I appreciate the efforts of my friend from Washington to defend the prerogative of the Republican House. What I would suggest is that each of us has a responsibility to our States.

The vote would be a 51-vote threshold, which would mean-- and my friends on the Democratic side of the aisle have been very explicit that in their collective judgment the debt ceiling should be raised with no conditions. Given that----

Madam President, I wish to ask a question but will start by laying a predicate and ask the Senator's views on that predicate. I rise to support the resolution offered by Senator Lee calling upon the Senate to investigate and hold hearings…

My question to the Senator is, does he see how any Senator of good faith, given these facts, could oppose this resolution?

Mr. President, I rise in praise of Majority Leader Harry Reid. He said the following: My friend from Texas . . . is like the schoolyard bully. He pushes everyone around and is losing, and instead of playing the game according to the rules…

Yes. I object. The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will read the bill for a third time. The bill was ordered to be engrossed for a third reading and was read the third time. Implementation

Mr. President, I rise today to speak out against the so- called Marketplace Fairness Act. In my view, during a time of economic challenge, as we are in today, the very top priority of every elected official, whether Republican or Democrat…

Mr. President, reserving the right to object, one of my concerns is that this conference report could be used to pass a reconciliation bill that would increase the debt ceiling without sufficient input from the minority party and without…

With respect, the legislative language, as I understand it, is triggered whenever there is any form of advertising, be it on the Internet or on Craigslist or The Greensheet or anything else, and that sweeps in a whole category of new…

But if the bill that is being considered were adopted, it would put us on that path, and I think that path would be profoundly unwise and would be inconsistent with the Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms.

In my opinion, adopting mandatory Federal Government background checks for purely private transactions between law-abiding citizens puts us inexorably on the path to a push for a Federal registry.

But what is consequential is extending it to private sellers, not licensed dealers. Because the argument surely would be--if this bill passed, the argument would immediately become: Well, it cannot possibly be effective because we do not…