Heidi Alexander: “the Democratic leader and the Republican leader have created an environment in which we can succeed on this bill, and I…”

“the Democratic leader and the Republican leader have created an environment in which we can succeed on this bill, and I am grateful to them for that. I listened to their remarks this morning about some things that have gone on in the past in the Senate. My late friend Alex Haley, the author of ``Roots,'' used to say: Find the good and praise it. And so what I would like to do is thank the majority leader for putting the bill on the floor. Only he can do that and give us a chance to debate it. I thank the Democratic leader for creating an environment in which we can have a large number of amendments and succeed. I thank the Senator from Washington, Mrs. Patty Murray, who suggested the way we proceed today. We fell into some partisan differences in the last two Congresses that made that impossible, and she has, as much as anybody, helped solve that problem. We are making good progress. We have adopted a number of amendments. We voted on some others. Some have passed, and some have been defeated. People have had a chance to have their say. Senator Murray and I have received a large number of amendments--several dozen, actually, that Senators on both sides have offered--that we have agreed to recommend to the full Senate we adopt by consent. In addition to that, we adopted 29 amendments in the committee consideration, and many of those were amendments from Democratic Members of the Senate.…”