Political Quotes

“I rise today to speak about both the pending nomination and also the overall process involved in the debate on free speech and checks and balances. Let me first thank and support the efforts of our Democrat minority leader from Illinois and thank him for his eloquence on this issue and indicate that despite concerns about the process now and the lack of bipartisanship in the Sixth Circuit for the last 4\1/2\ years and the lack of ability to come together in a way to jointly support nominees given the context of this larger debate right now and the critical importance of maintaining the minority views in the Senate and our ability to fight for our States and what is important for us both, Senator Levin and I have agreed to allow us to move forward in a show of bipartisan cooperation, a show of good faith with our colleagues on the other side of the aisle, to move forward with three nominees for the Sixth Circuit. It is very disappointing to once again see that motion has an objection rather than moving ahead. In fact, last week, when our leader, Senator Reid, made that motion to move forward on three judges in order to be able to get us moving in the right direction in terms of bipartisanship, the majority leader objected to moving forward on the three Michigan nominees and immediately went to a press conference with House Republicans from Michigan to criticize us for not being willing to compromise and move forward on Sixth Circuit nominees.…”