Unanimous Consent Requests
UNANIMOUS CONSENT REQUESTS -- (Senate - February 15, 2007)
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Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, of course, I will object. This is right back where we were a week ago. As the distinguished majority leader and the distinguished majority whip have said on numerous occasions in the last couple of years, the Senate is not the House. Senate Republicans are going to insist on fair treatment on the most important issue on the minds of the American people today; that is, the war in Iraq. The Senate simply cannot--and I have heard Senator Byrd make these points on numerous occasions--cannot operate this way. The Senate Republicans insist on one or more amendments on the most important issue confronting our country--the war in Iraq.
What I had hoped was that the distinguished majority leader and myself would be able to work out a consent agreement that would allow us to have--he would pick his amendment, and it is apparent the amendment the majority would like to have is the House-passed concurrent resolution, and then there would be an alternative, at least one alternative. Many of my Members would like to have more than one alternative in this extremely important debate, but at least one alternative on this side of the choosing of the majority of Republicans. So, therefore, I object.
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Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, we are not here today, I assume, to debate the substance of the Iraq matter, but it is important to remember that both the majority leader and the majority whip in December were saying a surge might be a good idea, and now they are saying the only resolution we should have before the Senate is one condemning a surge. Let me repeat, that is not the way the Senate works.
So I would like to propose a unanimous consent request, Mr. President.
I ask unanimous consent that on Tuesday, February 27, at a time determined by the majority leader, after consultation with the Republican leader, the Senate proceed en bloc to the following concurrent resolutions under the following agreement: a concurrent resolution, if received from the House, the text of which is at the desk; S. Con. Res. 7, the Warner resolution which is to be discharged from the Foreign Relations Committee; the McCain-Graham-Lieberman amendment regarding benchmarks; the Gregg amendment related to funding.
I further ask unanimous consent that there be a total of 12 hours of debate equally divided between the two leaders or their designees; provided further, that no amendments be in order to any of the measures; further, that at the use or yielding back of time, the Senate proceed to four consecutive votes on the adoption of the concurrent resolutions in the following order, with no further action or intervening debate: first, McCain-Lieberman-Graham, then Gregg, then Warner.
Finally, I ask unanimous consent that any resolution that does not receive 60 votes in the affirmative, the vote on the adoption be vitiated and the concurrent resolution be returned to its previous status.
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Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, if this were to be allowed, this would be the second bill in a row where no amendments would have been offered to a 49-member Republican minority. I have been here a couple of decades now, and I am having a hard time recalling a situation such as this. This is the kind of thing Senator Byrd would get on his feet and decry as inappropriate in a body that thrives on debate and resolution.
It is astonishing to me that it is being suggested, on the single biggest issue confronting the American people, that we would have 1 choice, dictated by a Democratic majority of 51 in a body of 100. That is simply unacceptable to this side of the aisle.
I think the message here from this discussion this morning is that the majority leader and myself ought to sit down, work out a consent agreement, a reasonable consent agreement to both sides, and structure the debate for our return.
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Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, I would say to my friend from Arizona that I am as astonished as he is.
This side was willing, after considerable discussion back and forth, to go down to one alternative, and the Senator from Arizona graciously agreed that his would not be the one, that we would offer the Gregg amendment. Even that was an astonishing concession on the part of the minority, an astonishing concession on the part of the minority to a rather narrow majority to get the debate going. The vote we had a week or so ago was to continue the debate.
The message is clear: The majority can gridlock the Senate over this issue with its insistence there be no choices or the majority leader and I can sit down and do what we should do, which is to reach a reasonable consent agreement for the consideration of alternatives on the single biggest issue confronting America today.
Mr. ROBERTS. Mr. President, will the minority leader yield for a question?
Mr. McCONNELL. I will yield to the Senator from Kansas for a question.
Mr. ROBERTS. Mr. President, I just wanted to make it clear to myself and others what we are facing here; that is, there would be only one vote we would have on the resolution that was passed in the House, which I feel I could not vote for because it is nonbinding--it is, again, to support the troops but not the mission, which I think is certainly unique in regards to how people feel about this--and that, basically, the McCain resolution, which I support, which sets out the benchmarks to give to General Petraeus and to give to Prime Minister Maliki to gain some kind of catalyst or effort that would say: Look, this is where the Senate stands, and hopefully we can get these things done so that we can see some progress, to see if it is possible to achieve some security in Iraq and give that Government a political settlement. And the second amendment I am talking about is the one of Senator Gregg, as I understand it.
Mr. REID. Mr. President, I ask for regular order.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Senators are allowed to yield for questions.
Mr. ROBERTS. Mr. President, I would just ask what the play is, if I can do that?
Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, I say to my friend from Kansas that the status of the majority here is that we would have no alternatives at all.
Mr. ROBERTS. Mr. President, the one I would ask about, if I can ask a further question, is that of Senator Feingold. It seems to me, if we are going to have a full debate, all choices need to be considered, and the amendment offered by Senator Feingold should be considered and should be made in order. That has taken a lot of courage for him to offer such an amendment in a very forthright manner. I will say that I don't agree with it, but in discussions about the ramifications of all of these resolutions, which are nonbinding and which I call confetti resolutions because they do not do anything except send very difficult messages to everybody, I think that ought to be made in order and that ought to be a choice.
Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, I would certainly agree with my friend from Kansas that it might be in order to have multiple amendments on the other side, but certainly that would be up to the other side to decide.
Let me just conclude before yielding the floor that the message here is clear: Senate Republicans are going to insist on being treated fairly. Secondly, I am hoping the majority leader and myself can structure an appropriate consent agreement so that we can consider this matter in the near future.
I yield the floor.
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Mr. McCONNELL. Reserving the right to object, and I will object momentarily, once again the majority leader seeks to choose the Republican amendment. We were there last week when the majority leader indicated that he would agree to an amendment on each side but that he wanted to pick our amendment. So I am constrained to object on the basis that we on this side would choose, if we were to only have one resolution, what it would be. I, therefore, object.
Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that on Tuesday, February 27, at a time determined by the majority leader, after consultation with the Republican leader, the Senate proceed en bloc to the following concurrent resolutions under the following agreement: a concurrent resolution, if received from the House, the text of which is at the desk; S. Con. Res. 7, the Warner resolution which is to be discharged from the Foreign Relations Committee; McCain-Lieberman-Graham regarding benchmarks; and Gregg related to funding.
I would further ask consent there be a total of 12 hours of debate equally divided between the two leaders or their designees; provided further that no amendments be in order to any of those measures; further, that at the use or yielding back of time, the Senate proceed to four consecutive votes on the adoption of the concurrent resolutions in the following order, with no further action or intervening debate: the Gregg amendment; S. Con. Res. 7, the Warner resolution; the House resolution; and the McCain-Lieberman-Graham benchmarks.
Finally, I ask consent that any resolution that does not receive 60 votes in the affirmative, the vote on the adoption be vitiated and the concurrent resolution be returned to its previous status.
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