Political Quotes

“Mr. President, we have been in session now for about 11 hours, and we have taken up a handful of noncontroversial nominees. The reason? The abuse by the Republicans of the rules of the Senate--filibuster after filibuster that require cloture votes--so we spend several hours on each of these nominations. Even worse, the Republicans have abused the rules of the Senate to deny us in the Senate the ability to consider critical legislation that we should be taking up and acting on. There are many, many examples. I will just cite a few. Justice in Policing: We are all committed to reforming our criminal justice system and our police system in order to deal with the values of our Nation. I know that Senator Booker has worked tirelessly on this issue. We should be able to debate that bill on the floor of the U.S. Senate, but, no, the Republicans will require a cloture vote and will not give us the votes even to consider that legislation. Or consider gun safety, which we have been debating in the public now for decades, and the Republicans are continuing to use the rules of the Senate to deny the Senate the opportunity to take up issues and debate issues and see whether we can come together. Or take immigration reform, where we see the tragedies that are occurring where we need to take action as a Senate, but, no, the Republicans won't give us the votes so we can get on a bill and debate issues and take up amendments and see whether we can't get something done on immigration.…”