Pete Domenici: “No matter how important the bill is--imprimatur, no matter what it is. I said it the Italian way. You said it the French…”

“No matter how important the bill is--imprimatur, no matter what it is. I said it the Italian way. You said it the French way. You all know what it meant: stamp of approval. Stamp of approval. I have never heard of such a thing, never saw Senators standing around--they were in awe. What is he talking about? The bill that is before us, he likes. He has had a caucus, and those Senators on the other side said this is a neat bill, this is what we want to pass, and we sure don't want any amendments offered and voted on that stir up that thing we like so much to any extent because we don't want to get our Senators in any trouble. We don't want them voting on any of these kinds of things that muddle up this bill. So our leader is going to stand up here and say we have just changed the Senate, and we are going to do it this way. There will be no amendments unless Harry Reid, elected as the minority leader of the Senate, says, ``OK.'' Fellow Senators, I don't believe it. As a matter of fact, I thought when the distinguished leader of the other side, who is my dear friend--dear friend, he knows that--when he got up and answered our leader and started with this business about minimum wage and these other things--I thought he had a nothing case. I thought, my God, he's dreaming them up. He has nothing to say. What does that have to do with this bill, the minimum wage, the way we didn't let amendments come up on that?…”