Mark Hatfield: “I know there is a lot of anguish on the part of our colleagues who would like to exercise the constitutional right of…”

“I know there is a lot of anguish on the part of our colleagues who would like to exercise the constitutional right of the Senate to amend a bill on revenue related matters that comes to us from the House, even though the Constitution says it must be originated from the House of Representatives. But as I said in the opening statement today, we are literally here today with a gun to our head in the parliamentary situation in which the House provided us with this product as of today and have declared that they are not in session today for legislative business. Therefore, any changes in this particular product is going to require return to the House. If they are not in session today for legislative business, we are facing a midnight curfew of whether the Government shuts down. So consequently, as much as I detest and decry this process we find ourselves in--I would like very much to offer some amendments to this myself because family planning is not satisfactory to me--as Senator Byrd, as the comanager of this bill, indicated in his opening statement, he affirmed my analysis of where we were in this particular bind and also urged his colleagues not to offer any amendments, because any change on this continuing resolution we have--any change--is required to go back to the House of Representatives. They made it very clear that they may be subject to the call of the Chair, but not for legislative business. So there we are.…”