Barbara Boxer: “I thank the Senator from Vermont, the ranking member of the Judiciary Committee, for his remarks. I agree with him, and…”

“I thank the Senator from Vermont, the ranking member of the Judiciary Committee, for his remarks. I agree with him, and I will be speaking later on today on the same topic. I want to go back to speaking about the Transportation bill. I want to thank my colleagues for the strong show of support we had on this bill. We had 65 colleagues voting to end debate and get to a vote. We do expect a good vote tomorrow, but I have to say that the reaction of the House Speaker took me aback. Remember that the bill we passed was totally bipartisan, with a majority of Democrats and a strong majority of Republicans. Senators Inhofe, McConnell, Boxer, Durbin, and a host of others worked very hard on this bill. Why would the Speaker of the House be so negative about it? As a matter of fact, his comments that were reported in the Politico online version today were such that I can't repeat what was said on the floor of the Senate because I would be breaking the rules. I will leave it up to everybody to see exactly what he said about our bipartisan bill. Actually, the name on the bill is that of the Republican leader of the U.S. Senate. Yet the Speaker of the House demeans our bill. I want to be clear that I defend freedom of speech and I defend the right of Speaker Boehner to say whatever he wants; therefore, I can say whatever I want.…”