Political Quotes

“Madam President, I thank the esteemed Senator from Ohio for his remarks and express my support for his remarks as well. Myself and other colleagues have been on the floor today talking about the need to work in a bipartisan way. Obviously, the business before the Senate right now is nominations, and we want to emphasize again the importance of advice and consent in the nomination process but that it needs to be on a bipartisan basis. The change that, of course, has been made is that now the majority party can vote through, confirm a nomination without any input, any consent, any debate from the minority party. That is an issue not only in terms of the nomination process, the confirmation process of advise and consent, but that is also very much an issue in legislation. The importance of bipartisanship, whether it is in advise and consent in the confirmation process or whether it is in passing legislation, is seen because we have a country of more than 300 million people-- Republicans, Democrats, Independents--but at the end of the day, if we are going to have broad-based public support for the work we do, for the legislation we pass, it has to be done in a bipartisan way. My colleagues have been pointing that out in terms of the confirmation process. Also, they have been pointing that out in the context of the Affordable Care Act and ObamaCare. That is legislation that was passed on a partisan basis. One party, and one party only, voted for that legislation.…”