Political Quotes

“we want to have a full and complete debate on this bill. But my experience has been that if we do not follow having one amendment--if the managers do not like it, they can move to table it, or there are a lot of things you can do. But where we run into trouble is where you stack up a bunch of amendments that are pending because that is when the managers lose control of the bill. The people who have offered all the amendments control what goes on with the legislation. So unless something untoward happens, I think we are so much better off having people offer amendments. If they are dilatory, the managers can move to table. If that does not work, then we can try something else. But for the foreseeable future, why don't we try to move through this one at a time. I think the debate today has been excellent. There have been no surprises to what Senator Dorgan was going to do. I thought what would be the right thing to do is have--we have had a Democratic amendment. If the Republicans want to offer an amendment, let them offer the next one, and go back and forth. The next Democratic amendment, as far as I understand it, is the Bingaman amendment; is that right?”