Political Quotes

“Mr. President, arguably, the most significant bill to be introduced and passed every year is the National Defense Authorization Act. Yesterday, the leader moved to proceed to that bill, but then there was some objection. Senator Reed and I have spent some time and have been very concerned about getting this started. We passed this out of committee in record time and share the commitment that this bill is a matter fitting for the Senate's deliberative process. We want to have an amendment process, and we proposed this, but there was some objection to it yesterday. I think an open legislative process is one of the hallmarks of the democracy that we ask our servicemembers to protect and defend. They are out there on the line. We owe them everything that is in an annual bill. In fact, that bill has actually been passed every year. For the past 57 years, we have had a national defense authorization act. What we wanted to do this time, which would have been different from the last time, was to have had an open amendment process--heard a lot of amendments and had a lot of discussion on the floor. We intended to do that but were disappointed that there was an objection to that yesterday. That is why we have been working on satisfying those objections, and I think we have done this. I believe, by 12 noon or after the 12:30 vote, we are going to be in a position to go ahead and ask that the majority leader restate his motion to proceed and that it will be passed without objection.…”