Political Quotes

“I rise to support the restoration of funding for the National Endowment for Democracy in the Justice, State, Commerce appropriations bill. The amount is very modest--$30 million-- and the same level of funding as the NED currently receives for this fiscal year. What is the NED? It is a grant-making organization that is governed by an independent, nonpartisan board of directors. NED monies are utilized to fund the activities of the four independent institutes--the National Democratic Institute, the International Republican Institute, the Free Trade Union Institute, and Center for International Private Enterprise. In addition to funding the programs of these institutes, NED also provides grants directly to support democratic activist groups throughout the world. This includes grass roots organizations in Nigeria and Zaire, women's groups in moderate Islamic countries, civic groups who worked to make the recently held Mexican elections open and transparent, pro-democracy groups in Cuba, China and Burma. These are just a small handful of the activities funded by NED. The endowment also sponsors the Journal of Democracy, a well known and highly regarded scholarly publication on global democracy issues.”