On the recordSeptember 21, 2010
I hope we will proceed to the Defense authorization bill this afternoon. The Senator from Maine, as far as I am concerned, has raised a very legitimate question about whether amendments will be offerable to this bill, and the majority leader has spoken on that on the Record. This is what he said last Thursday. He said: . . . in addition to issues I have talked about in the last couple days, there are many other important matters that both sides of the aisle wish to address. I am willing to work with Republicans on a process that will permit the Senate to consider these matters and complete the bill as soon as possible, which likely will be after the recess. So the majority leader has said he is more than willing to engage in that process. If that process does not lead to a fair result, then--if we can get to the bill--if the Republicans feel there has not been adequate opportunity to offer amendments, the opportunity will be there to prevent the passage of the bill until those amendments are considered. This is the normal process. But to deny an opportunity to move to the bill so we can engage in a debate on amendments and so we hopefully will have an opportunity, as we should, to debate amendments on the bill, it seems to me is prejudging the outcome of the debate. The time to determine whether there has been adequate opportunity to debate the bill is after you have had an opportunity to debate the bill.
