PARTIAL-BIRTH ABORTION BAN ACT OF 1999--MOTION TO PROCEED -- (Senate - October 20, 1999)

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The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order, the Senate will now resume debate on the motion to proceed to S. 1692, which the clerk will report by title.

The bill clerk read as follows:

Motion to proceed to the consideration of S. 1692, a bill to amend title 18, United Sates Code, to ban partial-birth abortions.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order, there will be 20 minutes for debate equally divided and controlled between the majority and minority leaders.

The Senator from Pennsylvania is now recognized.

Mr. SANTORUM. I thank the Chair.

Mr. President, we will be voting on a motion to proceed to a bill that we have brought up in the Senate now for the third session of the Senate, third Congress in a row. I do not believe there is much controversy with respect to considering this bill. Obviously, this bill is going to pass, and it is going to pass by an overwhelming vote.

The concern that was voiced last night, and I think will be voiced today, is that we are moving off campaign finance reform to the partial-birth abortion bill. I am hopeful we can recognize that we had a good debate on campaign finance reform; amendments were offered; there were several days for those amendments to be offered; and it is apparent there is not enough votes to overcome cloture, to break a filibuster, if in fact that was going to be called for, and that it is time to move on to other business, whether it is partial birth or bankruptcy or appropriations bills and the like, and that a week, almost a week-long debate on the issue of campaign finance reform was, in fact, sufficient.

We know where the votes are going to come out. I don't think anyone is going to be changed by further debate and further amendments. It is time to move on to the other business at hand. I hope we can have some sort of comity here that would allow the business to continue. I think that would be good for all of us, particularly those of us who would not like to be here through the holidays for a long period of time, who would like to get back home after we finish our business to spend some time with our constituents in our States.

So, again, I think a fair debate was had, the votes are clear, and further debate will do nothing other than take up

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the time of the Senate and delay action on important matters that we have to get to before we adjourn for the end of the year.

So with that, I am hopeful my colleagues, frankly, on both sides of the aisle will support moving off campaign finance reform.

With that, I reserve the remainder of my time.

Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, do I understand there are 10 minutes for this side?

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator is correct.

Mr. LEVIN. The majority leader has authorized me to allocate time to myself. I yield to myself 4 minutes.

A majority of the House and a majority in the Senate support campaign finance reform. It was clearly indicated yesterday that we have a majority in favor of campaign finance reform. A minority of the Senate is not in favor of campaign finance reform, and they have decided to try to block the will of the majority, which is their right. They can filibuster this legislation to which they are so strongly opposed, and I defend their right to oppose this legislation with all their might, although I disagree with them with all my might.

The supporters of campaign finance reform have every right to try to pass the bill. That means we have every right to not agree to withdraw campaign finance reform legislation just because we didn't get cloture on the first, second, or third vote. It took four votes to get civil rights legislation passed in the late 1960s and 7 weeks to get that legislation passed. It wouldn't have passed had the supporters of civil rights legislation, after they did not get the necessary votes to adopt cloture the first time, backed off from their cause.

We, the supporters of campaign finance reform, are just as passionately in support of closing the soft money loophole as the opponents are passionate in their opposition. We do not need to withdraw as long as we are in the majority. We don't have to go quietly into that good night after a failed cloture vote.

This vote we are about to take on a motion to proceed to another item of business, this motion to end the Senate's consideration of campaign finance reform in the face of a filibuster by the opposition, is the vote that really counts on campaign finance reform. This is the moment of truth. A cloture vote simply decided that we did not succeed in breaking the filibuster. Today the majority will decide whether to give in to that filibuster. That is what this vote is about, whether or not a majority of this Senate which favors closing the campaign loopholes in the law that are supposed to put limits on how much a person can contribute to a campaign or candidate, gives in to a filibuster, whether those laws which have been so totally undermined by the soft money loophole, in effect, will be restored to good health. That is the decision we are going to make.

