Mark Dayton: “how a minority, reaching majority, seizing authority, hates the minority'' is attributed by the Library of Congress to a…”

“how a minority, reaching majority, seizing authority, hates the minority'' is attributed by the Library of Congress to a Leonard Robinson, in 1968. So I guess there is a historical precedent for the attitudes of the majority in the Senate today. The minority is treated often with contempt and disdain. Presiding Officers read their mail or sign photos while our Members speak on the Senate floor. Democratic conferees are excluded from the committee meetings. Our Democratic Senate leader is again smeared and targeted as an obstructionist. For what? For leading the minority party's lawful and proper dissent to the policies and practices of the majority, as though the expression of dissent on the floor of the Senate were improper or un-American or, now we are even being told, un- Christian, when, in fact, it is the intolerance of dissent that is improper, undemocratic, and the charges that political or policy disagreements here are actions ``against people of faith'' are the slurs of charlatans. We are at this brink because during President Bush's first term, our Democratic caucus blocked approval of 10 of the President's judicial nominees, while 208 of his nominees were confirmed. That is a 95- percent approval rate. Ninety-five percent of President Bush's judicial nominees were confirmed by the Senate, but that is not good enough for this majority and this President. Nothing less than 100 percent is acceptable. It has to be their way all the time.…”