Trent Lott

Mr. LOTT

Mr. LOTT. I now ask unanimous consent the Senate turn to S. 1269, the fast-track legislation.

Mr. LOTT

Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, for the information of all Senators, the Senators involved in the depot issue with respect to the Department of Defense authorization conference report have reached an agreement for consideration and adoption of the conference report on Thursday, November 6. Having said that, I thank all Senators for their cooperation. We did just then agree to a motion, and the conference report is before the Senate.

Mr. LOTT

Mr. LOTT. I do this, Mr. President, just so that Senator Daschle and I can explain what is transpiring. As you know, we are prepared now to go to the cloture vote on the DOD authorization conference report. However, the interested parties on both sides of the aisle and on both sides of the issue involved, regarding the depots, wanted a few minutes to talk about what would be the situation beyond this, and so there are a lot of conversations going on now in the back of the Chamber. I would like to give them a few more minutes to discuss the various options. As soon as we then call off the quorum call, we would proceed to a cloture vote. It is my thinking that we would probably go to this cloture vote, but it is going to be a few more minutes before we can actually proceed to that vote. But we will not let it languish very long. The interested parties asked for a few minutes to talk. That is what we are doing. I realize Members have other commitments. But we will, probably within the next 15 or 20 minutes, have some final decision, and then we will know whether we will have a vote on cloture at that point or not.

Mr. LOTT

Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, I believe we are ready to return to the debate that was underway, so I will yield the floor at this time.

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

Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, after a great deal of communication and discussion working back and forth, I think we have come up with a fair agreement on how to handle the campaign finance reform issue that would allow us to go forward with other bills this year, and have a time certain in which to proceed next year, and one that would allow for a full discussion and votes. So I ask unanimous consent that the majority leader, after notification of the Democratic leader, shall turn to the consideration of a bill regarding campaign finance reform to be offered by Senator Lott, or his designee, on or before the close of business on Friday, March 6, 1998. I further ask that Senator McCain be recognized to offer the first amendment, in the nature of a substitute, that inserts the text of S. 25, the McCain-Feingold bill, as modified by Senator McCain on September 29, 1997. No further amendments would be in order to the McCain amendment prior to a motion to table. I further ask that if the amendment is not tabled the amendment and the underlying bill will be open to further amendments, debates, and motions.

Mr. LOTT

Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, for the information of all Senators, we will not have any further votes tonight. That was the last vote of the night. We do have additional business we are going to do tonight, and we will have somewhere between two and five votes tomorrow morning. I will work with Senator Daschle on the timing of those votes, and we will try to get them all in before the noon hour, which is what we have always said we will try to do on Fridays. We may have fewer than that number of votes, but I think a minimum of two. We could have more than that as we deal with procedural motions with regard to the Department of Defense authorization conference report. I thank Senator Daschle for his efforts to work with us on a number of issues, a number of bills that we think we may be able to get some agreement on or get an understanding of how we will proceed. I particularly thank him for his efforts and for the efforts of Senator Harkin with regard to the Federal Reserve nominees. Therefore, I have a unanimous consent request to make now.

Mr. LOTT

Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, today I was informed that Mrs. Lisa D'Amato Murphy, daughter of Senator D'Amato, was chosen as ``Community Leader of the Year'' by the Island Park Kiwanis Club. Her significant volunteer participation in both civic and church activities is the basis for this distinguished award. It is important to mention that Lisa is the wife of Judge Jerry Murphy of the Island Park Village Court and the mother of five children. Yet, so strong is her commitment to others that she somehow finds the time to serve her community. While so many people bemoan the lack of hours in a day, Lisa clearly demonstrates that time for community service can be found--if it is a priority. On behalf of the entire Senate family, I extend our sincere congratulations to Mrs. Lisa D'Amato Murphy, Island Park, New York's ``Community Leader of the Year.''

Mr. LOTT

Mr. LOTT. I have been notified by four Senators that they have objections.

Mr. LOTT. Let me just say I have worked with this issue, as the Senator knows, and the other Senator from Texas, over the last 2 or 3 years. I know there are other Senators that have an interest in it and have different views. I know a mighty effort has been made on all sides. This is not a partisan issue. It is a difficult issue between some States, though, to try to resolve it. I really felt like we were never to bring it to a head until we get this legislation started. That is my intent here. We are going to get it started off. I have discussed with Senator Daschle the possibility that we at some point--we met this afternoon--we meet to see what else can be done. I am certainly willing to continue to work with both sides to try to find a resolution. But we are running out of time in this session. This is a very, very important bill for national defense and the security of our country. So I thought we should go ahead and get started. And hopefully that will cause us to try to find some way to resolve this one remaining-- one remaining--very difficult issue to resolve. I thank the Senator for withholding so I could make that comment. Mr. GRAMM addressed the Chair.

Mr. LOTT. Madam President, if he would yield for a response, I understand that these few changes are about 30 pages.

Mr. LOTT. Under his reservations, would the Senator withhold on his objection, and allow me to make a comment and ask a question?

Mr. LOTT. Madam President, I now ask unanimous consent that the Senate turn to the consideration of the DOD authorization conference report, and it be considered as having been read.

