Political Quotes

“Madam President, I have alerted the other side I am about to make a unanimous consent request on an important piece of legislation. Unfortunately, in the last couple of years we have gotten into this habit of: Nobody wants to vote yes or no, they want to vote maybe. It is easier to block things from even being considered. Frankly, in my State of Vermont people expect if they elect you to the Senate that you have the courage to vote yes or no, but not maybe. We just saw another example of this. We cannot even get a yes-or-no vote on Defense authorization at a time when our Nation is in two wars. We cannot get a yes-or-no vote; we get a maybe. I find it frustrating. Over and over we have done it today. People are prepared to vote yes or no, but the other side says, no; it is easier to vote maybe. Then you never have to explain anything. We all know what has happened in the Deepwater Horizon BP spill. A number of brave families' members were lost. I would note for the sake of the Senate, if they had been building the Deepwater Horizon drilling platform, and they were assembling it on land and something was negligently done and someone lost their life, they could recover for the value of the life. Because of a quirk in the law, because it happened at sea, even though it may have been caused by the same thing, these people--their lives are almost valueless. There is a way to fix them.…”