Political Quotes

“to use our time, my colleague from Indiana spoke earlier as though the cloture vote on the extenders determines whether the Senate will have any amendments to the extenders bill. That is not the case. A ``yes'' vote today is a vote to move the debate forward. In that vein I simply want to announce that if cloture is invoked, I would be happy to work with Senator Hatch and the two leaders to develop an agreed-upon list of amendments, narrowly related to the bill that the Finance Committee did in its consideration of the bill in the committee. The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Republican leader. Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, I certainly want to thank my good friend, the chairman of the Finance Committee, for his observation. He is moving in the right direction. As everyone is clearly aware, the issue of not allowing amendments is a highly sensitive matter. The Senate has been changed dramatically in recent years. The time to have a negotiation over amendments is before cloture is invoked, not after. If there is an indication on the other side that we are willing to have that negotiation, the time to do it is now because our experience postcloture with the ability to offer amendments has not been good, to put it mildly. So I think the chairman of the Finance Committee is headed in the right direction. The timing is a little off. We would like to have this negotiation over amendments before cloture is invoked on the bill. ____________________”