Trent Lott

Mr. LOTT

Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, if there is no further business to come before the Senate, I now ask unanimous consent that the Senate stand in adjournment under the previous order, following the remarks of Senators Kennedy, Dorgan, Hatch, and Hutchinson, and that, of course, is after Senator Byrd completes his statement.

Mr. LOTT

Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, for the information of all Senators, on Monday, the Senate will debate the motion to invoke cloture on the motion to proceed to S. 1981, the truth in employment legislation. In addition, the Senate will resume consideration of the Interior appropriations bill, a very important bill for our country and one I hope we can move through the regular process and get into conference so an agreement can be worked out. It is hoped Members will make themselves available Monday afternoon if they intend to offer amendments to this very important bill. I am hoping, I believe maybe there is one very important amendment that can be offered Monday afternoon. I hate to point it out, but I think we have one that could take a good bit of time, and we could have a vote on it late in the afternoon on Monday. All Senators should be on notice that the first rollcall vote will occur on Monday beginning at 5:30, and that vote will be on invoking cloture on the motion to proceed to the truth in employment bill. Additional rollcall votes are possible following the 5:30 vote hopefully relating to possible amendments to the Interior appropriations bill. I thank my colleagues for their cooperation in that.

Mr. LOTT

Mr. LOTT. I ask consent the committee amendments be agreed to and the Senate proceed to consideration of the amendment offered by Senator Chafee which is at the desk.

Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent the amendment be agreed to, the bill be considered read the third time and passed, the motion to reconsider be laid upon the table, and that any statements relating to the bill appear in the Record.

Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent the Senate now proceed to consideration of Calendar No. 522, S. 2094.

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

Mr. LOTT

Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, I will respond to the Senator that I am aware of the difficulties in the farm community in a number of States because of weather problems but also because of a number of problems involving falling prices and trade problems. It would be my intent that we act in that area before we go out at the end of this session. I think it is important that we start on it quickly, in a bipartisan way. I am going to be working on that early next week.

Mr. LOTT

Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent the amendment be agreed to, the committee substitute amendment be agreed to, the bill be considered read a third time and passed, the motion to reconsider be laid upon the table, the amendment to the title be agreed to, and that any statements relating to the bill appear at this point in the Record.

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

Mr. LOTT. Senator Chafee has a technical amendment at the desk. I ask for its consideration.

Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, I now ask unanimous consent the Senate proceed to the consideration of Calendar No. 504, H.R. 1856.

Mr. LOTT

Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, I read the list of amendments now that would be in order to the bankruptcy bill: Kennedy amendment regarding minimum wage; Durbin, relevant. It has to do with the definition of residence and cramdown and nondischarge; Sarbanes amendment regarding 800 solicitations; Feinstein amendment regarding creditworthiness; two Dodd amendments, one having to do with under 21-year-olds and one having to do with education savings accounts; Feingold amendments regarding filing fees and attorney's fees; two relevant amendments by Senator Reed; one relevant amendment for Senator Durbin; Senator Gramm, one relevant amendment; Hatch amendments, one IP and one relevant; Senator Grassley, a relevant amendment; Senator Brownback, a relevant amendment; Senator D'Amato, regarding ATM fees; Senator Grassley's managers' amendment to be agreed upon by the two leaders and managers; one Lott, relevant; one Daschle, relevant; one Harkin regarding interest rates; Senator Kohl, homestead extension; and one relevant by Senator Johnson.

Mr. LOTT

Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, certainly I will review that again. I remembered, when we made a modification in the language--and I do have it before me here--on February 10, 1997, I did point out what the intent was here, the phrase ``the routine requests through the morning hour'' are deemed to include the approval of the Journal to date, the waiving of resolutions coming over under the rule, the waiving of the call of the calendar, and the expiration of the morning hour. Because I was aware that this was a change and a shortening of that. But we will take another look at it. We always certainly respect Senator Byrd's suggestions and requests, and we will do so.

Mr. LOTT

Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, I might say, the Senator from Wisconsin said, ``Well, we realize in the end we may not have 60 votes.'' In fact, some of the amendments that I would offer you would likely wind up being filibustered. You would. I have a long list of really interesting amendments that I don't think you would particularly like, but I like them a whole lot. So here is my point.

Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, if I might just respond briefly, obviously, Senators are entitled to offer amendments, and then other Senators are entitled to offer second-degree amendments. The Senator knows very well that cloture votes and filibusters are an important part of this institution. You may not like it, depending on which end you are on on that subject, whether you are on the receiving end, but it is there and it is an honored and a time-preserved process we use around here. Also, the Senate sometimes works on an issue for years--years--before you get a consensus. I worked on telecommunications for 10 years. This year, and we got very little credit for it, but this year we passed the Workplace Development Act, a consolidation of job training programs. We worked on it for 3 years. We failed at the end of the last Congress to pull it out. We finally got it done, sent it over to the President, and because everything else was going on, it didn't even receive any notice. Sometimes consensus takes time. Also, I have watched the Senate over a period of years on a number of issues, sometimes when Republicans were pushing them; sometimes when Democrats were pushing them. You reach a point where you say, ``I made my point for now; I'll be back, but now we are going to go on and do our business.'' We have 19 days left, assuming we are going to try to go out October 9, 19 days left in this session. We still have important work to do, including a lot of bills on the issues that we agree on in a bipartisan way, and with only 19 days to accomplish them. The Senator has his rights, but as majority leader and in the leadership we have to try to find a way to have those votes, but then to move on. So I am sure you understand. I understand where you might have to come from, and I hope you will understand what I would have to do under those conditions to try to keep the focus. But the next 19 days are not going to be easy under the best of conditions. The Senate is expected to show decorum and restraint and dignity, and I know we are going to do that. We also have to reach out across the aisle and say, ``Can we find a way to work through these bills?'' I think the people will be watching us. We have to do a little preening. You have to make your positions clear, we have to make our positions clear, and then at some point we have to come together. We will not necessarily agree at the beginning on what the solution is to agriculture in America. But it is very important in South Dakota and in Ohio and Mississippi and all over this country. But at some point we are going to come together because this is a problem, a real problem, and we can find a solution. So I hope that is the way that we will proceed. Make your points, on both sides of the issue--on both sides of the aisle--and then let us sit down and see if we can find a way to come to an agreement to do the best we can. It may not be all we want to do, or it may be too much in some cases, but I am prepared to work in that vein. And I am hoping, again, in spite of all the other distractions, that we can keep our attention focused. And I will try to help to do that. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. LOTT. I ask the quorum call be withheld, and I yield to the Senator from Michigan for a question.

Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, I say to the Senator from Wisconsin, I appreciate your courtesy. You have always been courteous. You have always been very reasonable in the way you have approached everything around here. Maybe the day will come when we will be able to sit down and agree on something. I don't see it at this point. I think the timing is wrong. After all, 2000 is still 2 years off. You have 1999. We will see where we can wind up. For now, I want to focus our attention on the bankruptcy bill itself. I see that Senator Daschle is here. I noted in his absence that we have Senators on both sides now trying to work out an agreement. I hope we can make some progress on that this afternoon or tonight and that we will go forward with the substance. I understand Senator Grassley and Senator Durbin will be coming over to, in effect, do their opening statements which they didn't really get to do last Thursday night. We will let them begin the bankruptcy bill while we see if we can work something out. For Senators who may not be aware of it, I said last night while we filed cloture, it is my hope that we can work out an agreement, and we can vitiate that cloture vote tomorrow. But we do need to get something worked out so we won't have to go to cloture, because I think if we do have another cloture vote and it doesn't prevail, we really have to go on. I can't stand up here and say we need to go to Interior appropriations and then stay on bankruptcy beyond a reasonable period of time. But I think it is possible, because I know there is a lot of support on both sides of the aisle. With that, Mr. President, I just want to say I will be working with Senator Daschle to see if we can work this out, and I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. LOTT. If the Senator will recall, you were in the room, Senator Levin and I were in the room, and we made it work.

Mr. LOTT. Poison pill. These are not poison pills. They are very legitimate amendments. But here is the point: You acknowledge that at some point you have to have 60 votes. We went through this last year. It derailed the highway bill. We didn't get 60 votes. It came back this year, in an effort to be fair, to see if something had changed. We had votes. It got 52 votes. Then the argument was made, ``Well, gee, the House voted on a different bill, by the way, and things maybe have changed.'' We voted again. Things haven't changed. How many times do we have to go through that exercise? The day will come when maybe really we can work in a bipartisan way on a bill that is fair to all concerned and we will maybe be able to bring it to a conclusion. I won't say that day won't come. I think it will, actually. The question is, When will that be and what will it be? And I am going to work on that.

