Political Quotes

“Mr. President, today, Wednesday, is day 83,723 since the Senate first achieved a quorum and started work. No grand celebration there. That is 229 years, 2 months, and 22 days. In that time, this body has deliberated over some of the most difficult issues of our time--of any time--slavery, war, voting rights. They have all been difficult issues that our Nation has debated in this building. But lately it seems we have less and less debate and more and more empty-Chamber quorum calls. For the people who watch the debate in this room and watch an empty room and think ``Where is the debate happening in the Senate?'' I can assure you there is work being done. There is a lot happening in committee hearings right now. There is a lot happening in different offices on trying to work through the issues. Our days are busy and full, but for some reason, we are not getting to some of the biggest debates of the moment that need to be done and completed. We had a real push in the nomination process. We spent 100 days in the last 18 months just on a quorum call waiting for a nomination to come up. That didn't happened in the last five Presidents combined. There have only been 25 requests for additional time for any nominee in five Presidents. This time, in 18 months, there have been 100. It is slowing down the body. We have to fix that. We have to fix our budget process. Our appropriations process is working a little better this year, and that is good. We moved three bills last week.…”