Political Quotes

“I intend to object to proceeding to the nomination of Jessica Rosenworcel and Ajit Pai to be commissioners on the Federal Communications Commission. I will object to proceeding to the nomination because the FCC continues to stonewall a document request I submitted to the FCC over 6 months ago on April 27, 2011, regarding their actions related to LightSquared and Harbinger Capital. Since then, I have repeated my request to the FCC through letters I sent on July 5 and September 8 and the FCC continues to deny my request for documents. During the course of my correspondence with the FCC, the FCC has made it clear that it will not voluntarily turn over documents to the 99.6 percent of the Members of Congress and Senators who do not chair a committee with direct jurisdiction over the FCC. As I said in my September 8, 2011, letter their actions are misguided and unsupportable. It not only sets a dangerous precedent for Federal agency to unilaterally set the rules on how it engages with Congress it also prevents any meaningful ability for the vast majority of Congress to inform themselves of how an agency works. Several months ago, I had to take similar action when I supported Senator Chambliss' hold of James Cole's nomination to be Deputy Attorney General in order to get documents from the Department of Justice. In the end, the documents we uncovered shed light on the Department's actions regarding Operation Fast and Furious and the murder of Agent Brian Terry.…”