Byron Dorgan: “My friend from Iowa came to the floor to speak a bit this morning on a couple of subjects I spoke about yesterday. Let…”

“My friend from Iowa came to the floor to speak a bit this morning on a couple of subjects I spoke about yesterday. Let me again say I have very high regard for Senator Grassley. We worked together on a good number of issues. I enjoy working with him. But there are times when you have disagreements on policy, and we certainly have that on an issue I am going to talk about. It is an issue he talked about this morning as well. Actually, there are a couple of tax issues. Before I do, however, I want to just make a slight correction to the remarks that were made by the Senator from Pennsylvania a few minutes ago. I heard him say the Democrats were holding up this bill on, I guess--I think he said a technicality. I think he said it was a technicality. I think that was the impression he intended to leave, obstruct or holding this up on a technicality. I guess the technicality is our interest in offering amendments. I know to some that is not a pleasant thing around here, to have people offer amendments and actually debate them and vote on them, but that is the way the system works. The reason there are not amendments offered-- and I would try to offer one right now, but I would be unable to offer one--is because the majority party has done something that is called filling the tree. It is a parliamentary procedure to make sure every branch of this legislative tree is filled so that no one is allowed to offer an amendment.…”