Sam Gejdenson: “I regret that Speaker Gingrich is not in the Chair today. He was here earlier and left. But Speaker Gingrich was elected…”

“I regret that Speaker Gingrich is not in the Chair today. He was here earlier and left. But Speaker Gingrich was elected to this Chamber with fewer votes than the gentlewoman from California [Ms. Sanchez]. It was a democratically controlled House. We let Speaker Gingrich be seated without question. If Bob Dornan had won this seat by 10 votes, I daresay we would not be here today, a year after the election, having an inquisition about the citizens of that district. Let somebody on that side stand up and say they would vote to keep this thing going if Bob Dornan had won by 10 votes not by 1,000 as the gentlewoman from California has. What is this all about? I think it is about paranoia of the Hispanic-Americans coming over the border and voting illegally and taking over our country. Give me a break. Anybody in this country that is on the lam is not running down to get registered to have the whole world look at them. They are trying to avoid official contact. And following procedures, the gentleman from California [Mr. Thomas] and the committee are now, I think, incapable of a fair decision in this process. The law says Mr. Dornan has to prove his case. What we have here is the committee on a course trying to do all of the work and going after the gentlewoman from California. Illegal voters? We talk about illegal voters. There is no evidence that is near the significant nature to reverse this election.”