Bernie Sanders Quotes

The Republican senators are filibustering themselves out of their seats.

Few believe Democrats will control both houses of Congress in 2021, and even if they manage to, Republicans will still be around to play spoiler on plenty of big agenda items.

In the first 50 years of the filibuster, it was used only 35 times. But the last Congress alone had 112 cloture motions filed, plus threats of more. This is the tyranny of the minority.

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.'

What happens in the Senate is the Republicans sink to the lowest common denominator.

While 2013 will not see a major national election, we can be sure that most Republicans will obstruct and some Democrats will appease.

If there is a nuclear tactic being used here, I submit it is the use of that obstruction where a willful minority blocks a bipartisan majority from voting on the President's judicial nominees.

It seems as though there are Members in this body who want to filibuster just about everything we try to do, whether it is stopping judicial nominations, the Energy bill, or this Medicare bill.

My viewpoint is the Senate is dysfunctional.

I never heard the word 'compromise' used. So I'm starting to believe that these terms only come into play to try and force Republicans to do what the Democrats want.

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

To be honest, I haven't seen much serious budget planning since the Republicans took control of the House after the 2010 elections and grabbed onto the Senate filibuster. It's not the White House's fault that John Boehner couldn't deliver on a bigger deal.

You used to get legislation done by getting the moderates to agree. But we have no moderates now so it doesn’t get done

The filibuster is being abused to create gridlock and prevent the Senate from doing the people's business. Instead of being a deliberative body, the Senate has become a deadlocked body.

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.

There's a lot of good, bipartisan legislation that passes in committee and then gets bottled up. As a businessman, it surprised me.

So the - the part of the problem is not just the rhetoric. It's the fact that we - we're so polarized in what we've done to each other as parties over the last thirty years in redistricting that it's very, very hard to overcome your own constituencies and move to the middle.

The name 'Republican' in some ways has been hijacked by obstructionists.

Right now, there are nearly 30 jobs bills passed by the House with support from both Republicans and Democrats that are awaiting action in the Democratic-run Senate.

I think that what is truly unfortunate is when an entire party makes a decision that they're going to block every single thing that a president wants to accomplish. It's very - it's very hard to get anything done in those circumstances.

We shouldn't deny the right of the minority to filibuster, but we need to do a much better job of making them own it. That way, the American people could figure out who is being obstructionist and who is willing to compromise.

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.

I do not sympathize with the sentiment that Congress in session is dangerous to our general business interests.

We have a level of obstruction and an abuse of the Senate rules that we have never had before… We have a dysfunctional Senate. Some say it’s a broken Senate.

We need less bipartisanship in Congress.