Political Quotes

“Madam President, it strikes me as pretty unbelievable that we are in the process of voting--debating a continuing resolution, and yet nobody has read it and nobody understands what is in it. We hear news reports, but nobody who I know here--at least on our side--has been in the negotiations even though we have a Democratic President and the Senate is 45, 46 percent Democrats, even though more people voted for Democratic Senators than Republican Senators in this election and most of the last several elections. Even with all that, that shouldn't matter, but Senator McConnell and the Republican leadership are asking us to vote on something this complicated with this many add-on amendments that we have not even read yet. What kind of way to run the Senate is that? We do know, though, from the reports I can get, what they have told us is that Majority Leader McConnell's response to the mine workers has been pretty pathetic. Today I met with Senator Hatch in his office. Today I met with Senator Wyden in his office. One of the things we did in the Finance Committee on an overwhelmingly bipartisan basis, joined by my Republican colleague from Ohio, Senator Portman, and other coal State Democrats and Republicans--Senator Capito, Senator Manchin, Senator Warner, Senator Kaine, Senator Casey, Senator Toomey--all of us in this committee supported a bipartisan fix for mine worker pensions and health care.…”