Dale Bumpers: “I yield to no Senator, with the possible exception of Robert C. Byrd from the great State of West Virginia, in my…”

“I yield to no Senator, with the possible exception of Robert C. Byrd from the great State of West Virginia, in my contempt for and disdain for the line-item veto bill that we passed in the 104th Congress and which two district courts have held to be unconstitutional. But I intend to vote to sustain the President's veto. I stood on this floor day after day, year after year, saying that the line-item veto was a lousy idea, an unconstitutional idea. When I think of the abuse that I and Senator Byrd and the people who stood fast on the floor of the Senate against the line-item veto--when I think of the abuse we took, the political abuse we took for resisting what was a palpable political idea, that still rankles me. Like so many ideas that have been floated through this body in the past 23 years that I have been here, they have immense popularity but they are lousy ideas, and the line-item veto stands out about as high as any next to the constitutional amendments related to prayer in school, flag burning and term limits and all those others things that people love to bring up here so they can run on them because they are popular.”