Political Quotes

“this morning we have allocated the first 30 minutes for a brief period of morning business. After that first half- hour period, we will return to the consideration of the Labor-HHS appropriations bill. Chairman Specter and Senator Harkin have started a process of lining up amendments to be considered. Last night we locked in a vote which will begin at 10:30 this morning. That vote will be on Senator Specter's amendment on Medicaid/Medicare centers for services. I encourage Members who have amendments to the Labor-HHS bill to contact both managers as soon as possible. In order to ensure we finish the bill this week, we may have to file cloture at some point. We do not want to foreclose Members' rights to offer amendments. Thus, Senators should exercise their right to offer those amendments and do it now, come over this morning and over the course of the day. We will have multiple votes during today's session. Senators need to come to the floor promptly once a vote is called. As both the Democratic leader and I mentioned yesterday, we need to be responsible in voting on time, and that is a courtesy to the rest of the Senate. But even more importantly, we have so much to do that we do need to run the place in a disciplined way. We will have our policy luncheons today from 12:30 to 2:15. ____________________”