Political Quotes

“with respect to the vote we took minutes ago on the asbestos legislation, it does mean that legislation is, in essence, off the floor now, and that we are proceeding with the consideration of the PATRIOT Act, although we have an obstruction underway and we have a threatened filibuster underway, and we will address that in the coming days. The vote on the motion to waive the point of order on the asbestos bill was 59 to 40. In order to have the option to keep a heartbeat at least in this piece of legislation, because it is so important to victims, to our economy, to jobs, what I did, as an advocate for the Specter-Leahy bill, is I switched my vote from yes to no. From a procedural standpoint, what that allows me to do as leader is to bring that back to the floor at some appropriate time if there is indication to do so in the future. We did have one absentee vote tonight that could have made the difference, and with that I switched my vote. I do want to make it very clear, because there is always misunderstanding in terms of when a Senator switches his vote, I strongly support the Specter-Leahy bill, and I switched my vote for procedural reasons. So this vote did reflect 59 to 40 on the floor, although the actual vote is depicted as 58 to 41. Let me also add, and I think I speak for the majority of my colleagues, that I am disappointed in the fact we are not able to proceed with this asbestos litigation bill.…”