Political Quotes

“Mr. President, this is a historic day in the Senate. These are qualified nominees. They have been delayed long enough. But we are also considering a larger question; What kind of Senate do we want? What kind of Senate best serves the American people? This is not about breaking agreements. This is about a Senate that is already broken. We once were called the world's greatest deliberative body, and we have become a graveyard for good ideas. The traditions of the Senate have been buried--buried under the weight of filibusters, of chronic obstruction, and by a tyranny of the minority. The Senate has been driven by unprecedented partisanship. The agreement of this past January was modest. Some of us felt it was too much so. The leaders agreed to schedule the President's nominees in a timely manner, but that did not happen. That is not what we have seen. Nominees have been continually blocked--one after another, month after month. That failure doesn't just violate an agreement, it violates the trust of the American people. People in New Mexico--people in the rest of the country--want to know: Who is minding the store? The answer, too often, is no one. As a result, important work is left undone. That is not by accident. It is by design, which is why we are here now. Because the months go by, and we don't have a Secretary of Labor. We don't have a National Labor Relations Board. We don't have an administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency.…”