Political Quotes

“the vote we will be having later this afternoon is not on a Corker-Hoeven amendment, as I think most Senators may have thought when they left town Thursday and Friday. In fact, Thursday night we were told the Hoeven-Corker amendment would be filed and, presumably, we would then be debating that amendment. As we went into the night, every hour being told it would soon be filed, it turned out it wasn't filed until almost noon Friday, and it wasn't filed as the Corker-Hoeven amendment dealing with Border Patrol officers and fencing and some other issues, it was filed as a complete substitute to the whole bill. This vote this afternoon will give Majority Leader Reid procedural control of the debate. It is his motion to shut off debate on a 1,200- page substitute--200 pages more than the bill we were looking at last week and that no one has read. Our Senators haven't had a chance to read the bill to see how the merged language falls throughout the legislation and to see what other changes may have been made over the weekend. I was here. We have been trying to get through this, but it is not easy. I am sure my colleagues haven't been able to do so. The majority leader has filed cloture and is blocking any further amendments from being in order unless he personally approves them. That is the parliamentary situation we are in today. We are in a situation in which the majority leader will approve, personally, any and all amendments that get voted on.…”