Political Quotes

“Madam President, I rise today to talk about the Iran sanctions legislation, but first I want to talk about the veterans legislation we are on, and why it is so important that we include the Iran sanctions provision. I believe we all want to make sure we take care of our veterans. We will have on the floor two bills today which deal with our veterans, one offered by Senator Sanders of Vermont and another offered by Senator Richard Burr of North Carolina. I am asking the majority leader to allow an open process so we can craft a good bill for our veterans. This means allowing amendments. This means allowing a vote on both bills. I believe that with an open process--with an open amendment process, by allowing votes as I have described--we can in fact build the kind of bipartisan support, the kind of bipartisan consensus we need to pass this legislation. There are provisions in the bills which I think have broad bipartisan support, which is why it is so important we have this open process. One such provision which can help us build that kind of bipartisan support is the Iran sanctions provision in the legislation. It is sponsored by Democratic Senator Bob Menendez of New Jersey and also Republican Senator Mark Kirk of Illinois, and it is cosponsored by 57 other Senators, including myself. So we are talking about a piece of legislation within the Burr bill which has 59 Senators cosponsoring the legislation.…”