Kent Conrad: “I rise to thank the leadership for taking this bull by the horns and dealing with a circumstance that changed rather…”

“I rise to thank the leadership for taking this bull by the horns and dealing with a circumstance that changed rather dramatically in the last several hours. I know there are colleagues who are disappointed that they are not going to be able to offer amendments that are unrelated to the farm bill to this legislation. But if you put yourself in the position of the leadership, they were faced with an impossible situation, a situation that was made more difficult by the way events unfolded. We had 20 amendments on a side that were in order, 40 amendments in total. That could include amendments that were related to the farm bill as well as those unrelated. Amendments were filed. Not all 40 had been filed. There were still, I believe, at least eight slots. So when the leadership looked at the time--and the fact is, here we are, almost 9 o'clock on Thursday night--and they looked at the other business that has to be done, it didn't fit together. We could be in a circumstance in which things that must be done for us to conclude business for the year could not be concluded because it would take unanimous consent to go off the farm bill now that we are on it. Anybody could object. So they had to find a way to reach conclusion. The rules of the Senate required this circumstance.”