Political Quotes

“Reclaiming my time, again, I would hope and I know that the gentleman and the chair of the Rules Committee's intentions and goals, as are the Speaker's, are more transparency in this Congress. And I don't think it's particularly helpful to cite what may be a failure of the Democrats to deliver on reforming the Patriot Act and say, therefore, we don't have to succeed either in reforming the Patriot Act. I want to discuss the importance of this vote. We all agree that this affects our national security and the civil liberties of Americans. And yet, unfortunately, from a process perspective, we have reverted back to getting this through first on a suspension vote, then on a long-term extension, and now on a short-term extension. Again, there is no doubt that the short-term extension is favorable to a long-term extension from those of us who have legitimate concerns, and I think there is even a bipartisan consensus that these concerns are legitimate about the overreach of the Patriot Act. We will have, as a result of this, a 90-day period to try to work through, in a bipartisan, way some of our concerns and make sure that we protect what is special about being Americans. We had an emergency meeting of the Rules Committee late last night, which was the second emergency meeting for this bill alone. Again, I think we all knew coming into this Congress that these provisions were set to expire.…”