Political Quotes

“I thank the Senator from California for reinforcing that point. I heard one of our colleagues tonight say the Republicans are willing to give us a vote on this bill. No, they are not. The Republicans are willing to have a cloture vote brought up earlier. They then will vote against cloture. But that will do nothing in terms of bringing us closer to a vote on the Reid amendment because if they will not end debate by voting yes for cloture, if they are going to filibuster-- which, apparently, they are going to do because they are determined to filibuster this bill--all that happens, if we don't get the 60 votes the first time that cloture is voted on, is it will be voted on again and again because they are filibustering. The Republicans would then be filibustering against our being able to vote on this bill. Everyone should be very clear. I hope the public will understand what is happening. The Republicans are not willing to give us a vote on the Reid motion. They are not willing to do that. We would be happy to have a vote on the Reid motion immediately, but they insist that we get a supermajority to vote. They want to succeed in a filibuster without even filibustering. That is something which is not only not in the Senate rules, it is also inconsistent with making progress on resolving this problem.…”