Dick Durbin: “the Senator from Tennessee is my friend. I respect him. I have said so on the floor and have said so privately among my…”

“the Senator from Tennessee is my friend. I respect him. I have said so on the floor and have said so privately among my colleagues. For the record, I want to make it clear, though, that Senator Reid and the Democrats said there will be no cloture necessary on the motion to proceed, no motion to proceed vote necessary last week on the floor to go to this measure. We had an opportunity to obstruct, to block, whatever you want to say, and we did not do it because we believed that what we had heard repeatedly--that this would be a 60-vote final passage--would ultimately be the standard. There is nothing in the statute that brings us to this measure that in any way eliminates the 60-vote requirement. It is just not there. There is nothing that does that. When my colleague's side discovered they did not have 60 votes, which was the beginning of last week, they changed the standard and said: We want a majority vote, and anything less than that is a filibuster. So that was a Republican decision based on the fact that now 42 Democratic Senators see this issue differently. I would just say this: We have had 8 weeks on this issue, and we should have taken 8 weeks on this issue. It is that important. And every Senator should stand up and say where they stand on this issue, and every Senator has stood up and announced where they stand on this issue. This has not been glossed over. We have not made light of it.…”