Political Quotes

“if all of the Members are here now, I want to express thanks--I think I speak for the whole Senate--for the work done by Senators Bingaman and Alexander. It is a very important piece of legislation. This is the fifth day we have worked on this piece of legislation; this is only the floor days. We spent hours and hours coming up with the idea, having meetings, meeting with individual Senators. It is a good piece of legislative work. As we know, legislation is the art of compromise. They have made the compromises which improved the legislation. They were assisted by the chair and ranking member of the HELP Committee, Kennedy and Enzi; Commerce Committee, Inouye and Stevens; and, of course, Senator Bingaman's housemate from New Mexico, Senator Domenici, has been on the floor a lot these past few days. It is good to see him up around, back in his fighting form. He has done very good work as usual. I also express my appreciation to Senator McConnell for allowing us to move forward. This is a good bipartisan piece of legislation. I said when this legislation started we were going to do something on a bipartisan basis. Recognizing that although there was a little bit of downtime on a few occasions, I made the decision before we went to this bill there would be no procedural cloture votes filed. I thought it was good to let everybody know we can work through these bills if we have to with a little cooperation from everyone. Thank you very much.”