Political Quotes

“If I could, and I very much appreciate--first of all, I could not work with a more thoughtful, diligent Member of the U.S. Senate than the ranking member. I think what the Senator's side needs to understand--and I have tried to articulate this--is that during these negotiations, we tried to set up a privileged motion where it was set up not unlike one, two, three agreements that we have. We understood that the minority leader--and I respect this--does not like privileged amendments, that the leaders like to control the floor, and in this case he wanted to be able to control his side. So we were not able to set this up as a privileged vote. As the Senator knows, we then agreed to do it under regular order--regular order--and the Senator and I agreed to those negotiations. What the Senator would be asking our side to do to move to a 60-vote debate is actually raise the threshold from a simple majority, which is the way regular order works. The Senator would ask us to raise the threshold to a 60-vote threshold, which is above and beyond regular order. So the Senator can understand how people don't understand why we would agree to raising that threshold. So, look, we understand what is getting ready to happen. The Senator and I have a lot of business to do relative to Syria, relative to Iraq, relative to refugees and others. I am disappointed that the Senate functions in the way it does.…”