Political Quotes

“Mr. President, the debate about the legislative filibuster is not a debate about S. 1 or S. 101 or S. 901. No, this is a debate about nothing less than the nature and durability of American self- government. Quite apart from the wrestling over which particular bill was filibustered 8 years ago or 4 years ago or 2 years ago or tomorrow, the decision about whether or not to eliminate the filibuster is the Senate's most important policy debate in decades. Eliminating the filibuster would obviously have all kinds of policy consequences, from tax rates and labor law to energy and infrastructure. But that is not why the debate is so important. This isn't fundamentally a debate about this or that policy. The debate about the filibuster is deeper than that because it is a debate about how and whether we debate at all. This matters a whole lot in a country this big, in a continental nation, because it is right at the heart of how peaceable self-government works at all. If we just blow that up, if we act as if it is just a matter of time before the filibuster goes away and all we really have is red-versus-blue jerseys anyway, if we just end the Senate's rules as they have existed for 240 years, we will dramatically alter not just this institution but our entire form of self-government, and in the process we will dramatically escalate the fevered pitch of America's recent arguing.…”