Political Quotes

“The Senator from Iowa makes an excellent point. I was here for his talk earlier, where the Senator led with the filibuster and laid it out and Senator Alexander came back and asked these questions. I think the key question is the one the Senator just asked, which is: What has a filibuster become? The Senator seemed to be defending the old-fashioned filibuster that no longer exists. That is the situation we have. Some of our friends on the other side--I hear them talk about this-- are saying this is the filibuster of the past; it is a very pure thing and a wonderful thing. But it has been distorted, manipulated. The filibuster has been twisted in a way that it does exactly what the Senator is talking about--slowing everything down. It is an attempt, in a way, to defeat the majority from governing. I think the Senator cited the Federalist Papers. One of the biggest dangers in a democracy is if you give the power to the minority to shut down the ability of the majority to govern. If you do that, you have rendered your democracy useless because then you get yourself into a situation, as the Senator from Iowa knows, where they can prevent the majority from doing anything and then run in a campaign and say: Well, they didn't do anything, which is kind of a hypocritical way to approach legislating.…”