Political Quotes

“The Senator from Iowa and my good friend, the Senator from Oregon, want to speak. The Senator mentioned--and I want to put this quote in the Record--the Senator from Texas, Mr. Cornyn, who came to the floor and talked today. One of the reasons I have a real belief that we might have some common ground is he was a judge before he came to the Senate. I think he was on the supreme court in the State of Texas. On this issue of the constitutional option, he wrote a law review article in the Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy. The name of the article was ``Our Broken Judicial Confirmation Process and the Need for Filibuster Reform.'' Listen to this. This is Senator John Cornyn of Texas: Just as one Congress cannot enact a law that a subsequent Congress could not amend by majority vote, one Senate cannot enact a rule that a subsequent Senate could not amend by majority vote. Such power, after all, would violate the general common law principle that one parliament cannot bind another. He is basically driving home the point that we have the authority today, on the first day of the 112th Congress, the first legislative day, to pull together and take a hard look at the rules. The Senator from Iowa raised a very important issue on consensus. I am going to pass this off to Senator Merkley in this colloquy and let him answer that point. Maybe he may have another question. I wish our friends on the other side of the aisle were here for this discussion.…”