Political Quotes

“I want to advise everyone as to what is happening with our effort to keep the government running. On Thursday we recessed for the weekend so negotiators could attempt to reach an agreement on a finite list of amendments to consider today. The bill managers, Senators Shelby and Mikulski, have worked very hard, and they have made progress over the weekend. They have condensed the number of amendments that are being seriously talked about. I commend them and their staff for all their efforts. I have spoken to both of them this morning; they have not yet reached an agreement. I think they are getting close--or at least I hope that is the case. Just before coming in here, I spoke to one of the staff members, and he is reaching out to Senator Shelby's staff before presenting it to the two Senators for their approval. Frankly, I had trouble getting both sides to agree on a finite list of amendments. There were a lot of amendments that people wanted, but he objected to this and she objected to that. There is still hope that we can have a limited number of amendments and vote on those so we can move to final passage of the bill. One way or another, we have to move forward on this bill. On Wednesday I filed a motion to invoke cloture on the pending substitute amendment and the underlying bill. On Thursday we postponed that cloture vote, anticipating that an agreement would be reached and that we could consider amendments today.…”