Political Quotes

“Mr. President, we ask a great deal from our first responders, from firefighters, and from police officers to keep our neighborhoods safe from violence and drugs. We ask them to put their lives on the line, to save people from burning buildings, to track down armed criminals. We ask and they give each day and each night. That is why we cannot just honor them through parades, memorials, speeches on the Senate floor, showing up at various kinds of festivals, but we honor them by the priorities we set in our Federal Government, in State legislatures in Santa Fe and Columbus and Atlanta, in city halls, and in county courthouses. Earlier this year, Ohioans overwhelmingly rejected issue 2, which would have curtailed the ability of first responders, firefighters, and police officers not just to organize and bargain collectively for their wages and their benefits but, much more broadly than that, to have them sit down and negotiate with their employers, with cities, with counties, with the State, and with taxpayers for safety equipment and adequate staffing. This was a victory for them. The defeat of issue 2 was a victory for hard-working men and women in Ohio. It was the only time in American history when the issue of collective bargaining was on a State ballot for a statewide vote, and voters voted more than three-fifths--61 percent to 39 percent--to preserve collective bargain rates.…”