This is the vote that tests the determination of supporters of campaign finance reform against the determination of the opponents--whether the majority which went on record yesterday as favoring campaign finance reform will say we are going to give up our cause for whatever length of time because we haven't gotten 60 votes yet. We would not have had civil rights legislation if that were the position taken by the supporters of civil rights--8 long weeks on just one of the civil rights bills in the 1960s and four cloture votes, which finally, with the help of a bipartisan group, were able to take them over the finish line.

Yes, the opponents have a right to filibuster, a right to tie up the Senate. However, we in the majority on campaign finance reform do not have to back down. This is the vote that counts: Whether we in the majority agree we will move to something else or whether we will say to the filibusters they may do what they are doing under our rules and we will defend that right, but we need not and will not back down to that filibuster.

I yield the floor.

Mr. FEINGOLD. Mr. President, how much time remains on the Democratic leader's time?

The PRESIDING OFFICER. Six minutes.

Mr. FEINGOLD. Mr. President, I ask I be yielded such time as I shall consume.

I especially thank the Senator from Michigan for his great determination on this issue. I am certainly going to join him on this.

I will vote ``no'' on the motion to proceed in a few minutes, but it is not because I oppose moving to the late-term abortion bill at this time. Supporters of campaign finance reform are prepared to move that bill by consent, which keeps the campaign finance bill as the pending business of the Senate--that is all we are trying to do--and thereby allows the Senate to return to it once the late-term abortion bill is completed.

This vote we are going to have in a few minutes is not about whether we will debate late-term abortion. Everybody here is prepared to do that. It is about whether we will keep working on the campaign finance bill after a short hiatus to do other business.

I want to be clear: Senator MCCAIN and I are ready to move forward in debating our bill. I thought we had an exciting series of votes yesterday, the upshot of which is, we have three new supporters of reform. We need to keep up the pressure for reform. We did not have adequate time on the floor to do that. The majority leader promised on the record 5 days of debate. We had 4 days, and 1 of the days was yesterday when all we did was vote on cloture.

I say to my Republican colleagues who say they want the chance to offer amendments, now that we have had those two cloture votes, we can do that. There is every opportunity now to offer amendments. There are a variety of ways to clear places on the amendment tree so the debate can proceed and we can see if we can work something out and actually pass the bill.

I appreciate the candor of the Senator from Pennsylvania, who just said, as I understand it, we had a fair debate. This is not what some of the other Republicans said. He also indicated there had been an opportunity to offer amendments. That is what the Senator said. That is the opposite of what many of the opponents of reform said. Which is it? Was there an opportunity to offer amendments or not? Maybe it is an academic debate at this point. It is a very interesting difference in the way the last few days have been characterized.

What really counts is that amendments can be offered right now. If there is any Senator out there who is saying he has not had that chance to offer amendments, they should vote to have the Senate continue on the campaign finance reform bill and come down and offer an amendment. Now is not the time to put campaign finance reform back on the calendar, which in this case means the back burner. It is time to come together and work to find a consensus.

Whatever different spin is put on this issue, the bottom line is this: The soft money system is wrong and it must be ended. Mr. President, 55 Members of this body have now voted for reform. The time has come to finish the job.

I urge my colleagues to vote ``no'' on this motion to proceed and help the Senate take a step toward doing that.

I suggest the absence of a quorum and ask the time be equally divided.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

The clerk will call the roll.

The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.

Mr. SANTORUM. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

Mr. SANTORUM. Mr. President, again I ask my colleagues to join with me in voting to move to proceed to the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act. It is a bill that is important business. It is something that has overwhelming support in the Senate. I hope we can move to this issue.

If there is a need to debate campaign finance reform in the future, then that is a matter for the leaders to work out, whether we want to come back to that issue. I think we have spent enough time on this bill. It is very clear where this issue is going. At least the issues of McCain-Feingold and Shays-Meehan do not have the necessary votes to pass in this Senate. Maybe there are other kinds of campaign finance that could, and maybe we could use this time over the next several months to find some middle ground to get a compromise.

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We are not there right now. It is time to move on with the business of the Senate and the American people.

I yield the remainder of my time.

