Bob Dole: “Now, I assume that if it is a party-line vote, we will not get cloture. Maybe not today; maybe not tomorrow; maybe not…”

“Now, I assume that if it is a party-line vote, we will not get cloture. Maybe not today; maybe not tomorrow; maybe not Saturday. I do not know when we will get cloture. If the other side of the aisle, the minority, is sincere about amendments, why not give Members a list? We were negotiating yesterday about 38 amendments. We got a list last night of 78 amendments. We thought we were going to cut them down. We doubled it, and added two for good measure. There are 117 amendments filed at the desk, and there has been cloture invoked. We can do trimming on this side, too; we have too many amendments, 30. That is a total of 108 amendments. The way we are grinding along, we would not finish this bill before the Easter recess, or there would not be any Easter recess. Nobody is in a hurry to pass this bill. They do not want to do it before the President gives a State of the Union message. I say, Mr. President, we have been trying to be helpful on Mexico, and we have heard a lot of silence on the other side of the aisle. But Mexico comes up right after unfunded mandates, after it is completed, if it is a week from now or 2 weeks from now. That is up to the President of the United States and the Democrats in Congress. Maybe it is not important to anybody there. This is important to the President, and we have made a commitment to the President to try to be helpful.”