Political Quotes

“Mr. President, once more I am coming to the floor to talk about the basic rules of the Senate and how we actually get on legislation. We have spent all of this week on four district court judicial nominations--the entire week, no legislation--because we can't get on legislation. In 2013, we were in a situation similar to this. The minority party, at that point being the Republicans, were slowing down the process in the Senate on nominations by the Democratic Party, at that point the majority. So Republicans and Democrats sat down together and said: This is a problem. We cannot get to legislation. The Republicans and Democrats together, with 70-plus votes, made a 2- year rule change in the Senate in the 113th Congress. It was a simple rule change: 2 hours of debate for a district court judge, 8 hours of debate for just about everyone else, and 30 hours of debate for circuit court, Supreme Court, and Cabinet nominations. It was a bipartisan agreement that worked very well for that 2-year time period. Then, at the end of that 2-year time period, it had a sunset on it, and it expired. The hope was that we would relearn how to be able to do this. I wasn't in the Senate at that time, but I have spoken to multiple people about that process.…”