Political Quotes

“Mr. President, I appreciate the work my colleague has done with me and others on this issue, but I do want to point out a few things. No. 1, I agree that this should not be a partisan issue, and, in fact, our bill was as bipartisan as it gets with the two of us leading the bill, with Senators Warner and Burr, the leaders of the Intelligence Committee, as cosponsors, and with Senator Graham and Senator Harris from the Judiciary Committee. It was a strong bill, and I would be glad to call that up with an amendment if he would be willing to do that. But one wonders, why wouldn't we be able to advance this bipartisan bill? It is because the White House made it decidedly partisan. They objected to its moving forward--our own bipartisan bill. Leader McConnell did not want that bill to move forward. He made it very clear. So let's be very precise about why we are having this discussion today, and that is that we could have done this bill with the backup paper ballots attached to the funding 1 year ago, but it was blocked by the Republicans. So now we are where we are. There is this idea that we just wait and every year say: It won't help the next election, and it won't help that next election. I believe in the importance and urgency of getting this done. Secondly, I am not trying to federalize our elections. In fact, this model, while there is more money attached to it, is very similar to the model that we have discussed and that is included in our bill.…”