Political Quotes

“as the 109th Congress fades into memory and the 110th Congress comes into view, I want to say a few words about the importance of Senate rules. One of our finest accomplishments over the last 2 years was something that the Senate chose not to do. In May 2005, the Senate turned aside the so-called nuclear option and decided to preserve the rules of the Senate which allow for extended debate on judicial nominations. Almost a century ago the Senate adopted rule XXII which formalized the principle of extended debate and established a balanced mechanism for limiting debate. The current version of rule XXII requires two-thirds of the Senate to cut off debate on any change in the rules and three-fifths of the Senate to cut off debate on any other question before the body. The nuclear option would have forced a change in this venerable Senate rule by the brute force of a simple majority vote. The campaign to rewrite Senate rules was misguided from the start. It was a raw abuse of power fueled by a misreading of history. The Senate came dangerously close to adopting this plan. On the eve of the showdown vote, a courageous band of 14 Senators, 7 Democrats and 7 Republicans, came together to derail it. They agreed to vote as a block against the nuclear option in exchange for an up-or-down vote on a handful of disputed court of appeals nominees.”