Political Quotes

“I also rise now because of the change in the time schedule to speak against the amendment offered by Mr. DeMint. Like the Vitter amendment, this amendment is opposed to the great spirit of comity behind the underlying bill. I would like to remind my colleague from South Carolina that the bipartisan working group labored over every decision we made. Far from lifting our index fingers to the wind, we carefully debated the nuances of the changes that were ultimately proposed. The change the Senator from South Carolina finds fault with involves the Bureau of Justice Statistics. Let me tell you about this position. The Director of the Bureau of Justice Statistics reports to the Senate- confirmed Assistant Attorney General for the Office of Justice Programs, who then reports to the Senate-confirmed Associate Attorney General, who then reports to the Senate-confirmed Deputy Attorney General, who--you guessed it--reports to the Attorney General, also confirmed. How much more oversight do we need for one man? Is four levels of congressional oversight not enough? It is clear to me that this amendment is really designed to hamper our goal of improving the way the Senate functions. After all, there are four similar positions at the Department of Justice with parallel lines of reporting that we plan to remove from Senate confirmation, but the Senator from South Carolina does not take aim at those.…”