Political Quotes

“Mr. President, I rise today with my friend and colleague, Tom Udall, the Senator from New Mexico, to talk about how to come together to fix our broken Senate and specifically to invite our colleagues from both sides of the aisle to engage in a dialogue together to address the dysfunction that we see so evident on the floor of the Senate day after day. What we have come to understand in the course of 2015 is that the frustration with a broken Senate is a bipartisan, equal opportunity frustration. In 2013 and 2014, Democrats were in the majority and Republicans were in the minority. The majority was frustrated and couldn't get onto bills to start debate, and when we did get on the bills, we couldn't start the process of having amendments; the time on the floor was being wasted. Now here we are in 2015 and the roles are reversed. Republicans are in control, and Republicans are frustrated that we can't get to bills and have them on the floor and that the amendment process is broken. And on amendments, it affects the minority and the majority. So here we have Democrats and Republicans with something deeply in common: a common interest in fixing this broken Senate. The perspective I bring to this goes back to when I first came to this Chamber in the summer of 1976. I was an intern for Senator Hatfield. I was assigned to work on a bill called the Tax Reform Act of 1976 that came up on the floor of the Senate.…”