Harry Reid: “we have lined up five votes on each side. I say, however, to my friend, the manager of the bill, there is a tremendous…”

“we have lined up five votes on each side. I say, however, to my friend, the manager of the bill, there is a tremendous amount of staff time that is still going to be required. Each side has not been able to review each other's amendments. I respectfully suggest to the majority that the minority doesn't think we have done anything untoward in offering amendments. We have offered half as many as the majority. This doesn't mean they should have twice as many cleared as we have cleared. If both sides can work out the clearance, that is fine. The point I am trying to make is that we are trying to work our way through this amendment process. If there is some effort, in effect, to try to punish us by staying here late to work through these amendments, we are willing to do that. I think the more logical way to go would be to work our way through the amendments. I say to the distinguished Senator from New Mexico, we would be much better off if we gave the staff a matter of hours, perhaps days, to work their way through these amendments. These are very difficult subjects. As to the sense-of-the-Senate aspect, most of those have been resolved. There are some that are very substantive in nature, and we need to work our way through them. I personally think it is going to be impossible to finish this bill today. If we have to vote on all these amendments, we are not talking about 6 o'clock tonight; we are talking about 6 o'clock Monday morning.”