Heidi Alexander: “the Democratic leader expressed the hope that we could have a path to the end on amendments, and I can assure him that…”

“the Democratic leader expressed the hope that we could have a path to the end on amendments, and I can assure him that Senator Murray and I agree with him wholeheartedly. We are working together to try to be able to do that. In the committee, we adopted 29 amendments. Most of those were Democratic amendments. We have adopted 22 on the floor, and the majority of those are Democratic amendments. The Democratic leader has been very helpful to allow us to come to the floor without delay, and I can assure him and the majority leader that Senator Murray and I intend to try to resolve the couple of issues we have right now and be able to recommend to the leadership a path forward. It would be my hope that we don't even have to have a cloture vote--that we didn't have to have one to get on the floor, and I hope we don't have to have one to get off the floor. I am not prepared to say we can do that yet, but we agree with him, and we will do our best to do that. The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Democratic leader.”