Political Quotes

“I want to comment on some of the remarks of the majority whip and some of the comments of the chairman of the committee with respect to this legislation. No. 1, the junior Senator from New Hampshire has every right, as ranking member of the committee, to be outraged at the way this bill was brought to the floor. It is my understanding, listening to him today and from the discussion in committee, that there were certain commitments made with respect to bringing this bill to the floor. The fact is, the reason we have seen delays on the floor on the energy bill, the terrorism insurance bill, election reform, a variety of other bills, was because those bills had bypassed committees. They had been brought straight to the floor. Now we are talking about another bill, the Medicare drug bill, which will be amended, attempted to be amended, to this underlying bill that will be bypassing the committee and brought straight to the floor. What is the underlying bill? A bill that was introduced on Thursday and now is on the floor. No one had seen it. I am still trying to understand this legislation. It is very technical, very complex. It is very important to my State, in which there is a lot of drug manufacturing. I am still trying to understand the complexity of what this bill actually does. It is here on the floor, and we are asked to just move ahead.”