Political Quotes

“it is always an honor to address the people of the United States from the floor of the U.S. Senate, and tonight is no exception. I want to thank my colleague from Oklahoma for his wonderful remarks. In order to form a more perfect Union, our Founding Fathers gave us a government that filters the will of the majority through a deliberative process of amendment and debate. For centuries, this has meant that legislative change, while slower in the United States than in some other countries, is moderated through healthy compromises and informed by a greater number of voices. This, in turn, has tended to give us legislation that benefits more Americans. In recent decades, one of the most important factors in this process has been the Senate filibuster. It is one of the defining characteristics that sets the Senate apart from the House, and I served in the House. I remember how frustrating it was to send bill after bill to the Senate only to watch those bills die. But because the House is set up on a more partisan basis, some of the bills we sent over here were pretty partisan. So the Senate has a chance to either look at those and reject them as purely partisan or, more frequently, take up bills that have been crafted on a bipartisan basis in this body, and I respect that. The House is about simple majority rule, but the Senate, thanks in part to the filibuster, is defined by the rights of the minority party.…”