Mike Levin: “later this morning the Senate is going to resume consideration of S. 1197, the National Defense Authorization Act for…”

“later this morning the Senate is going to resume consideration of S. 1197, the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2014. I will have a full statement to make on this legislation later today. However, I would like to take just a moment to talk to my colleagues about where we are on the bill and how we would like to proceed. Last night, the majority leader asked for unanimous consent to bring up side-by-side amendments on subjects that we know we need to debate and vote on--military detention at Guantanamo and sexual assault and misconduct in the military. Each amendment and side-by-side was to be subject to a 60-vote threshold. Unfortunately, there was an objection to this request. As a result of that objection, the majority leader filled the amendment tree on our bill. Now we are in a position where we are going to need the cooperation of all Senators to get this important bill passed, as we must, in the limited time available to us before Thanksgiving week in order that we will have time to go to conference, get a conference report, and bring that conference report back to the House and Senate. It remains our intention to bring up and vote on as many relevant amendments to the bill as possible, and I know the Republican manager, ranking member Senator Inhofe, shares this objective.…”