Political Quotes

“following leader remarks the Senate will be in a period of morning business for 1 hour. The majority will control the first half, the Republicans the final half. Following morning business the Senate will resume consideration of the motion to proceed to the Marketplace Fairness Act. From 12:30 today until 2:15 the Senate will be in a recess to allow for our weekly caucus meetings. Yesterday evening a number of Senators missed votes. We have talked about this a number of times and become somewhat complacent. We have votes for 15 minutes. We extend it for 5 minutes. We have extended that time for a long period of time. Because of procedural things around here in the Senate, I had to terminate that vote before 6 o'clock in an effort to save a full day of legislative business. Obviously, there is 30 hours following that cloture vote--wasted time. I have talked about it before, but there was no reason whatsoever that we went into Wednesday rather than Tuesday. So I do not apologize. Everyone here has to understand there are certain things we have to do around here. We have been somewhat lax in enforcing the length of votes. It is very unfair to people who vote and have other things to do to wait for others before the vote is terminated. I understand how important it is for people to do their votes, but it is also important to get our business done here.…”