Political Quotes

“Mr. President, we worked late last night trying to take care of some of the final discussion on this legislation before cloture today. The reason we have an hour of morning business is to give Senators some time to say whatever they want to say as well as to give Senators time to look at the proposed consent agreement that was arrived at last night between the majority and the minority. I hope Senators will allow this agreement to go forward. If people look at what is in it, I think there is a series of amendments that will be accepted by the two managers of the bill. If someone doesn't like something in the consent agreement, be sure and talk to the two managers. It would be good to get some of these matters out of the way. We have had a number of Senators who have waited a long period of time to have their matters resolved. For example, Senator Harkin last night. We were able to arrive at a conclusion of an amendment that he felt was appropriate. It is an amendment I support and others support it. I just think it wouldn't be--for lack of a better word--fair to not let some of these amendments go forward, but Senators have the right to make whatever decision they feel is appropriate. As far as the cloture vote, I don't think anyone can criticize our having taken time on this legislation. There are a number of amendments the proponents of which worked to perfect the language on and it took a while for them to do that.…”