Political Quotes

“Mr. Chairman, I rise in support of this amendment. Asset forfeiture is a crime against the American people, committed by their own government. This is absolutely opposite of what our people who wrote the Constitution of the United States had in mind. For the government to take away someone's property and then say, ``You have to prove you are innocent to get it back,'' that is totally in contrast to the limited government, individual responsibility, individual freedom, and property rights concepts that our Founding Fathers had in mind. If we believe in freedom and if we believe in liberty, let's not open up the government to be able to steal our property and then we have to go to court. We have lost all of our due process. It is now our obligation to prove that we are innocent until proven guilty. That is ridiculous. Vote for this amendment and protect the freedom of our people. Mr. Chair, I rise as a proud co-sponsor in strong support of the Amash-Sanford-Labrador-Rohrabacher Amendment. Civil asset forfeiture is a widely abused law enforcement tactic in which federal, state and local law enforcement agencies seize property, often with little or no evidence that a crime has been committed. The person whose property has been seized then has to hire an attorney and prove their innocence in order to try to get their property back. Police departments have a strong incentive to abuse civil asset forfeiture because they get to keep these ill-gotten gains for their own use.…”