Thomas Daschle: “I am pleased to be able to respond to the Senator from Massachusetts, that was really the reason I wanted to come out…”

“I am pleased to be able to respond to the Senator from Massachusetts, that was really the reason I wanted to come out, to address that very point. Obviously, there are some of our Republican friends who would like to make this current debate out to be a choice between having a vote on minimum wage or having a debate on minimum wage and having an opportunity to vote on immigration. That is a false choice, as the Senator knows. There is absolutely no desire on the part of our Democratic colleagues to hold up the vote on the very legitimate question of how we address more effectively illegal immigration in this country. That is the purpose of the bill. I have heard the Senator from Massachusetts say on several occasions we could complete work on that bill in a day and a half. There was not any need to extend out this debate. There was not any need to fill parliamentary trees in an elaborate fashion to deny the opportunity to raise these questions. We were prepared to vote on minimum wage with a half hour of debate. We could have done it last week. That was not done. So it is a false choice. The false choice is that we are being told it is either one or the other. Well, they can delay a vote on minimum wage, but they cannot deny it.”