Political Quotes

“for the record, a year ago when we debated ethics reform, the cloture motion was opposed on the Democratic side after we considered one amendment--one amendment. We have considered 12 amendments to this bill to this point, plus there have been others that have been accepted by the managers. So our objection a year ago was the fact that we had not opened it to an amendment process. I do not think anyone can argue that point this evening when the minority decides, if they do, to oppose the motion to invoke cloture. I do not want to read too much into this. I hope this is just a bump in the road. But this is going to be a long journey of 2 years, and it does not start well when a bipartisan bill sponsored by the two leaders--the Democratic and Republican leaders--a substitute cosponsored by both leaders, and amendments cosponsored on both sides of the aisle are not enough impetus for us to pass a bill which is long overdue. We considered this bill a year ago. It has been set over and over again, but nothing happened. We were determined with the mandate of the last election to see some change on the floor of the Senate. I thought we were off to the right start with a bipartisan measure, an effort to cooperate, an effort to compromise--and there have been many compromises on the floor.”