October 1, 1977
Page 31861
Mr. DANFORTH. Can we have a ruling?
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The question should have been on agreeing to the amendment prior to the time I recognized the Senator from Colorado.
The question is on agreeing to the amendment.
Mr. METZENBAUM. What is the question? I ask for the yeas and nays.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The question is on agreeing to the amendment.
Mr. METZENBAUM. I ask for the yeas and nays.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there a sufficient second?
Mr. DANFORTH. Point of order, Mr. President.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. There is not a sufficient second.
What is the point of order?
Mr. DANFORTH. That the amendment is not in order because it amends the bill in two places.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Since the Senate has decided that just amending the bill in two places, where the second one is simply redesignating another section, does not hit in two places, the point of order is not sustained.
The question is on agreeing
Mr. METZENBAUM. I ask for the yeas and nays.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The yeas and nays were requested. There is not a sufficient second.
Mr. METZENBAUM. Mr. President, Isuggest the absence of a quorum.
Mr. CHILES. Point of order, Mr. President. The call for a quorum is dilatory, Mr. President.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Florida makes the point of order that the call for the quorum is dilatory.
Mr. METZENBAUM. There has been intervening business.
Mr. CHILES. Under rule XXII, motions that are clearly dilatory will be ruled out of order.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Chair has to confess that the Chair thinks it is dilatory because we have just completed a quorum call to establish a quorum, and the Chair rules that it is dilatory. The question is on—
Mr. MUSKIE. Mr. President
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Maine is recognized.
Mr. MUSKIE. Mr. President, I appeal the ruling of the Chair because I am disturbed by a ruling the Chair made a few moments ago.
Mr. CURTIS. Point of order, Mr. President. Under cloture, there is no debate on an appeal from the ruling of the Chair.
Mr. MUSKIE. Mr. President, the Presiding Officer has not yet ruled.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The appeal is not debatable, but the Chair has recognized the Senator from Maine to make an observation, and he may proceed.
Mr. MUSKIE. Mr. President, the Chair earlier ruled on a similar question that an appeal to the Chair is itself dilatory.
Mr. President, the word "dilatory" in the cloture rule is being defined in the course of this battle. A lot of decisions on first impression are being made. They are important decisions. They are important precedents.
But when the Chair rules that an appeal from the ruling of the Chair is, itself, dilatory, the effect of that is to take out of the hands of the Senate the power to make the final decision as to what the word "dilatory" means.
The Senate may wish to do that. We do not know who may occupy that chair at some point in the course of any heated debate after cloture. It may be someone sympathetic to our view or it may not be. But for the Senate to accept the notion that the occupant of the chair, whoever he may be, can deny the Senate as a whole the right to rule on appeals from the Chair is a precedent I doubt this Senate wants to set. I simply wanted to say that — that if the present occupant of the chair rules that the appeal is dilatory, we are powerless — all 100 of us — to change that unilateral, individual ruling by someone who temporarily presides over the chair. I think we ought to think about it.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Chair will note that if an amendment seeks to amend language in a bill, where that language is not there, it is, on its face, an amendment that is out of order. Appealing that decision, which is an obvious decision, which cannot be refuted and argued in any way, where a vote is allowed, does, indeed, on its face, delay the consideration of the bill before us.
Mr. MUSKIE. Mr. President, a further observation.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Maine.
Mr. MUSKIE. It does not matter whether or not the Chair's ruling on that point is challengeable. Once the Chair asserts the right to deny any Senator appeal from his ruling, that precedent can be built upon to deny appeals for any reason.