Political Quotes

“we have worked long and hard on this piece of legislation. It is a very complicated bill, as it should be, because we have a complicated problem--that is immigration. We have come a long way since we started the debate on this matter. It is fresh in my mind what went on last year when we had the debate on an immigration bill that passed the Senate. Last year we worked long and hard. We had 23 rollcall votes prior to cloture. Seven amendments in addition to that were done by voice vote last year. Postcloture, we had 3 that went by voice, there were 11 that were voted on. This year we have had 28 rollcall votes on amendments. We have had 14 amendments by voice, a total of 42 amendments. So we are way ahead of where we were last year. I understand that people were concerned yesterday about not having enough amendments. I think everyone had an opportunity to offer amendments. But it is interesting--we had people who were saying: This amendment that passed is a deal breaker. On the other side: We had an amendment that passed that is a deal breaker. So I guess whether a bill is improved is in the eye of the beholder because there was certainly disagreement about what improved or didn't improve the bill. I also think it is interesting people agitated for amendments and then, when the vote didn't go their way, they were upset. This is a bill we have pushed down the road a long way. I hope we can finish it.”