All Quotes

This bill is a compromise bill, so we have right there two different versions and then the final version.

I want to apologize to people who have come to this hearing expecting to hear profound, principled reasons why, since the birth of the Nation, the District should have had budget autonomy over its own local budget.

So if you are Mr. Mendelson or the city council and you have a court order from the superior court, it seems at the very least we ought to agree that Mr. Mendelson and the council are protected.

To me, it's shameful that the community housing the Federal Government is not afforded the same rights to self-government as all others across the country.

More recently, House Republicans passed for the second time this Congress a misguided D.C. voucher bill that was not only not requested by the District.

I regret that the committee has seemingly abandoned those bipartisan efforts in recent years.

Without budget autonomy, if the Federal Government shuts down, the D.C. government shuts down too.

My concern is, as I've expressed it before, that with the Local Budget Autonomy Act, which will allow officials of the District to spend money that is not appropriated by Congress, that people could find that there are some violations of…

It is time for congressional Republicans to get on board.

The chairman of this committee seemed to also threaten jail time for the D.C. city Mayor for implementing the city's marijuana legalization law.

I have consistently supported autonomy for the District and would argue that Congress' actions have actually had a deleterious effect on the District, its management, and its residents.

I regret that Mr. Nathan had to relitigate superior court decision.

[Respecting human rights] is the right thing to do, but it is also the smart thing to do . . . because ignoring the human rights of citizens risks turning them to extremism and fueling the very fire that we seek to extinguish together.

The United States is committed to partnering with the people and governments of Africa to promote democracy, peace and prosperity.

Those concerns are that as that committee considers its bill, it not cross some lines into the areas of diplomacy and development.

I hope that AFRICOM is not folded back into EUCOM because what AFRICOM has meant for us is that we have a military that is more focused on Africa.

I would not designate Nigeria as a country because we have huge, huge and very active Christian populations in Nigeria throughout the southern parts of Nigeria into the middle belt and even in northern Nigeria, and we have a huge Muslim…

I would say they are more than that. I think that is part of their ideology, but they have killed more Muslims in the north than they have killed Christians.