Top 1200 Senate Quotes & Sayings

I had always heard that Mitch McConnell was a master legislator and a true loyalist to this institution. But in the 18 months I've been in the Senate, what I've seen is an astonishingly limited vision for what the Senate can and should accomplish. What a waste.

The Senate needs 60 votes to pass anything. They have to compromise with liberal Democrats to spend more money. Even though arguably we have control of the Senate, we really don't.

Lyndon Johnson, as majority leader of the United States Senate, he made the Senate work.

Obviously, you cannot do full repeal of Obamacare without a 60-vote bill in the Senate, but you can surely gut the law and give people true healthcare freedom with 51 votes in the Senate.

Our responsibility is to focus on the House. The Senate's the Senate.

When you work in the United States Senate, and you are around people of all different ideas and beliefs, you realize that what our Founding Fathers did that was so genius, is that they made the Senate the place where compromises are supposed to happen because of the makeup of the Senate.

I'm one of the only members of the U.S. Senate who isn't a millionaire. And there's absolutely nothing wrong with being a millionaire. But there ought to be a little economic diversity in the Senate and I try to provide it.

I am guilty of asking the Senate for pork and proud of the Senate for giving it to me.

As Michigan's voice on the Senate Finance Committee and Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, I will continue working to make sure the next generation of advanced technologies and alternative fuel vehicles are made right here in America.

We wouldn't even be where we are had it not been that 70% of Hispanics voted for President Obama, voted Democratic in the last election. That caused an epiphany in the Senate, that's for sure. So all of a sudden we have already passed comprehensive immigration reform in the Senate. That's a big victory.

There's a statement from several members of the Senate, both Democrats and Republicans, including the Democratic leader, Charles Schumer; John McCain, the chair of the Senate Armed Services Committee; and Lindsey Graham, also a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee. They write that recent reports of Russian interference in our elections should alarm every American. They say Democrats and Republicans must work together to investigate this.

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.

President Trump should tell the Senate, 'No more admissions to NATO, no more U.S. war guarantees, unless I have recommended or approved them.' Foreign policy is made in the White House, not on the Senate floor.

I will always support a vote. The constitution gives the president the right to appoint justices with the advice and consent of the Senate. The Senate does have the right to say no; they do not have the right to say nothing.

I have been immeasurably honored to serve the people of Maine for nearly 40 years in public office and for the past 17 years in the United States Senate. It was incredibly difficult to decide that I would not seek a fourth term in the Senate.

Coming to serve in the Senate and also running for the Senate in a short time period is not for the faint of heart. But I am not fainthearted.

When the Senate ceases to engage nominees in meaningful discussion of legal issues, the confirmation process takes on an air of vacuity and farce, and the Senate becomes incapable of evaluating nominees or appropriately educating the public.

When the Senate ceases to engage nominees in meaningful discussion of legal issues, the confirmation process takes on an air of vacuity and farce, and the Senate becomes incapable of either properly evaluating nominees or appropriately educating the public.

I ran for the Senate six times. And one of the things I know about Senate races off years and on races, and on years, the same as governor's races, is it's all local. It all gets down to what the specific issues in that - in that district or that state is.

I was appointed to the Senate, and it has been my job to serve in the Senate and then to earn the vote of Minnesotans.

I am prepared to admit that when it comes to dealing with the House and Senate leaders, Obama is terrible. But he's great with the public. Which hates the House and Senate as much as he does.

How Obama approaches judicial selection - and how Republicans respond - now becomes an important story and will remain so until the Senate shuts down judicial confirmations, probably in the summer of 2016 if Senate custom in presidential-election years is followed.

You now have six-year campaigns for the Senate - you never stop running. It's not uncommon for a member of the Senate to have a fundraising breakfast, a fundraising lunch and a fundraising dinner, and then when the Senate breaks for the week to go home, more fundraisers. And that's driven by the cost of campaigning.

Bob Torricelli, Democrat member of the Senate, was basically about to be thrown out of office on corruption charges, and he went to the floor of the Senate to deny everything. And we juxtaposed his denials with an attorney from someone in an action against Torricelli who was listing all of the gifts and all the bribes that Torricelli had been given and offered in exchange for policy considerations on the Senate floor. So he's on the Senate floor denying it.

At first I intended to become a student of the Senate rules and I did learn much about them, but I soon found that the Senate hadbut one fixed rule, subject to exceptions of course, which was to the effect that the Senate would do anything it wanted to do whenever it wanted to do it.

When it comes to Senate reform, in general, I've always been a believer in an elected Senate and would hope to achieve aspects of Senate reform.

I am a junior senator, ninety-fifth on the seniority list, and so by Senate standards, my office in the Russell Senate Office Building is less than splendid.

Ancient Rome declined because it had a Senate, now what's going to happen to us with both a House and a Senate?

If you read the Senate rules, there are provisions where the Senate parliamentarian can be overridden.

I would hope that the Senate would do its job and confirm the nominee that President [Barack] Obama has sent to them. That's the way the Constitution fundamentally should operate. The president nominates, and then the Senate advises and consents, or not, but they go forward with the process.

