Political Quotes

“with the talk now about whether we shall have clean or, shall we say, dirty CR's or debt limit bills, I would like to offer some views that go to the intent of the Framers. We need to think through this process, for we are engaged in something that has never happened in 200 years, or more than 200 years of the Constitution, and it looks like we are headed toward some recidivism in trying to attach things to the debt limit or to the CR, when it would appear that the tolerance of the American people for this gridlock is way down. What is wrong with the strategy of dirty CR's and dirty debt-limit bills? Besides the fact that you do not want to stop the Government or put the full faith and credit of the United States in any doubt, one might begin with the fact that it is not working or it has long since stopped working. You got the President to the table with a 7-year balanced budget. If victory had been declared then we might be somewhere. But more seriously, this strategy is outside of the constitutional framework, and that is why it is stopping up this place. I teach a course at Georgetown, where I was a law professor, called Lawmaking and Statutory Interpretation. This gridlock has made me think about the course and about what we are doing in a deeper fashion. What we are doing is outside of the constitutional framework. It is not that it is unconstitutional; it is indeed an abuse of the Constitution, because it thwarts the intent of the Framers.”