Political Quotes

“I am coming down to the Senate floor for the second time in about a month to try to pass a really important bill for some really heroic constituents of mine, Alaskan Native Vietnam veterans, and I am going to explain this bill a little bit. Hopefully, the Senate is going to work well, because when I tried to pass this a month ago, Senator Padilla said: Hey, I am going to object, but if you work with us on some bills that you can move in a pairing, then we will pass this. So I have done that, and I will talk about that. I am actually going to try to pass two bills. I see that the senior Senator from New Mexico is on the floor, which doesn't bode well for the passage of this bill, which is disappointing, and I am going to get to why it is disappointing. It is remarkable that this bill would be blocked, again, by Democrats. But let me give you a little bit about the background. So Alaska Native people in my State serve at higher rates in the military than any other ethnic group in the country--what I refer to as special patriotism. You go into Alaska Native villages, you ask how many veterans are there, and almost everybody raises their hand. It is remarkable. It is patriotic. It is incredible. If the rest of the country were like Alaska Native people in terms of service to our military, we would have a better America.”