Cord Byrd: “let me attempt to respond to the distinguished Senator. I have a sense of what my responsibility is. I do not know what…”

“let me attempt to respond to the distinguished Senator. I have a sense of what my responsibility is. I do not know what is in the managers' amendment. I have understood, in listening here, that there are various Senators who have amendments which are qualified and which are listed that they will call up unless the managers' amendment is satisfactory to them in respect to their several amendments. Now, if each amendment is called up, we at least get 2 minutes for an explanation. We get no explanation here of what is in this managers' amendment. It is not my desire to hold up action on this measure. It is somewhat embarrassing to me to have to stand and admit that I don't know what is in this amendment. I have voted on amendments today that I had very, very slender knowledge as to what I was voting on. I am not blaming anyone for this. I am not saying this to be critical of anyone. But I am concerned that here we are, before the American people, and it should be obvious to anyone who is viewing these actions that we are taking that many of us do not know what we are doing, what we are voting on, and these are very complex amendments. This is a very complex bill. We are at a great disadvantage because we have only 20 hours on a reconciliation measure. I tried last year to get 50 hours on a reconciliation bill, and I believe I got a majority of votes, but I believe I lost because it ran afoul of the Byrd rule. Therefore, it required 60 votes.”