Senate Quotes

House and Senate Republicans are now united in adopting earmark bans. We hope President Obama will follow through on his support for an earmark ban by pressing Democratic leaders to join House and Senate Republicans in taking this critical step to restore public trust.

The Senate is a remarkable institution. It is unique. There is no other body, no other political body, no other democratic legislature in the world quite like the U.S. Senate.

I want to run for the Senate from Tennessee. Not now, but when I'm 50, when music dies down a little bit. I know lots of artists and actors have those delusions of grandeur, but ever since I was a kid, it's been of interest to me.

The Democrats filibustered something in the Senate when I was eight years old. I don't remember what it was on and I didn't honestly care when I was eight years old. I cared about the history and the Senate rules.

Twenty-six years ago, I became the first Democratic woman elected to the Senate in her own right. I was the first, but I made sure I wasn't the only.

Let me be clear: There is no stronger advocate for civil liberties in the Senate than myself.

The U.S. Senate already has one Arlen Specter too many.

All alone in a committee room of the Senate Office Building in Washington, I was reading the dry typewritten pages in an unpublished report of an almost forgotten congressional committee hearing.

But ours was intended to be a citizen government. It is what of, by and for the people means. And when our most important issue in California is the creation of jobs, I think it's quite helpful to have someone in the U.S. Senate or in the governor's seat who actually knows where jobs come from.

I feel very confident that that information should be sufficient for the members of the Senate to make an informed decision about John Roberts' qualifications.

In his years in Washington, Senator Kerry has been one vote of a hundred in the United States Senate - and fortunately on matters of national security he was very often in the minority.

I am proud to be in the Senate. I have always been proud to be a part of our political system. It is a remarkable privilege to participate in this system of ours.

Obviously the Senate is a federal office, but to get California's economy moving again we need to do some things in the federal arena.

I hope that the Senate acts quickly to pass this legislation so that Americans will no longer worry about having to sell the family farm or business to pay taxes after the death of a loved one.

But when I look at the fact that today is 1,000 days that we have not had a budget for the United States of America, you know, the House, one of the things we did, we passed a budget last year. But that is still sitting over there at the Senate. And so we have got to get this country back on track.

It's now up to the full Senate to move swiftly to confirm John Roberts so he can assume his duties and responsibilities as chief justice when the Supreme Court begins its new term in a matter of weeks. We call on the Senate to confirm John Roberts without delay.

People just want to hear some common sense... and I bring to bear the experience in local government and state government and national government - I was the first woman in history on the Senate Finance Committee - not to mention the diplomatic international experience.

I really think the Patriot Act violates our Constitution. It was, it is, an illegal act. The Congress, the Senate and the president cannot change the Constitution.

President Obama's decision to bypass the constitutional advice and consent of the Senate is not an isolated incident.

I'm interested in being part of a majority in the Senate.

The American people do not like privatization. They are afraid of the debt the president's willing to do. And they don't like benefit cuts. And everyone here should understand all 45 Senate Democrats are united. We are not going to let this happen.

Members of the U.S. House and the U.S. Senate are not there by accident. Each managed to get there for some reason. Learn what it was and you will know something important about them, about our country and about the American people.

My husband is the first man to consistently be involved in the Senate Spouses group.

The Appropriations Committee in the Senate is out of control, out of control on spending.

What's going on in the Senate is kind of a politics of escalation. We're getting sort of like the Mideast: pay back everybody when you're in charge.

When the 14th Amendment, equal protection clause was enacted, the galleries in the Senate were segregated. Now we have integration.

Enough of these little kitty cats we keep sending to Washington. David Dewhurst will compromise every day in the U.S. Senate... It's what he's done every day in state government.

Everyone believed the Senate could not really be led. It used to take so long to rise up through seniority. In two years Lyndon Johnson is assistant leader of his party. In four years he is the leader of his party.

Well, my constituents are happy that the Republican Party has finally gotten off its duff, seeing that we do control the House and the Senate and the presidency, and taken up the issue of illegal immigration.

We plan to pick up another five seats in the Senate and hold the House through redistricting through 2012. And rather than negotiate with the teachers' unions and the trial lawyers and the various leftist interest groups, we intend to break them.