Pete Sessions: “we just go back to trying to comprehend the enormity of what has happened as Senator Reid, the Democratic leader in the…”

“we just go back to trying to comprehend the enormity of what has happened as Senator Reid, the Democratic leader in the Senate, had a big press conference to declare victory. He said: We killed the PATRIOT Act. It is not something I think is worthy of a leader of any great party in the Senate. It is the equivalent of the Democratic leader saying we have no way to win in Iraq. These are the kind of statements that are really contrary to what this Nation needs to do right now. The PATRIOT Act is an act that we passed with one dissenting vote 4 years ago and that we passed out of this Senate unanimously and out of the Judiciary Committee unanimously just a few weeks ago and which has now come back as only a modestly modified conference report. It ought to be unanimously affirmed again. We have ended up with a filibuster led by the Democratic leader. I am disappointed at that. I can't comprehend why it occurred and why this would happen. There were a lot of contests, let me say, in the conference committee; a lot of hard work over every single word in the bill. But our version, the one we supported in a bipartisan way, was overwhelmingly the version that was adopted. We brought it back with everyone thinking we would have a great opportunity to pass it. In fact, some of us thought we went too far and that we had weakened law enforcement in ways that were not necessary.…”