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the vice president: on this vote the yeas are 47. the nays are 47. the senate being equally divided, the vice president votes in the affirmative. the chair lays before the senate the following message from the house. the clerk: resolved, that the house agree to the amendment of the senate to the amendment of the house to the amendment of the senate to the bill h.r. 695

entitled afternoon act to amend the national child protection act and so forth and for other purposes with an amendment. the vice president: the majority leader. mr. mcconnell: colleagues, here is where we are. it's now clear there are enough votes to proceed to the pending legislation on government funding, disastrous relief, and border security. within the republican conference, there's strong support for the president's reasonable request for more resources to tackle the urgent situation at our southern bord border. republicans support the house-passed bill which includes additional border security funding and we're also, however, eager to complete the remaining appropriation bills which the senate has already passed. however, obviously, since any eventual solution requires 60 votes here in the senate, it's

been clear from the beginning that two things are necessary. support from enough senate democrats to pass the proposal at 60 and a presidential signature. as a result, the senate has voted to proceed to legislation -- legislation before us in order, in order to preserve maximum flexibility for productive conversations to continue between the white house and our democratic colleagues. i hope senate democrats will work with the white house on an agreement that can pass both houses of congress. and receive the president's signature. so, colleagues, when an agreement is reached, it will receive a vote here on the senate floor. i move to concur in the house amendment to the senate amendment to the house amendment to the senate amendment to h.r.

695. the vice president: the motion is pending. mr. schumer: mr. president? the vice president: the democratic leader. mr. schumer: as we said to president trump a week ago, his wall does not have 60 votes here in the senate, let alone 50 votes. that much is now clear. democrats have offered three proposals to keep the government open, including a proposal offered by leader mcconnell that passed the senate unanimously only a few days ago. we are willing to continue discussions on those proposals with the leader, the president, the speaker of the house, and the leader of the house. all five are necessary to get something done. i yield the floor. a senator: mr. president? the vice president: the senator from tennessee is recognized. mr. corker: mr. president, i want to thank the two leaders

for what they have done today and what they have done, even toe i know some people tuning in may not understand what just happened, but the understanding that has been reached, i want to thank senator flake and senator johnson and others, is we're not voting on anything else in this chamber relative to this issue until a global agreement has been reached between the president and these two leaders and the leader of the house. so there won't be test votes, not going to be a tabling vote. and the vice president has been over here with his members negotiating already. what this does, i think, is push this ahead to a negotiation that yields a result and does the best we can to keep from shutting down government or if it does shut down, shutting down very briefly. so i want to thank the two leaders for agreeing to go forward in this manner. it allows us to move forward in

a positive way. and yet it keeps negotiations alive. only a bill can pass this chamber now that has all of their agreements, and i thank them for going forward in this manner. a senator: mr. president? the vice president: the senator from arizona. mr. flake: i thank the two leaders for this agreement and the senator from tennessee, senator from alabama, senator jones and others who have worked to ensure that the next vote that we have in this chamber will be on an agreement, as senator corker said, not a test vote, not a cloture vote. what i wanted to do with not proceeding is to demonstrate that not all republicans would be for the house bill either. there is no path forward for the house bill. the only path forward is to a bill that has an agreement between the president and both houses of congress. and the next time we vote will

be on the agreement, not another test vote. so with that i yield back. a senator: mr. president. the vice president: the senator from tennessee. mr. alexander: i ask consent following my remarks that senator coons from delaware be recognized. the vice president: is there objection? without objection. mr. alexander: i want to thank senator corker, senator flake, mcconnell and schumer, the leaders for their discussions, the vice president i thank him for his presentation here today. in my own view, a government shutdown ought not be a part of budget negotiations any more than chemical weapons should be a part of warfare. we were elected to make the government run for taxpayers, not to shut it down. so my hope is that this will put us on a path toward a result and recognize the president's desire for increased border security which we support, which many democrats support as well. and we can finish our

appropriations process. what i'd like to do now is say a few words about what was described in a very famous movie in which jimmy stewart played, "mr. smith goes to washington" is democracy's finest show, the right to talk your head off. the legislative filibuster. and les someone say senator alexander you just announced you're not going to run for election in -- reelection in two years, you're changing your tune. i would ask consent to include in the record remarks i made in 2011 at the heritage foundation about the tradition of the legislative filibuster, perhaps the best known part of the united states senate. the vice president: without objection. mr. alexander: and i'd like to tell a story, mr. vice president. in 1978, a young utah senator came here. he was conservative. he didn't know what he could not

do. and so he took on the democratic establishment on their most important issue. orrin hatch was the senator. he's our longest serving republican senator. he's retiring this year. and what he decided to do was to challenge the democratic leadership who wanted to pass organized labor's major objective of the time, something would have changed -- something would have changed the relationship between employers and employees for years to come. now, at that time, 1978, there was a democratic president, jimmy carter. there were 62 -- 62 republican senators, more than enough to pass a bill. there were 292 house members. so if orrin hatch hadn't been new and young and if he had known more about what he was doing he probably wouldn't have

tried this but he did try it and he won. he offered 1,200 amendments. senator byrd, the distinguished majority leader of the senate tried six times to call off debate. we call that cloture in the senate. and he didn't get 60 votes. six different times he tried to cut that off. so the end result was that the minority view -- the minority view, the republican view at that time, prevailed. prevailed against a democratic president, a democratic house, and a democratic senate. that happened before. it happened in the 1960's. everett dirksen was the republican leader of the united states senate sitting right over there. he had even fewer republican senators. when orrin hatch did his work in the 1978, there were 38 republican senators. dirksen had fewer than that. and lynn don johnson -- and lyndon johnson and the american

labor unit decided that they wanted in effect to make it illegal for any state to have a right to work law. that's what they wanted to do and they thought they could do it except -- except the legislative filibuster was in place. at that time it took 67 votes and everett dirksen toured the country and he was able to defeat a measure supported by overwhelming democratic majorities. now, why do i tell those sters, mr. president -- those stories, mr. president? it's because the foot is on the other foot right now. republicans are in charge. we hear many people say including the president get rid of the filibuster. get rid of the legislative majority. let's do it our way. we should not do that. we have never done that in the united states senate. the senate has always been different. one senator said to me a few minutes ago, that's the whole rein i came to the senate from the house so every time the majority got an idea, it wouldn't be like a