Harry Reid: “I have some remarks I was going to make on the pension conference and I will do that. But in response to my friend, the…”

“I have some remarks I was going to make on the pension conference and I will do that. But in response to my friend, the majority leader, partisanship is in the eyes of the beholder. We believe this conference is so important. It involves the jurisdiction of two committees, Finance and HELP. This is a Senate conference. It is not a Republican conference or Democratic conference, it is the Senate. The Senate is going to be represented in conference. I suggest to my friend, the majority leader--he came to the floor last week and suggested, rather than 8 to 6, which I suggested, that it would be 9 to 6. We could resolve this very quickly. I would be happy to work with nine Republicans and seven Democrats--the two-vote majority we have agreed with. That is fine. The Senate has 55 Republicans and 45 Democrats. But I don't think it is unfair, and I don't think it has any partisanship involved. We have worked very hard from the very beginning on this bill to not have a partisan bill. I worked very hard, personally, as did Senator Kennedy and Senator Baucus, to do what we could to eliminate extraneous amendments and we did that. It was not easy, but we did it. That bill got out of here very quickly. It passed; 97 Senators voted for this legislation. Maybe it solves the problems to go 9 to 7 rather than 8 to 6. I am willing to be reasonable in this. I think I have been. But I do not think it is being unreasonable; I do not think it is being partisan.…”