Political Quotes

“it has been more than 4 years since the Senate overwhelmingly passed a bipartisan resolution ending the ability of Senators to place secret holds as a way to block passage of legislation and confirmations of nominees. The resolution--which I worked on with our colleague from Iowa Senator Grassley for more than a decade, and Senator McCaskill joined in these efforts--overwhelmingly passed the Senate by a 92-to-4 vote. Under the resolution, Senators who object to requests to pass legislation by unanimous consent are supposed to record their opposition by sending notice to the cloakroom and to the Secretary of the Senate, notifying colleagues of their objection. The objection is then listed in the Senate Calendar on a page--I took today's with the title ``Notice of Intent to Object to Proceeding.'' Mr. President, if you look at the page in the Senate Calendar where holds on bills are supposed to be listed, right now you will find a single entry on the page. It concerns a public hold that I placed on the intelligence authorization legislation last July. I wish I could say the reason that only one objection to a unanimous consent request is listed in the Senate Calendar is that my objection is the only hold placed on a bill in the past few months. Regrettably, that does not seem to be the case. For example, my colleague from New Hampshire has been talking about her bill, known as the CREED Act, S. 966.…”