Don Nickles: “I want to echo everything my colleague from North Dakota said. I know I have complained to Senator Byrd in the past…”

“I want to echo everything my colleague from North Dakota said. I know I have complained to Senator Byrd in the past about deliberations on the budget process. I said I dislike vote-aramas. In the past, management of budget bills has many times stacked the votes. Well, there won't be any votes and people would have long debates, and, therefore, not really consider very many amendments until late Thursday night. We haven't done that, frankly in large part because of my relationship and respect for Senator Conrad. We said we wanted to avoid the vote-arama. Last year was probably the worst vote-arama in Senate history. To me, it is very demeaning to the Senate. We cast 51 rollcall votes, most of which were jammed together, most of which had 1 minute of debate each, and no one knew what they were voting on. It was not a pretty picture. It wasn't good for the Senate. I want to do what is right for the Senate. I have heard Senator Byrd say that. I happen to agree with him. I appreciate his amendment. I don't support his amendment, but I appreciate it. It is a substantive amendment. As Senator Conrad said, we are willing to take substantive amendments and debate them and discuss them and give Members ample time to consider them. But we do not need to have repetitive amendments. We do not need to have endless amendments. We do not need to have sense of the Senates.”