Christopher Shays: “I had fainted unless I believed to see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living, and I see this goodness in…”

“I had fainted unless I believed to see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living, and I see this goodness in this House, and I see a little anger, and I see little charges. My wife and I got to serve in the Peace Corps. It was the best 2 years of our lives, serving in another country and learning another culture. George Bush gets it. He would oppose this amendment. He knows we live in a pluralistic society, and he knows our party is not pluralistic. Look at us. We are good people, but we do not look like that, and some day my hope, some day my hope is that we will look like that, but amendments like this make it very difficult for people of other cultures to want to be a part of our party. This amendment passed in the past because we confused foreign nationals and the soft money they gave to legal permanent residents who were giving legal contributions, and we got caught up in all of that soft money given by foreign nationals. This is not about foreign nationals. It is about legal permanent residents being allowed to participate in our government.”