Political Quotes

“I don't know that there is another Republican Senator that I have worked with as much and as effectively and with as much pleasure as Senator Chuck Grassley of Iowa--and I mean it. We have done some good things together. We sometimes started off in opposing positions and tried to find some common ground. The First Step Act was a good illustration of that, but it is not the only demonstration, and I trust that there will be more. I am sorry we disagree today. Two points I will make. Rule 4, as described by Senator Grassley, is virtually, as I mentioned earlier, a doomsday filibuster. There is just no way out of it, particularly with an evenly divided committee. I am not the first to discover that as chairman. I will make as part of the Record, and I am going to share with my colleague from Iowa, the four or five instances when previous Republican chairs of the committee did exactly what I did with this nomination and said: We are moving forward; we are not going to pay attention to rule 4. Senator Graham, Senator Grassley, and others have done just exactly that in the past. So I think we adopted that as a rule because it was already in the rules, and we were evenly tied in committee. But it sure ties the hands of a chairman or anyone who is trying to accomplish anything if there is one person who just stands and objects and objects and objects. It is a very difficult situation.…”