Political Quotes

“this is summertime. It is the time that we see the rolling out of American blockbuster movies. They also try to save their best for the summer. This summer's blockbuster is ``The Da Vinci Code,'' starring Tom Hanks. It starts this Friday all across America. But the third week in May on the Senate floor we have our own Senate blockbuster. It is the sequel though, not the original, part 2 of immigration. The first installment didn't go well for a number of reasons. One of the reasons I felt it didn't go well was the fact that the President wasn't involved personally in it. He wasn't involved in the debate. For the first installment, I think the Judiciary Committee did very well. They were working on a very tight timeframe. There probably should have been more hearings. That is one reason there were probably more amendments than we would normally have on a bill. But I think Senators Leahy and Specter did an outstanding job to work out the bipartisan compromise--what we call the McCain-Kennedy legislation. It is a bill we tried to deal with on the floor. It didn't move forward for a number of reasons, one of which is the fact we couldn't work out a procedural mechanism to go forward. We tried. We had two cloture votes. All the Democrats voted to go forward with this; all the Republicans voted not to go forward with the legislation. What did that legislation have in it? Both the McCain-Kennedy and the so-called Hagel-Martinez substitute.…”