Political Quotes

“Mr. President, I, first of all, want to salute Senator Wyden of Oregon for his long work on this issue. He has been working on this issue since before I came to the Senate, before I had any experience of secret holds, and saw--as we are seeing right now--their pernicious effect. At present, we are looking at probably a little less than 80 secret holds by Republicans of President Obama's nominees--some judges. In the past few days, Senator McCaskill and I have come to the floor to push some of these nominees forward, to ask unanimous consent they go forward. In one case, a nominee was a judge who was supported by both a Democrat and a Republican--the Senators from his home State--who had passed out of the Judiciary Committee by a unanimous rollcall vote of 19 to 0. They have been held for months and months. The distinguished Senator from Arizona, Mr. Kyl, was put in the unfortunate position, since he had voted for this nominee in committee, to have to come to the floor and raise an objection to the unanimous consent request for a judge who he voted for in committee and one of his Republican colleagues supported--the home State Senator supported--to have to object to that nomination going forward because somebody had a secret hold. We went through a great deal of these. I want to salute Senator McCaskill. She carried the greater part of the burden. I only tried to move a few. I think she tried to move over 70 by the time the day was done.…”