Trent Lott

Mr. LOTT

Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, I say again, I agree, it certainly has not been easy on either side of the aisle. Senators had issues that they felt very strongly about. Many of them were not education related on both sides of the aisle. There will be other opportunities to do that. I think this will be a fair way for us to have an equal debate on both sides. Some of these amendments, as I indicated, may actually wind up being accepted and we may not have to go through each one of them in a second degree. I think it is fair. Before the Chair rules, I ask unanimous consent that the agreement may be vitiated by the majority leader only at no later than 12:15 on Monday, March 30.

Mr. LOTT. Begin the debate, and have votes early on Tuesday, the 21st.

Mr. LOTT. Yes. Right. Mr. President, I am sorry, I was inquiring about another issue, and I misunderstood the Senator's question. In view of the time that is necessary under the budget law for the budget resolution, I thought that it was more important next week that we stay focused on that. Also, because this does provide for second-degree amendments, I think Senators on both sides of the aisle would like to either adjust their first-degree amendments or prepare, thoughtfully, second-degree amendments. So I thought the best thing for us to do would be to move this and have it the pending business, and go right to it when we come back from the recess. I thought that the Senator----

Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, I would indicate to the minority leader, as we discussed yesterday and as I indicated on the floor last night, in view of the cooperation we have had and the fact that the Budget Committee managers are going to be working on the general debate on the budget and have a time agreement that they are going to try to use on Monday, and since we have this agreement, there would be no votes on Monday.

Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, momentarily I believe that the minority leader will be in the Chamber. We have a unanimous consent agreement that we want to enter into with regard to the Coverdell education savings account bill. I think everybody knows it has been one we have gone back and forth on for a week. I think what we have come up with is a fair process, if I can describe it while we wait on Senator Daschle. Basically, it would be in order, under the unanimous consent agreement, that we go to the Coverdell A+ bill as has been amended with the prepaid college tuition issue and the deduction for employer- provided education benefits, as well as the school construction bond issue. It would make in order, I believe it is 17 amendments, 12 that would be offered by identified Senators on the Democratic side, 5 on the Republican side, but all amendments are education related, all of them are subject to second degree and they would be debated 30 minutes each on the first- and the second-degree amendments. I think it is a fair agreement. If we were able to achieve cloture, which we might have been able to do on the next vote, we still would have had 30 hours that could have been spent on it. I think to have a good healthy debate on education is long overdue. Democrats have some ideas; Republicans have some ideas. But the important thing is, what can we do to help the quality of education in America, what can we do to deal with violence in schools? We saw just this past week what happened in Arkansas, and it has happened in my own State of Mississippi, and it has happened in Kentucky. There are growing incidents of children coming to school with guns or knives. It is good to have a healthy discussion on both sides of the aisle and consider each other's ideas. I have looked down at the list of these amendments, and I see amendments on both sides of the aisle that look attractive to me. I think it is not only good, I think it is long overdue. I know it has been a long process, difficult for the leaders on both sides, but I think it is a good agreement, and I would like to enter into it now. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the cloture vote scheduled for later next week be vitiated, and on Monday, April 20, notwithstanding rule XXII, the Senate resume consideration of H.R. 2646, the Coverdell A+ savings account bill; that it be considered under the following agreement, with each amendment to be offered in the first degree subject to education second degrees, except that no second-degree amendment relative to IDEA uniform standards be in order, and the time on the first degree be limited to 30 minutes, except for a time limit of 1 hour on the Moseley-Braun amendment, and second-degree amendments limited to 30 minutes to be equally divided in the usual form.

Mr. LOTT

Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that at 1 p.m. the Senate resume consideration of S. Con. Res. 86, the budget resolution.

Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that when the Senate completes its business today, it stand in adjournment until 12 noon on Monday, March 30, and immediately following the prayer, the routine requests through the morning hour be granted, and the Senate proceed to a period for the transaction of morning business, with Senators permitted to speak for up to 10 minutes each, with the following exceptions: Senator Thomas for 30 minutes, from noon until 12:30; Senator Daschle or his designee for 30 minutes.

Mr. LOTT

Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, I have just indicated the Senate will be in a period of morning business then for 1 hour when we come in on Monday, and then we will resume the budget resolution. For the information of all Members, per the agreement reached during today's session, of the 50 hours under the statutory limit for the budget resolution, as of Monday there will be 44 hours remaining, and as of the close of business on Monday there will be 34 hours remaining on the resolution. There will be no rollcall votes conducted during Monday's session. However, the managers do expect amendments to be offered during that day. And the next rollcall vote will occur then on Tuesday morning at a time to be determined by the majority leader, after notification of the Democratic leader. Therefore, Members can anticipate votes on amendments to the budget resolution on Tuesday. As always, Members will be notified as to the time of those votes. I should indicate that we will certainly find a way to have a vote at about 9:30 on Tuesday morning so we can get things moving right along. In addition, the Senate may consider Executive Calendar or legislative business cleared by the Senate. In regard to the balance of the week, we are expected to complete action on the budget resolution and the supplemental appropriations conference report, if available, prior to recessing for the Easter holidays. I do believe that we will be able to act on the supplemental appropriations to its final conclusion either late Tuesday night or Wednesday, giving the conferees, hopefully, time to act on the conference before we go home and to complete action on the budget resolution. We need, again, to make Members aware now that we must do those two items next week before we leave. As a reminder, the next rollcall votes then will occur on Tuesday. Does the Senator wish to speak further?

