Political Quotes

“I am disappointed because, as I indicated, last year we had 14 votes postcloture. But I have learned a little bit about this place, that sometimes you have to do indirectly what you cannot do directly. It makes so much sense that, if people want more amendments, it would be wise to agree to our suggestion that we put over the cloture vote to later this evening. We could process amendments during that time and have a cloture vote tonight. I understand there is going to be an objection, but I am going to do indirectly what I can't do directly. That is, everyone should know, if cloture is not invoked this morning--if the Republican leader says he is going to recommend to all his folks that they vote no on cloture, I am sure cloture will not be invoked. But everyone should know, we are going to have another cloture vote this early evening. We are going to process as many amendments, in the meantime, as we can. I hope there could be some more work done on what other amendments postcloture; that is, germane amendments. I know of a couple that are germane. I have told people they can have votes on those. I repeat what I have said on this floor several times, what I have told the managers of the bill and I have told individual Senators: We are not going to block, as we can do, procedurally, votes on the germane amendments that are postcloture. We are going to go ahead and process as many of those as we can reasonably do.”