Political Quotes

“first, I thank my colleague from Tennessee. He has been a great partner in this effort. In fact, I would say it was his impetus that brought us here. He had thought about this long and hard and worked on it previously. As usual, it has been a pleasure to work with Senator Alexander on the Rules Committee or anywhere else, and I thank him for spearheading this effort. I also want to thank the two leaders, Senator Reid, of course, my friend--and I am so proud to work under his leadership--and Senator McConnell. I have to say this: Senator McConnell and I have our differences, but on all of these issues of moving the Senate forward he has been operating in good faith, and his support of this legislation has allowed us to get here. Also, the committee chair, Senator Lieberman, as well as Ranking Member Collins, have been equal partners in this legislation, and it will go through their committee. Finally, I thank all the committee chairs. They have been very understanding of the need to do this. Obviously, committee chairs might say: I want to have before my committee every single person, but ultimately they have realized it slows down the Senate. While we are introducing the legislation today, a number of committee chairs on our side--probably with the consent of their ranking members--have come to me and said there might be other positions they want to add to the list. That would be a good idea. We have tried to be careful.…”