Political Quotes

“Mr. Presdient, the Senate yesterday, by a vote of 84 to 10, invoked cloture to end a Republican filibuster of President Obama's nomination of Lael Brainard to be Under Secretary at Treasury. As I said before that vote, the majority leader has taken a significant step to address the nominations crisis created by Senate Republican obstruction. Regrettably, that obstruction made it necessary for the Senate majority leader to file five cloture petitions to bring an end to Republican filibusters and allow the Senate to carry out its advice and consent responsibilities. The refusal by Republicans month after month to come to agreements to consider, debate, and vote on nominations is a dramatic departure from the Senate's traditional practice of prompt and routine consideration of noncontroversial nominations. Their practices have led to delayed up-or-down votes for more than 100 nominations stalled from final Senate action. The American people should understand that these are all nominations favorably reported by the committees of jurisdiction and are mostly nominations that were reported without opposition or with a small minority of negative votes. Regrettably, this has been an ongoing Republican strategy and practice during President Obama's entire Presidency. Twenty-five of those stalled nominations are to fill vacancies in the Federal courts. They have been waiting for Senate action since being favorably reported by the Senate Judiciary Committee as long ago as last November.…”