Political Quotes

“Madam President, I rise to join my colleague who spoke earlier today, the Senator from Ohio, and here shortly, the Senator from Pennsylvania. I wish to also thank my friend, the Senator from West Virginia. Without his tireless efforts, this cause we are fighting for might not still have a chance, and I want to commend him for the countless hours and the amazing amount of work he has done on an issue we have been here time and again on; that is, begging this body to take meaningful action on the Miners Protection Act before the end of this year. For over a year and a half, we have been coming to the floor to tell our colleagues that if we do nothing, retired coal miners and their families--for the most part we are talking about widows because most of the miners have passed away--will lose their health care at the end of this year. Well, the end of the year is upon us. It is literally days away, and we have taken every procedural step to ensure a vote on the Miners Protection Act. Under the leadership of the Senator from West Virginia, we were asked to go through regular order. We were asked to have a hearing. Those of us on the Finance Committee--the Senator from Pennsylvania and I--were asked to have a committee markup. We had the committee markup. We reported the bill out with strong bipartisan support. Yet here we are, days away from the supposed end of the session, and we still have not had that vote.…”