Thomas Daschle: “Well, the Senator from Massachusetts is as much of a legislative strategist as I am, and he and I and others have talked…”

“Well, the Senator from Massachusetts is as much of a legislative strategist as I am, and he and I and others have talked about what our recourse is given the intransigence on the other side. I suppose we have two options that I am aware of. There may be others, but there are two in particular. One we tried this morning--asking consent over and over that this legislation be scheduled. The second is to take it upon ourselves to schedule it by offering it in the form of an amendment to whatever bill may come along. I have noted already publicly, and the Senator from Wisconsin has noted yesterday in a news conference, that those options are available to us and we will use them as we see the need. I hope that will not be necessary. I hope that we can come to some agreement. I hope that we can be reasonable about this and recognize that the House has acted, and that having a vote on Shays-Meehan isn't too much to ask. But those are our options. We aren't going to lay back and just accept the fact that our Republican colleagues would prefer not to deal with this issue. It is too important not to deal with it. It is too much of a priority for too many Americans and for the political system, not to mention the Democratic caucus, for us to ignore it. So we will use those options and others, if they become available to us, because this is as important a bill and important an issue as there is pending before the Senate today.”