Jack Reed: “I am aware of that. It is one of the situations where, after months and months of cooperating, of trying to accommodate…”

“I am aware of that. It is one of the situations where, after months and months of cooperating, of trying to accommodate, mutually, the desire and the recognition of getting things done, at some point when we see no movement with respect to our constitutional obligation to confirm judges, no real movement, when we see the elementary and secondary education bill that has been put out to languish and perhaps not to see the light of day for the rest of the year, when we see a process in which the price of bringing a bill to the floor is an agreement to surrender the rights of individual Senators to amend that legislation, to make that amendment process subject to the approval of the majority leader, when we see all those things, what I think we have to do and what we must do is insist that we get back, away from that process of majority oppression. Perhaps that is too melodramatic. We have to get back to the rules of the Senate, the spirit of the Senate, which, I believe, is open debate, open amendment, and a vote.”