Political Quotes

“I wish to take a couple of minutes to talk briefly about my responsibilities as chairman of the Senate Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Committee on which I serve with 22 others of our colleagues. Almost a quarter of this institution sits on that committee. Senator Richard Shelby of Alabama is my ranking Republican member and former chairman of the committee, I might point out. We finished our work, at least in our committee, last Monday--a rather abbreviated markup, I might point out. I didn't plan it to be that way, but we ended up with a pretty short markup of a fairly complicated bill. A week ago today, at about this time or a little after this time, we received amendments. Almost 400 amendments were filed, so I anticipated a rather elongated markup, but members decided they weren't going to offer their amendments in the committee, which is their right. I had a responsibility as chairman of the committee to consider those amendments if they were offered, and we were prepared to accept some, modify some, and reject others. But the conclusion of the committee was to take what changes we had made and move forward.”