Arlen Specter: “I take strong offense to the statements made by the Senator from Nevada. His accusation that lobbyists are buying their…”

“I take strong offense to the statements made by the Senator from Nevada. His accusation that lobbyists are buying their way into the Senate is an outrageous violation of rule XIX, which provides that no Senator in debate shall directly or indirectly, by any form of words, impute to another Senator or to other Senators any conduct or motive unworthy or unbecoming a Senator. To say that this bill, which Senator Leahy and I have led for the better part of the last 3 years, is the result of lobbyists ``buying their way into the Senate'' is slanderous. That is a violation of rule XIX. It may be that the Senator from Nevada is used to slander, is used to libel, because that is what he did recently to 33 Senators. Regrettably, nobody has challenged him under rule XIX. Rule XIX relates to what is done on the floor of the Senate, but in this day and age of debates outside the Senate, of debates on television and radio and in the newspaper, 33 Senators were victimized by the Senator from Nevada, who then scribbled out a form apology letter which was meaningless in the context of what was done. And to talk about lobbyists buying their way onto the Senate floor is an outrageous distortion of what has happened on this bill. The fact is, over the course of the last 2\1/2\ years, there have been 36 meetings held in my office, attended by people who have an interest in this legislation or their representatives. The AFL-CIO was there. Trial lawyers were there.…”