Political Quotes

“Mr. Reich was Secretary of Labor during the Clinton administration, and he wrote an article in the Wall Street Journal that I think is particularly appropriate to what I am talking about. The lead of the article from this prominent Democrat, a Cabinet Secretary under Bill Clinton, is: ``Don't Democrats Believe in Democracy?'' That is the title. I will not read all of it, but I will read just a few sentences. In talking about this kind of government-sponsored litigation by outsourcing the responsibilities of the sovereign government and the elected officials to contingency fee lawyers, whose only motive is maximizing their personal profit, he said: . . . the biggest problem is that these lawsuits are end runs around the democratic process. We used to be a nation of laws, but this new strategy presents novel means of legislating--within settlement negotiations of large civil lawsuits initiated by the executive branch. This is faux legislation, which sacrifices democracy to the discretion of administration officials operating in secrecy. Well, I agree with Secretary Reich. I think this is a threat to our democracy. Again, I do not think it should be viewed as a partisan issue, even though he has that provocative headline and he is talking about members of his own party who have endorsed and initiated some of this type of litigation. We had an earlier vote, as I said, where 63 Senators voted to close off debate, and we will have a vote here in short order.…”