Political Quotes

“Mr. President, we are coming to a close, or a beginning, I am not sure which, when we start the vote on amendments. If my calculation is correct, the time for debate on this reconciliation bill will expire around 5:10, about that time, approximately. At that time, approximately, we will start voting on amendments. By my count we have 21 amendments pending, and if we vote on amendments in the time in which it usually takes to vote on amendments in a series, my experience is it roughly takes around an hour for three amendments. Maybe we can speed that up. With 21 amendments, that is 7 hours. That is the good news. There probably will be some intervening disruptions. But the good news is, that means the earliest we might be finished is around midnight. But, of course, that is not the case, because there will be other amendments offered. For the information of my colleagues, we will probably start voting on amendments at approximately around 5:10, thereabouts. We have 21 amendments pending at the present time. It takes about 1 hour to vote on three amendments. I believe we can squeeze that time down. It is my hope that we can. But that is my experience around here, it takes about that long. Because there are a lot more amendments most likely to be offered, I inform my colleagues that we will be in very late tonight, certainly way past midnight, because of the number of amendments that are currently pending. The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New Hampshire.”