Angie Craig: “I am pleased he would come this early afternoon to discuss what I think is really a very important and necessary issue…”

“I am pleased he would come this early afternoon to discuss what I think is really a very important and necessary issue for all of us to understand but, more importantly, for the public that pays close attention to what we do to understand. During debate last week, after the vote concerning the Byrd-Warner amendment on the President's open-ended mission in Kosovo, several things were said by the minority leader that I feel need to be corrected. If you were to take the minority leader at face value last week, I think you would have gotten a distorted view of what we did in the Senate and what was an appropriate and necessary approach. The day before the vote on the Byrd-Warner amendment, the Senate passed a rule that said only germane amendments could be offered to appropriations bills. The following day, the minority leader stated before us: No majority leader has ever come to the floor to say that, before we take up a bill, we have to limit the entire Senate to relevant amendments.”