Political Quotes

“Mr. President, reserving the right to object, let me say I appreciate the passion of my colleagues from Virginia. I have served with both of them for 12 years. Senator Kaine and I both were elected together in 2012. He and I have worked together on many issues, and I anticipate we will work together on many issues going forward. On this issue, he and I see the issue very differently. This bill that is before the Senate is a bill that moved forward the right way. It moved forward, frankly, a way I wish a lot more legislation proceeded in the Senate. This bill proceeded through regular order. It began in committee. The Commerce Committee took it up. We had a series of markups scheduled over several months. In the process of drafting this bill, we solicited the input, initially, of every Senator on the Commerce Committee. And every single Senator--Democrat and Republican--has priorities that are reflected in the underlying bill that were adopted. After the bill came out of the Commerce Committee, we solicited the input of every other Senator, those not on the Commerce Committee, for their ideas, their priorities for their respective States. This bill contains over 200 Member priorities, from Democrats and Republicans, reflecting the different needs and the different priorities of our 50 States. In addition to all of those, this week, we added nine more amendments in a managers' package when the majority leader laid down the substitute earlier this week.…”