Political Quotes

“I want to take a moment to add to what my partner on the Portman-Stabenow amendment has said on the floor. I appreciate working with Senator Portman on this important issue. I find it very interesting, as we are debating--as other colleagues have said--a policy that allows the administration to go ahead and negotiate a trade agreement where we voluntarily give up our right to change, to amend, and that we voluntarily, as a Congress, say we are not going to allow anyone to object to make it a 60-vote threshold. So we are giving them the fast-track authority. The tradeoff, the way we are supposed to be doing that is by setting up a set of negotiating objectives and expectations for what will be negotiated in the agreements. That is the deal here--fast-track authority, setting up the expectations. What we believe on behalf of our constituents, the people we represent, are the most important things that we want to make sure are covered: enforcement, strong labor and environmental standards, and the No. 1 trade distorting policy in the world today, which is currency manipulation. We want to be able to say, if you are going to get this special ability to take away our right to change something, then we expect certain things.…”