Preclearance is still necessary.

Modernizing, strengthening, implementing, and updating the Voting Rights Act is absolutely essential for our Nation.

My view is that as a cosponsor of the Voting Rights Amendment Act, it does have a nationwide impact.

I do not see that as accurate, but could you help fill in some of those details?

Madam President, I thank the Senator from Texas for his thoughtful comments. When I was Governor, and long before that, and certainly in the Senate, I have liked to focus on underlying causes, not just the symptoms or problems but how do…

I think basically the status quo is not working. We have been pouring more money, pouring in more spending, more tax benefits, and, as you have experienced firsthand, tuition is going up and up.

What you need to do is look at the billions of dollars that we give directly to colleges and universities, over $10 billion a year, and say, here are our priorities, here are our standards.

Colleges should be accountable for their graduation rates and how much debt they are putting their students in.

I can say with some certainty that my wife and I understand that the cost of higher education has risen quite a bit, although this report is in the media this week that suggests maybe not as much as we had thought.

We do not create jobs. We help create a nurturing environment for job creation and job preservation.

When you are spending billions and billions of dollars, and the government is not even telling gifted young people like Amber Lee, an Oregonian who is doing everything right, what the possible tools are in this education toolkit, something…

I think the more we can provide opportunities for competition and for students to have the availability of online and other sorts of new services, I think that will begin to ratchet down costs and I think give people the kind of options…

I am really lucky. I'm really lucky. I'm not going to pretend I am not really lucky. I'm not going to pretend I have more than I have and I'm not going to pretend that I have less and there is something about sort of owning it and being…

Mr. President, I come to the floor this afternoon because this week the Senate has a chance to take another crucial step away from the political cliffs and manufactured crises of previous years and to get back to the regular order--to get…

This will have to be paired with Maliki reaching out to the other minorities, the Sunnis and Kurds there, so they are acting on behalf of Iraqis as a whole not just the Shiite majority of which Maliki is a member as well.

The American people understand the threats posed by climate change, and they want action.

I am proud that our landmark environmental laws were created with an overwhelming bipartisan consensus, and it saddens me that protecting the environment at the Federal level has become a partisan issue.

The inventory was not good. It has significant limitations as a tool for decisionmakers.