Political Quotes

“I yield to my colleague from Kentucky. Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, would the majority leader not agree with the Senator from Kentucky that the Paez and Berzon nominations to which our good friend from West Virginia refers--in both instances, you were not the leader at the time; you were a Member but not the leader. The majority leader and the leader of the other side jointly filed cloture, not for the purpose of defeating the nomination but for the purpose of guaranteeing that the nominees got an up-or-down vote. There were one or more Senators, I expect, on our side of the aisle who did not want those nominees to get an up-or-down vote. So in that particular instance, Senator Daschle and Senator Lott used the device of cloture, not to kill the nomination but to advance the nomination, move it to final passage. I say to my friend, the majority leader, it is largely irrelevant how he may have voted on cloture as a rank-and-file member of the Republican Conference on that particular day. The leader of our party at the time and the other party at the time were honoring the principle to which the leader has been speaking, guaranteeing that those nominees got an up-or-down vote by the only device they could, by filing cloture and moving forward.…”