Chris Dodd: “I did not intend to have this become a partisan discussion at all. Going back, as a member of the Budget Committee, I…”

“I did not intend to have this become a partisan discussion at all. Going back, as a member of the Budget Committee, I offered I think the first such amendment in the Budget Committee, along with Senator Lott. We lost on a tie vote back in the Budget Committee in the early 1980s on special education, trying to get the dollars up. I am very grateful. The only reason we are getting this support now is that obviously we have some key Republicans who are willing to help us on this--Senator Hagel, principally, who has been a champion on this issue for a number of years. Senator Collins, Senator Coleman, and Senator Warner have been very helpful. Let there be no illusions. We tried to get this. We can argue about offsets and so forth, but the fact is, had I not been able to get some Republican support, this amendment would have gone down. I do not make that case because I think it takes both of us working together here. But the reason we are back at this is that, back in the beginning of 2001, Senator Harkin, Senator Jeffords, and Senator Hagel offered language to increase dollars for special education--in fact, they ended up getting 100 votes here. The other body, led by the Republican leadership, just wouldn't allow a vote to occur on this issue and the President never had anything to say about it. If we took the increases in the underlying bill, we would never get near the 40 percent figure at which special education would become fully funded.”