Patty Murray

Mrs. MURRAY

Mrs. MURRAY. Madam President, I move to reconsider the vote.

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 President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mrs. MURRAY. Madam President, we have talked with the minority. I do believe this amendment, as well, is agreed to.

Mrs. MURRAY. Madam President, I understand now under regular order the next pending amendment is Schumer amendment No. 2461, and there is a modification at the desk.

Mrs. MURRAY. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent to withdraw Schumer amendment No. 2416 that is pending.

Mrs. MURRAY. Madam President, am I correct under regular order the pending amendment is now Schumer amendment No. 2416?

Mrs. MURRAY. Madam President, I move to reconsider the vote.

Mrs. MURRAY. Madam President, I believe that amendment is agreed to at this time, as modified.

Mrs. MURRAY. The Grassley amendment, No. 2444, is the pending amendment. I understand that there is a modification at the desk. Is that correct?

Mrs. MURRAY. Madam President, what is the pending business? Madam President, regular order.

Mrs. MURRAY. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mrs. MURRAY. That is correct. He can speak for 2 minutes, and I will then make a motion at the end of that time.

Mrs. MURRAY. Madam President, I wish to take a few minutes to walk everyone through where we are right now. About 15 or 20 minutes ago, the majority leader came over to the Senate to talk to us about moving quickly through the Homeland Security appropriations bill that is now on the floor because, as he described, we have many items of business that need to be accomplished before the Senate goes into recess for the August break. He asked the managers of this legislation, Senators Byrd and Cochran, to work with Senators who have pending amendments to move them through in an orderly fashion so we could possibly finish this bill by tonight and go on to the rest of the business that needs to be completed. In complying with that, Senator Byrd and Senator Cochran and myself worked out an agreement to begin to deal with some of those amendments. That is how we work in the Senate. We would never finish everything if we didn't take some time to have conversations to figure out how we can work through amendments in an orderly fashion. There are 11 amendments currently pending that we are trying to work our way through. One of those amendments is an amendment offered by the Senator from Louisiana, Mr. Vitter, which he had a right to come and offer. It was not the pending matter. The pending matter was the Landrieu amendment, second degreed by the Dorgan amendment. In order to get to the amendment offered by Senator Vitter, we had to agree by unanimous consent to set that aside. We talked to the Senator and agreed on a process to dispose of his amendment. Senator Byrd, Senator Cochran, Senator Vitter, and I were here to come to an agreement that Senator Vitter would offer his amendment. He understood that a point of order lay against that regarding whether it was a rule XVI. He understood that Senator Cochran's second-degree amendment also was in the same procedural difficulty. The agreement was that we would agree to lay the amendment aside, Senator Vitter would set aside the amendment, go to his amendment, and a point of order would lie against it, as well as a point of order against the second degree offered by Senator Cochran. It sounds complex, but the upshot was, it would dispose of the amendment, a point of order would lie against it, and we would move on to the other numerous amendments that now lay before the Senate. In this body, it is extremely important that we all have the opportunity to work out these agreements so we can work through bills in an orderly fashion. I assumed that would be the case, that we had all agreed upon that and that would be the order this would go to. Unfortunately, when the Senator rose to ask to set aside the amendment, according to the agreement we agreed to, I did not object. The Senator went to his amendment, and instead of going through the process we had all agreed upon, he sent a modification to the desk that changed his underlying amendment and meant that it no longer had a point of order lying against it. That is a difficult position it puts us all in because we have 11 amendments, possibly more, to get through. If we can't come to an agreement and trust each other on how the process is going to move forward and go outside that, we are not going to be able to get through these amendments, because this Senate really is based on trust. So, Madam President, we are now in the parliamentary position where we have gone back to the regular order. Another amendment is pending. If we move through these in proper fashion, the amendment offered by Senator Vitter will now be at the end of 12 amendments that are now in order. At some point we will get to it, but we now are in a difficult position of: How do we move through all these other amendments that are being offered? How do we deal with all the other Senators who are going to come to the floor and ask us to work through these amendments, if we cannot have an agreement that this Senate--when Senators stand on the floor and agree to it--knows that is what will occur? So we find ourselves in a very difficult position. I see the majority leader is on the Senate floor and will yield to him if he would like to make a statement.

Mrs. MURRAY. Will the Senator repeat his request?

Mrs. MURRAY. Mr. President, so everyone knows what is happening, Senator Tester is going to be here in a minute to speak for several minutes. Senator Alexander has a few minutes remaining. At the end of that time, we will be moving to a vote on the underlying amendment, so I hope all Senators are close by the floor. Mr. President, I see the Senator from Montana is in the Chamber and I ask him how much time he is going to use. I believe the Senator from Montana will be using 5 minutes. Senator Alexander will be using a few. So a vote will be imminent.

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

Mrs. MURRAY. Mr. President, we do have one other Senator who wants to come and speak on this amendment. I think he will be here shortly. If there are no other Senators who want to speak at the moment, I suggest the absence of a quorum and ask unanimous consent that the time be charged equally.

Mrs. MURRAY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent for 1 hour of debate, equally controlled in the usual form, with no second-degree amendments in order prior to the vote, and upon use or yielding back of the time, the Senate proceed to vote in relation to the amendment, as modified.

Mrs. MURRAY. I object at this time. I have a number of Senators who are asking us to call up amendments. We would like to work with all of you to do that in a regular fashion. Maybe we can do that after the Senator from Louisiana is speaking, but at this point we are going to allow the Senator from Louisiana to speak and then move back to regular order, which will then be the Grassley-Inhofe amendment, No. 2444.

Mrs. MURRAY. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mrs. MURRAY. I move to lay that motion on the table. The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.

Mrs. MURRAY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that amendment No. 2419 be withdrawn.

Mrs. MURRAY. Mr. President, at this point we would like to move to regular order. The next amendment pending is the Grassley-Inhofe amendment. I understand the Senator from Louisiana would like 2 minutes just to discuss the amendment that just fell, so I ask unanimous consent that she have 2 minutes.

Mrs. MURRAY. Mr. President, I thank all our colleagues for working with us to a point where I hope now we can start working through the amendments. I call for regular order at this point, and I would remind all of us that I have about 12 or 13 amendments that have been offered. I know several other Senators have asked to be recognized to offer amendments. We want to work our way through all of these in a timely manner in regular order. We will be doing that this afternoon. So I ask Senators to stay close by the floor so we can move them through as quickly as possible. Hopefully, we can get time agreements on them in short order and dispose of them in whatever way is appropriate. At this time, I call for regular order. Amendment No. 2468

Mrs. MURRAY. I believe I have the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.