Legislative Negotiations Quotes

When I first came to the Senate, people in both parties went out of their way to have personal relationships.

I think the amount of love and trust on Capitol Hill is often in short supply, and having more dogs here would probably make this place work better and maybe in a more bipartisan manner.

I am going to work with Tom Daschle. And I'll work with the Republican leaders and the president to try and come up with something that we can all be proud of.

Many times, disagreements between the two political parties in Washington get all the headlines. What's not reported is the fact that Republicans and Democrats agree on where we want to go, but we disagree on how we're going to get there.

You have a Republican House, close numbers in the Senate, a Democratic president. If we're going to move forward at all as a country, we're going to have to do it by standing together.

The way it's supposed to work is you pass a bill out of the House, you pass a bill out of the Senate, you go to conference on it, and you iron out the differences.

Obama's numbers fell by a slightly larger amount over his first few months because he enjoyed much more support right at the start from Republicans, support that eroded quickly.

In Wisconsin, I led the Assembly to a balanced budget in face of fierce opposition from the status quo.

When you battle Nancy Pelosi as much as I have, you're bound to get a few wrinkles.

Laws are like sausages, it is better not to see them being made.

I have worked closely with my Democratic allies. Elijah Cummings is a good friend.

Trying to run Congress without human relationships is like trying to run a car without motor oil. Should we be surprised when the whole thing freezes up?

Congress will compromise to give stuff away to people, but you won’t find them compromising to take things away from people.

Shutting down the government is not how you make government work.

The only possible role that I can see for reconciliation would be to make modest changes in the major package to improve affordability, to deal with what share of Medicaid expansion the federal government pays, those kinds of issues, which is the traditional role for reconciliation in health care.

I'm not a legislator. I've never been a lobbyist. I've never worked a session before, but based on my conversations with leadership in the Senate and the House, I get the general sense that people want to work together to make things happen.

While I support making improvements in the Affordable Care Act, trying to enact them while holding the government and our economic recovery hostage is reckless and irresponsible.

The Republicans have put together serious detailed counter-proposals when we have objected to this administration's agenda. And so, I want to tell the President and remind him again, we're not voting no for political expediency. We've got our principles, and we're going to stand up and defend those.

I don't see people who are eager for shutdowns. While some people have a romantic ideal about shutdowns, the vast majority of Republicans and Democrats believe you have to try to work problems out rather than having a shutdown.

In the United States Senate, we cannot do great things without reaching across the aisle and working together - and I look forward to the challenges ahead.

My father was on the Judiciary Committee all 18 years. He had a good personal relationship with Jim Eastland. They probably didn't agree on practically anything, or very little, from a public policy standpoint. But they were willing to work through that to see what they could get done just because they knew each other and liked each other.