Political Quotes

“Well, the sexual assault amendments which were pending, as my good friend from Arizona knows, were debated. There are about 20- plus sexual assault amendments that are in the bill so it makes major advances in that area. In terms of the two amendments that I think the Senator is referring to--the amendments of Senator McCaskill and Senator Gillibrand--there was about a day-long debate on those, and there was an effort to vote on them. I think everybody wanted to vote on those two amendments, but there was objection to it. In terms of what I believe the Senator is driving at, there was a time--I think it was in 2011 or 2012--when a Defense authorization bill was, in fact, adopted by unanimous consent. I think there was no debate on the bill that was finally adopted. Having said that, I happen to agree this is not the ideal way to adopt a defense bill. I have said that over and over. And I have pointed out the way in which we tried to at least get some amendments adopted, including about 30 that had been agreed to and had been cleared, but we couldn't even get those added. Now, with Senator Inhofe's help, we were able to get much of the material in those amendments that were worked out between us and the House leaders so that they are in this bill; not all of the amendments that had been cleared but many of them. But I happen to agree with my friends, this is not the ideal way to proceed.…”