Thomas Daschle: “let me just briefly respond to a couple of points. First of all, the majority leader filed cloture before the first…”

“let me just briefly respond to a couple of points. First of all, the majority leader filed cloture before the first amendment was offered. I do not know what kind of good faith effort there had been to try to work on both sides to accommodate the interests that Senators have with regard to amending this bill. It did not appear to be much. Second, as I said, there is a very limited timeframe within which all of these amendments could be disposed of. Let no one confuse the issue. We are not trying to prolong debate on this bill. We are not trying to keep it from coming to final passage. We can do that tonight. We can do that before 8 o'clock tomorrow morning. All we have to do is work through the amendments. We have already agreed to a time limit. Indeed, we can have it both ways. We can accommodate all of those Senators who specifically said, ``I have a very important amendment relevant to this legislation, and I will do it in a very short timeframe, and I want to vote for final passage.'' So, it is very clear. No one should be confused about it. No one is trying to delay it. If it is pulled, we will have plenty more opportunities to vote on this legislation on whatever other bills come up before the Senate in the coming weeks. I yield the floor.”