Political Quotes

“I thank the Presiding Officer. Mr. President, I will be brief. I wanted to come down to the floor. Right now we are in the midst of discussing a very important bill, the Commerce-Justice-Science appropriations act, funding law enforcement. We all know that we are in troubled times, and we are trying to get things sorted out in that regard. So why take 45 minutes to come down and speak on the Senate floor about such an important subject as what is going on in the VA? Last week the Secretary of the VA decided that he would no longer support the expedited removal authority that we allowed him when we passed the Choice Act. There was a case and the Attorney General decided that she felt like it might be unconstitutional. So the Secretary of the VA took it upon himself to no longer use that authority. The way that I found out, and I think the way the rest of the members of the committee found out, was to read this in the press. The Secretary didn't have the courtesy to contact us and tell us what was going on. He arbitrarily decided it was unconstitutional. I voted for it. Most of the Members in this body voted it. Most of the Members of the House of Representatives voted for it. If I thought it was unconstitutional, I certainly would not have voted for it-- again, acknowledging the duties of being a U.S. Senator. We passed it overwhelmingly and, as my colleague from Alaska has commented, the Secretary has set dangerous precedent by simply ignoring it.…”