Political Quotes

“I guess I have a completely opposite view of my friend from North Carolina as to the importance of this bill. The payment for wrongs against thousands and thousands and thousands of people that were delayed under Republican Congresses, Republican Presidents, it is about time that we settle these cases and pay the bills to people who were either discriminated against or had their trust moneys bungled by the Interior Department. We actually, through the course of all this, had one Interior Secretary under a Republican President who got herself in trouble. Ultimately, it was all resolved. Now it's time to settle these particular cases. Decades of litigation, decades of settlement talks. It is a red-letter day that the discrimination and the mismanagement that harmed so many people are resolved. That's the purpose. That's why this has been a bipartisan bill and I hope will be a bipartisan vote later today when we take up the bill. There are 500,000 Native Americans whose communities were deprived of revenue rightfully and legally owed to them for commercial development of their land. There are thousands of other Native Americans whose communities will benefit by completing long overdue water projects. There are also 70,000 farmers in the Pigford case who were deprived of their ability to farm because of their race, out and out discrimination.”