Dick Durbin: “reserving the right to object, the majority leader came to the floor this evening and commended the Senate for the work…”

“reserving the right to object, the majority leader came to the floor this evening and commended the Senate for the work we have done. He pointed out the constructive, bipartisan, good-faith efforts that have been made on both sides. Earlier today we disposed of 10 separate amendments, 5 on each side. Those amendments were given to us yesterday. During the last 24 hours there has been active negotiation back and forth on side-by-side amendments. In fact, the Republican Senator from Missouri and the Republican Senator from Nebraska asked to modify their amendments while they were still pending. There was a good-faith effort to make these amendments ready for floor consideration, and they were. They were brought before the Senate, and they were voted on in an orderly way. We all know that in the rules of the Senate you can stop the train. No one did on this side of the aisle. We moved forward in an orderly way. Now at 8 o'clock this evening, 12 more amendments have come forward, 6 on each side. The majority leader is correct. What we are trying to do, as we did with the previous 10 amendments, is to work through these in an orderly fashion, and we propose that we start considering them tomorrow morning. Those who are interested in--the staff who are interested, the Members who are interested can work to put these 12 amendments in order.…”