Political Quotes

“Mr. President, the nomination of Ryan Wesley Bounds is just the latest in more than a year of attacks that have been based on a strategy of converting the United States from a nation that is based and organized on and that fights for the principle of ``we the people'' into one that bows to the powerful and the privileged. His nomination has already strained and degraded the Senate's blue- slip tradition as our colleagues rush to pack our courts with extremist judges to advance that vision--not of judges who call balls and strikes but of judicial activists who want to rewrite the Constitution to put down workers, to put down healthcare rights, to lay out and tear down consumer rights and women's rights--so many opportunities and empowerments diminished in the favor of the privileged and the powerful. That is what is going on with the packing of the Court. This deed of putting forward this nomination on the floor tonight changes a 100-year tradition of comity in the U.S. Senate and the recognition that the home State Senators have something important to say about the integrity of the individual who is being put forward. At stake in this confirmation is the Senate's advice-and-consent responsibility as applied through the blue-slip tradition--a tradition that incentivizes consultation and bipartisan cooperation. When you take away the blue-slip tradition, you diminish the incentive for consultation and cooperation. This tradition has existed since 1917.…”