March 18, 1977
Page 8157
Mr. NELSON. The Senator from Wisconsin will yield whatever time the Senator from Maine desires on the amendment.
Mr. MUSKIE addressed the Chair.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New Hampshire has the floor.
Mr. DURKIN. That is right.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. And has yielded time to the Senator from Maine.
Mr. MUSKIE. I do not need more than2 minutes.
Mr. DURKIN. I am willing to yield to the Senator from Maine provided I do not lose my right to the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The time is under the control of the Senator from New Hampshire and the Senator from Wisconsin for 1 hour each on the pending amendment.
Mr. DURKIN. I do not care whose time. He can use mine. I have said all I believe need be said. It speaks for itself.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New Hampshire has yielded time to the Senator from Maine.
Mr. DURKIN. Five minutes. I am happy to yield 5 minutes without losing my right to the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Five minutes.
Mr. MUSKIE. Mr. President, I do not think I will take 5 minutes.
But I am concerned, I say to the Senator from New Hampshire in all candor, that this issue should have arisen at this time — in this form — for the very simple reason that implicit in his amendment is approval of the limitation on earned income which is contained in the committee resolution.
I find it very difficult to cast a vote when that assumption underlies it.
I would much prefer to get the question of the limitation on earned income decided before we begin laying the ground rules for the earned income which is permitted a Senator once that limitation question is decided.
I do not know how I will vote for the Senator's amendment if I am for removing that limit on earned income that a Senator is entitled to keep for his own purposes and the Senator's amendment forces me to consider the resolution in a form I am not yet prepared to conceive.
So for that reason, I am very unhappy that the Senator's amendment should have been offered at this point.
In the second place, under the limitation on honoraria that we have been living under, I have searched for a way and searched for a way to make speeches for lecture fees that I could turn over to charities in which I am interested, for example, my alma mater and scholarship program. With all its shortcomings, the committee resolution at least made provision for that.
I was never able to find a way under the tax code or under the ethics resolution that controlled this body to do that.
So not only was I not permitted to make lecture fees in the interests of my favorite charities, but I was not able to earn lecture fees for the benefit of other charities. The committee resolution provides for this very well, in my judgment, and I do not like to see that disturbed. The Senator's amendment forces me to disturb that.
With respect to the other part of the Senator's amendment, I have no problem with that, but that is a question we can easily settle at any time, once we settle the main question of how we deal with earned income.
So I think it is premature, No. 1. No. 2, it forces me to accept as an implication that we are going to be limited to 15 percent of our basic salary in terms of lecture fees, because that is implicit in his amendment. Third, it disturbs the best solution I have seen yet on this question:
If there is a limit on earned income, how do we earn above that to benefit charities in which we are interested?
Yet I am forced to choose between those desirable objectives and the other part of the Senator's amendment. If I say "No" to the amendment on the first round, it forces me to approve honoraria from suspect organizations.
It gives me no alternative but to be put in a bad light whichever way I choose to vote on the Senator's amendment, and I do not like it for that reason.
Mr. DURKIN. Mr. President, I might point out as to the concern of the Senator from Maine, if he wants to designate his honoraria to his alma mater, he can do it under my amendment as long as he is not the middleman.
Mr. MUSKIE. If the Senator will yield, if the Senator thinks there is that little difference between the committee report on that matter and his, why does he not eliminate it from his amendment and I will vote for the rest of his amendment? But he confuses a point that is meaningless. He is nitpocking at the question of how to get lecture fees into the hands of desirable charities and is making it very difficult for us, those of us who are with him on the rest of his amendment, to support it.
Why muddy the waters? There are several ways, many of which I have not discovered, of getting legislation approved in this body.
But I certainly would not mix the two objectives which the Senator has mixed in his amendment, if I was interested in either one of them.
Mr. DURKIN. I do not want to argue with my good friend from the neighboring State of Maine, but I must point out that he can designate it so long as he is not the middle man.
Mr. President, I yield back the remainder of my time.
Mr. McCLURE. Mr. President, will the Senator yield for a question, before he yields back the remainder of his time?
Mr. DURKIN. I yield back the remainder of my time.
Mr. NELSON. Mr. President, the Senator from Wisconsin yields back the remainder of his time. I move to table the amendment, and 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 table the amendment of the Senator from New Hampshire. On this question the yeas and nays have been ordered, and the clerk will call the roll.