Political Quotes

“I have been listening carefully to the debate that has been taking place here on the floor, and the esteemed minority leader had a couple of phrases that he used any number of times. One of those was that this debate is about whether to break the rules in order to change the rules, and the second phrase, also involving the word ``break,'' was to repeatedly say to the majority leader: You have broken your word. Those are very powerful words. My mother always told me that when people start saying things like that, it is because they are at a loss for a real argument, but I found them disturbing. I found both of those phrases disturbing. I found them disturbing because they are so at odds with what this conversation is really about. We are here in the midst of a constitutional crisis. Our Constitution was set up with a balance of powers between three coequal branches, with checks and balances. Never in their wildest dreams did the crafters of our Constitution envision that a minority of the Senate, a minority of one Chamber, would undermine the functioning of the other two branches. In fact, they were very deliberate--very, very deliberate--in their determination that there not be such a possibility. They laid out with clarity that advise and consent on treaties took a supermajority, but when it came to the other branches, the judicial branch and executive branch have a de facto simple majority standard in the Constitution.…”