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Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) on Wednesday said the Senate will hold a weekend session to deal with a package of several dozen bills that have been blocked by Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.).
When asked what message he intends to send to Coburn by threatening weekend work, Reid said it was “the same message as anyone.”
“We have to get our work done, and he’s standing in the way of getting it done,” Reid said. “So we can’t have weekends off. We have a lot to do.”Coburn spokesman John Hart said the Oklahoma senator offered
Reid a unanimous consent agreement with a list of amendments but that the
Democratic leader declined, choosing a weekend session instead. “Dr. Coburn would be happy to debate this bill over the
weekend,” Hart said. “However, he would note that the Majority Leader alone
sets the Senate schedule.”
It is unclear how serious Reid is — he has been making such claims since last summer. Coburn has said he objects to the Senate’s process of unanimously passing legislation that few senators scrutinize.
Reid made the comments during a briefing with reporters in which he and other leaders rolled out an ambitious, six-week legislative agenda that may include Saturday and Sunday sessions this weekend. On the Senate floor Reid said he plans to hold a Sunday vote this weekend.
After the omnibus bill of Coburn’s legislative holds over the weekend, the Senate will focus on legislation establishing equal pay for women and improvements to the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) next week, Reid said. Both ideas were blocked last year, when Republicans held 49 votes and had much more procedural sway in the chamber.
Along with Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), Conference Secretary Patty Murray (D-Wash.) and Conference Vice Chairman Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.), Reid said the schedule would include an economic stimulus package, homeowner and consumer protection initiatives, energy legislation, healthcare proposals, national security ideas and education bills. Details were purposefully vague, a Democratic aide said, because details still have to be established and the legislation still hasn’t been drafted for committee review.
“We have to let the American people know that we know how very, very serious it is that we do something,” Reid said. “There was an election that took place. It called for change. We have to change. We’re in a very, very deep rut and we have to figure out a way out of it.”
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