Political Quotes

“I thank my colleague, the Senator from South Dakota, for his leadership in this area. I agree with his comments and support those statements, along with the other actions taken by my colleagues from New Hampshire, Kentucky, and Nebraska, in addition to others. I too had an amendment I wanted to present in connection with this legislation. I too offered that up and identified reasons why this is both relevant and germane to the legislation at hand. Unfortunately, the majority leader saw fit to block this, to object to it, to refuse altogether to allow the U.S. Senate--which is supposed to be the world's greatest deliberative legislative body--to consider these or any of the other amendments that were presented along with them. We are not asking for passage by unanimous consent. We recognize some people might not share our views. We recognize there might be a diversity of opinion within the body. We nevertheless believe, as U.S. Senators, we are entitled to have these amendments considered because they are relevant, because they are germane. We also think they should be considered because they would benefit the American people. This is the sort of thing we are supposed to do. It is what we do. What we are supposed to be doing as Senators is to be offering amendments and voting on amendments to make legislation we consider better.…”