Legislative Tactics Quotes

The Senate has unlimited debate; in the House, debate is ruthlessly circumscribed. There is frequent discussion as to which technique most effectively frustrates democratic process.

We've seen filibusters to block judicial nominations, jobs bills, political transparency, ending Big Oil subsidies - you name it, there's been a filibuster.

Don't call the question unless you've got the votes.

Our whole system was to settle disputes within the [congressional] committees. It's a waste of time to bring out a bill if you can't pass it. I just don't like to have a record vote for the sake of having a vote.

Getting something through the House is only half the battle. So you put things in the House bill that you know will be taken out in conference and you leave things out of the House bill that will be in the Senate bill. It's like a chess game.

George [Mitchell] introduced the idea that we'd go on a retreat [and] to really regularize caucuses. He's the one who had I think [Tom] Daschle become the Democratic Policy Committee chairman, so I think it lived through with Tom.

American Action Network should be spending their money to try and get those Democrats to change the votes, not beating up on Republicans in the House.

[A] Senator who wants to stir up trouble ... can do so by introducing on the floor amendments which he was duty bound to present in committee. But presentation in committee makes no headlines.

So the next thing I assume I'll be hearing from Republicans, they want to change rules some way, as they do on the House when you get a problem with ethics, they just change the rules.

The headline in the Washington Post: "Democrats Confident They Can Block Trump's Agenda After Spending Bill Win." They think now they can stop Donald Trump's agenda for the next 3-1/2 years. They've shown how to do it. The agenda tied to the budget. The budget tied to government shutdowns. The Republicans cave at the first mention of a government shutdown; ergo, they've shut down Trump. That's what they're thinking.

I prefer a simple bill which deals with a single basic issue. When you add new provisions to a bill you develop a larger coalition of opposition. Each new provision brings in more opponents who combine with the existing opponents until you no longer can pass the law.

Whenever excessive regulation is on the horizon, you can guarantee our kids will be wheeled out as a battering ram against adult opposition.

The classic example I've used - I'm sure you've heard me say it before - was Mark Begich in Alaska who was here for a full six years and never had a roll call vote on an amendment on the floor of the Senate, which Dan Sullivan tells me he used on virtually a daily basis. So the notion that protecting all of your members from votes is a good idea politically, I think, has been pretty much disproved by the recent [Barack Obama] election.

We know that appropriators will fight these cutbacks. But by eliminating earmarks, we can stop the horse trading that grows agency budgets.

Sometimes Congress likes to milk an issue.

You know, the purpose of reconciliation is to avoid the filibuster. The filibuster is an effort to talk something to death.

I would never filibuster any President’s judicial nominee, period. I might vote against them, but I will always see they came to a vote.

If you know an amendment [you are opposed to] will pass you don't want a roll call [vote] because that makes it [the amendment] harder to drop in conference.

The healthcare bill not only is a monstrosity in terms of growing the government and cutting out the private sector, the way it was passed was sleazy. Every old Washington trick was used to pass the healthcare bill.

The argument most commonly made in the filibuster's favor is crudely partisan: 'Our side may be in the majority now, but someday it will be in the minority, and when that happens we'll want to block the other side's extremist agenda.'

Desperate times require desperate measures. What Lincoln and the Lobbyist for the Amendment and the Manager of the Amendment and himself, what they did to get this passed was not illegal. It was murky, but what they did was noble and grand. How they went about it was somewhat murky. Nothing they did was really illegal.

We would be somewhat foolish to work out something on stopping us from going over the cliff and then a month or six weeks later Republicans pull the same game they did before and say, 'We're not going to do anything - unless this happens, we're not going to agree to increasing the debt ceiling.' I agree with the president, it has to be a package deal.

Like the battleships of old, omnibus programs present too tempting a target, too easily destroyed by a single attack, to make it through a fight.... It is through incremental change after change, step after step, that a statesman of today can vindicate a bold vision.

Slapping a catchy acronym like the JOBS Act on a piece of legislation makes it more difficult for politicians to oppose it - and indeed that's what happened with the Jumpstart Our Business Startups Act.

The only tool the Democrats have is in the Senate, and it's the filibuster.