Political Quotes

“last year, I was proud to stand with my colleagues as we introduced the For the People Act in the Senate just weeks after it passed the House of Representatives. This measure has already passed the House of Representatives. If you took civics 101, they explain that after the House took action on a measure, it came here. So the obvious question is, What happened to it? It has been a year. It must be here somewhere. Well, we know exactly where it is. It is in Senator McConnell's office. He is the Republican Leader of the U.S. Senate, and he has made a conscious decision that hundreds of bills just like this one will not even be considered on the floor of the Senate. It isn't that he doesn't have a majority; he does. But he doesn't want us to even debate or discuss these bills before the American people. This U.S. Senate once enjoyed its reputation as the world's most deliberative body, which means we came here, debated, argued, and voted on things like amendments and bills like this one. Last year in the U.S. Senate, the calendar year 2019, we considered exactly 22 amendments in the entire year--22 amendments in 1 year in this Senate. Six of them were offered by Senator Paul, who, with a gun to our heads, said: If you don't give me a vote on my amendment, you can't go home. All six of his amendments were defeated, but that just gives you an example of why there is so little activity and why this floor is so empty so many times.…”