Political Quotes

“There are clearly principled reasons to oppose Judge Gorsuch, and enough of us Democrats have reasons to prevent his nomination from moving forward on Thursday's cloture vote. The question is no longer whether Judge Gorsuch will get enough votes on the cloture motion; now the question is, Will the majority leader and our friends on the other side break the rules of the Senate to approve Judge Gorsuch on a majority vote? That question should be the focus of the debate here on the floor, and it should weigh heavily on the conscience of every Senator. Ultimately, my Republican friends face a simple choice: They can fundamentally alter the rules and traditions of this great body or they can sit down with us Democrats and the President to come up with a mainstream nominee who can earn bipartisan support and pass the Senate. No one is making our Republican colleagues change the rules. No one is forcing Senator McConnell to change the rules. He is doing it of his own volition, just as he prevented Merrick Garland from getting a vote of his own volition. Senator McConnell and my Republican colleagues are completely free actors in making a choice--a very bad one, in our opinion. I know my friends on the other side of the aisle are uncomfortable with this choice, so they are scrambling for arguments to justify breaking the rules. Let me go through a few of these justifications and explain why each does not hold up.…”