Mr. LOTT. I would be much more inclined to favorably consider this legislation. For labor union members to have their dues taken from them and used for political purposes without their permission, I think that is a very, very critical point. That is part of what I am talking about. This bill is not balanced. It tilts the scale very definitely to your side of the aisle. Where is the fairness?

Mr. LOTT. I had an amendment on paycheck equity. If we add paycheck equity to the bill----

Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, I wish to speak on the subject of the bankruptcy bill. The managers of the legislation will be here momentarily. I should note that we did call this issue up last Thursday, I believe it was, but we had difficulty in getting to the substance because the Senator from Massachusetts did not want us to get to the substance. He had an amendment he wanted to talk about. But Senator Grassley and Senator Durbin did make some small statements at the end of the day on Thursday. I thought it was appropriate that we go back to the bankruptcy bill and that they be able to come to the floor and lay out the outline of this legislation and begin to get Members' attention focused on the bankruptcy bill itself. Before I go to my own discussion about the importance of this bill, I want to report to the Senate that we did just have a bicameral majority leadership meeting, House and Senate leaders sitting down, talking about the people's business. We met for an hour. And while there are many in this city who are talking about the Starr report and how it is to be dealt with and how can it be done in a fair and bipartisan way, we met for an hour and we talked only about those issues that we need to address in the Congress this year. We talked about the appropriations bills, and it is important that we get them through the process. We have now had 11 appropriations bills pass the House, 10 pass the Senate. We are trying desperately to get the 11th appropriations bill to begin to move here in the Senate; that is the Interior appropriations bill. So we will only have left in the Senate after Interior, the D.C. appropriations bill, and the Labor, HHS, Education, and other agencies and departments' appropriations bills--only two. I have urged the appropriators on both sides of the aisle, both sides of the Capitol, to work expeditiously. If we have issues that we just cannot agree on between the two bodies or between the Congress and the White House, set them aside. The important thing is to get the job done. We also then talked about the importance of preserving Social Security, but allowing the people to get some of their hard-earned taxes back. Absolutely, before we leave this year, we should pass legislation to eliminate the marriage penalty tax. We should allow for the self-employed deduction. The American people don't really realize it, although I am sure they feel the pinch, the American people are being taxed now at the highest levels in years and years and years. They need some relief. Some of the money that is coming up here now, going into the surplus, certainly should go back to the people. The administration cannot come up here and say: We want all this extra spending for what we consider emergencies, and that will not count against Social Security, but, by the way, if you allow for some tax cuts for the people who earned it in the first place, oh, by the way, you are taking that out of Social Security. That kind of argument, I don't believe, in this atmosphere, is going to sell this year. But we talked about the fair way to do tax cuts. We talked about what we might want to do next year in terms of more tax cuts, across-the- board rate cuts next year, and how we can begin to make progress in preserving Social Security. We also talked about the importance of keeping our commitment on the balanced budget last year, sticking to the caps. Yes, there may be some real emergencies we will have to address, but other than that, we need to stick to the caps we agreed to. We gave our word 1 year ago, and we ought to stick to it. Then we talked about other issues. Higher education--we have a conference committee meeting this week. Hopefully, they will complete agreement on the conference report on higher education this week-- certainly within the next few days--so that our children will have access to the colleges--community colleges and universities all across this country. We will get that done. Mr. President, we talked about the importance of this bankruptcy reform. That brings me to this particular issue. This legislation is long overdue. We have a system now in America which encourages people to take bankruptcy and get out of their debts. We have a system that does not take into consideration that small businessman or woman, that furniture store that is run by the husband and the wife. They are trying to make ends meet. They are selling furniture on credit, and people who are supposedly buying that furniture are declaring bankruptcy or just walking away from what they owe and getting out of their debts. We need reform. This is bipartisan. It came out of the committee of jurisdiction by a wide margin. I know Senator Durbin, Senator Daschle, Senator Grassley on this side, Senator Hatch--a number of Senators have worked on this legislation. We need to get it done. We are this close to having it go down because Senator Kennedy wants to offer the minimum wage increase to bankruptcy reform. It is not related to bankruptcy reform, but he insists on it being added to this bill. It is curious to me, why this bill? It could be to any other bill. Oh, no; he wants this one. I suspect it is because he knows that this is a bill that the leadership on both sides would really like to have. But he is willing to take down this very important legislation to be able to offer his minimum wage increase, even though we have had minimum wage increases the last 2 years in a row and I have had store owners, restaurant owners, self-employed individuals who have little small businesses who have come to me and said: OK, we made it the last time, but we are at the limit. We have had to let people go so we can make a living. We are working more hours. But if we have to go through two more, or three more, minimum wage increases, we are going to go out of business. At a minimum, we are going to have to lay people off. But here is my attitude. If Senator Kennedy will be reasonable and will agree to a time limit, he can offer his amendment and we will have a vote. But then I think we ought to be able to go on to the bankruptcy bill itself and complete the work with a reasonable time limit and amendments on that. Some folks say you always want to limit amendments. If you limit a bill to 15 amendments, that is not what I would call a big limit. And I am not saying 15, but something reasonable so we can get bankruptcy done, so we can come back to Interior appropriations, let the Senator from Wisconsin come back again, you know, have something to say, have another vote on Interior appropriations involving campaign finance reform. But at what point are we going to say, ``OK, we played our games''? You have had your votes. We have had our votes on campaign finance reform. We have had votes on bankruptcy reform. We have had votes on national missile defense. We have had all these other votes. But at some point we have to say, ``OK, we have dealt with it, we made our point, and we are going to move on the people's business,'' whether it is the Interior appropriations bill or the next appropriations bill. I understand the plan on the D.C. appropriations bill is to offer a whole series of nonrelevant amendments on that bill. When does it end? If we can come to some reasonable agreement on time--Senator Daschle and I talked last night; Senator Durbin and I talked this morning, Senator Grassley. I said, let's work out something on bankruptcy so that everybody gets a fair shot but we can get this bill done. I will yield to the Senator if he has a question or comment.

