Political Quotes

“Mr. President, I rise here today to express my deep concern with this transportation conference report; in particular, about a provision that was slipped into the transportation conference report literally in the dark of night earlier this week. This provision, which I will describe, could have a devastating effect on my State as well as the State of Illinois. The Greater Chicago metropolitan region--whether it is northwest Indiana or northeast Illinois--is a region that works together. It is part of the expanded metropolitan area. A critical part of this is a waterway, which allows goods to be transferred up and down all the way to the delta and the Mississippi and all the way out to the St. Lawrence Seaway. It is the middle-west access to commerce that centers around the Chicago-northwest Indiana area. This provision, which was slipped in without debate, without consideration--it did not appear in the Senate bill, the transportation bill, and it did not appear in the House transportation bill and therefore is a blatant violation of rule XXVIII, which simply states you cannot do this kind of thing--but it was done anyway. I will at the proper point here raise an objection to that in a procedural way. Let me first talk, if I could, about the way in which we do business around here. Throughout my campaign in 2010 to return to the Senate, I continually heard from people as to how frustrated they were with the process by which laws are passed.…”