Political Quotes

“Madam President, I would like to follow up on the comments you have just shared with your support for a women's history museum and also to the comments made by the Senator from New Jersey and also the Senator from Texas regarding the American-Latino museum. I am privileged to serve as the chairman of the Interior Appropriations Subcommittee. As part of that subcommittee, we have oversight of the Smithsonian, and it is an incredibly rewarding part of the job that I have to do with oversight. So I am very well aware of these national treasures, what they contribute to the education, to the dialogue, and to just the motivation that comes when we know and understand more about our own country and about the people who make up this extraordinary mosaic called America and how we recognize and how we celebrate those contributions, how we acknowledge the challenges that women have faced along the way, African Americans or Latinos, as they have truly been extraordinary participants in this American society. I also recognize that our Smithsonians don't come free. They don't come cheap, as the Senator from Utah noted. The Smithsonians are funded with significant Federal taxpayer dollars, so we are required to show a level of--exercise with how we move forward. And we have been extraordinarily judicious. I think, as the Presiding Officer noted in her comments, when the discussion of a women's history museum first came about, it was not just a flash-in-the-pan idea.…”