Byron Dorgan: “Let me talk about one last point, and that is the agenda of the Senate. The fact is, I come from a side of the political…”

“Let me talk about one last point, and that is the agenda of the Senate. The fact is, I come from a side of the political aisle in the Senate that does not control the agenda. The reason why is because we lost the election. The other side has more people, they elect the majority leader, and the majority leader decides the agenda of the Senate. I am not complaining about that. That is the way the Senate works and that is what the rules are. But we being a minority still have an agenda, and we still have certain rules in this Senate to work with to try to make certain our agenda is also considered. I want to mention just for a moment a couple of points in that agenda. I started out by discussing the Patients' Bill of Rights and the issue of health care quality in this country. We intend to see that there is a vote on managed care reform, the Patients' Bill of Rights, in this Congress. We also fully intend to see that a tobacco bill is brought up, and I think the majority leader now is going to a tobacco bill for consideration. We must as a country decide that this country will no longer countenance tobacco companies targeting kids. You cannot addict 30-year-olds. Who reaches age 30 and says, ``What can I do to improve my life?'' and comes up with the answer of smoking? The tobacco companies addict kids. They get kids when they are 14, 15, 16 years old and addict them to nicotine. Those are the new customers for tobacco.”