Political Quotes

“Mr. President, we have an historic opportunity here in the Senate. It doesn't happen very often. This is a bipartisan bill. How about that. Yesterday we had 67 votes in favor of this immigration reform package. We would have had 69, but two Democratic Members were held up because their flights were delayed and they couldn't make it. Sixty-nine. It basically means we had somewhere in the range of 17 Republicans joining with the Democrats. That is amazing on an issue this controversial. I have been engaged in meetings on this measure for quite a few months. Eight of us, four Democrats and four Republicans, all over the political spectrum, sat down and said we were going to come up with a bill. It wouldn't be perfect and not one single individual Senator was going to like it, but together were are going to agree on something, and we did. There are parts of it I don't like at all. There are parts of it I think are great. That is the nature of a compromise, and that is what we are expected to do. It is a long bill. This is the bill we voted on yesterday. Even though many Members are complaining about the size of this bill, most of it has been out there now for almost 2 months. Even a slow-reading Senator should have been able to get through it. One hundred new pages were brought in yesterday, I will concede, over the last 4 or 5 days, but at least 100 pages can be addressed by most Senators and their staff. Why do we need to do this?…”