Steve Cohen: “I can perhaps understand why the Senator from Arkansas would want to file this amendment prior to the cloture vote…”

“I can perhaps understand why the Senator from Arkansas would want to file this amendment prior to the cloture vote tomorrow. This is precisely what the majority leader was just talking about. Here we have a bill dealing with unfunded mandates, and we have the minority leader saying, ``Well, we just want to amend it in a substantive way dealing with relevant and germane issues pertaining to unfunded mandates,'' and the first thing that happens is the Senator from Arkansas gets up and offers this amendment which has no particular relevance to this bill. It is an example of what I mentioned on the floor the other day. We are back at it again. No sooner do we go into a new session with a new Congress, with new hopes of perhaps moving legislation at a much more expeditious fashion, at least, than we just have a series of amendments and more amendments that have nothing to do with the bill under consideration. Now that is consistent with the Senate rules. And the majority leader said he does not want to see a change in the Senate rules; keep the Senate as the Senate and not as the House. But the American people ought to understand why it is we cannot move forward with legislation: because every individual Member has his or her particular amendment that they want to offer.”