On the recordNovember 18, 2011
first of all, I thank my friend and colleague from Arizona, the ranking member, for his comments and for all of his work on the committee. All of our colleagues on the committee have put in a lot of time. I want to emphasize something he said about the opportunity here for debate--that we have a number of pending amendments, including the amendments on detainees. We are here to hear debate on those or any other amendments today and on Monday. We were here yesterday and had a long debate. As the Senator from Arizona said, we had a lengthy debate, and we were prepared to vote. The supporters were not. That is fair enough. If they want additional time to debate it, we should welcome that. But there is time, there is time today and there is time on Monday when we get back to debate that amendment and those amendments not only on the detainees but on many other issues that are important that are in this bill. I agree with my friend from Arizona that we should ask the majority leader to make Monday night available for votes after the scheduled vote at 5:30. We need to have votes on amendments. I would hope that amendments that can't be agreed to will be voted on on Monday night after the vote on the judge, which is scheduled for 5:30. I also agree with the Senator from Arizona about trying to get a limit on the number of amendments. We will try again today to see if we can get a unanimous consent agreement.…





