Political Quotes

“This was not a cloture vote on the managers' amendment. This was a cloture vote on the bill. Many Republican Senators had asked to have an opportunity to offer amendments. Some 35 amendments have been submitted. The time for submitting the amendments shut off at 2:30 today, and we have at least 10 or so Senators who could not get back here. Now, this bill is a good bill. But we have no reason, before we even start work on the bill, to invoke cloture to shut off amendments. Nobody from the White House told us to do that. We have Republican Senators who wanted to have an opportunity to offer amendments and vote. This is a critically important bill for the intelligence community, and I believe we need to work on it at least a couple of days. Is that too much to ask, that we work on it a couple of days? This bill is one that has to pass if we are to get our legitimate congressional oversight.”