Political Quotes

“Mr. President, it has been an honor and privilege to work with my friend and distinguished colleague, the senior Senator from Illinois, on this important project. I have been working on bringing about an end to the arbitrary per country caps put in place on employment-based green cards for nearly the entire 9-year period I have been in the U.S. Senate. At no point has it been an easy process. These are significant and weighty issues, and they require attention. Senator Durbin and I have spent the last couple of months negotiating in good faith with a lot of energy and a lot of time and attention given to the project not only by the two Members involved, Senator Durbin and myself, but also by our very dedicated and devoted staffs who have really put a lot of shoe leather, sweat, blood, and tears into this effort. I am grateful to Senator Durbin for being willing to work with me on this. I have enjoyed working with him over the years on a number of projects, including the passage just about a year ago--almost exactly a year ago--of the FIRST STEP Act. This was the result of a project that Senator Durbin and I had been working on for 8 continuous years up until that point, culminating in a lot of proposals, including things like the Smarter Sentencing Act, the Sentencing Reform and Corrections Act, and, ultimately, the FIRST STEP Act. Like I said, that was passed almost exactly a year ago. At no point in that process was there an easy path forward, an easy path toward victory.…”