Political Quotes

“We started this morning at about 11 o'clock. We had to invoke cloture on the motion to proceed to this bill, which was supposedly a bill everyone wanted. It is too bad we had to invoke cloture on the motion to proceed, but we did. We have been working all day to set up rollcall votes--all day. We thought we had one a few minutes ago, but a couple Senators came over and said: There will not be a vote on that unless I am guaranteed votes on mine--even though their votes are totally not relevant or germane to the subject matter. I appreciate Senator Lieberman and Senator Susan Collins. They are fine legislators. They understand what this body is all about and how important this legislation is and how important they are as managers of this bill. So they are negotiating on several of the amendments. But at some point, Mr. President, this becomes ridiculous. To have Senators come over here and say they are not going to allow a vote on an amendment unless they are guaranteed votes on nongermane, nonrelevant amendments? Then people criticize me for not having an open amendment process? It becomes a circus. This is not the Senate that we have had or should have. At some point, we need cooperation from Members on both sides of the aisle to set up votes and dispose of these amendments and move on to passage of the bill. I do not want to have to file cloture on this bill.…”