Orrin Hatch: “Well, they cannot have it both ways. Let me be clear. It is because of the potential feeding frenzy that the leader…”

“Well, they cannot have it both ways. Let me be clear. It is because of the potential feeding frenzy that the leader moved to safeguard the bill from an open season on nongermane, nonrelevant, extraneous amendments. He did it to advance the ball on this legislation so it can be considered without the same initiatives we saw with other measures that were considered by the Senate this year. He did it with the hope of reaching a time agreement on amendments. He was not being unreasonable. He even allowed one nongermane amendment the Democrats have tried to get an up or down vote on all year, which members on this side feel is a terrible amendment. But probably it would pass, who knows. At least some think it would probably pass. I think there needs to be a substitute amendment to it that would probably pass. I want to remind my Democratic colleagues the majority leader made three extremely generous offers regarding the consideration of germane and nongermane amendments. First, he asked unanimous consent that amendments be limited to five related amendments to be offered by each side. So nobody would be foreclosed from offering the amendments they might think are important. When the minority leader objected to the offer, he expanded the request to include 10 related amendments on each side. I don't know how he could have been more fair.”