Political Quotes

“it is with some consternation that I rise this evening. We have an amendment that is very important to working men and women in this country. Basically, what it allows is firefighters and police to organize collectively. It is very important that they have that opportunity. That is the legislation before this body, the amendment dealing with firefighters. The pleasant thing about this amendment is that it is bipartisan. We have 64 Senators who would have voted for this amendment. We have tried very hard. Everybody knows that I have four Democratic Senators running for President. They are all wonderful, good legislators, and wonderful human beings. One of them is going to be President of the United States, more than likely, next year. But we have tried all day to get a vote. As I indicated a little while ago, we will take a 60-vote margin, a side-by-side or a second-degree amendment, a freestanding bill or whatever other variation I can think of. My friends are very good--the opponents of this legislation. There are not a lot of them, but there are a few. They know the rules, and they know how difficult it is when we are less than 3 weeks before the first primary, the caucus in Iowa, to get these four Senators here.”