Political Quotes

“Today the Senate had a historic moment. We passed a bill that has been long awaited across America--one that was read about and heard about. It finally passed this afternoon. It was a bill called the technical corrections bill. It was a bill that changed and corrected the punctuation and references in a highway bill we enacted several years ago. It was not that historic. In fact, it is fairly routine. You see, after you pass a bill that affects the whole United States and billions of dollars, sometimes, on reflection, you find some of the facts were wrong, some of the words were wrong; and you have to clean it up. And so a technical corrections bill is very common around here. It happens to correct mistakes, to make sure things are done well and done accurately. It is the kind of bill that historically would pass without any debate whatsoever. Many times it would pass by a voice vote late at night when no one is here because there is so little controversy attached to it. So despite what I said at the outset, it is not that historic. But what made this process historic, and we are researching this, but we believe for the first time in the history of the Senate, the Republicans initiated not one but two filibusters on our effort to pass this technical corrections bill.”