Mr. BIDEN. Mr. President, I rise to comment briefly on why I will vote against the motion to proceed to S. 1692, the Partial-Birth Abortion bill. I support this legislation. I have voted for passage of this bill in the past, and I have twice voted to override the President's veto. I think we should take up this bill in the Senate, and I am quite certain we will get to it. Yesterday, in fact, we offered to move to this bill by unanimous agreement and, had that been accepted, we would be on it now.

The problem with this procedural tactic of having a recorded vote on this motion is that it ends the Senate's work on campaign finance reform, and we are not finished with that bill yet. We started debating campaign finance reform last week, and we have a chance to make some genuine improvements in American politics. We should finish what we have started.

Mr. McCAIN. Mr. President, I intend to vote against the motion to proceed to S. 1692, legislation to ban partial birth abortions.

This is an unnecessary parliamentary maneuver designed solely to displace S. 1593, the campaign finance reform bill, from the floor. A unanimous-consent agreement was offered, with no known opposition, to temporarily lay aside the campaign finance reform bill so that the Senate could consider the partial birth abortion ban legislation. Under that procedure, when the Senate finishes its work on the latter bill, we could then return to complete the debate on campaign finance reform. But if this procedural vote is successful, the McCain-Feingold bill will be returned to the Senate calendar, effectively cutting off the debate, well short of the time promised to consider this important issue.

I want to make very clear, my strong support for this bill and my unequivocal and long-standing opposition to the practice of partial birth abortion. I am pro-life and oppose abortion except in the case of rape or incest, or when the life of the mother is in danger. Partial birth abortion is a repugnant procedure and an abomination, which should be outlawed.

I am a cosponsor of this legislation, as I was in previous years. I have voted five times over the past 5 years to ban this repugnant and unnecessary procedure, including two votes to overturn the President's veto of this legislation. When the Senate votes on S. 1692, I will again vote for the ban.

As I stated yesterday, I will not give up the fight to enact meaningful reform of our campaign finance system. If the McCain-Feingold bill is pulled from the floor today, I will return to the Senate floor with amendments on campaign reform this year, next year, and as long as it takes.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The question is on agreeing to the motion to proceed. The yeas and nays have been ordered. The clerk will call the roll.

The legislative clerk called the roll.

The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. GRAMS). Are there any other Senators in the Chamber who desire to vote?

The result was announced, yeas 52, nays 48, as follows:

[Rollcall Vote No. 332 Leg.] YEAS--52

Abraham

Allard

Ashcroft

Bennett

Bond

Breaux

Brownback

Bunning

Burns

Byrd

Campbell

Cochran

Coverdell

Craig

Crapo

DeWine

Domenici

Enzi

Fitzgerald

Frist

Gorton

Gramm

Grams

Grassley

Gregg

Hagel

Hatch

Helms

Hollings

Hutchinson

Inhofe

Kyl

Landrieu

Lott

Lugar

Mack

McConnell

Murkowski

Nickles

Roberts

Santorum

Sessions

Shelby

Smith (NH)

Smith (OR)

Specter

Stevens

Thomas

Thompson

Thurmond

Voinovich

Warner

NAYS--48

Akaka

Baucus

Bayh

Biden

Bingaman

Boxer

Bryan

Chafee

Cleland

Collins

Conrad

Daschle

Dodd

Dorgan

Durbin

Edwards

Feingold

Feinstein

Graham

Harkin

Hutchison

Inouye

Jeffords

Johnson

Kennedy

Kerrey

Kerry

Kohl

Lautenberg

Leahy

Levin

Lieberman

Lincoln

McCain

Mikulski

Moynihan

Murray

Reed

Reid

Robb

Rockefeller

Roth

Sarbanes

Schumer

Snowe

Torricelli

Wellstone

Wyden

The motion was agreed to.

Mr. OTT. Mr. President, I move to reconsider the vote.

Mr. COVER DELL. I move to lay that motion on the table.

Mr. LEVIN. I ask for the yeas and nays.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there a sufficient second? There is a sufficient second.

The yeas and nays were ordered.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The question is on agreeing to the motion to lay on the table the motion to reconsider. The yeas and nays have been ordered.