Political Quotes

“Mr. President, my understanding is that there is a question now about how to proceed with respect to which amendments might be allowed to be offered by the two sides. It appears to me, at least from my perspective, that some have decided we will only allow amendments we prefer to be allowed and others who have amendments will not be allowed to offer amendments from this point on. My colleagues know I have been here I guess a couple of weeks with an amendment. It is filed, No. 4109. It deals with trillions and trillions of dollars of what are called naked credit default swaps--one of the significant problems that caused part of the near collapse of our economy. I have been here now attempting to get this amendment pending because if there is a cloture vote tomorrow, those amendments that are not pending will not be allowed to be offered and voted upon. I am attempting to get this pending. What we have appears to me to be gatekeepers who decide we will only allow these amendments through the gate, and someone else, unnamed, unknown, will decide that we have to have somebody else object for them. So the result is that an amendment such as this--and I assume there are others as well--would not be able to be considered.…”