Political Quotes

“I thank my colleague from Maryland for his diligence in this issue of utmost importance to the integrity of our elections, to our national security, and basically for trust in government. If the American people feel that a foreign country can interfere in their elections and, particularly, that their President is OK with that, I worry and pray for our democracy. For the past few years, Senate Democrats have sought to pass legislation to improve the security of elections. There are many ways to do this--hardening our election infrastructure, shoring up cyber defenses, and requiring paper ballots. One of the most important has been advocated with passion and vigor by my colleague from Maryland, and that is deterring foreign adversaries from trying to interfere with elections in the first place. For the past year, Democrats have been pushing legislation that would do just that by instituting mandatory crosscutting sanctions against any adversary--Russia, China, Iran, North Korea--that even dared to attempt to meddle in our democracy. It is a bipartisan idea. Senator Van Hollen has legislation that is cosponsored by Senator Rubio. We tried hard to pass this measure in the annual defense bill. Senate Republicans and Leader McConnell blocked the provision from the final agreement. Here we are today, asking our Republican colleagues to relent and allow this bipartisan legislation to pass the Senate on its own.…”