Political Quotes

“very briefly to respond to comments made by my friend from Illinois, this legislation has nothing to do with Nike. Nike of course is a very large company and has stores and trucks and a physical presence all over the United States. They pay taxes because of that physical presence under the Quill decision. So the comments by my colleague from Illinois are very unfortunate, because they misstate what this debate is all about. This debate is about the little guy. Later on this afternoon, Senator Merkley and I are going to come to the floor of the Senate and actually read accounts from small businesses here in our State. They are people who don't have a physical presence all over the country, and they are scratching their heads this afternoon and they are saying to themselves, How in the world are we possibly going to be able to comply with this, because in a difficult economy, we are barely able to make ends meet. We are going to have to go out and spend time and money and staff figuring out how to do this. That is what this is about. Are we going to take something like our current policy--which is the defensive shield against discriminatory treatment from these tech-based online businesses--and turn it into a targeted strike on them, which this legislation does, or are we going to work together, which is what I have tried to do pretty much nonstop since Monday, to see if we can find some kind of common ground?…”