Chuck Grassley: “I want to say a few words today before we have our cloture vote on S. 1301, and that is the Consumer Bankruptcy…”

“I want to say a few words today before we have our cloture vote on S. 1301, and that is the Consumer Bankruptcy Protection Act. That is going to occur, as stated by the Chair, at 5 o'clock. We are going to vote at that time on whether we can even consider this very important piece of legislation that is called the Consumer Bankruptcy Protection Act. As I said yesterday, I think the necessity of having a cloture vote and the objection to taking this bill up was a desperation tactic. If the opponents of reform want to fight reform, let's have a fight about the merits of bankruptcy reform. I would like to get to the bill. I would like to have everybody vote for cloture on the motion to proceed, and then we are there debating this legislation. When we get to the bill, I want to assure everyone that I am going to work hard to further accommodate concerns expressed by members of the minority. I have proceeded in this fair way since we started to consider bankruptcy reform, and we have been at this at the subcommittee and committee level probably almost a year to this point. In subcommittee, when we marked up the bill, I personally saw to it that many of the changes which my distinguished ranking minority member, Senator Durbin, wanted were inserted into the bill, and at the full committee markup I worked with Senator Hatch to ensure that a number of Democratic amendments were offered.”