Mr. LOTT

Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, as in executive session, I ask unanimous consent that the injunction of secrecy be removed from the following treaty transmitted to the Senate on March 27, 1998, by the President of the United States: Treaty with Venezuela on Mutual Legal Assistance in Criminal Matters, Treaty Document No. 105-38. I further ask unanimous consent that the treaty be considered as having been read the first time; that it be referred, with accompanying papers, to the Committee on Foreign Relations in order to be printed; and that the President's message be printed in the Record.

Mr. LOTT

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

Mr. LOTT. I observe the absence of a quorum.

Mr. LOTT. I ask unanimous consent that Senate Report No. 105-170 be star printed with the changes that are at the desk.

Mr. LOTT

Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that there now be a period for the transaction of morning business with Senators permitted to speak for up to 5 minutes each.

Mr. LOTT

Mr. LOTT. I therefore ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that following the vote at 9, Senators Gorton and Murray be recognized for up to 20 minutes each for discussion regarding the Washington State judicial nominations.

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.

Mr. LOTT

Mr. LOTT. Thank you.

Mr. LOTT

Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, for the information of all Senators--I think they already know this by now--this last vote was the final vote of the evening. A rollcall vote now will occur at 9 a.m. tomorrow morning on a judicial nomination. We are having it at that early hour so that we can accommodate some Senators who have commitments, and also so that we can turn relatively quickly tomorrow to the opening debate on the budget resolution. Senator Domenici and Senator Lautenberg, the managers of the legislation, will be available, and they will begin the debate. And we hope to use at least 6 hours of that time tomorrow. Following that vote at 9 o'clock on Friday morning, the Senate will begin the budget resolution, which has 50 hours of time under the statute. We will return to further debate on it on Monday and have a considerable amount of time for debate then. I think by the close of business tomorrow we will have had a productive week. I thought we could finish things earlier. It took about 3 days longer than I thought on the supplemental, but we have gotten the supplemental down to final action by the Senate. And we could not pass it with the final vote anyway until the House acts. So sometime Tuesday then, assuming the House acts, we would expect to complete the final action on the supplemental appropriations bill. We have, I think, made progress on the Coverdell education savings account bill. And we will get that issue resolved as to how we take it up one way or the other by or before Tuesday morning. In addition to that, we will have taken up some nominations, and we will have had about 6 hours of time on the budget resolution, as well as the vote on Mexico decertification. Now, there still remains an awful lot to do to get through the budget resolution. It is quite an experience. We hope to have a more orderly process this time so that we can avoid the final night ``vote-rama'' where we have 10, 20, 30 votes or more in a row. But that will take a lot of cooperation from Senators. And certainly it will take direction from the managers of the bill. It appears at this time, because of the agreement that has been worked out on the budget resolution, that we will not have a recorded vote on Monday at 5:30 as had been earlier anticipated. I want to check further with both sides of the aisle to make sure that that is agreed to and is acceptable. I think it is important we tell Members as early as possible, but it will give us then more uninterrupted time to work on the budget resolution. Again, as a reminder to all Members, the next vote will occur tomorrow at 9 a.m.

Mr. LOTT

Mr. LOTT. In a moment the Senate will resume consideration again of S. 1768, the emergency supplemental appropriations bill. I remind my colleagues, this is supposed to be an emergency, urgent supplemental. We began it in the winter. It is now spring, and I hope we can finish it before summer. But the Senate will resume work in its inimitable way, and eventually we will get to a conclusion. I have to wonder if Senators are serious at all about this emergency legislation. I think maybe as majority leader I have learned a lesson. I will not be able to ever plan again on the emergency supplemental taking a day or two. I think I will have to plan on a week or two. Last night we reached a unanimous consent agreement limiting amendments to the bill. It is my hope--and I know it is the chairman's hope as well--that most amendments will not be offered that are on this list. We want to finish this important legislation early today so we can move on to other issues. Those of you that do have amendments on the list, if you are serious, I urge you to come over and offer those amendments this morning. The chairman is ready to proceed. Looking down the list and thinking about the time that will be needed, if Senators are reasonable, we should be able to complete this legislation sometime in the early afternoon, I hope, at the least. Under the order, at 10 a.m. the Senate will resume 50 minutes of debate on the Enzi amendment regarding Indian gaming. It is my understanding that amendment may not need a rollcall vote, but we will have to clarify that momentarily. However, there are other pending amendments that will require rollcall votes. Surely there will be votes throughout the morning and the afternoon. We are still hoping to reach an agreement on the Coverdell education savings account bill today. Senator Daschle and I continue to exchange suggestions. Sometimes we get very close, and then it seems to go back the other way. But we very well could have the second cloture vote sometime during the day. In addition, of course, we will consider any executive and legislative items cleared for action, including the Mexico decertification legislation which we will have to do this week. We must do that under the law before the end of the month. Sometime today, I hope under a reasonable time limit--I hope not more than 2 hours--we could complete the Mexico decertification. I remind Senators, there will be votes on Friday morning, so they need to plan their schedules accordingly, but there will not be votes after 12 noon. I yield the floor.

