Dan Coats: “citizens of Indiana sent me to Washington to be their voice. As I travel across the State and listen--whether at coffee…”

“citizens of Indiana sent me to Washington to be their voice. As I travel across the State and listen--whether at coffee shops or factories, small businesses, local schools or people on the street--I hear a lot of good advice about what they think we ought to be doing. There are regulations and taxes and policies being imposed on their businesses and their personal lives. They would like to see some changes, some reforms. Many of their ideas are very sensible because what we do affects their livelihoods. That is what the Senate is all about. That is why we have a Congress. That is why we have representatives--so we can represent the voices of the people who sent us--but right now Republicans, as we are in the minority, are being shut out of our ability to represent their voices. The tradition of the Senate since its inception has been a place described as ``the world's greatest deliberative body.'' A place where we can take time to deliberate ideas, reforms, to be able to offer amendments to legislation brought forward, to talk to our colleagues and encourage bipartisan support, work to achieve a majority so the ideas we bring can be passed into law--coordinated with the House and sent to the President to sign and become law. A strange thing has happened under the current leadership of our majority leader; that is, he has found a way to procedurally gag us from representing the voice of the people of our States.…”