Political Quotes

“I think one of the reasons why Ms. Markey and I have enjoyed working on this bill together so much is that we both are home in our districts every weekend. We have done a lot of town hall meetings. We have done a lot of roundtables with doctors and nurses and patients. We both come from districts that have a lot of Republicans, Democrats, and a whole lot of Independents as well. And I think we heard a lot of things. We hear a lot of things over and over again. One is, What happened to common sense? Well, this bill is a simple, pro-competition, get rid of the monopoly protections, make them play by the same rules bill. It is common sense. People say, Why the partisanship? Why can't we get together? As you said, the attorneys general from all of the States, not a single dissenting vote, said they want this. They want this increased power to go after the monopoly. And they know that they need some of the resources and support to get this done. President Bush's bipartisan commission came back and said there is no longer any reason why this should exist if ever such a reason existed. So this is a bipartisan idea. You mentioned former Senator Trent Lott as well. People said, what about a bill we can read and understand? Two pages, front and back, 24 lines, simple English. Lots of attempts to water this down, to add lots of legalese. No, this is a commonsense bill.”