Political Quotes

“Madam President, I have great respect for the Senator from Tennessee. He is my friend. We have worked together successfully and I hope we will in the future, but I would take exception to his conclusions about the current status of the Senate. I have been in the Senate--now my 17th year. I have seen this institution change dramatically--dramatically--in 17 years. We have faced more gridlock, more wasted time than I ever imagined could occur in this great institution. It has become commonplace for us to face filibuster after filibuster after filibuster. People at home who would turn on C-SPAN to watch the Senate Chamber would have to get close to their television screens and look to see if there was any evidence of life on the floor of the Senate. Are those people actually moving? Are they awake? We go on for 30 hours at a time doing nothing around here. Why? Because we are facing a record number of filibusters from the other side of the aisle. Time and again, when we have important issues come up, they ground to a halt for 30-hour periods of time. We are lucky to do one or two things of substance a week. Oh, there are exceptions. A couple weeks ago we did an immigration bill. I thought it was one of our better moments. But it was a rare moment in the Senate. Too often now we are facing filibusters on the President's nominees. Make no mistake, President Barack Obama won the election on November 6 last year.…”