Political Quotes

“Madam President, we have the opportunity right here to pass this right now. This bill fixes this problem. As to the suggestion that we can't do any of this without increasing the total number of green cards--this is a poison pill. My friend and colleague knows that it is a poison pill. In fact, we had that very discussion. I don't ordinarily--in fact, I have a uniform policy against publicly talking about private conversations we have as colleagues. We have now brought it to the floor. We talked about this. This was the basis upon which we reached a deal in his office in December. The point there was to understand that we can't pass something--certainly by unanimous consent--that increases the total number of employment-based green cards. It is not going to happen. So we are dealing here with that finite universe. That is the basis of the deal we reached in December. As to the suggestion that we can't do anything without increasing the total number of green cards, the Senator knows that is not on the table. That is not fair. What we want to do is make this process fair, even if we only have a limited number of green cards to work with, which is the case. Whether you like that political reality or not, it is the political reality. It is the factual understanding that the Senator and I discussed and understood in December when we made that deal. The Lee alternative is the encapsulation of that.…”