Political Quotes

“First, Madam President, I want to thank my colleague from Rhode Island who just spoke. We did work together for the past few years in putting together this legislation, and we did it, by the way, with the House of Representatives. So Senator Whitehouse and I took good ideas wherever we could find them, in whatever part of the country it came from, including ideas from the House of Representatives. We didn't ask who had the idea; we asked whether it was a good idea. We kept this entirely nonpartisan, not just bipartisan. Therefore, we built something that makes sense for our communities back home to deal with this epidemic of prescription drug and heroin addiction and overdoses. I appreciate his partnership in this, and I appreciate the fact that he came to the floor today to talk about the importance of moving ahead with this legislation. After all, it is very rare around here to get a 94-to-1 vote on anything, and we did it on this bill. After 2\1/2\ weeks on the floor of the Senate talking about this heroin and prescription drug epidemic, every single Senator here realized this was a problem in their States, and 94 Senators stood up and agreed this legislation will help address it. By the way, since we passed the Comprehensive Addiction and Recovery Act, or CARA, as it is called, on March 10 in the Senate, 42 days have passed. That is more than a month. Every day, we lose about 120 Americans--120 Americans--to drug overdoses.…”