Political Quotes

“I thank the gentleman for yielding. Mr. Speaker, over a month ago, the House passed the Vietnam Veterans Donor Acknowledgment Act by a resounding vote of 398-2. Unfortunately, a couple of weeks ago, the Senate substantially changed this bipartisan and noncontroversial piece of legislation. Instead of only allowing donor recognition at a soon-to-be-built Vietnam Veterans Education Center, the Senate changed the bill to allow donor recognition, across the entire Mall, on all future commemorative works. While I am not fundamentally opposed to this idea, neither the House nor the Senate has done any hearings to consider the implications of this issue. In fact, neither the House nor the Senate has done a markup on this issue to allow Members to add their input. Mr. Speaker, put simply, this is just a poor legislative process, and the American people deserve better. Today, we are here to undo what the Senate has done and to, once again, send the Senate a bipartisan and noncontroversial bill. Today's resolution merely strikes the Senate language that allows donor recognition across The Mall and reinserts my original language from H.R. 588. This language has been through the full committee process and is sound legislative text. However, not all of the Senate additions are bad. In this bill, we will keep one portion of the Senate's language, which extends the legislative authority to construct the Vietnam Veterans Education Center from 2014 until 2018.…”