Under the Constitution, the president, not the Senate, nominates and appoints judges. The Senate has a different role. We must give our advice .

In the 2016 U.S. Senate race, I was on the receiving end of more than $3 million in outside negative attacks funded by the NRA, the second-most spent on any Senate campaign in the country.

Let there be no reservation or doubt that I believe the Senate should vote on each and every judicial appointment made by the President of the United States and that no rule or procedure should ever stop the Senate from exercising its constitutional responsibility.

The constitution has divided the powers of government into three branches, Legislative, Executive and Judiciary, lodging each with a distinct magistracy. The Legislative it has given completely to the Senate and House of Representatives. It has declared that the Executive powers shall be vested in the President, submitting special articles of it to a negative by the Senate, and it has vested the Judiciary power in the courts of justice, with certain exceptions also in favor of the Senate.

A typical day in the Senate requires several trips to the Senate floor and back, although the journey is usually underground so that on some days, once I arrive at work, I never see the sun.

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.

These guys sit in the Senate - even though he misses most of the votes, by the way - but he sits in the Senate and listens to this stuff all the time.I'm out working, producing jobs all over the place and building a great company.

It is perhaps accurate ... to describe the Daschle proposals as being 'Sex, Lies and No Videotape,' ... We insisted on a complete search for the truth, on the ability for the Senate to decide whether or not video presentations of these witnesses will be permitted on the floor of the Senate.

Now, for this book I had to learn the world of the Senate, which is really for all that's written about the Senate, an unknowing world and its mores, and the way things work with subcommittees and all. I loved learning about that.

Had the Senate or House, or both, censured or somehow warned Richard Nixon, the tragedy of Watergate might have been prevented. Hopefully the Senate will not sit by while even more serious abuses unfold before it.

It seems like basic principle to me. According to Senate ethics rules, Members of the U.S. Senate, and their families, cannot benefit personally and financially from legislative decisions they make. Senator Feinstein, apparently, either doesn't agree with this principle, or she has chosen to ignore it.

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.

I entered politics out of a desire to serve, but I have always really wanted to achieve things in the private sector as well. As a father and a husband, that is my primary obligation, and that will always continue, whether I am in the Senate or out of the Senate.

The majority in the Senate is prepared to restore the Senate's traditions and precedents to ensure that regardless of party, any president's judicial nominees, after full and fair debate, receive a simple up-or-down vote on the Senate floor.

What I find most appalling is the Senate calls it a qualified blind trust when it's not blind. Since the Senate says it's OK, the Senate has made it a political question. It's up to the voter. But there's no doubt it's a conflict of interest.

Moments ago, the U.S. Senate decided to do the unthinkable about gun violence - nothing at all. Over two years ago, when I was shot point-blank in the head, the U.S. Senate chose to do nothing. Four months ago, 20 first-graders lost their lives in a brutal attack on their school, and the U.S. Senate chose to do nothing. It's clear to me that if members of the U.S. Senate refuse to change the laws to reduce gun violence, then we need to change the members of the U.S. Senate.

I refuse to do anything that would help Republicans win a Senate seat in New York, and give the Senate majority to the Republicans.

Ted Kennedy was in the Senate for 40 years. Tip O'Neill for 35 years. John Kerry in the Senate for 30 some odd years. It does take time to become effective.

The prosperity of a nation requires the protection of a senate. Hereafter a national senate may require the protection of a national army.

I should hate to think that the Senate was as tired of me at the beginning of my service as I am of the Senate at the end.

Senate races have tightened along with the presidential race. Watch to see how many Republican Senate candidates outperform Donald Trump - and how many hang on to their seats in states that he loses.

The Democrats are angry, and they're out of their minds. You know, we're seeing in the Senate, the Senate Democrats objecting to every single thing. They're boycotting committee meetings. They're refusing to show up. They're foaming at the mouth, practically. And really, you know, where their anger is directed, it's not at Republicans. Their anger is directed at the American people. They're angry with the voters, how dare you vote in a Republican president, Donald Trump, a Republican Senate, a Republican House.

He's a nice guy who will never change the Senate. He is the Senate. Eighteen years in politics, and he's got two cousins who are senators, too. Mark Udall's dad even ran for president.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid likes to reminisce about being an amateur boxer. But his Senate tenure has often looked like an endless rope-a-dope.

What I think is at stake in 2012, is whether the five or six strong conservatives elected to the Senate in 2010 become 10 or 12. And if that happens, it will fundamentally shift the character of the Senate. It will shift the balance.

The chaplain of the Senate does not pray for the Senate. He watches the Senate and prays for the country.

Lyndon Johnson, as majority leader of the United States Senate, he made the Senate work

[The reason a man has] so much trouble with the Senate is that there isn't a man in the Senate who doesn't think he is better suited to be President than the President, and thinks he might have been President except for luck.

The Senate should consider a rule ensuring that every judicial nominee receives a vote by the Senate within 180 days of being nominated by the president.

We respect the role of the Senate. We respect the authority of the Senate to look at the qualifications of Judge Roberts, and at the end of the day I'm optimistic that if given a fair hearing and a fair opportunity, that he will be confirmed.