Political Quotes

“I thank the gentleman for yielding. The information I had was, as the chairman has indicated, that the gentleman who just spoke appeared before the Rules Committee in support of this bill. And we can get the transcript. I don't have it right now, but perhaps somebody can get that transcript for me. For my entire career in public service, I have supported efforts to make America both strong and safe and a force for peace and reconciliation. In the course of those years, I have striven to draw an acceptable balance between our national security and the protection of our personal liberty and the right to privacy central to our unique extraordinary democracy; a government of laws, not men. Pursuant to that principle, as the majority leader, I scheduled the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act for floor consideration over 2 months ago. Previously, in 2008, Roy Blunt, then the minority whip, and myself, the majority leader; Senator Kit Bond, Senator from Missouri; and Senator Jay Rockefeller, Senator from West Virginia, worked together, at a time of great controversy with respect to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, to forge a bill that would garner bipartisan support. It was a difficult bill, with the same kind of principle differences that Chairman Nadler spoke of earlier and I am going to speak about again. We passed that bill in a bipartisan fashion with, as we have today, people on the right and people on the left concerned about its content.…”