Political Quotes

“My good friend from Texas (Ms. Jackson Lee) just talked about how we have proposed that this be a balanced committee like the Ethics Committee. That was done with regard to another special committee, in fact, the bill that was sponsored by current Speaker, then-minority leader, John Boehner in the 110th Congress. They set up a special committee with regard to voting irregularities. They had an equal balance between Democrats and Republicans to remove any taint of partisanship from the proceedings. That would be a welcomed change, but again, that was not even allowed to be discussed under this rule. Another language of concern in the underlying bill which we tried to address in the Rules Committee but unfortunately were voted down is that this bill allows for such funds that are needed to be appropriated for this purpose. We were not even presented with any cost estimates for this committee. On the committee, it was noted that Kenneth Starr's investigation of then-President Clinton cost in excess of $80 million. We simply don't know if this is a $1 million, a $10 million, a $50 million, or a $200 million endeavor; nor were we allowed to even allow for a vote our very simple bipartisan proposal to pay for this bill, which would have been to allow a vote on H.R. 15. H.R.…”