Political Quotes

“I say to Senator Merkley, what you point out that is so important for people to understand--when we put the original bill back in there in World War I, it was put in so that a minority could not block it. We had Woodrow Wilson as President. He was very concerned. We were talking about national security during a war, and he wanted to arm our merchant ships. He got a bill out of the House of Representatives, and it was rolling toward the Senate. It was near the end of the session, and he took that bill very seriously. He thought it was vital to the national security of the country, and he asked the Senate to act on it. There were about 11 or 12 Senators, I believe, who had decided: We are near the end of the session; let's just run out the clock. There was no procedure to be able to get to the bill before the clock ran out. These 11 Senators took to the floor and they ran out the clock, and Woodrow Wilson said: No way am I going to allow that to happen again. He got a bee in his bonnet on that one. The next Congress that came in, the President said he wanted a rule so that wouldn't happen again. So they put in a rule which was at the time 67 votes in order to cut off debate, and that rule has really been turned on its head with what is happening in recent times. The rule was originally so that a small minority could cut off debate and could proceed to the issue. Now we have calls to the cloakroom, calls to the leadership. You and I don't know what is going on.…”