Political Quotes

“Mr. President, I want to make a few points in response to the Senator from Louisiana who has been pushing to get a number of so-called noncontroversial amendments adopted. There have been a number of misrepresentations. A major incorrect point made is that our side responded with only a list of controversial amendments. The fact is we sent over, for consideration by the other side, a number of amendments on our list but we did not hear that we could just get a vote. But in addition to sending back a list of noncontroversial amendments we did ask if we could have a vote on a number of our amendments. So talk about breakdowns, we cannot even get a vote on our amendments. In regard to some of the amendments the Senator from Louisiana has suggested, they are not as easy as appears. Some are badly drafted, so we tried to fix them and send them back. We have not heard yet. The list we sent over does not say we will not agree to more amendments later, but we have to work through these and fix those that are messed up, frankly. The latest problem is that the Democrats want to pick which Republican amendments we can vote on. I have, for instance, an anti- gang amendment the Democrats do not want to vote on. Their bill allows gang members to become citizens. We should get votes on our amendments in addition to this whole process of approving a list of noncontroversial amendments that can be adopted en bloc. I yield the floor.”