Political Quotes

“A few minutes ago, we concluded the vote on H.R. 2831 that came after a very short debate. It was a clever use of the rules by the majority, I have to hand them that. There is a requirement that there can be only 1 hour of debate before the cloture vote. So we didn't have any session today until 5 p.m. The Senate was closed. That is an interesting way to limit debate. As I noted in my earlier remarks, the bill we voted on also didn't come to committee and follow the regular order. I am very proud of the fact that Senator Kennedy and I are able to work out a lot of things on a lot of bills. In fact, I think we hold the record for major bill passage. The way we were able to do that is to work in a very bipartisan way. We have worked out difficulties and sometimes we have compromised and sometimes we have left things out so things could get done. On this bill, we never had that opportunity. We never had that courtesy. We never got to debate this for 1 minute in committee mark-up, let alone on the floor. The debate was kind of fascinating to listen to because there is equal pay, which all of us are in favor of; and there is the pay gap, which all of us want to close. But the discussion ranged between the two, making them sound like they were the same thing. I want people to be clear that they are not.…”