Mr. LOTT

Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, just a little history. Before I do that, I know that I certainly have tried to work out something that Members on both sides could live with. I believe Senator Daschle has, too. But we have Senators on both sides who have very strong feelings about amendments that are suggested on both sides. There are amendments on the Democratic side that other Democrats have problems with, and it is the same thing over here. There are Republican amendments that other Republicans have problems with. So we have made a sincere effort. I remind you that we started this effort on the 13th. Maybe there is a significance to that. On Friday, March 13, we started working on this. The problem is, if you want a good, healthy debate on education, fine, let's have it. I will not play second fiddle to anybody when it comes to my concern about education. By the way, I am a product of public education; so is my wife and both of our children. But I am worried about the quality of education and the violence and drugs in schools. But the difference is, I don't think the answers are here in Washington. Some people say, let's have everything paid for and run everything from Washington. We have tried that ever since the 1960s. The scores are going down and violence is going up. I care about this mightily. Let's have a debate about education. We are going to have a debate about education this year--not one, but probably two or three. But some Senators say, let's open it up and have debate, let's have amendments of all kinds. That is what was going to happen. We were going to wind up debating cows. And I don't want to go off on cows because cattle are important in Mississippi. I love beef. We were going to have welfare debates and debates about everything imaginable. That is what has happened the whole year so far. On every bill that comes up, every Senator takes advantage of his or her right and says, ``I have my amendment or amendments,'' and they just grow like Topsy on everything. Supplemental appropriations--a bill we should have done Friday afternoon--is still sitting around here. I am not blaming that on one side or the other. I am saying ``Senators,'' not one side or the other. Both sides don't seem to want to get serious about resolving the supplemental appropriation bills that we have now combined into one. But the problem has boiled down to the fact that we still have Senators insisting--``We went through this process. We don't want second-degree amendments.'' Some say, on the one hand, ``We want to do the regular order.'' When we say ``second-degree amendments,'' you say, ``but not that regular order.'' You continue to insist on amendments that don't relate to education. Senators object to that. I have been told that we must have Senator Kerry's amendment but we cannot have Senator Gorton's amendment. I don't understand that. Senator Gorton's is education related; Senator Kerry's was not; his was on child care. We will debate that another day. Talk about fairness. I have bent over backward, until my back is almost broken. Remember, the base bill is three-fourths a Democrat bill. I don't care because those three-fourths that the Democrats came up with are pretty good ideas--prepaid tuition for college, yes, I am for that; deductions for higher education employer-employee arrangements, hey, I am for that. That was promoted by Senator Breaux from Louisiana, Senator Moynihan from New York, and Senator Graham from Florida. We have the school production bond issue thing in here, plus what we sent back today is our final offer. There were 12 amendments for Democrats, 3 for Republicans. I mean, how far can I go? I was told, yes, only three. But you say, ``We don't want Gorton in there.'' So I tried. I think Senator Daschle has tried. It is time that we have a vote on cloture. Maybe I made a mistake by not saying let's do it earlier, and Senator Daschle might say the same thing. But I think the record speaks for itself: 3 out of 4 provisions in the bill, Democrats; 12 out of 15 amendments, Democrats. I mean that is in most games-- whatever it is--more than fair. But we tried. Let's have a vote on cloture. This is a vote to get a good debate on the education provisions which Senators on both sides support. And we will see what happens and take it from there. Mr. President, I believe we have 2 or 3 minutes remaining. I yield the remainder of the time to Senator Coverdell, who has done a great job working through all of this.

Mr. LOTT

Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent the Foreign Relations Committee be discharged from further consideration of S.J. Res. 43 regarding Mexico decertification which includes a waiver provision, and the Senate proceed to its immediate consideration under the following terms: The time between now and 7:25 be equally divided between the two leaders.

Mr. LOTT

Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, in light of the objection, I now ask the Foreign Relation Committee be discharged from further consideration of S.J. Res. 42, regarding Mexico decertification, and the Senate proceed to its immediate consideration under the same terms as described above for S.J. Res. 43.

Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, having just reached this agreement, I expect this rollcall vote to occur at 7:25 this evening or earlier if time can be yielded back. But the vote on the Mexico decertification issue will occur at 7:25. I thank the leader for working with us on this, and also Senator Feinstein and Senator Coverdell. They have been very cooperative. I believe this is enough time to lay the issue before the Senate and have a vote. I yield the floor.

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

Mr. LOTT

Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, I send a cloture motion to the desk on the pending Coverdell A+ Education Act.