Political Quotes

“we know that later today the Senate will vote on whether to move forward with consideration of trade legislation. What we do not know, other than what the leader just said, is what is going to be in the matter before us. It seems to me he said that there will be TPA and TAA in the bill, and that dealing with Africa and these other provisions dealing with customs won't be in the bill. That is unfortunate. In April, the Senate Finance Committee reported four bills out of the committee. Each of these four bills addressed different trade issues. Several of these bills contain amendments that the Senate spent months and years working to pass. As I stand here today, Senate Democrats still don't know for sure the procedure of the Republican leader. And I would say to my friend the Republican leader, and to everyone who hears me say this, that using the logic of the Republican leader, he should move to these four bills. If he wants a robust amendment process, which he talks about all the time, why doesn't he put this legislation before this body and we will have a robust amendment process. The ranking member of the Finance Committee is here. He is an experienced legislator and he knows--he was here before the Republicans put skids on doing any legislation for 4 years. He knows what the process was before then.…”