Jeff Flake: “I am probably the last person expected to speak on behalf of the committee or the leadership in general. I tend to be…”

“I am probably the last person expected to speak on behalf of the committee or the leadership in general. I tend to be critical sometimes of committees and the leadership and the process here. But let me tell you, I have watched the process here in the Committee on the Judiciary over the past couple of years on this issue. I have watched us hold hearing after hearing, 12 just in the last several months, 2 in the last Congress, and I have watched us adopt amendment after amendment in committee. We held a 12-hour markup there, a serious markup. I am often critical of the way we do business here, but here I saw it work. We did exercise effective oversight. Mr. Speaker, nobody loves sunsets like this Arizonan. I was very supportive of the sunsets we had in the bill initially. I am very supportive of the sunset we have, the 10-year sunsets on the two controversial provisions. I think those ought to stand, and I hope they make it through the process. But I have learned on issues like this you do not get everything you want. I did not get every amendment I wanted. I got a few, and a few of the ones we did get were substantive. We have made amendments to section 215, to section 213. We have tightened up the requirements of national security letters. These are substantive amendments. They are good. Sometimes, as my hero in politics said once, in one book, Barry Goldwater said, ``Politics is nothing more than public business. Sometimes you make the best of a mixed bargain.…”