Political Quotes

“Madam President, I appreciate the statement of my colleague from Iowa. I will just make one or two observations. First, if we are talking about someone being beholden to one person, well, under the Senator's view that person is going to be beholden to the department authority that appoints him, the very same department authority that person is going to supervise and review. So it seems to me to the extent that there is always going to be an appointing authority, I would rather have the President of the United States, with the interests of the American people, whatever President that might be, be the appointing authority over an agency where the IG is not going to be beholden to the agency that appointed them. I think that is a much more compelling issue. As it relates to the time, the lapse of time, I would just simply say, well, first of all, if we do not have filibusters and have up-or-down votes on people, then we will not have much of a lapse in time in terms of having an IG come before the Senate for confirmation. I do not know why Senators would want to give up the right they would have under the bill to confirm inspectors general and make sure that person has a robust quality to them, the integrity and the background and the history to make sure they are going to go after this agency when it is appropriate to do so. I would say, to the extent that any lapse of time versus the robust nature of how this person gets appointed is worthy of consideration.…”