Bob Dole: “let me just comment briefly here, because this is a matter of some contention. Even though it is a Senate matter, the…”

“let me just comment briefly here, because this is a matter of some contention. Even though it is a Senate matter, the reason we had expedited procedure in the other provision is we tried to get consent on the Senate side and it was objected to. So the House put in a bill and sent it over here. I think the concern was if we did reach some agreement with the President and the Democratic leaders in the House and Senate and Republican leaders in the House and Senate, that when it came to the Senate, it could be subject to filibuster and might take 2 weeks or 3 weeks. So I have discussed this at length with the Democratic leader, Senator Daschle, and we have agreed that if we have an agreement with the President and leadership, we will, in effect, say it is considered in the reconciliation process and be a reconciliation bill. Under those procedures, I can move to reduce the time to 15 hours, to 20 hours, whatever, and it would speed up the process considerably. I hope my colleagues in the House appreciate the fact that we think we have moved along the process here considerably if, in fact, there should be an agreement. That is why we have stricken the expedited process language out of the previous bill.”