Political Quotes

“Mr. President, I rise today to join my colleagues and make remarks on Senator Sessions' nomination to serve as Attorney General. I will be coming back later this evening to focus on voting rights and some of the other issues at hand--freedom of the press, antitrust. I am actually the ranking member on that subcommittee, and while Senator Sessions has assured me that if confirmed, he will keep the independence of that part of the Justice Department away from outside influence from the White House, I am very focused on that because I think we have seen a wave of mergers, and I want to address that more in depth later. I worked successfully with Senator Sessions on a number of UC's over the years such as adoption and human trafficking. We have worked together well, and if he is confirmed, I am sure we will find some areas of common agreement. I am not supporting him, however, and I have told him this in person and I have talked about it at the Judiciary Committee because of my concerns relating to some of his views on some of the core functions of the Justice Department, and that is enforcing voting rights, the handling of immigration issues, the freedom of the press, and the Violence Against Women Act. Now, he has assured me that he will keep the Office on Violence Against Women funded--which I appreciate--in the Justice Department, but I was very concerned that he had actually voted against the Violence Against Women Act Reauthorization recently.…”