Political Quotes

“I would like to go back a little further in history than last year's warmed-over conspiracy theories that we just heard my friend from Iowa talk about. I so appreciated Senator Bennet's discussion of sort of the history of voting rights and the history of this body. The American public certainly doesn't know what cloture means. The American public really doesn't know all that much about the filibuster either. But go back a few decades. The filibuster was used to suppress the vote. The filibuster was used by many people in my political party-- back when too many Democrats were on the wrong side of history and the wrong side of civil rights--was used by southern segregationists. It was finally overcome by some northern Republicans, with a whole bunch of northern Democrats. But think about what else the filibuster has been used for. The filibuster was used in the 1970s and 1980s to protect Big Tobacco in Kentucky. The filibuster was used to protect Big Oil. Now, it is used to protect Wall Street. The filibuster is used to protect big tech companies. The filibuster is used in case after case after case to protect big drug companies. So we know that the whole purpose of the filibuster has been to protect the most affluent, the most privileged, the wealthiest corporate interests in this society that just get their way in this body day after day, week after week, month after month, year after year. Now, this weekend--and many referred to this--we honored Dr.…”