Political Quotes

On the recordSeptember 17, 2013
Madam President, it is one thing for a politician to say he misspoke and another for most ordinary people to say they got it wrong. I made a statement on the floor of the Senate earlier this morning which turns out was not entirely accurate, and I would like to clarify it and correct it for the Record. I was recounting the history of the Social Security Program created by Franklin Roosevelt in 1935, and recounted that it faced a filibuster in the Senate. I mistakenly believed it was a Republican filibuster when in fact it was a filibuster by Senator Huey Long, a nominal Democrat, who was filibustering because of his support of certain agricultural subsidies. I want the Record to be clear the filibuster to delay or in any way impact the implementation of Social Security was in fact by Senator Long, not a Republican filibuster. I also note the information I used on the floor was derived from a book which I am reading entitled ``Citizens of London'' by Lynne Olson, and it is no reflection on her that I got that fact wrong. I remembered it wrong when I spoke to it on the floor. The Washington Post is going to go to great lengths tomorrow to explain my other errors in my statement, and I acknowledge I could have done more research before coming to the floor, but I stand by the premise that the notion we are somehow going to filibuster the Affordable Care Act to delay its implementation is not in the best interests of the United States.…
Said by
Dick Durbin
Democratic · Illinois

Share

More from Dick Durbin

Jun 30, 2025

Republicans just struck down an amendment to protect our rural hospitals from being forced to close or reduce their services.

newsweek.com
May 8, 2025

I announce that the Senator from Nevada (Ms. Cortez Masto), the Senator from Illinois (Ms. Duckworth), the Senator from Pennsylvania (Mr. Fetterman), the Senator from Arizona (Mr. Gallego), the Senator from Minnesota (Ms. Klobuchar), the…

govinfo.gov

Other voices in this conversation