Cord Byrd: “I am assured by Senator Glenn that that is the case, that the minority called for a committee vote and lost. Now, Mr.…”

“I am assured by Senator Glenn that that is the case, that the minority called for a committee vote and lost. Now, Mr. President, if this were an emergency piece of legislation or if it were a piece of legislation that had to pass before next week or before the week after, had to go to conference--with some justifiable emergency deadline facing us, I could understand the necessity, perhaps, for bringing it to the floor without a committee report. But those circumstances do not obtain here. There is just a rush to get this through the Senate. We have heard a great deal of late about the Contract With America, or some such. I have not read the Contract With America. Perhaps I ought to read it. And there may be things in the Contract With America that I could support. I was not a signatory of it, and I do not feel bound to emasculate the legislative process here, that we have a right to expect as Senators--I do not feel bound to emasculate that process in order to get this so-called Contract With America fulfilled. I am reserving my own judgment about the Contract With America because I have not studied it. I am in no position to say it is good or bad, that I object to this or do not object to that. I make those decisions in due time, as and when it is necessary. But I have been led to understand this is an important bill. It is far-reaching in its consequences. Why all the hurry? Why all the rush?”