the floor once before and back here now. But I felt compelled to say something because I had seen this quote saying this is bad educational policy. For the life of me, I cannot explain why that would be true. This is good policy across the board. I urge my colleague to keep up the good work. I will continue to work with my colleagues on both sides of the aisle and with the leadership to come up with a process that is fair, where education amendments can be offered, where education tax amendments can be offered, now where the Wellstone amendment can be offered. If we can work out a couple of other agreements, certainly I will be prepared to try to do that because I think this is important and the legislation is good. With that, I yield the floor.

Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, then I hope we can come to an agreement on the bill. This is important education legislation that does have bipartisan support. I believe we are close to getting an agreement. I appreciate what Senator Reid has been doing to try to bring about an agreement, including the amendment by Senator Wellstone that has basically already been agreed to. However, if an agreement cannot be reached on the subject matter on which Members may offer amendments, then Senators are reminded there will be a cloture vote to occur tomorrow. With that in mind, I now ask unanimous consent that the cloture vote be scheduled for 3:30 instead of 2:30 p.m. on Tuesday, if it is necessary to have that vote.

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

Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, I advise my colleagues on both sides of the aisle that I have had some discussions this morning with Senator Daschle and I think we are making some progress on getting an agreement as to how we can proceed on the education savings account legislation. In our discussions this morning, we talked about the possibility of going forward with an agreement that education amendments and education tax-related amendments would be in order, plus one amendment by Senator Wellstone. I thought that was an excellent way to proceed. I am about to enter that as a unanimous consent request. I understand there still may be need to have some further discussions, but I hope we can get this worked out. If we do, it will mean we can vitiate the cloture vote that is scheduled for tomorrow, now at 2:30. So I renew my request of last Thursday and ask consent that all amendments be relevant to the subject matter of education or related to education taxes, with the exception of the Wellstone amendment regarding a report on a TANF program, and that time with respect to that amendment be limited to 2 hours equally divided and it be subject to relevant second-degree amendments.

Mr. LOTT

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

Mr. LOTT

Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, I do truly regret this objection. But as I have indicated before, we will keep working to see if we can find a way to get an agreement to proceed. I say to my colleagues, and to the American people, what is a more important issue than education? In most polls, the people indicate the issue they really are concerned about the most--or certainly in the top three--is education. Also, the indications across the board have been that people support the idea of having an opportunity to save for their children's education, not only for higher education but in some respects even more importantly K through the 12th grade. This would allow parents to set aside up to $2,000 per year per child of their own money for their own children's education needs. I emphasize, what we are trying to work out does not restrict amendments on education, or education tax issues. Senators who have ideas about education--local control of education, or other ways we can help the children's education--boy, I can think of a lot of amendments that would be applicable here. What I do not think we should do in an education debate is get into a whole raft of other important issues--maybe foreign trade issues, maybe just foreign policy issues, maybe trade amendments, maybe defense amendments, gun amendments--a whole myriad of amendments that Senators could come up with that they would want to put on this bill, perhaps because it is the first bill. Under Senate rules, Senators will have the opportunity to offer whatever amendments they may be working on as we go through the year. It is just that I think sometimes we get into a position where we start offering the same amendments over and over again. What I am trying to do is get a process to get us to focus on education, have a good debate, have amendments, and when that is over, pass this legislation that, again, has bipartisan support. There is broad support for the education savings account idea. But I will continue to work with Senators on both sides of the aisle. I think I am offering a reasonable request. I hope we can get something worked out between now and next Tuesday as to how to proceed. Cloture Motion

Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, this cloture vote then will occur on Tuesday, unless we get something worked out where we could vitiate that agreement, as we did 3 weeks ago on the bankruptcy reform legislation. We had a cloture motion, we saw good faith on both sides, we got an agreement worked out, and we vitiated that vote. In the meantime, I ask unanimous consent the mandatory quorum under rule XXII be waived and the cloture vote occur at 2:15 on Tuesday.

Mr. LOTT

Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, before I put forward this request, we have been working to develop an agreement as to how to proceed on this legislation. I think we are close to getting that done, but we may still need a little more time to work on it. In that effort, I ask unanimous consent that all amendments be relevant to the subject matter of education and/or education-related taxes. Mr. REID addressed the Chair.

Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, I understand there will be an objection.

Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, I believe we did not actually get morning business put in place. But I ask unanimous consent the clerk report the bill on education savings loans.

Mr. LOTT

Mr. LOTT. If the Senator from Vermont will withhold briefly, I would like to go ahead and make this request. I believe we have a leadership Senator here. I would like to first ask, what is the pending question?

Mr. LOTT

Mr. LOTT. Is Senator Hatch here?

Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, I know there are a number of Senators who wish to speak in morning business. After we have this en bloc vote, we will put in a time for morning business. I see Senator Specter, and Senator Stevens wants to speak, and probably Senators on the other side do. We will put in probably an hour, from 12:30 until approximately 1:30, so Senators can speak on a number of subjects.

Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to executive session for the consideration of Executive Calendar No. 407, Kermit Bye to be a United States Circuit Judge, and further, that a vote occur on the nomination, immediately to be followed by a vote on Calendar No. 409, George Daniels to be a United States District Judge, and following those back-to-back votes, the President be notified of the Senate's action and the Senate then resume legislative session.

Mr. LOTT

Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, I move to reconsider the vote, and I move to lay that motion on the table. The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.