Trent Lott

Mr. LOTT

Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate now turn to the consideration of S. 96 regarding the Y2K liability legislation.

Mr. LOTT. I yield the floor. Mr. REID addressed the Chair.

Mr. LOTT. For the information of all Senators, this cloture vote will occur on Tuesday, May 18. I ask consent the vote occur at 9:45 a.m. on Tuesday, and the mandatory quorum under rule XXII be waived.

Mr. LOTT. I wasn't sure what you were talking about.

Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, if I could respond.

Mr. LOTT. Are you referring to the Y2K issue?

Mr. LOTT

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

Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, I send an amendment to the desk, No. 351. I am pleased to join Senator Allard from Colorado in offering this amendment. It would allow the erecting of an appropriate and constitutional permanent memorial on the campus of any public school to honor students and teachers who have been murdered at the school and allow students, faculty, and administrative staff of the public school to hold an appropriate service on their campus to honor these students and teachers. I am horrified to find, and I think the American people would be horrified to find, that there are those in this country who object to having appropriate memorial services on the school campuses for teachers and students who are murdered. This should clearly be included in this legislation. I am pleased to join Senator Allard in that amendment.

Mr. LOTT. The Senator from Minnesota suggested that if they could offer amendments on Tuesday and get votes, that would be positive and we could complete this bill. As a matter of fact, that is what I suggested and it was objected to.

Mr. LOTT. If the Senator would, perhaps I could go ahead and do my work, and he could continue after that.

Mr. LOTT. Just one point.

Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, do we have Senator Daschle's list of amendments?

Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, in view of the objection, I will get the amendments locked in. I ask unanimous consent, then, that the following amendments be the only first-degree amendments in order, with relevant second-degree amendments in order, only after a vote on or in relation to the amendment and the amendments limited to time agreements, where noted, all to be equally divided in the usual form. I have sent to the desk my list of amendments. The list is as follows: Juvenile Justice Amendments B. Smith--relevant. B. Smith--relevant. B. Smith--judges/felons B. Smith--gun lawsuits Stevens--parenting; 20 minutes. Stevens--brain dev. Stevens--relevant. Helms--relevant. Helms--relevant. Ashcroft--IDEA Chafee--trigger lock. Chafee--prevention. Chafee--site and sound separation. Chafee--title 1 of the bill. Specter--prevention. Bond--film industry. Hatch/Feinstein--gangs. Frist--victims rights Santorum--Aimee's law; 20 minutes. Craig--Fed Grants, gun safety. Craig--self defense prevention. B. Smith--2nd amdment right protection act. McConnell--fed prop/violent movies; 30 minutes. Ashcroft--try juvenile as adults; 20 mintues. Inhofe--prohibit violent video games. Gregg--ID for NC 17 movies. Gregg--faith based intervention. McCain/Lieberman--National YV Comm. Abraham--locker searches; 20 minutes. Sessions--disclaimer. Allard--memorials school property; 30 minutes. Lott--4 relevant. Hatch--2 relevant. Gramm--relevant. Gramm--Family law. Sessions--Hotline.

Mr. LOTT. Yes. Senator Ashcroft's amendment is on the list.

Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, I yield to the chairman.

Mr. LOTT. Thank you, very much, Mr. President. At least we have locked in the amendments where they will not continue to multiply. But I don't view this as a positive development. It is unfortunate. If Senators are waiting to see if there are any now, there will not be any further rollcall votes today. The next rollcall vote will occur probably at 9:30 Tuesday morning. But we will need to make sure, and we will make the Democratic leader aware of the exact time and the vote. I presume that vote will be on Y2K. I yield to Senator Leahy.

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

Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, for the information of all Senators--and I see there are a few still interested in what the schedule may be; a few have decided they will worry about it next week--I will propound a unanimous consent agreement now that would allow for a list of amendments to be locked in and passage time of this vital piece of legislation. I know that Senator Hatch and Senator Leahy, Senator Biden, and Senator Sessions have spent a lot of time trying to craft this legislation, and there are some good features in here. I am sure there are a lot of Senators who have agreed or disagreed with certain parts of it, but there are a lot of good things that have been included. If this agreement can be entered into, then this vote that would be coming up would be the last vote until Tuesday morning. If the agreement cannot be reached, then we have no other alternative but to keep going forward today and have votes to try to dispense with this legislation. I think it is important that we get the list locked in and find a way to bring it to a reasonable conclusion, with Senators being able to offer amendments and have debate during the day today and on Monday, and then we would have votes on Tuesday and Tuesday night. It is very hard for the leadership to try to honor all Senators' requests. First of all, all Senators knew that we would be having votes today, and yet a lot of them have complained about it and have now left. It is very hard to get amendments accommodated and voted on when Senators say: I do not want to vote Thursday night. Or when we have Senators that say: I have to be gone Friday. Or when we have Senators say: I have amendments I want to offer, but I don't want to do it Thursday night, Monday or Friday. I want to do it Tuesday afternoon when it is convenient for me, even though it may inconvenience 99 other Senators. I am asking Senators, please, be reasonable. I know on both sides there has been an effort to narrow down the list and get a way that we could have votes on key amendments and bring it to a conclusion. But it is very hard when you have that kind of attitude with Senators saying: I don't want to do it on Thursday night or I don't want to do it on Friday or I don't want to do it on Monday. I would like to do it at my pleasure, Wednesday afternoon. I hope we can at least lock in amendments where they won't continue to grow. We have had a lot of good debate and a lot of good amendments. I now ask consent the following amendments be the only remaining first-degree amendments in order, with relevant second-degree amendments in order only after a vote on or in relation to the amendment and the amendments limited to time agreements where noted, all to be equally divided in the usual form. I further ask that all first-degree amendments be offered and debated on Friday and Monday's session of the Senate, with votes stacked to occur in the order offered beginning at 9:45 a.m. on Tuesday, with 5 minutes for debate equally divided prior to each vote. I further ask that following the disposition of the listed first- degree amendments, the bill be advanced to third reading and passage to occur, all without any intervening action or debate. I do have a list of amendments and I need to, I believe, read and submit them. I will just send it to the desk. I believe Senators Reid and Daschle have a list of amendments on their side they would like--are you going to submit those to the desk now?

Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, I will have another suggestion on what we might be able to do in a moment. I want to remind Senators that next week we have the Y2K liability issue that we need to have concluded. The House has voted on that. The clock is running. This is not an issue we can leave unclarified any longer, because we are fast approaching the time when this liability question has to be known and dealt with in one way or the other because we are fast approaching the turn of the clock into the next millennium. We also have, after a lot of difficulty, the supplemental appropriations bill, which we have waiting in the wings. We need to bring that up. We also have the bankruptcy bill that is scheduled for next week--a bill that has overwhelming bipartisan support on both sides. That bill is beginning now to be squeezed out of the picture because of other bills. I want to complete this bill. Two years of effort has been put into juvenile justice, and we need to have some decision made in that area. We have had amendments, and more will be offered, on violence in the schools and how we deal with it, and violence in the movies, and the gun issue. So we need to try to find a way to conclude it. I will then propound another UC, the same as the earlier one, with votes occurring on Tuesday morning, stacked. Those amendments that had been debated on Friday and Monday, beginning at 9:45, with 5 minutes of debate; and instead of asking that following disposition of the listed first-degree amendments the bill be advanced to third reading and passage occur all without any intervening action or debate, I will modify that to say we will go to third reading and final passage at 5 o'clock on Tuesday. That way, we would have the debate on amendments the rest of today, on Monday, votes on Tuesday morning, more amendments and debate with time limits, and final passage to occur no later than 5 o'clock on Tuesday afternoon. Then we would be prepared to have a vote on the Y2K liability issue and go to the supplemental on Thursday, hopefully completing it. Although the supplemental can't be completed probably in just a couple of hours; it will take a little longer. Then we would go to bankruptcy after that. I will make that request. The Senator suggested that we go ahead and use the bulk of Tuesday. I think that is fair, and I hope we can get this agreed to. Remember, I made a commitment to call up this bill so we could have this debate, and I made a commitment to bring it up on last Tuesday, I guess. Actually, we started on Monday. We agreed we would work to try to complete it on Thursday. That effort has been made by Senator Daschle, along with Senator Reid, and I appreciate that. We haven't been able to achieve that. So we will have other amendments and debate on Friday, Monday, votes on Tuesday morning, more debate, amendments and votes Tuesday afternoon, but finish it up Tuesday. That will have been a full week. That will have been 7 days we will have spent on it. I believe that we will have been able to craft, hopefully, a good bill, and we have all been able to make our case and get to a conclusion. I make that request.

Mr. LOTT. If I could respond, just to show you what I am talking about, at least this stops them from multiplying. But this is a pathetic accomplishment. There are 100 Senators, and we have about 75 amendments left. Please, let's get serious. Every Senator doesn't have to offer an amendment. We can make our case about what we think is positive juvenile justice and what is causing the violence in our country and the violence in our schools. I think it is a societal and a cultural problem. I don't think it is as a result of guns in this country. It is why these things are happening, not what and who. This is very minimal. It is a very, very disappointing accomplishment. We will have to evaluate now how to proceed.

Mr. LOTT. If I might respond.

Mr. LOTT. If we have to spend a month on a bill, or 6 weeks on a bill, how many bills are we going to be able to take up that are important to our country? The defense authorization bill is one that we have to take up next week. It is extraordinarily important, because here we are with our troops engaged in combat at this very moment. We have to get that work done. It is a very interesting crossfire you get into when we are saying, wait a minute, we have to have 99 amendments, we have to have 6 weeks, or 11 days, on this piece of legislation.

Mr. LOTT. I would be glad to yield.

Mr. LOTT. Yes.

Mr. LOTT. I want to make it clear that I didn't yield the floor but I would be glad to yield to the Senator for his comments.