Thomas Daschle: “I hope my colleagues will come to the floor and express themselves about this legislation. I know a number of our…”

“I hope my colleagues will come to the floor and express themselves about this legislation. I know a number of our colleagues have indicated an interest in being heard. I note that it is my hope we can still get votes on both the tax bill as well as the Commerce-State-Justice bill today. We need to move this process along. We are now less than 2 weeks away from the election. There is a lot of work that remains prior to the time we leave. It seems to me we ought to be maximizing each day. That is why the President has insisted on 24-hour continuing resolutions. I have just had a conversation with the majority leader and noted my interest in our effort to try to resolve these matters today so we can move on to other outstanding issues. We talked earlier about the importance of trying to bring some resolution to both bills. The Commerce-State-Justice bill could be resolved, certainly, by Monday. If we can vote on it, and move it along, I think that behooves us and certainly accords us more of an opportunity to ensure that we can resolve these matters at a time that would allow us to bring closure to this whole session of Congress.”