Cord Byrd: “That is part of the process. When I was majority leader of the Senate in 1977, 1978, 1979, and 1980 and, again, when I…”

“That is part of the process. When I was majority leader of the Senate in 1977, 1978, 1979, and 1980 and, again, when I was majority leader of the Senate in 1987 and 1988, not once did I attempt to say to the leader on the other side of the aisle that I will not take this bill up if you are going to call up amendments, or if you call up 5 or 10 or whatever it is, I will not call it up; or having called it up, if Senators on the other side of the aisle persisted in calling up amendments, I didn't take the bill down. That is part of the process. That is where we differ. There are now Senators in this body who think that that is the way the Senate has always been. I would say to Senator Baker, or to Senator Dole, let's have our respective Cloakrooms find out how many amendments there are. And the Cloakrooms would call Senators. They would bring back a list of the Senators on the Republican side and a list of the Senators on the Democratic side who indicated they had amendments. I never said: Well, we ought to cut them down. I said: Let's list them. Sometimes there would be 65 amendments, sometimes 80, or whatever. I would say: Let's get unanimous consent that the amendments be limited to those on the list. I never attempted to keep Senators from calling up their amendments, or to insist the leader of the other side cut down his amendments before we would call up the bill. We listed the amendments. Then we sought to get unanimous consent.”