Political Quotes

“Madam President, I would love to be able to stand here today and say to my colleague from Nebraska that every time I submitted something to the legislature they loved it, blessed it, and passed it. But that did not happen. There was a give-and-take process that would occur. The budget is actually a perfect example. Like this system, the Governor of Nebraska gets the first shot. The Governor, soon after the legislature would go into session in January of each year, would submit a budget. We have a long session. It is a 90-day session 1 year, and then next year it is followed by a 60-day session. In the 90-day session we would do the full budget exercise. Typically, in the 60-day session we would do the fine tuning. It was a biennial budget that would be passed. I quickly learned if I was going to have any success, whether it was the budget or any other initiative, I had to reach out on an individual basis and convince each senator of the merits of my idea I was proposing. This was not a situation where I had the ability to go to the majority leader and say: Get your people in line. Crush the minority and pass my budget. That would never happen in Nebraska. It would not happen with the majority--typically that would be Republican in Nebraska--and it would not happen with the minority, which is typically Democratic in Nebraska.…”