Political Quotes

“Madam President, I appreciate my colleague from Illinois emphasizing the important role of bipartisanship in making this Chamber work. His question gave me an opportunity to talk about what has just transpired as an important victory--an important victory for this Chamber and its deliberation, an important victory for people across America, families working to have their financial foundation solid rather than torn asunder by predatory practices. In this journey, this effort to achieve a Senate that can again function as a deliberative body, I want to take this moment to thank my colleague Tom Udall. Tom Udall and I came into the Senate together. Tom Udall immediately recognized that the Senate needed to address its internal functioning because we were becoming more and more paralyzed. He proposed before this body that we have a conscious debate every 2 years about how to adjust the rules and to make this Senate Chamber work much better, because we are not only being paralyzed on executive nominations but we have this terrible paralysis on legislation, with a few important exceptions that my colleague from Illinois and I spoke about. I want to thank Tom for his work to help motivate this body to take on these issues and to restore the functionality. I have been pleased to be a partner with him on this journey.…”