Political Quotes

“Madam President, I want to describe to the Senate what we just did. It is a little different from what we sometimes do around here, which is we have long threats of filibusters on motions to proceed; then, we, finally, often or sometimes reach unanimous consent agreements to proceed. What we did here--and it was very deliberate-- was to proceed by motion, not by unanimous consent, to this bill so that if persons were going to filibuster the motion to proceed, they were then going to have to come to the floor and debate it--not just simply threaten to filibuster the motion to proceed, but they would have to come and actually debate it. Because I believe that is the correct way for us to operate. Motions to proceed, I believe, have been abused. The threats to filibuster those motions have been allowed to be successful. One way we can overcome what has been a bad habit of allowing threats to filibuster motions to proceed to succeed is to basically tell those folks, our colleagues, that if they want to filibuster a motion to proceed--in this case, the Defense authorization bill--they are going to have to come over and filibuster. This is something which is significant. It may sound like a nuance to many. I think it probably would to most outside this body and our staffs as to what I am saying.…”