Political Quotes

“over the last several weeks and months, we have run into a situation where executive nominations are brought to the floor, but they are being held up for a final vote for reasons that are totally unrelated to those individuals and the positions they seek. It has been done historically to some extent, but it is done in a way that one Member--not necessarily a Democrat or Republican but a Member in this body--uses that nomination in some way to focus attention on an issue or focus attention on something they need or want. Therefore, it can be very useful leverage for an individual Senator, but it has now gotten to the point that it is unfair to that individual. We have public servants who are dedicating their lives and have been nominated by the President of the United States for executive positions, and then they are being stopped or held up for this unrelated matter. And, therefore, in a systematic way we were going to address that. Yesterday, on one such event, I filed a cloture motion on the nomination of Eric Edelman to be Under Secretary of Defense for Policy. Mr. Edelman had been reported out of the Armed Services Committee on July 29 of last year, 2005--came out of that Armed Services Committee and has been held up by someone on the other side of the aisle since that time. In order to overcome that, I filed a cloture motion to ensure that the Senate was able to act on that nomination. We did that last night.…”