Political Quotes

“briefly, in responding to the comments from Senator Collins from Maine--a Senator for whom I have great respect and whose reputation for bipartisanship, for substance, and for a thoughtful statespersonlike and patriotic approach to legislation precedes her--what I was referring to, Senator Collins, was the legislation that the Senate took up earlier this year, which, in response to the Supreme Court's invitation to Congress after the Shelby County v. Holder decision, would have updated the preclearance formulas that govern section 4 and section 5 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 such that the Department of Justice could continue to carry out its vital work of preclearing changes to voting procedures in States and jurisdictions that exhibit a history or a pattern of voter suppression. That is an obligation that I believe this Congress has. The Supreme Court, in fact, invited us to carry out that obligation, and the Committee on the Judiciary, under Senator Durbin's leadership, carefully crafted legislation that we believed responded to the Supreme Court's invitation to do just that.…”