Political Quotes

“Reclaiming my time, what is he talking about? I voted against bills whose policies I did not agree with and that he said ``we will therefore shut down the government,'' because if we don't agree, he couldn't get the majority votes on his side, and he couldn't get 60 votes in the Senate--which the Republicans were very, very pleased with that when the Senate was controlled by Democrats. They loved having that 60-vote rule because what they said is it requires compromise. It requires coming together, having to get 60 votes. It requires not saying, ``Do it our way or you don't do it.'' The gentleman has not brought a bill, he has not brought a plan to this floor on how to get out of that. And, Mr. Speaker, the leader has not answered when I said, essentially when he says come together and have compromise, these are his bills. They are not our bills. We had to compromise. These didn't come out of Democratic subcommittees. They didn't come out of a Democratic committee, didn't come out of a Democratic Senate. These are bills that are his bills that we compromised on. We are prepared to vote for 99 percent--99 percent--of those seven bills, 99 percent. That is compromising, I think, a pretty far way. We don't agree with everything in those bills, but he is right, this is a collective body. We have all been elected. We all have one vote, and we have compromised on 99 percent. He is holding it up.…”