Russ Feingold: “this is precisely the reason the senior Senator from Arizona and I announced yesterday that we will be forcing the issue…”

“this is precisely the reason the senior Senator from Arizona and I announced yesterday that we will be forcing the issue if your proposal is not agreed to, to bring this up, because we do believe that there will be Members on the other side of the aisle here who will support us. In fact, we are down, now, to only eight people. The fact is that originally people said, ``You only have several cosponsors. You only have two Republicans. It will never get through the House.'' That is just a series of what I regard as excuses. Mr. President, now it is very simple. The President has said he is ready to sign the bill. A majority of this body has indicated on the record they are for the bill and a majority of the other House is dramatically in favor of the bill. I just wonder if the leader would comment for a minute on the significance if we don't get this done this year. Unfortunately, we can't pass a bill that will affect this election, the one that will happen in 60-some days. That was an agreement we had. We worked hard and we would have loved to avoid the abuses that are going on right now as we speak. But there is another election coming up in the year 2000. I wonder if the leader would talk for a minute about what it means if we don't get the job done now.”