Political Quotes

“I appreciate the intellectual exercise we are going through on the floor. I will just make two final comments because I know that my colleague is anxiously waiting to talk about the need for people to be able to put food on the table. Look, the Securities and Exchange Commission exists, yes, to protect investors and also the marketplace, but they make all types of demands upon the companies that are publicly traded in terms of disclosure of information, so I don't know what is so difficult about that. I will say this: The Nation will have a rude awakening if it thinks it can continue with business as usual--a rude awakening. Something as simple as simply knowing the information about diversity on corporate boards, which every study shows actually improves the bottom line and which investors should be able to have to make those decisions--and we are not talking about the employees; we are talking about the corporate board members, my God, the people who make billions of dollars of decisions, who ultimately decide whether they go to a community or don't go to a community to invest in, who ultimately get the dollars from the communities that I like to see represented. It is good enough to take our money, but it is not good enough to have us have any representation. And evidently this body is not even good enough to have the information so I know who is taking my money without representation. That cannot be. That cannot be the American way. I yield the floor.…”