Brian Bilbray: “Mr. Chairman, I think we all are talking at each other, not with each other. I think we are about ready to vote on this…”

“Mr. Chairman, I think we all are talking at each other, not with each other. I think we are about ready to vote on this issue. Let me just say sincerely, I voted with the gentlewoman from New York, and it is not because the gentlewoman from New York (Ms. Slaughter) is my cousin. I think we ought to remember, as we talk across the aisle, that we are all Americans, and sometimes we are even family. I am ready to vote with her again, not because she is my cousin, but because it represents my district. I am representing my part of the world in this body as I swore to do under the Constitution. The gentleman from Washington (Mr. Nethercutt) is representing his district. I respect him for that. I respect him now as a representative under his constitutional powers. I have a little problem with the ridiculing and the attacking of us doing what we are supposed to do under our constitutional obligations. We should not be attacking them for doing that. We should be celebrating the system working. I just ask us to remember, this is what it is all about, representing our districts, and the cumulative impact of doing that.”