John McCain Quotes
We’ve been through the House. We’ve been through the Senate. We’ve been through the rantings and ravings. The time is now.
Despite having passed the House and a majority of the Senate favoring McCain’s bill, a filibuster was led by a few holdouts from his own party. Patiently, McCain assembled sufficient Senate support to break the filibuster.
John McCain, U. S. Senator (Republican, AZ), Republican Presidential Nominee, Description of the Legislative Process regarding the Campaign Finance Reform legislation, CBS Face the Nation, March 3, 2002
Sourced by: Eigen's Political and Historical Quotations
Because of the filibuster and other procedural individual prerogatives, it is easy for a few Senators or often a single Senator to prevent a bill from ever coming to a vote. Much imaginative and excellent legislation has died in the United States Senate.
Jefferson had not been present at the 1887 Constitutional Convention as he was representing the country in France. Upun his return, he chided Washington for having agreed to the second legislative body and taking power away from the immediate representatives of the people. This reply of Washington’s has been described by many but no eyewitness was present and the event was never described by either Washington or Jefferson.
His main reason for believing this is that all appropriations bills must be initiated by the House of Representatives. Lobbyists therefore often give the House more attention than the Senate.
He was a Congressman at the time. The problem of legislating in an election year seems to have always been difficult.
In 2007 the Republicans, who were in the minority, began to use the filibuster to a degree that it had never been used. Within the single year of 2007 Republican’s filibustered 62 times, doubling the highest rate that had occurred before. A small minority of senators were able to block legislation that easily passed the House and was supported by the majority of senators and in some cases supported by the overwhelming majority of the American Public.
The U. S. Senate had deteriorated to the point where Senators were only working 3 days per week—Tuesday through Thursday. The Senators would spend the other 4 days in their home states—usually raising money for the next election where millions of dollars will be needed.
This is a very interesting historical quotation. The House and the Senate closed the galleries because America was in the midst of the most fatal outbreak of disease in its history. It was the Flu, but that year it was a particularly virulent strain—the first time the world had seen the H1N1 strain. There was no vaccine then and about 100 million people died worldwide. In America more than ½ million people died. It was the worst Pandemic in history—it killed more people than the Black Plague even. The medical authorities did realize that the flu was spread from person to person but other than keep people from congregating in groups as in the Congressional galleries, there was little they knew about what to do.
The House, under the control of the majority leadership, does not have to be very efficient or reasonable with respect to its own procedures. Leaderships of both parties care little of their caucus members read the legislation or not so long as they vote the party line as instructed by the leadership.
John Sidney McCain III was an American politician, statesman and United States Navy officer who served as a United States Senator for Arizona from 1987 until his death in 2018. He previously served two terms in the United States House of Representatives and was the Republican nominee for president of the United States in the 2008 election, which he lost to Barack Obama.
