Political Quotes

“I also rise to express my appreciation to the Senator from Missouri, Mrs. McCaskill, for her leadership on this effort to reform the way the Senate advises and consents. Because I have great respect for the traditions of the Senate, I was curious as to why holds are a mechanism or a tool available to individual Senators. What I found out is basically speculative; that is, that in the past, there is a belief that Senators--because they could only get back to Washington by horse and buggy or by horse itself--needed time to study a potential nominee. It was a courtesy. It maybe made sense in those horse-and-buggy times, but these are modern times, and the secret hold now, in particular, is being used to accomplish, in many cases, political or perhaps even policy goals. I have great respect for the venerable traditions of the Senate, but this seems like one that should be set aside, frankly. I was also curious to study some of the statistics that I will share with the entire Senate. Since President Obama took office--I think it is 16 months, give or take a few days--we have voted on 49 nominations. Of those 49 votes, 36 of them--which is about 75 percent of the nominations--have been delayed. On average, these nominations languish or sit on the Executive Calendar for over 105 days.”