Political Quotes

“Reserving the right to object, Mr. President, the Paul amendment is a germane amendment. It should be taken up and passed with a majority vote in the U.S. Senate. This counterproposal asks that a 60-vote threshold be set for the Paul amendment, which, obviously, would make it much less likely to actually pass. What I think makes a whole lot more sense is to have a vote on the Paul amendment as a stand-alone to defund Planned Parenthood with a majority vote of 50, but I believe that the Manchin amendment has problems as well. Firstly, this Manchin amendment inserts itself into pending litigation in Federal court, which is being led by my home State of Texas, by intervening as a party only a few weeks prior to there being oral arguments. This is a role that is generally reserved for the executive branch, and I believe that the legislature--the Senate-- should exercise caution and deference to the constitutional role of other branches before injecting itself into a contested lawsuit at a late hour. Secondly, the Manchin amendment asserts that the Senate should defend all provisions of the Affordable Care Act. While that may be the position of the senior Senator from West Virginia, I have a number of concerns and objections to ObamaCare which are well-known, as do so many of my Republican colleagues. There are many problematic and possibly illegal provisions of ObamaCare that should not be defended by this body, as the Manchin amendment would urge.…”