Thomas Daschle: “This is unnecessary gridlock. This has nothing to do with the Democratic minority. This has everything to do with…”

“This is unnecessary gridlock. This has nothing to do with the Democratic minority. This has everything to do with Republicans simply not allowing the Senate to be the Senate. I do not recall a time--and we can go back and check--when my predecessor, Senator Mitchell, filled the tree every single time a bill was presented on the floor. I would like to go back and find that time in the last Congress when that happened. I can recall, woefully, how many times we worried about Republican amendments and how we were going to come up with second-degree amendments because we were not going to stop them from being offered. And they were offered. So, Mr. President, we have different views about what happened in the last Congress. I will tell my colleagues on the other side, we are taking notes, and should we have the opportunity again--and I know we will--to be in the majority, what goes around comes around. It may be that we are going to have to extend the session of Congress to 4 years rather than just 2, because I am not sure we are going to get anything done in 2 anymore. How unfortunate. How unfortunate. This does not have to be gridlock. We did not want gridlock. Just last week we passed some good legislation. We can do that again. We ought to do that again, but we ought to be respectful of the minority and the opportunities that we have always had to offer amendments.”