Political Quotes

“Mr. President, I was necessarily absent from yesterday evening's vote on cloture on the motion to proceed to S. 311, the Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act. On vote No. 27, had I been present, I would have been a yea vote on the motion to invoke cloture. Let me say that a little differently. As I sat, waiting for my plane to leave Charleston, SC, to come to the Nation's Capital--a trip that typically takes about 63 minutes--3 hours later, I had not yet arrived in Washington, DC. On a vote that, to me, should not be a vote at all--this should be common sense, but it certainly was not common sense, so we had to have a vote on an issue that is very near and dear to my heart. I will say without any question that the frustration I felt at being late to that vote was one that was incredibly irritating and infuriating. I had planned to be on the floor of the Senate voting yes on a commonsense piece of legislation, the Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act, but was unable to make it because a 1-hour flight took more than 3 hours, and I arrived here about 4 minutes after the close of the vote, which also is quite frustrating. But what is even more frustrating than that is that in a nation of good conscience, we would be debating and having a conversation about a child who is born, sitting there, alive, separated from her mother, that there would be a question of whether that child should be able to continue to live.…”