Political Quotes

“Every time we deny an open amendment process on an important piece of legislation, we are disenfranchising the people and their representatives from the legislative process. The people and their representatives are not even being treated as second class citizens. They might as well not be citizens at all given how little impact they have on shaping legislation in the House. If that is not undemocratic, I would like to know what is. In other words, the further you and your leadership stray from the regular order around here, the more you are insulting a new order which is not democracy by any definition. The people are sick and tired of this political gamesmanship. They want back their own House, and they want it to be open and democratic, not closed and dictatorial. Those were the words of the former chairman of the Committee on Rules, a good friend of mine that I traveled the world with, Gerald Solomon; and they were true in 1993, and they are true today as we consider H.R. 4.”