Political Quotes

“my good friend from Montana and I have worked together on so many issues. He has objected to this bipartisan resolution which would give the Senate a chance to end one of the most pernicious practices in Washington, DC, and that is the practice of secret holds. Walk down Main Street anywhere in the United States, and I bet you would not find one out of a million Americans who know what a secret hold is. The hold does not appear anywhere in the dictionary. It is not even in the Senate rules. Yet it is one of the most powerful weapons that any U.S. Senator has. It is, of course, a senatorial courtesy whereby one Senator can block action on a bill or nomination by telling the respective Democrat or Republican leader that he or she would object. The objection does not have to be written down, and it does not have to be made public. It is a little bit like the seventh inning stretch in baseball. There is no official rule or regulation that talks about it, but it has been observed for so long that it has become a tradition. Now, the capacity to use this hold, which is in secret--there is no transparency, no accountability--the prospect of using these secret holds is notorious and has given birth to several intriguing offspring: The hostage hold, the rolling hold, and the May West hold. Suffice it to say, at this time of the year secret holds are more common than acorns around an oak tree. Senator Grassley and I have been working on this for almost 7 years.…”