A Quote by Diana Taylor
If you are a junior member of a minority party - one of 100 people - in the U.S. Senate, what really can you do? Well, you're just going to get frustrated.
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I found, in the Senate, you can have significant impact whether you're in the minority party or the majority party, and a lot of it goes back to... that you really have to be able to count to 60.
In theory, the filibuster helps whichever party is in the minority in the Senate. In practice, it is the Republicans who have disproportionately used it to engage in cynical and anti-democratic obstructionism whenever they find themselves in the minority.
As a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, I'm concerned about the recklessness of public policy that endangers people's lives, especially in minority communities, where crime often is such a scourge.
Party politics are quite upsetting. I've been a member of the Labour party, the Green party, the Women's Equality Party, the National Health Action Party and now I'm not a member of any.
That's what the Senate is about. It's the last bastion of minority rights, where a minority can be heard, where a minority can stand on its feet, one individual if necessary, and speak until he falls into the dust.
That's what the Senate is about. It's the last bastion of minority rights, where a minority can be heard, where a minority can stand on its feet, one individual if necessary, and speak until he falls into the dust
It's really important for me to do the fundamentals of this job really, really well. And to let people know that I think the core responsibilities of a member of Congress aren't seeking the national headlines or being the spokesperson on this issue or that issue when you just get there.
No, and in fact I get a bit frustrated, because I'm actually quite good at one-liners, and I've had hundreds of them over the years, and they sink without trace, and I get very frustrated. Every party conference I really work on the speeches, and I always have two or three things I'm quite proud of, and no one ever remembers them.
Robert Torricelli, a powerful fund-raiser who helped raise more than $100 million for the Democratic party, took inappropriate gifts from a businessman, including an $8,000 gold Rolex watch, for which he was severely admonished by the Senate Ethics Committee in July. To recap: raising $100 million in contributions from gigantic corporations - ethical; taking a watch - unethical. That's the Senate Ethics Committee, an oxymoron since 1974.
When I first came to Congress, the party was supposed to help you. Now, when a new member is sworn in, he or she is told what their dues are - how much they are expected to raise for the party for the next election. It's worse in the Senate. It turns the whole place into a money machine.
The Democratic Party is always going to be the party of civil rights and fairness - everybody gets an equal, fair shot at the American dream. And we're going to be the party that really fights to protect planet Earth - enjoy whatever time we're going to get!
I was so frustrated after 2016 with the Republican Party. When we had the House, the presidency and the Senate, and we had a pretty fair Supreme Court, I really expected to see all of these things that Republicans have wanted for so long finally come to fruition, but then it all kind of fell flat on its face.
If you're in the Senate and in the minority, you just get to give speeches and run around and raise money. If you're in the majority, you're under attack from the press every day.
Unfortunately, the Senate Democrats have become an extreme party. They have become a party that has abdicated their responsibilities. Under Harry Reid and the Senate Democrats, we have a do-nothing Senate.
At the federal level, as a member of Congress, you have one vote out of 435, and in the Senate, it's one out of 100. So, the ability to get some stuff done exists as a much larger opportunity at a local level than in the federal government.
I'm not a member of a minority but I can empathize with what's going on.
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