Political Quotes

“if I could engage my distinguished ranking member in a colloquy, historically this amendment is almost identical in form to what came before the Senate on 14 September last fall, 2005. It was defeated by a vote of 53 to 44. And that was on the Commerce- State-Justice appropriations bill. Then, with the tenacity of our good friend from North Dakota, he brought the same amendment up again on October 19, 2005. Again, it was defeated by a vote of 54 to 44 on the Transportation appropriations bill. So the Senate on two occasions has examined this before other committees and defeated it. Now, let's go back a little bit in history, and this is a part of Senate history that you have greater familiarity with than do I. Your distinguished predecessor, Senator Nunn, when I worked with him--he was chairman, I was the ranking member of the Armed Services Committee-- there would be times when he would say, ``John, I simply have to take off a week; I have this special committee.'' He was then on the committee on which you served, I think, throughout your tenure in the Senate; now called Homeland Security, it used to be called Government Operations. And the Senate as a body some time ago decided to take the roots of the Truman Commission, which, indeed, was a successful operation, and repose it, place it into the Government Operations Committee, now the Homeland Security Committee.”