Arlen Specter

Mr. SPECTER

Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, I yield 4 minutes to the Senator from Nebraska.

Mr. SPECTER. No.

Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, it is a little surprising to find this budget point of order being raised so late in the proceedings. We have been on this bill now for almost 2 weeks. We expect to finish up either late tonight or tomorrow for the 2-week period which was allocated. So had there been a judgment that this bill should fall on a budget point of order, it would have been expected to have been raised much earlier to save the Senate some time. We have the same parties raising this objection who have raised earlier objections in what is an effort to defeat the bill. They have a right to offer amendments which may be poison pills or may be killer amendments or to raise a budget point of order, but when we are dealing with the vagaries of the Budget Act, we are talking about a $5 billion expenditure, 10-year periods beginning in the year 2016, through 2055. We are dealing in concepts that are not very tangible. And when compared to the importance of this immigration bill, those arcane tactics and procedures are not nearly as weighty as getting some action on this important bill. I made the argument--Senator Kennedy followed through on it--that the problem is that this calculation deals with expenditures and not with offsetting revenues. And the expenditures in the first 10 years, CBO says, are $54 billion, and the revenues are $66 billion, for a net gain of $12 billion. That is to say nothing about the importance of these 11 million undocumented immigrants for the economy of the United States. That is to say nothing about the use of guest workers calibrated very carefully for the future. I urge my colleagues not to accept this artifice and tactic to defeat a bill which is enormously important. I yield back my time.

Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, parliamentary inquiry: We will now proceed to a vote on the motion to waive the budget point of order?

Mr. SPECTER. I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, I believe we are now prepared to go to the Landrieu amendment. It is an amendment which Senator Kennedy and I had earlier stated we found agreeable. There have been some reports that there might be objections. If there are no objections, we can take Senator Landrieu's amendment on a voice vote. I urge adoption of the Landrieu amendment.

Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the following amendments be in order; further, that these be the only remaining amendments in order other than the managers' amendment: Senator Boxer, amendment No. 4144, with 24 minutes equally divided; Senator Burns, amendment No. 4124, with 10 minutes equally divided; Senator Chambliss, amendment No. 4084, with 40 minutes equally divided; Senator Cornyn, amendment No. 4097, with 40 minutes equally divided; and that at the conclusion of the debate on these four amendments, we proceed to four stacked votes, with the first vote on the Boxer amendment being 15 minutes, with 5 minutes overtime, according to our practice, and the following amendments being 10 minutes, with 5 minutes overtime; and that tomorrow morning we proceed with the Dorgan amendment No. 4095, with 30 minutes equally divided; Senator Bingaman, amendment No. 4131, with 40 minutes equally divided; Senator Sessions, amendment No. 4108, as modified, with 1 hour equally divided; Senator Feingold, amendment No. 4083, with 1 hour equally divided; provided further that there be no second-degree amendments in order to the above amendments; provided further that the first four amendments on the list be debated with the four votes occurring in a stacked sequence at the conclusion of debate on the four amendments, with 2 minutes equally divided between each of the amendments, and that following agreement on the managers' package, the bill be read a third time and the Senate proceed to passage, without intervening action or debate.

Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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

Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, we are awaiting clearance on the modifications as to Senator Sessions' amendment No. 4108, so I will restate the unanimous consent request in a more limited form. I ask unanimous consent that we may proceed to four amendments to debate them this evening: Senator Boxer, amendment No. 4144, with 24 minutes equally divided; Senator Burns, amendment No. 4124, with 10 minutes equally divided; Senator Chambliss, amendment No. 4084, with 40 minutes equally divided; Senator Dorgan, amendment No. 4095, with 30 minutes equally divided; that the first vote on the Boxer amendment be 15 minutes, in accordance with our usual practice, and the following votes be 10 minutes; provided further that there be no second-degree amendments in order to the above amendments.

Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, then, we now proceed to Senator Boxer's amendment No. 4144.

Mr. SPECTER. Senator Boxer's amendment No. 4144, as modified.

Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, the objectives outlined by the Senator from California I agree with; that is, to have a period of time to find an American worker so that we don't have a guest worker fill a job when there is an American worker available. We ought to do that--to protect American jobs before we bring in guest workers. The bill currently has a 90-day period during which employers find out if there are willing American workers before a job is offered to a guest worker. I believe that is a preferable course. You spend 90 days looking for an American to fill the job, but if you find, at the expiration of the 90 days, there is no American who wants the job, then you give the job to a guest worker, as opposed to giving the job to a guest worker and then looking for somebody for 90 days after that. That keeps the guest worker on tenterhooks, not knowing whether he or she has the job or not. That may lead the prospective guest worker to go elsewhere and conceivably could lead the prospective guest worker to try to enter the United States illegally since he or she doesn't know whether or not they have the job.

Mr. SPECTER. OK, on your time.

Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, the current legislation, the bill, provides that the employer must try to find an American worker, must make that effort for 90 days before the employer offers a job to a guest worker. Isn't that correct, if I may direct that question to Senator Boxer?

Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, the amendment which I have before me, offered by the Senator from California, does more than that. How much time remains on this amendment?

Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, if the Senator from California has accurately described her amendment, we may not be too far apart. What I would suggest is that we set aside the Boxer amendment so we can talk about it--maybe we can come to terms--and proceed at this time to the Burns amendment. I believe Senator Chambliss is on the premises. This amendment will not take long. We will be prepared to go to the Chambliss amendment shortly.

Mr. SPECTER. Correct.

Mr. SPECTER. Correct. Amendment No. 4124 Mr. Burns. I ask unanimous consent to call up amendment No. 4124.

Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, if my understanding is correct, the thrust of the amendment by the Senator from Montana is to request a study on this issue.

Mr. SPECTER. I believe the amendment is a good one. We are prepared to accept it and move to a voice vote.

Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, we are very near the end of the debate on the Chambliss amendment. The Senator from Colorado is going to speak, and then we will be prepared to move to the amendment by Senator Dorgan. I believe he is on his way, and I urge him to arrive at the earliest moment. It is 7:35 now, and we have a series of stacked votes. We are trying to work out the amendment by Senator Boxer. But we are going to conclude this debate fairly soon, and I will repeat, we want to get started with Senator Dorgan's opening arguments. I yield the floor.

Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, unless the Senator from Idaho wants more time, we are prepared to yield back.

Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, the Senator from North Dakota is not the only champion of the American worker. When he asks why there isn't some concern for the American worker, there is plenty of concern for the American worker. This Senator, and I know many other Senators in this body, have been very much concerned about imports, about currency manipulation, about manufacturing job losses. We have spoken out and we have acted on those matters. So when the Senator from North Dakota wants to sunset the guest worker provisions, that is fine; but when he asks, ``Who is concerned about the American worker,'' we are all concerned about the American worker. But we have a great many problems we have to accommodate and work on at the same time. This effort to sunset the guest worker program is just a rehash of his effort to eliminate the guest worker program. We went into great detail on that--extensive debate. And the evidence was laid out from the Judiciary Committee hearings that there is a minimal impact upon the American worker by the immigrants. It is not true that all of the jobs taken by immigrants would not be handled by American workers, but the impact in terms of lost American jobs is minimal. On the issue of the impact on salaries, again the economists testified in the Judiciary Committee hearings that that impact was minimal. We went into all of that in debate on the earlier amendment, when the Senator sought to eliminate the guest worker program. This bill is very carefully calibrated to have a guest worker program that responds to the needs of the U.S. economy, while exhibiting ample concern for the U.S. workers. I don't believe we need to debate this at any great length because we have already debated the subject on the amendment by the Senator from North Dakota, trying to eliminate the entire guest worker program. Let me yield at this time to the Senator from Arizona for 5 minutes, if that is sufficient.

Mr. SPECTER. I don't believe anybody said we are ready to yield back time.