I would urge that there be no further delay, no further obstruction, and that the Senate act--at long last--to pass a bill that is very important to so many small businesses in this country crippled by the economic fall-out of September…

I found myself outraged when I awoke this morning and saw the headline in our local newspaper, ``Medical Privacy Changes Proposed.''... I am terribly disappointed this morning to hear that the administration is going to be rolling back…

I rise to raise concern about a 5-to-4 decision that was reached earlier this week by the Supreme Court on the Family and Medical Leave Act, a bill that, along with many others in this body, I helped write back in the 1990s. It took a long…

let me express my very sincere gratitude to both leaders, first of all to Senator Daschle and his very fine staff who were immensely helpful in pulling this together. I thank the Republican leader, Senator Lott, for his wonderful…

first of all, I commend our colleague from Minnesota for his typical eloquence. I, too, think he offered a very valuable amendment and one that, as he has explained, ran the risk of sinking the legislation, but that did not make the…

today is, in fact, an historic day. As the Senate prepares to go to final passage on the McCain-Feingold/Shays-Meehan legislation on campaign finance reform, we are taking necessary action that the American people have been seeking for…

just an hour or so ago, I made a call to Colombia, South America, and spoke with the husband of Ingrid Betancourt, who, as many may know, is the woman candidate for President of Colombia who was recently kidnaped. I expressed to Ingrid…

I rise today to express my optimism that Congress will enact real campaign finance reform this week. We must not use this week to merely re-debate legislation already fully debated and adopted by both chambers of Congress. Only final…

I voted against the so-called stimulus package a few moments ago. I didn't have a chance before the vote occurred to explain why I was going to cast that ballot, voting no. Obviously, there are provisions that I strongly endorse and…

on February 1, 2002, the World Trade Organization adopted a report by its Appellate Body that concluded that a U.S. law known as Section 211 violates U.S. obligations to protect and enforce intellectual property rights under the Agreement…

we have made some great progress today. In fact, we have pretty much agreed on a package dealing with issues such as the uniform standards, the savings clause, and several other items. I will not go through them now. I will provide a…

so my colleagues know, we had hoped as a result of hours of negotiation--and I am not exaggerating--over the last 48 hours, we would resolve the issue at hand. I mentioned the other day the efforts have gone on for several weeks…

I thank the assistant leader and again I thank the other staff, Brian Lewis and Leon Sequeira of Senator McConnell's and Julie Dammann and Jack Bartling of Senator Bond's staff. I thank my own staff as well, Ronnie Gillespie, Kennie Gill…

the authors, the direct opponents of the amendment are not here. I will make the case again, as I tried a week or so ago. I see where we are headed with this. We need to try and find a compromise. Obviously, people feel strongly about…

I had hoped we could find compromise language on this last provision. That is still my hope. We have worked very hard. We have considered around 35 amendments. Both sides have added to the bill with accepted amendments. We have modified…

I rise today to publicly thank my good friend Jorge Castaneda, Mexican Secretary of Foreign Relations, for taking the time out of his busy schedule to address the U.S.-Spain Council last weekend. I have had the pleasure of chairing the…

I just want to give the Presiding Officer a little bit of an update on where things are regarding negotiations on the Schumer-Wyden-Bond issue involving the question of voter identification. Staffs are meeting. There has been no…

I wanted to commend our colleague from Pennsylvania who took a trip to Latin America. He talked about it and I commend him for doing that. A lot of attention is being focused-- rightfully so--on Southwest Asia because of events since 9-11…

let me thank Members here who have argued both in favor and in opposition to this amendment. It has been a very worthwhile debate. Unfortunately, as my colleague from Kentucky pointed out, we didn't have enough Members around last night to…

Senator Sarbane's proposal was included already in the House-passed Hoyer bill. It establishes a program to encourage college students to participate in the election process in the country. Among other things, the students work as poll…

we did a lot of work today. I know we are not done. I am hopeful by tomorrow we will complete this bill. We are working on a couple of amendments which I did not think could be worked out. It may be that we actually work out a couple of…

this is a study to be done on Internet voting. As my friend from Utah points out, there are jurisdictions which are examining how this would work. Obviously, there are some very serious problems one might face on privacy issues and the…

There are some minimum requirements in the area of access, to make it possible for millions of disabled Americans who have never been able to cast a vote in private, independently, to be able to do so; the anti-fraud provisions of…

first of all, let me state for the uninformed--and there may not be many on this particular point--there has never been, in my view, a stronger or more articulate advocate on behalf of the disabled in this country than the Senator from…

I will take 2 minutes to review the bidding and give our colleagues a status report on the election reform bill-- where we are, what we have accomplished, and what we can look forward to during the remainder of the day. This could be a…