Political Quotes

“Mr. President, as most of us here in the Senate know, this Chamber functions with a dedicated and able staff to support us. Because we are a relatively small body that has to oversee the actions of the far larger executive branch, we rely on specialists detailed from other Agencies throughout the government. It is really a two-way deal. When they come here, they learn about the intricacies of the legislative process and get to participate in it. In return, we benefit from their years of experience in the Agency they come from. In my case as chairman of the Strategic Forces Subcommittee of the Senate Armed Services Committee, we rely on the Government Accountability Office or GAO staff who specialize in nuclear and space systems to help us on the programmatic details of a multitude of programs in the Department of Energy and Defense, and every year, the committee sponsors one of them to spend a year with us. For the past year, we were fortunate enough to have Ms. Camille Pease with us from the GAO as our detailee, and now, her year is up, and she is heading back. Because of the way the Armed Services Committee works in preparing for a markup, members such as myself and Senator Fischer, our ranking member on the subcommittee, spend a tremendous amount of time with staff, including Cami, on hearings and briefings in order to build a legislative record and develop legislation for our annual markup of the National Defense Authorization Act, or NDAA.…”