Political Quotes

“Mr. President, I encourage the Senate to vote to send the Homeland Security appropriations bill to conference with the House. That should be the order of business. We have been wrangling over this bill for 3 months now. The legislative maneuvering has crowded out all of the real issues before the Senate on this legislation. We should have debated and voted on the President's actions, the Executive orders which provoked this entire situation. On multiple occasions Members on the other side of the aisle have voted unanimously to avoid having that debate. First, four times they voted over the course of 3 weeks to refuse to even consider House-passed funding bill legislation. Their bill was passed by the other body in plenty of time to avoid the shutdown that currently consumes the Senate. This won't be the last time during this Congress that the House and Senate disagree on an appropriations bill, but it should not be the last time the legislative branch disagrees with the executive branch and vice versa. Soon we will begin consideration of the fiscal year 2016 appropriations bills. Each of these bills will prompt differences, but we should have opportunities for robust debates on these differences. That is all I am suggesting. We can proceed to conference with the House in a timely manner on the bills. Doing so will help provide opportunities for orderly and direct resolution of differences as reported by the various committees.…”