Thomas Daschle: “The Senator from California raises a very good question. Absolutely, our purpose is to present our agenda. That is why…”

“The Senator from California raises a very good question. Absolutely, our purpose is to present our agenda. That is why we are here. That does not mean to the exclusion of the Republican agenda. Obviously, we ought to have a good debate about both agendas. But you need that debate. You need that opportunity. How do you have that debate? Not just by talking but by offering legislative proposals: the minimum wages, Patients' Bill of Rights, school construction, Social Security, Medicare reform. Those are the things we are here to vote on and work on, and we need the opportunity to do that. We can do it the easy way or the hard way. We can do it by allowing amendments and having a good debate, by having some agreement about what the schedule will be, or we can force these issues by offering amendments and by having to defeat cloture and by doing all the procedural things we have had to do now for so long. By the time we set aside all the procedural time we have spent, we could have had a good debate on the minimum wage or the Patients' Bill of Rights. The majority leader has said we will bring up the Patients' Bill of Rights. He just said we will bring up minimum wage. He has now said we will bring up juvenile justice. So we are making progress. But I think the time has come to drop this procedural stampede that we find every time on the part of the majority when we want to offer amendments.”