William H. Frist

I want to, one more time, make it clear that we have tried to move to take up the Kyl amendment tonight, but the other side refused that opportunity, and the Dorgan amendment and the Isakson amendment, to proceed with debate. The…

Just a few minutes ago I filed two cloture motions on the border security bill and four cloture motions on Executive Calendar nominations. Under the provisions of rule XXII, we will have several votes on Friday unless an agreement can be…

For clarification, I just filed cloture on four defense nominations that have been pending since last year. ____________________

There may be some other cloture motions to consider on Friday, which I will come to here shortly. ____________________

Through the Chair--and we had discussed the possibility of that a little earlier--I think it is best for us to make that decision tomorrow, only because the Hagel-Martinez amendment is a negotiated compromise amendment that none of our…

That is correct. At this moment in time, you would not. If we were allowed to go ahead on the amendments, and once we start disposing of the amendments, this is something that would be in order.

In response to my colleague and the manager of this bill, it is clear that by protocol, precedent--and I would even take it back to something more basic than that--and simple fairness and respect for individual Members, Members be allowed…

The answer is no. That is the first one. Let us go to the Mikulski amendment, the next one that has been pending for X number of days, and I would ask that we consider the Mikulski amendment and take it to a vote and vote on it right now.

Again, I would ask--the Kyl amendment was not tabled, so it is the pending amendment. And I would ask if the other side would be willing to give us a rollcall vote on that amendment. It is not tabled at this juncture.

Today we had some good debate, made good progress, had good discussion on this border security bill. We had hoped to have more votes on amendments to this bill this evening. We were unable to make that progress. But we will return tomorrow…

We are going to address two issues, and those are the issue surrounding the lobbying bill, which is on the floor now, and we will march through that issue--the Democratic leader and I will explain to our colleagues what has just been…

After 4 full days of floor consideration and 36 rollcall votes, today the Senate passed the budget resolution. I congratulate, once again, Chairman Gregg and Senator Conrad on moving this legislation to passage. When we return from the…

I did mention No. 580, David Kustoff, judicial nomination, as I mentioned, for U.S. Attorney for the Western Division of Tennessee, a colleague and a friend. I wish to congratulate him. ____________________

I also wish to agree with the Democratic leader and express a request. We are going to have a long day here. We have a lot of votes lined up, and we have a lot of votes to follow that as well. So let's follow the managers' lead, and we are…

I switched my vote from an ``aye'' to a ``no'' vote for procedural reasons so that I would have the opportunity as leader to bring the cloture vote back at some time in the future. I did support cloture, but for procedural reasons I…

I would bring it back right now if I had the votes. We need to have the managers working together and stressing the importance that when we start our business, we need to finish it. This is no fault of the managers. They have done a superb…

As we just heard, we were forced to file cloture on the lobbying reform bill. Under regular order that vote will occur on Friday morning unless and we intend to work out some other agreement. ____________________

Today the Senate began debate on the lobbying reform package which we will continue to consider over this week. Tomorrow morning, shortly before 11, we will have a cloture vote on the LIHEAP bill. We expect to invoke cloture, and I hope…

We do not know yet. We will have some idea by later today. But I hope cloture will be invoked and that we can complete it as rapidly as possible. ____________________

Pursuant to the rules of the Senate, I hereby give notice that next week, I intend to move to proceed to a measure that amends the Senate rules. Mr. President, pursuant to the rules of the Senate, I hereby give notice that next week, I…

I take that. But let's move on to pensions. This is getting old, and it is almost childish in terms of us not getting to conference. People are going to be hurt again.

Then, on pensions, my staff said that you mentioned pensions, perhaps trying to stack the issues for downtown interests, the majority decided to play games. What are you even implying? We finished this bill on November 15 on this floor. We…

But things such as asbestos, you can't deny that there are patients with mesothelioma and clinical diseases today who are being hurt by the system and that that is not an important issue from a humanitarian standpoint, from a healing…

So we can make it clearly understood--and I apologize for not being on the floor--the Democratic leader understands and has agreed to the fact that we are going to address stem cells as early as we possibly can this year, that that is a…

For schedule purposes, we now have up to three votes scheduled for Monday on three U.S. district judges, as well as the cloture vote on LIHEAP which will occur Tuesday morning, sometime prior to the policy meetings. I expect that today…