Political Quotes

“Mr. President, when the Senate Judiciary Committee held lengthy and extensive markup sessions to consider the Border Security, Economic Opportunity, and Immigration Modernization Act, or S. 744--the bill before us--we worked late into the evenings debating the bill. We considered hundreds of amendments. But what was interesting and what we heard the most about was the fact that the public was able to witness our consideration firsthand. They saw all our proceedings streamed live on the committee's Web site and broadcast on C-SPAN. We made available on our website proposed amendments, and reported developments in real time throughout the committee process. I know this made a difference because I was receiving e-mails and calls from all over the country from people watching it. Whether they agreed or disagreed on a particular matter, they said how much it meant to them to actually know what the Senate was doing. And Members from both sides of the aisle praised the transparent process and the significant improvements in the bill made by the Judiciary Committee. The bill, as we amended it, was passed out of committee by a bipartisan two-thirds majority. Again, everybody worked together, set politics aside, and allowed the American people to see what we were doing. In many ways this is how we did it when I first came to the Senate, except we didn't have a way of streaming things live and we didn't have C-SPAN, so it is even more transparent now.…”