Political Quotes

“Mr. President, reserving the right to object. I understand that multiple of my colleagues have objections to all of the nominees that the Senator from New Jersey is going to offer this evening. So I will be here to object on their behalf and also on my own behalf with regard to a few of them. Mr. President, I want to address one of those nominees, Julianne Smith, the President's nominee to be United States Ambassador to NATO. This is a nominee to whom I object myself, and I want to explain why, briefly. Before I do that, however, I just have to make one comment on the Senate majority leader's remarks about his own inability to get these nominees confirmed. Now, I agree that many of these nominees are important, and that is, in fact, one of the reasons we should have a vote on them. The Ambassador to NATO, for instance, as I am about to argue, is a very important position. And the positions that she takes, the arguments that she makes are very important, which is why we ought to go on the record and actually have a vote. But the Senate majority leader's comments--as if he has no control over the calendar. He is the majority leader of the United States Senate. He decides when we vote. He decides what we vote on. What are we doing now? The floor is empty. We could be voting. What are we doing later this week? He is gavelling us out of session so that Members across the aisle can go on a field trip to Glasgow, Scotland. We could be voting.…”