Political Quotes

“I rise today to remind my colleagues that it has been over 500 days since the Senate passed a strong bipartisan bill to fix our broken immigration system. There is a lot of hand-wringing going on on the other side of the aisle about the President taking Executive action, as he has now announced he intends to do. Republicans are saying that anything and everything is on the table to stop the President from taking Executive action. Well, if the bounds are anything and everything, I have a suggestion. Pass our bill. It is a very simple suggestion. If the House votes on our bipartisan bill, the discussion about Executive action would be made moot. It is the other body of Congress that has led us to the point where we are today. The only reason the administration has to take Executive action is because the House has failed to address our broken immigration system. I think everyone on our side agrees it would be far preferable to pass the bipartisan bill that passed the Senate 68 to 32 than any Executive action. Let me say a few things. The bill is a bipartisan bill with support from every corner of the political map--business, labor, evangelicals, Catholics--and it has been sitting on the shelf gathering dust for 500 days. So it is the absolute height of hypocrisy for House leadership to say that now Congress should be in the driver's seat on immigration reform when they refused to take the wheel. And let me say this, Mr. President.…”