Mr. LOTT

Mr. LOTT. Let me say, Mr. President, I indicated to the Senator from Massachusetts that I think we have an agreement worked out in a fair way to handle his amendment with regard to minimum wage, but we are still having to work to see if we can get something agreed to on the bankruptcy reform bill. I understand that may take some considerable time yet, but Senator Grassley is working on it, as well as Senator Durbin and others who have been in contact with the White House. I think a good-faith effort is underway. If it can be worked out in 3 hours, that would be magnificent. We would have the vote on Senator Kennedy's amendment and we could go to the bankruptcy issue and have votes and get this issue completed. If we can't get the agreement worked out on bankruptcy reform, then we would have a cloture vote tomorrow as is scheduled, and we would go on to other issues. I am sure Senator Kennedy will then offer his amendment on something else. That is where we are now. Everybody is working in good faith. We will hope for the best. I yield the floor. Mr. KENNEDY addressed the Chair.

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

Mr. LOTT

Mr. LOTT. I have not been involved in the debate over the last 2 days, but I want to say that we have had this debate and we have had this vote again because Senator McCain felt it was important that it be considered further, especially in view of the House vote. But we have had that debate and we have had the vote, and the vote is the same. Nothing has changed. There is no consensus. I still maintain that before we start changing the laws we ought to try to find out who broke the laws, how did they break the laws, why did they break the laws. We now have not one, not two, but three 90-day preliminary investigations of whether or not to go forward with the independent counsel on whether the President, the Vice President, and a Deputy Chief of Staff were involved in 1996 campaign violations. It seems to me it would be wise to see what is going to happen there, find out what happened. I still don't understand why, if people broke the law, there are those who say, ``Oh, geez, what we need to do is change the law.'' Do we have some areas where we are going to have to take a look at the campaign laws as far as contributions, and where money can be raised, or how, what kind of money on Federal property? Yes, we are going to have to take a look at that, and I am going to work with Senators on both sides of the aisle who really want to have something done that is balanced and fair. This is not the solution. This is not the time. Here we are 60 days before an election, 30 days before the end of the session. We are trying to do the Interior appropriations bill. We spent 2 days on campaign finance reform, and now we have threats that it is going to continue. I have been patient. I have tried to be cooperative. I appreciate the cooperation I have received. I do think now the time is right for us to move on to Interior, bankruptcy reform, and child custody, very important issues that need to be addressed. I yield the floor. Mr. McCAIN addressed the Chair.