Political Quotes

“this week the Senate takes another step toward regular order in the appropriations process in the Senate. The package before the Senate today contains the fiscal year 2019 appropriations bills for the Subcommittees on Interior; Financial Services; Agriculture; and Transportation, Housing and Urban Development. We have not debated an interior appropriations bill on the floor of the U.S. Senate in nearly 10 years. The Financial Services appropriations bill has not seen floor action in several years either. Why? Because year after year, party-line votes in committees represented the end of the line in the legislative process. Yet here we are today debating both of these appropriations bills and more on the Senate floor. So what changed? What changed was the mindset of appropriators on both sides of the aisle who embraced a willingness to sacrifice partisan riders and priorities outside the committee's jurisdiction for the good of the process. Together we have committed to do what is good for the process because we want to do what is right by the American people. This approach is yielding meaningful results thus far. The Interior and Financial Services bills in this package both won the unanimous approval of the Appropriations Committee, which is generally unheard of--unanimous, Madam President. We haven't seen that level of support for these bills in quite some time around here.…”