Political Quotes

“I come to the floor, as many of our colleagues have done, to talk about this very significant and, for me at least, stunning U.S. Supreme Court decision on ObamaCare. First of all, I use the word ``stunning,'' not particularly because of the outcome. I would not have been shocked at either outcome--upholding the law or striking down the law. I considered both of those clear possibilities. I am stunned and shocked, somewhat confused, by the decision--by the nature of the decision, by the nature of the majority, and by the reasoning. I am not going to dwell on that. It is not my role or the role of other Senators to second-guess it or to claim we have some authority to rewrite it. But I do find that doing backflips beyond the significant power of the Court to completely recharacterize the individual mandate and parts of the law associated with it as a tax--it was never proposed as a tax. It was never debated as a tax. It was never written as a tax. It was never meant as a tax in any part of the ObamaCare debate or legislative action. So I certainly agree with Justice Kennedy who said out loud from the bench, which I think is significant, that to read it ``as a tax'' is not just reading the law a certain way, it is rewriting the law. Judicial rewriting of tax policy, judicial writing of the law to create a tax, is particularly worrisome. I absolutely agree with that.…”