Political Quotes

“Mr. President, this morning was a sad day for the Senate, when a straightforward bill designed to help the 100,000 or so children who are sex trafficked in America goes down because of the advocacy of a group that wants to turn this into an abortion debate and to change the settled law of the last 39 years. As I said before the vote, I really feel as if this is a time when the very soul of the Senate is being tested. Are we going actually to break out of these shackles that we seem to be bound by, which say that we are going to turn every issue--no matter how sensitive or how much good could be done--into a political issue that divides us? I would have thought of all the topics where there would be bipartisan consensus, it would be combating the crime of human trafficking. Indeed, everything that went on before today seemed to give me hope that we would be able to do that. For example, there is the fact that there were 12 Democratic cosponsors of the underlying legislation. In the Senate Judiciary Committee, there were 20 votes, a unanimous vote including 9 Democrats, in favor of the bill in committee, and it came to the floor of the Senate. As the Presiding Officer knows, ordinarily we would have to jump through some procedural hoops. But thanks to the consent of 100 Senators, we did not have to do that so we could get on the bill and begin the open amendment process without having to jump through those hoops. At least that is what I thought.…”