Political Quotes

“Mr. President, first, I rise in support of S. 679, a bipartisan effort that will streamline Presidential appointments and reduce the number of Senate confirmations for certain types of positions, and I urge my colleagues to support this bill. First, I want to praise my colleague and friend, Senator Alexander, who has been a leading, if not the leading, force in this effort. We have worked together well in a bipartisan way to try to come up with a proposal that meets the agreement of the Chamber. He has done a great job, and it has been a pleasure, I would say to my friend from Tennessee, to work with him, as it always is. I also want to thank, of course, Senator Reid, who has encouraged us to get involved in this process and has been right there with us all the way, as well as Republican Leader McConnell, who, again, has from the beginning been on our side and agreed that this is a worthwhile endeavor. So we formed a bipartisan working group at the behest of Senator Reid and Senator McConnell to try to figure out how to try to reduce the number of Presidential appointments that require Senate confirmation and to create new procedures to improve the pace of confirmation for executive branch nominees, as part of an overall reform of the Senate rules.…”