Political Quotes

“Mr. President, I stand to raise a concern I have regarding the conference committee report to accompany H.R. 4348. Pursuant to paragraph 9 of rule XXVIII of the Standing Rules of the Senate, we are supposed to have adequate notice of a report like this before we have the opportunity to vote on it. The rule states: It shall not be in order to vote on the adoption of a report of a committee of conference unless such report has been available to Members and to the general public for at least 48 hours before such vote. The current version of the committee report was filed, as I understand it, at 8:07 p.m. last night. It is not even close to the 48 hours required notice. What we have, ultimately, when we look at this, is the fact that we have a highway bill that was sent to conference, but it came back from closed-door negotiations with a student loan bill and also with a flood insurance bill attached to it. We were neither given the chance to debate nor to amend these provisions before they came to the floor. Now we are approaching a vote on that. We did not provide our fellow Senators or the American people with an adequate opportunity to read the 596-page conference report, which is required by our very own rule. This is somewhat reminiscent of a statement made a few years ago by then-Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi when, speaking to Members of her body regarding the passage of the Affordable Care Act, she said: We have to pass the bill so that you can find out what's in it.…”