Political Quotes

“As we all know, Congress is now back from an extended recess. When we left, there were a number of significant items pending either on the floor of the House or on the floor of the Senate. Yesterday I spoke about one major piece of legislation we passed here in the Senate by an overwhelmingly bipartisan vote, and that was the farm bill. It has, of course, implications to a State such as Vermont but also to every single State in this country. It has everything from milk price supports to drought and disaster relief. This was a bipartisan vote strongly supported by Democrats and Republicans alike. It has been stalled in the House, and I hope, now that the election is over, they can bring it up and pass it. But there is another urgently needed piece of legislation that we have passed here in the Senate, and it is time to pass it in the House. I know we have issues such as disaster relief for the victims of Hurricane Sandy. We should do that. We have the fiscal cliff that threatens our economy. That is extremely important. We should have confirmation votes on scores of judicial nominees. We have 19 of them pending on the floor. All of that is important. All of these things can be done in the time remaining for us. But one of the important legislative priorities is the VAWA, the Violence Against Women Reauthorization Act. I wrote the bill with Republican Mike Crapo of Idaho. This was and is a bipartisan piece of legislation.…”