Political Quotes

“Mr. President, I came here 9 years ago opposed to modifying the rules of the filibuster. Indeed, I signed a letter a couple of years ago saying the same thing. I understand that it can and probably will boomerang, that an elimination of the filibuster--what is today's annoying obstruction could be tomorrow's priceless shield. I get that. I understand that it can also be a spur to bipartisanship. We all saw that several years ago in the CARES Act. The Republican leader submitted a bill. It was voted down on a filibuster initially, and then there ensued a series of negotiations that improved the bill and made it a bipartisan bill that passed this body unanimously. The problem is, if it is being used as a spur to bipartisan discussions, that works. We saw it work with the CARES Act. But if it is used simply to stop something, in other words, if one side or the other just doesn't even want to talk about the subject, what you are talking about is stone cold obstruction, and that is where we are today. Unfortunately, part of this body just doesn't want to talk about the issue of voting rights. How do I know that? Because we brought up a motion to proceed three times, and it was voted down three times--a motion to proceed to have a discussion about this issue. The only reason we are having this debate today is that the majority leader found a rule that, frankly, I never heard of that enabled us to bring this to the floor.…”