Political Quotes

“I appreciate my friend from Texas and for those kind remarks. I appreciate how much he has dedicated to spending time on the floor of the House of Representatives, which is what we should be doing as Members of this body. He does it and he does it often, and then he includes others in it. I just wish we had more. I just wish we had debate. I wish we had amendments. But we don't. And we shouldn't kid ourselves. For whoever watches this C-SPAN clip or whoever is watching it right now, the fact of the matter is, this institution known as Congress is badly broken. We don't have vigorous debate, neither in this body nor on the other side of this Capitol in the United States Senate. The Senate, where I worked as a staffer for a number of years, I can remember having bills where we would have 30, 40, 50, 60 amendments, and debate back and forth, and offer them and vote on them, and at the end of that, then decide whether we support that legislation or not. We don't do that anymore. We get a bill, like today, brought to the floor of the House of Representatives by the majority, and we are told that is the vote. The same thing in the Senate. We have a bill that is brought to the floor of the Senate, and the author of the bill, Senator Scott, offers 20 amendments to the other side, including a manager's package, and it is rejected out of hand, no debate, no discussion on amendments. And the American people are sitting at home going, What is going on?…”