David Skaggs: “it is especially ironic, I think, that a citizens group wanting to present their views, to lobby, if you will, are…”

“it is especially ironic, I think, that a citizens group wanting to present their views, to lobby, if you will, are subjected to this kind of regime and the effort to silence them is being characterized, or caricatured, as lobbying reform. Meanwhile, the real lobbying reform that needs to go on in this place is shunted off as something we simply do not have time for, even though we have already passed it last year twice. It really gives us reason to stop and think where are the values here? Who is being heard? Whose lobbying is being preferred, I would ask the gentlewoman? ... Each time we are told that there is no time to do it, we cannot take it up. In the one instance where it did come up, it was voted down. It is now going to be postponed until some other time, and when a lobbying group, just in a week, in the face of seniors who were arrested, came in and within 2 days time, within 2 days time, changed their tune and were rewarded for doing that.”