Harry Reid: “right before the recess, the distinguished majority leader and I had an exchange regarding the pension reform…”

“right before the recess, the distinguished majority leader and I had an exchange regarding the pension reform conference. Everyone acknowledges the conference is necessary. The pension reform bill is headed to conference. It is a very important piece of legislation that will affect the pensions of millions of working Americans. It has strong bipartisan support. It passed this Senate by a vote of 97 to 2. This has boiled down to something that is fairly simple: Who will be the conferees? We have a right, of course, on our side to choose who we believe should be in the conference. The distinguished majority leader has the right to choose whom he wants to be in the conference. Arbitrarily, the majority leader said that conference would have seven Republicans and five Democrats. That is not acceptable. We have said that because of the complexity of this issue we need another Democrat. We are willing to maintain the margin of two where Republicans would have an advantage. But we believe it should be eight to six. Republicans would get another conferee. Democrats would get another conferee. Now, certainly, we are eager to work on producing a conference report that will protect the benefits working Americans have earned, provide certainty to employers who sponsor pensions, and strengthen the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation. I can see nothing harmful about having six Democrats instead of five.…”