Byron Dorgan: “Well, Mr. President, listen, my objective is not to obstruct or to try to slow anything down. My objective is to allow…”

“Well, Mr. President, listen, my objective is not to obstruct or to try to slow anything down. My objective is to allow people to offer amendments, especially those who have been here for some long while, to offer amendments that are consequential relative to the issue of financial reform. If from this day forward, we have decided--or from today forward we have decided that if someone on the other side--who is at this point unknown--is going to object to amendments that are uncomfortable, amendments that I think will strengthen the bill, this is not much of a process anymore. We will, I guess, pick out the amendments that deal with tourism or babies or whatever it is that is uncontroversial to everybody and pass those and then go on to final passage. Those who had other amendments of consequence are told: Someone objected. We are not quite sure who. So I guess what I can do is say that I will object to having people decide we will only deal with noncontroversial amendments and that those amendments of substantial consequence to this bill are not relevant enough to be considered.”