Political Quotes

“I appreciate my colleague from South Dakota giving me a minute to respond to the comments of the Senator from Illinois about remote voting. I appreciate his joining me today on a bipartisan resolution to say that, during times of emergency and crisis, the U.S. Senate would be able to vote remotely in a secure manner. I think it is time for us to turn to this. I actually supported such legislation back in the House when I was there almost two decades ago. At the time, we didn't have, frankly, the electronic communications we have today to be able to safely vote remotely; now we do. We have the ability to do it in a secure way, in an encrypted way--a way that would protect the fundamental right to vote. I think it is important that we move forward with this. It is something that would be up to the majority leader and the minority leader to jointly agree upon. Once they agreed upon that, there would be 30 days. After 30 days, Congress would have the vote-- the Senate would have the vote to continue it. I think--not just because of COVID-19, where we have an obvious problem right now but the threat of terrorism, bioterrorism--these sorts of issues, unfortunately, are part of our 21st century life. We have to be aware of the fact that this is possible.…”