Emergency Unemployment Compensation Extension Act

Floor Speech

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, reserving the right to object, we have now been on this bill a week--a week. No amendments have been allowed. It is pretty clear the majority leader is not interested in having an open amendment process. And, of course, the consent request that has just been offered requires that all of the Republican amendments be at a 60-vote threshold and that final passage be at 51--in other words, guaranteed to fix the result in such a way that doesn't give the minority a fair chance.

I mean, who is to say, a number of our amendments might be appealing to Members on the Democratic side. That is probably why the majority leader wants it to be at 60, because he is afraid they may pass.

So this has obviously been fixed to guarantee that you get no outcome. Of course, our Members who voted to get on the bill, who are anxious to try to improve the bill and find a way to get us to final passage, have also found this agreement to be unacceptable. So I am not speaking just for myself but for the Members on my side who have spent a lot of time over the last week trying to figure a way to get this bill across the floor in a bipartisan fashion which would actually achieve the result and try to get us to some reforms as well.

So I ask unanimous consent that once the Senate resumes consideration of S. 1845, the unemployment extension bill, the first amendment in order be a Heller-Collins amendment related to the bill. I further ask unanimous consent that following the disposition of that amendment, it be in order for the majority leader, or his designee, to offer an amendment, and it be in order for the leaders or their designees to continue to offer amendments in an alternating fashion.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source