WASHINGTON, DC – Senator Roger Wicker (R-Miss.) today called for a return to regular order on the Senate Floor by allowing amendments from all Senators to be considered, not just those few chosen by Majority Leader Harry Reid.

In part, Wicker said: “Because the distinguished Majority Leader has chosen to fill the amendment tree and offer only his select amendments, I am deprived from the ability that I think a representative of several states should have and that is to bring forth an idea and have it heard.…We deserve to be heard. This has been the greatest deliberative body in the world. That is what I have heard before I came over here from the House of Representatives, but it has not turned out that way. The Majority Leader time and time again fills the amendment trees thereby preventing any of the other 99 Senators from offering amendments.”

“We can fix the Senate. We can get back to the leadership we had under Mansfield, and Mitchell of Maine, Lott of Mississippi, and other majority leaders, and we can move legislation along. But, not if we continue this abuse of the process by filling the amendment tree.”

Click here watch Senator Wicker’s remarks.

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