Political Quotes

“I am a new Member of the Senate, serving in my first term. I was a Member of the House of Representatives before coming to the Senate, and I had great anticipation and expectation of the opportunity that service in this body presented to me. The Presiding Officer of the Senate today has had similar experiences. We served in the House of Representatives together. The ability for an individual Senator, particularly a new Senator, and perhaps even more so, someone from a smaller, rural State, our ability to influence the outcome to receive attention and to have the administration's nominees come to pay a call on us to become acquainted is diminished. In my view, today is the day that reduces the ability for all Senators to have influence in the outcome of the decisions of this body and therefore the outcome of the future of our country. I don't understand why this happened today. The empirical evidence doesn't suggest that Republicans have been abusive, that the minority party has failed in its obligation to be responsible. We heard the words the Senator from Arizona Mr. McCain spoke about others--President Obama, the majority leader of the Senate, the former Senator from West Virginia Mr. Byrd--about their views on this issue. Yet the outcome today was something different, different from what they said only a short time ago.…”