John Sarbanes

If the Senator will yield, our people are not here because we had calculated that the time would go back to your side. And the fact there is so much of an unbalance, I think demonstrates that.

In 1975 we first provided fast track. On this chart, this is 1975. Look at what happened with the trade balance.

All I am trying to protect again is the situation in which all time is used up on this side and then there are 80 minutes left on the other side.

I am pleased that the mark-to-market legislation that is incorporated in the VA-HUD conference report contains some measures that deal with properties that are disqualified from the restructuring program. I believe that it is critical that…

Some of us have supported the committee in its effort to find more money, and you come in and you are confronted with a bill like this.

In my State, we have not yet finished the interstate system. We have some very pressing problems in the Western part of my State with respect to certain interchanges. It was not done the way it should have been done to begin with, and we…

No. This isn't my amendment. I am just responding to the offering of this amendment, which I think is a very bad idea and which I am trying to develop. Actually there is a benefit to be gathered by some discussion of this matter, which was…

In effect, we are repudiating the option of continued Government payment of the election as a way of in effect losing your supervision over the Teamsters election. I do not see how the Senator can take that position when questions have…

I do not agree with the Senator. I mean, I put this question earlier, and it is interesting now to have this discussion take this turn because now we are beginning to see apparently on the part of some Members, they are really prepared to…

That's right. The union agreed to this as part of the consent. But the consent decree says the union defendants consent to the election officer, at Government expense, to supervise the 1996 IBT elections. You are coming along and saying we…

I say to my colleague, the consent decree I am looking at, in the first sentence of the first full paragraph on page 16 says, ``The union defendants consent to the election officer, at Government expense, to supervise the 1996 IBT…

I say to my colleague, a distinguished former U.S. attorney in Alabama, the consent decree specifically says the union defendants consent to the election officer at Government expense to supervise the 1996 IBT elections. Now, if you do not…

I think the Senator makes a very valid point, but I will take it a step further. By meddling into this, we may well make it possible for the Teamsters to come out from under the consent decree with respect to the use of an election officer…

I say to my colleague that that is not the consent decree which the Bush administration approved and which they presented forward as a major accomplishment. That is an interesting argument, but the Senator should have used it in 1989, at…

And not provide a way for the union to come out from under the consent decree and the election officer.

Well, in fact, what the taxpayers got out of the consent decree was the use of the election officer for the 1996 election. The Senator seems to proceed on the premise that having an election officer to supervise the election is the normal…

The union defendants consent to the election officer at government expense to supervise the 1996 IBT elections. Now, that represented a major concession by the union in the consent decree to place themselves under an election officer. Part…

If ever there was an instance of trampling in on the part of the Congress and in effect, undoing an arrangement that was very carefully and elaborately worked out and, in fact, done so by now Mayor Giuliani but then U.S. Attorney Giuliani…

Now, our colleague from Oklahoma and others are trying to undo the consent decree at a time, as I understand, that the court, 2 weeks from yesterday, will be receiving briefs on this very issue of the election, is that correct?

Now the consent decree remains silent on the question of a rerun of that election since it has not been certified. This amendment would, in effect, deprive the court of an option that is now available to it, an option that, in fact, was…

Did not the President and the Attorney General hold it out as a major accomplishment?

In fact, as I understand it, part of the consent order was a consent by the union to have the 1996 election supervised by an election officer, is that not the case?

A consent degree that was involved with the Bush administration, approved by Attorney General Thornburgh, actually carried out, I take it, by U.S. Attorney Giuliani at that point.

Doesn't, in fact, this amendment undercut the consent decree? The consent decree leaves open, as I understand it, the possibility that the supervision of this election will be done by public funds. It does not say that it will be, but it…

I don't know what is in these Bosnia amendments, but this is obviously always a difficult and sensitive issue. You know, we are locking in now procedure to try to produce this bill, which I am supportive of. I don't think we ought to put…