Political Quotes

“Madam President, it is good to see the Presiding Officer here as a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee. As the Presiding Officer knows, the Senate Judiciary Committee held lengthy and extensive public markup sessions on the Border Security, Economic Opportunity and Immigration Modernization Act, S. 744. We worked late into the evenings--we also started pretty early in the morning--debating the bill. We considered hundreds of amendments. The public saw our consideration firsthand. We streamed everything we did on the Internet and it was broadcast on television. We took all the proposed amendments, Republican and Democratic alike, and put them on our Web site. We updated the Committee's Web site to include adopted amendments in real time. I heard from people all over the country that they felt they actually had involvement in what we were doing, which is what I want. I appreciate the fact that members from both sides of the aisle, Republicans and Democrats, praised the transparent process and also praised the significant improvements to the bill made by the Judiciary Committee. In fact, the markup process followed three additional hearings on the bill--on top of all the others we had--with 26 witnesses, and the bill, as amended, was supported by a bipartisan two- thirds majority of the committee. I have sent that bill, S. 744, to the Senate on behalf of the Judiciary Committee and am filing an extensive committee report as well.…”