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.
It is illegal for the CIA to spy on Americans and an affront to our Republic to spy on the Senate.
President Barack Obama has it right - there is a lot to change about Washington. The problem is, not much will get changed unless we confront the runaway filibuster in the U.S. Senate.
I am guilty of asking the Senate for pork and proud of the Senate for giving it to me.
People just want to hear some common sense... and I bring to bear the experience in local government and state government and national government - I was the first woman in history on the Senate Finance Committee - not to mention the diplomatic international experience.
The Republicans in the House and Senate took the district that I firmly represent, 22 in south Florida, from a D plus one to a D plus five almost a D plus six district, which means you are given a five to six percent registration advantage to Democrats. They drew in more Democrats into the district I represent.
To put that into some perspective, when Bill Clinton and Al Gore had first taken the idea of the Kyoto Protocol up to the Congress, the United States Senate voted it down 95 to nothing.
It would be wonderful to be a member of the United States Senate.
The Senate as an institution is broken. We're not doing the work of the American people and the rules are being abused. The only way to get us back to the traditions where the Senate is doing the work of the American people is to change the rules.
Advice and consent does not mean rubber stamp in the Senate.
I will fight in the United States Senate this year to fund a servicing mission to Hubble by 2008, a mission that would potentially increase Hubble's power and efficiency by a factor of 10 and allow us to look back almost to the beginning of the universe.
The floor of the U.S. Senate isn't a place that usually sees a lot of drama.
When you have a Senate that is 50 Democrats and 49 Republicans and one independent, it's quite obvious that the only way we are going to get something done is if we work together.
Twenty-six years ago, I became the first Democratic woman elected to the Senate in her own right. I was the first, but I made sure I wasn't the only.
The U.S. Senate does not allow legislative provisions to be included in appropriations bills, for much the same reason that most Americans are concerned about earmarks: it creates a slippery slope by which lobbyists and special interest groups can sneak provisions into large, must-pass legislation.
1992 became known as the 'Year of the Woman' because so many of us were elected to public office that November, including a record six to the United States Senate.
Filibusters have proliferated because under current rules just one or two determined senators can stop the Senate from functioning. Today, the mere threat of a filibuster is enough to stop a vote; senators are rarely asked to pull all-nighters like Jimmy Stewart in 'Mr. Smith Goes to Washington.'
The Senate is not the sort of place where instant gratification, I should say, is very likely.
It is a great privilege for any man to become a member of the Senate.
I was elected to the Senate in 2010 by people worried about our country, worried about our kids and their future.
When they call the roll in the Senate, the Senators do not know whether to answer 'Present' or 'Not guilty.'
You should see what our Founding Fathers used to say to each other and in the early part of our nation. But what they were able to do, especially in Philadelphia in 1787, four months, they argued about what a House should be, what a Senate should be, the power of the president, the Congress, the Supreme Court. And they had to deal with slavery.
You know, there were 29 Democratic votes for censure in the Senate. And if the Republicans had any sense, they would have censured him before the '98 midterm election, and they would have won the election.
In the executive branch, winning by a whisker is as good as winning in a landslide, but not so in the Senate.
Since I'm the president and Democrats have controlled the House and the Senate, it's understandable that people are saying, you know, 'What have you done?'
I think I'm the last Democrat left in the Senate after Russ Feingold was defeated that won't take earmarks.
Someday a political genius will come along and make the Senate work.
I have voted in support of efforts in the Senate to enact a Constitutional amendment that would have limited marriage to one man and one woman only.
You need the House, you need the Senate and you need the administration. And absent one of them, you're not going to get a heck of a lot done.
When the legislative and executive powers are united in the same person, or in the same body of magistrates, there can be no liberty; because apprehensions may arise, lest the same monarch or senate should enact tyrannical laws, to execute them in a tyrannical manner.
I must say I am not pleased to have to arrange the Senate schedule around the availability of Senators who are running for President.
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 feel that I am best positioned to fight for America's future here in the trenches of the United States Senate.
We believe the Senate language provides for federal subsidies for abortions. Plus there's a language in there where you have to pay one dollar per month, every enrollee, to pay for a fund for reproductive rights which include abortion. And that's totally against federal law. So we are saying take that out.
The Senate should refuse to confirm nominees who do not take Congressional power seriously.
The country is facing a fiscal crisis, and the United States Senate is at the center of the debate about how to bring federal spending under control.
