Patrick Leahy: “one of the joys of the Appropriations Committee is that there are a lot of senior Members on both sides of the aisle who…”

“one of the joys of the Appropriations Committee is that there are a lot of senior Members on both sides of the aisle who are used to working with each other to build the kind of personal relationships that are necessary. I cherish my own friendship with the Senator from Alaska and the Senator from Kentucky. We have worked together on a lot of different pieces of legislation, not just this one but a lot of others, and I think we understand there are certain things that can be done and certain things that cannot be done, and we go for the possible. I note that this is a record, and I commend the Senator from Kentucky for getting it through so rapidly. But it is a case, again, I would say to the chairman of the Appropriations Committee, who sat down with us and tried to give us leeway, a realistic schedule, of the ability to work out many things even before they got to the floor. What has been happening with the appropriations bills is a model of the way it should be done--move them, move them quickly. The Senate is better served. The country is better served.”