Political Quotes

“the 72 filibusters are Republican filibusters, not Democratic holds of any kind, like Southwick, like FISA. I would say this: Of course, Democrats voted many times with Republicans to invoke cloture on motions to proceed. We had no choice. The purpose of the filibusters on motions to proceed is to slow things down here. Once cloture is invoked, then they wait for 30 hours, and we can try to do something else after that. Now, I am told--I learned right here today--that it will be near unanimous that people vote to go forward on consumer product safety. Why couldn't we have, Friday, avoided this vote and just moved to the bill today? That is what has ordinarily been done in the past. The reason we hold the record for moving forward on cloture is because we have had so many objections on so many things, such as the motion to proceed, which has caused us to waste huge amounts of time. Now, as to the merits of the Washington Post and various newspapers, Mr. President, we have newspapers all over the country, including the New York Times, which say we should do something on housing. They even support our provision dealing with changing the Bankruptcy Code to help people who are in such a desperate situation. So if the Republicans want to do something on the housing crisis, we are ready to work with them. If they want to do something on consumer product safety, why don't we start legislating and by consent move to it right now. We can avoid the vote this afternoon.”