Tom Carper: “I was hoping that we might get 70, maybe even 75 votes, and we ended up right in that neighborhood. A lot of people…”

“I was hoping that we might get 70, maybe even 75 votes, and we ended up right in that neighborhood. A lot of people deserve credit for the success of the vote: Democratic and Republican Senators who crafted the legislation, debated it in committee, and who improved it over the last 7 years since the first bill was introduced. The key to getting the legislation passed-- and it is a fair compromise--was figuring out how to set aside our partisanship, saying that we are not interested in gridlock, and for us to reach across the aisle, Democrats and Republicans and Republicans and Democrats, to figure out how we can reconcile our differences and resolve what has been a very divisive issue for the past 7 years and even before that. I said at the press conference--I say here today--my thanks to our leader. I thanked Senator Frist, the Republican leader. I express my thanks to Senator Harry Reid for his willingness to allow this vote to go forward.”