Political Quotes

“Mr. President, I first thank Senator Whitehouse for his leadership. I am proud to join him and so many of my colleagues in supporting and cosponsoring the legislation in front of us. I thank the majority leader for his comments, and all of those who care deeply about, frankly, our democracy, which is what we are talking about this evening. I strongly believe in the DISCLOSE Act and think it is critical as step 1. I think there is much more that needs to be done even as we go forward to add to this. But this is a very important, basic standard of transparency. If someone spends $10,000 on ads trying to affect an election, people should know who they are. It is just as simple as that. I think it is important for us to emphasize the fact that the majority of the Senate this evening voted for this bill. The reason we did not pass the bill tonight is that the Republicans, colleagues on the other side of the aisle, are putting us in a situation where we have to reach 60 votes and therefore, by not doing that, they are filibustering the bill. So they are blocking the bill. They are filibustering the bill. We have a majority. All we want is a vote. Give us a vote. If we had an up-or-down vote on this bill, this bill would have been passed. I think it is incredibly important for everyone to understand that. It is not that we do not have the support. We have the votes. It was demonstrated this evening. At the moment what we do not have is the supermajority to get past a filibuster.…”