Thomas Daschle: “I have indicated to Senator Frist that I feel strongly about the importance of working with him to try to finish…”

“I have indicated to Senator Frist that I feel strongly about the importance of working with him to try to finish deliberations on this bill. Instead, what we have gotten from some on the other side is just a lot of posturing. This was the original bill: 378 pages. Well, they denied the Democrats the opportunity to vote on one amendment and came back with the second version; this has 567 pages. They denied the opportunity, once again, to offer Democratic amendments, but now they have 969 pages of new amendments. So what they are telling us this morning is that this amendment is OK, but Senate Democrats cannot offer any of their amendments that are relevant, that are certainly appropriate, but that would fall under cloture today. I have urged my colleagues to reduce the number of amendments that they had intended to offer, and virtually every one of them has obliged. We started out with about 75 amendments. It came down to 40 amendments. Now it is down to around 25 amendments. If we had a finite list, I am sure we could work those down even more as we debated these amendments. So I am troubled and, frankly, somewhat frustrated. Senator Frist, since he has been majority leader, has had a very good managerial style, where he has come to the floor, he has allowed Democrats to offer their amendments, and we have worked through bill after bill, including a very complicated highway bill in a very short period of time.”