Political Quotes

“I thank my good friend and leader for bringing up this amendment at this time. I approached him on the floor saying we are anxious to get the bill moving, and he accepted the challenge. I am not sure if I am going to support him on this amendment, but, nevertheless, we will have a good and thorough debate. My distinguished colleague, Senator Levin, and I conferred earlier this morning. We are both of a frame of mind that we want to move with tremendous momentum. Today is a good day to move on. I urge Senators to bring their amendments to the floor. We are willing to stay here into the evening and participate in the process. During the hearing of the Armed Services Committee tomorrow morning at 8:30 to sometime midday, we will have members of the committee on the floor. We will not lose a step in moving forward on this bill. It is important to have this hearing tomorrow. We are fortunate that the Department of Defense brought back commanders for a variety of reasons, not just our hearing. Senator Levin and I had made the offer to do it by telephone conferences. It is important we continue the continuity of the hearings of our committee. The point of this is, I would hope, if I can frankly say to our leadership, that perhaps we could get a unanimous consent agreement later tonight to lock in those amendments that we know are out there on this bill. I hope we can do that. I have seen a list of 50 amendments. Yet I think it is an incomplete list.”