Political Quotes

“Mr. President, I will be very brief and save most of the debate for next week, but I do want to respond to a few of the statements my friend from Arizona made. First of all, in terms of hate crimes amendments, last year when we adopted this, it was not the first time we adopted it on the Defense authorization bill. We at least considered and adopted, in some cases, hate crimes amendments in the fiscal year 2001 authorization bill, the fiscal year 2005 authorization bill, and the fiscal year 2008 authorization bill. I did not hear my friend at that time make suggestions that somehow the committee had lost its way in terms of bipartisanship. We have not lost our way. The Senate is a body which has a right to offer amendments which are not germane or relevant to the bill in front of us. This is not the first time that someone wants to offer these amendments. It will not be the last time. For it to produce the charge that somehow or another the committee is no longer a bipartisan committee, it seems to me, is unfair, it is inappropriate, and I reject it. The Senate has considered amendments on the Defense authorization bill in the last 20 years, not just on hate crimes, over and over again--long before I became chairman, by the way--but we have debated amendments on the Defense authorization bill on indecency standards, minimum wage, managed health plans, welfare reform, and the death penalty for drug-related killings. Those are just a few.…”