Political Quotes

“I do want to thank the gentlelady from the Virgin Islands for managing the time for our colleagues in this Special Order that has been taken to honor our good friend who has just passed away, Congressman Don Payne. Congressman Don Payne was my classmate. We sat next to each other for the past 23 years as members of the House Foreign Affairs Committee. We were talking about the situation where it looked very interesting as proud Americans, and yet we knew something was missing here in terms of the activities of how our foreign policies have come about, in doing things about our relationship with other countries, so Don Payne was committed to looking after the needs of what are our foreign policies towards Africa. My commitment was to find out what are our foreign policies towards the Asia and the Pacific region. I want to share this little interesting thought with my colleagues. When Don Payne and I first became members of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, hardly any of the members wanted to be on the Asia and the Pacific or Africa subcommittees. The mentality here in Washington was entirely towards Europe and the Middle East. Being members of these two subcommittees was almost like the pits. They were not even on the radar screen, weren't even given any real sense of priority or interest.…”