Arlen Specter

Mr. SPECTER

Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, my answer to that question is in the affirmative. Mr. President, proceeding with the discussion with the distinguished Senator from Nevada, the Democratic leader, when he says there would be votes at the right time, the Kyl-Cornyn amendment was filed last Thursday. I agree with him that it takes time to analyze amendments, but hasn't there been sufficient time for the Kyl-Cornyn amendment to be analyzed and to enable the Democrats on the opposition or a side-by- side amendment, or whatever course they choose, to come forward and let us proceed?

Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, the response--or the words spoken; it was not a response--the words spoken by the distinguished Democratic leader are interesting, but they do not answer the question. The question was, have you had enough time to take a position on the Kyl amendment? And your analysis--

Mr. SPECTER. Wait a minute. I am speaking here, and I will not interrupt you, Senator Reid.

Mr. SPECTER. Your analysis states that you had enough time to analyze it, review it, and you are opposed to it. When you mention stem cells, you are right. We should have voted on stem cells some time ago. I think I have complained more than you have about that. And you are right about the minimum wage. It ought to be raised. And I think you voted for it every time, but no more often than I have. But we are now faced with the immigration bill. When you say that the Kyl amendment will not improve the immigration bill, my question to you is, isn't the way you express that by voting against it, by leading the charge against it, as opposed to preventing a vote on it? Isn't that the way the Senate functions?

Mr. SPECTER. In a moment I will, to Senator Leahy. When the Senator from Nevada says he doesn't have to explain, he is wrong. He thinks he does have to explain because this is a Senate proceeding by press conference. The Senator from Nevada accurately characterized some of the legislative process on this bill as legislation by press conference. Of course that has never happened before. I mean, it would just be antithetical to the workings of the Senate. It is hard to walk down that corridor without holding a press conference involuntarily. You either hold a press conference or you are rude. I can't do more by way of gesturing without drawing an objection from Senator Byrd. I once acknowledged the presence of the Penn State national champions in the gallery, and it was found by the rules that I was out of line. But we do this all the time, and sometimes by design. A microphone is set up there frequently, and we go there voluntarily, and we utilize the ink and electronic equipment of the media. This little discussion here--more accurately called a charade--is for the media because we want to put some pressure on the Democrats to let us vote. Senator Reid has come out here to defend his position because he thinks he has to, because if he didn't think he had to, he wouldn't be here. He is too parsimonious with his time, which is very valuable. I daresay he has a long list of calls to return and a long list of calls to make and a lot of business to transact, and he came out to the floor because he thought he needed to state his position that there is a battle and that he is defending himself against the charge that the Democrats are stalling and holding up this bill. It is late now. It is 4:20 on Tuesday afternoon. We only have--let's see--we only have Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. We only have 5 days in this week to finish this bill. I yield to the Senator from Vermont with the stipulation that I don't lose my right to the floor.

Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, the Senator from Arizona accurately states the situation.

Mr. SPECTER. Under the same condition.

Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, the Senator from Arizona is correct. That is the way the Senate functions under our rules.

Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, again, the Senator from Arizona accurately states the situation.

Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, the distinguished Senator from Vermont is correct. We did have a closed-door meeting with only Republican Senators present. I know they have a superior procedure among the Democrats and never have a closed meeting where only Democratic Senators are present. I know there is an operational rule where at least one Republican Senator has to be present whenever the Democrats meet. That is supposed to be a laugh line. Of course we meet with only Republicans. When the distinguished Senator from Vermont, the distinguished ranking member, was commenting earlier about missing the St. Patrick's Day recess, I seldom disagree with him, but I have to say by way of addendum that he forgot to mention that we missed the August recess preparing for the confirmation of Chief Justice Roberts. He didn't mention that we missed the December recess preparing for the confirmation hearing of Justice Alito. He didn't mention that we missed the January recess because of the Judiciary Committee hearing on Justice Alito. While our colleagues took a little time off in August to meet with constituents and work with perhaps a little play, they had December off, they had January off--not the Judiciary Committee. We were working. So there was not anything unusual about the St. Patrick's Day recess to find the Judiciary Committee at work. The staff worked very late hours. Then we scheduled a markup on the day before the recess ended, when the custom is to come back very late on Monday. The Senator from Vermont had to leave his cherished farm to come to Washington Sunday night to be here early Monday morning for our session. We were given an impossible job to finish the bill on Monday. We surprised a lot of people. We did it. Then there was a little consternation about what to do next. The committee bill is on the floor, and it is a good bill, but it is not a perfect bill. Even if it were a perfect bill, it would still be subject to amendment, and ultimately we will get to it.

Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, consistent with not losing the floor, when are we going to vote on these amendments?

Mr. SPECTER. Starting at 6:30?

Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that we proceed to a vote on the Kyl amendment at 4:40.

Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, I feel complimented that the distinguished Senator from Illinois has only disagreed with one thing I have said, because I have said quite a few things. If that implies that he agrees with the other things I have said, then he agrees with quite a lot of what I have said. With respect to the specific, yes. I don't believe that the Kyl- Cornyn amendment would destroy the bill as characterized by the Senator from Illinois. Let me add that the Senator from Illinois is a member of the committee and has been a very active and contributory member of the committee, and the committee has accomplished quite a lot because of the cooperation of Senator Durbin, Senator Leahy, and other Democrats and Republicans. It has been a very hard-working committee. It is my hope to expedite the process of working on the bill. For that purpose, I am going to again ask unanimous consent that we vote on the Kyl amendment now.

Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, in order to try to bring the Senators to the floor to move along, I move----

Mr. SPECTER. I do.

Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, I respond to the Senator's question by saying I think he has articulated sound public policy, and I support his amendment. Amendment No. 3206 I now call for the regular order with respect to Kyl amendment No. 3206.

Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, in moving to table the Kyl amendment, which I am about to do, I do so only to bring the Senators to the floor to try to move the process along. I intend to vote against tabling the Kyl amendment, but I do so, to repeat, to try to get the process moving. I like what the distinguished ranking member said about his willingness to start the votes soon. I hope we can move to that procedure. I move to table Kyl amendment No. 3206. I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, if I may direct a question to the Senator from Illinois, the assistant minority leader, does he wish to have Senator Reid speak before we vote on the amendment?

Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that we await Senator Reid's arrival to speak on the amendment and that we then vote on the motion to table.

Mr. SPECTER. May I amend my unanimous consent request? May we limit the time to 30 minutes equally divided, and at the end of the 30 minutes we go to a vote on my motion to table the Kyl amendment?

Mr. SPECTER. I move to lay that motion on the table.

Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, I object.

Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, it would be a travesty of the procedures of the Senate to vote on this bill without giving Senators an opportunity to file amendments. It would just be--it is hard to find the right characterization--a travesty, unheard of, unthinkable, unprecedented, idiotic--strike idiotic; the Supreme Court has that word for its own--but our procedure is to vote on amendments. Mr. President, I ask the distinguished Democratic leader if he would agree to start voting tomorrow morning at 9:30 on the list of amendments he identified. Senator Leahy and I are prepared to work through the night and start voting tomorrow morning at 9:30 on those amendments.

Mr. SPECTER. The ones you mentioned.