Mr. LOTT

Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, I ask that there be a period for the transaction of morning business until 5:30 p.m. this evening with Senators permitted to speak for up to 10 minutes each.

Mr. LOTT

Mr. LOTT. I believe that would be the last vote tonight, given the schedule. We have some other matters we are working on on the Executive Calendar that may require some recorded votes. But in view of some other meetings that are occurring, we will have to schedule those. We will try to schedule them early in the morning. I will consult further with you on that. Mr. President, I now withdraw the motion.

Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, this cloture vote, for the information of all Senators, will occur on Friday. If cloture is not invoked on Senator Coverdell's A-plus education savings account bill, all Senators will be notified as to the time of the cloture votes, and we will discuss that with the Democratic leader to be able to inform the Members on Thursday about what time these cloture votes will occur. Did the Senator wish to comment?

Mr. LOTT. Madam President, just again for clarification of what we are doing here, there are very strong feelings and great ground for substantive disagreement on this issue. Before we start a series of procedural votes, I thought it made good sense for both sides, proponents and opponents of the position in the conference report, to sort of have a chance to lay out their positions. By doing it this way, the time will be actually controlled between the two sides. Then we will have some procedural votes. And it is my intent to also file cloture on this issue tonight. Beyond that, we will see what happens. So, for the next 45 minutes, then, we will have debate equally divided. I yield the floor.

Mr. LOTT. Madam President, I now move to proceed to the DOD authorization conference report. Motion to Postpone

Mr. LOTT. Madam President----

Mr. LOTT. Madam President, I move to table the Gramm motion, and I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. LOTT. Madam President, I am raising my hand to go ahead and give a second.

Mr. LOTT

Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, I have a unanimous-consent request pending.

Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, regarding the Coverdell A-plus education bill, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate now turn to H.R. 2646, the Coverdell education bill.

Mr. LOTT

Mr. LOTT. Madam President, if I could just respond further, I think I have made it clear my commitments trying to get the ISTEA extension highway infrastructure bill done. Basically, the Senate spent 2 weeks trying to get on the substance of that bill. Because of the unrelated campaign finance reform issue, the highway bill has had to be pulled. I indicated more than once repeatedly that if we didn't get cloture and get on the substance the Members that were blocking that bill would have to bear the responsibility for it. For those Governors and those highway people that now would like some additional action, where were they a week ago? Why weren't they talking to the Senators that were opposing cloture that would allow us to get on to this highway bill? So, if they have any ideas now as to how to proceed, I urge them to talk to the chairman and ranking member on the Environment and Public Works Committee and explain why they weren't involved a week or 2 weeks ago so we could get to the substance of this issue.

Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, for the information of all Senators, the cloture vote on the Coverdell education bill will occur on Friday of this week. We will have consultation with the Democratic leader and will notify Senators as to exactly what time that would occur. We will give them that information on Thursday so Members can make plans for what time we would have that vote and, hopefully, what time they could then leave on Friday. In response to the Democratic leader's comments, first of all, this is a very, very important issue. I have found that any time that I explain what the Coverdell A-plus provision will do, people of all backgrounds and races and situations in education are very much attracted to it. We would allow people, whether it is parents or grandparents or even other groups, to be able to have savings accounts similar to individual retirement accounts. And those moneys can be used with tax benefit to help children with education, K through 12--kindergarten through the 12th grade. That may be for computers, or it could be for a tutor. It could be for supplies, or it could be to make some decision on their own as parents as to where their children would go to school. It is the sort of thing we have for higher education in America. I think one of the reasons we have very good higher education in America but much weaker elementary and secondary is because we don't have the same resource, the same opportunity, the same financial benefits available. So I think this is a bill that has a lot of support. We saw that here in the vote earlier this year in the Senate. I am glad that Senator Daschle indicates that they do not object to us getting to the substance of this bill. With regard to amendments, I certainly think it would be a good idea and would want amendments to be offered. I would like for them certainly to be germane amendments. After we get cloture on this issue then we would go to the amendment process. I am sure that Senators on both sides of the aisle would probably have some amendments that they would like to offer. I think, once again, it is very unfortunate that this matter would be tied up over the campaign finance reform issue. We continue to work to get some agreement that we can go along with. As a matter of fact, once again, just like last week, I had thought we had an agreement. We had a unanimous-consent agreement typed up. Senator McCain is now saying that is not what he meant, that is not what he wants, or he needs something different. But we will continue to work on it. Senator Daschle and I have talked. I have talked to interested Senators in trying to get resolution as to when it would be handled. I say, again for the Record, it would be my intent to call this issue up before the end of the first week in March. I don't intend to fill the tree up. I would like amendments to be in order. The problem is Senator McCain wants some specific extra provision as to what he might offer and how it would be voted on. That is what we are still working on. But we get very close, and then it slides back a bit. We will keep working on that because, again, I think it would be unfortunate if the Senate would continue to be tangled up on that issue while letting very, very important national issues like our national transportation infrastructure, highway improvement and educational opportunities in America--even fast-track trade agreements--because we can't get an agreement on this other issue. But as majority leader I am going to call these important bills up. And this one will get a cloture vote, and then hopefully we will proceed to the substance and relevant amendments that would be offered. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the mandatory quorum under rule XXII be waived.