Political Quotes

“Mr. President, we are here because the Senate is not functioning. We were here last night because the Senate is not functioning. Oh, it is functioning according to the rules, which say that you have to go through this arcane procedure of cloture on the motion to proceed and get 60 votes before you can ever get to the bill. Once you get to the bill, then you file another motion for cloture. The Senate rules say that there are 30 hours that have to run unless, as has been typical of Senate business, there is comity, there is understanding, and there is bipartisanship. But one Senator can withhold unanimous consent, and that has been done--so the 30 hours. Now, normally that may be standard procedure for the Senate, but it is getting in the way of our national security. At midnight last night the law that allows our intelligence community to track the emails and the phone calls of the terrorists evaporated. It won't be reenacted until sometime later this week because of the lack of unanimous consent. But this Senator from Florida is not putting it at the feet of just the one Senator who is withholding the unanimous consent. This Senator from Florida is saying that this should have been planned on over a week ago. This Senator is saying that we should have gone through the laborious procedures--not assuming that we were going to have the votes last night, not assuming that there was going to have comity and unanimous consent.…”