Dianne Feinstein: “I have been just unusually proud of his leadership on the Budget Committee. My objection to this amendment--and I agree…”

“I have been just unusually proud of his leadership on the Budget Committee. My objection to this amendment--and I agree with Senator Bennett; I was an original supporter of the line-item veto. This is a different day right now. It is a different situation. Different issues are at stake in a line-item veto. This is an ethics bill. We are talking about lobby reform and earmark reform and we want very much to have a bipartisan bill. We are not going to have a bipartisan bill if we get into campaign finance reform and line-item vetoes and a number of other issues that are beginning to percolate. It is my hope that we could keep this bill restricted to ethics, restricted to lobby reform, earmark reform, those things that are properly before this body. That is the only way we are going to get a broad consensus that is going to survive a conference and come back with something all Members can support.”