Political Quotes

“Mr. Chair, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Before we passed the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act in the 1960s and when we had the Jim Crow laws, which were an unfortunate stain on our history, there were plenty of people who said that the laws that were in place were doing a favor to Negroes, which is the way they were referred to at the time. For the chairman to suggest that we are doing the Library of Congress a favor by requiring them to continue to use a term that they have been petitioned to stop using, ``illegal alien,'' is insensitive, inappropriate, outdated, and political. This is the Legislative Branch Appropriations bill. We are supposed to be discussing how to fund the functions of the legislative branch, and we have just spent an extraordinary amount of time debating the immigration debate that has been raging in this country for far too long. I guess I shouldn't be surprised that the majority believes that we should continue to label people as ``illegal.'' People aren't illegal. Acts that are committed are illegal, but people are not illegal, Mr. Chair. That is, simply, why the American Library Association, the umbrella policy organization for libraries across this country, has petitioned the Library of Congress to change the use of the term ``illegal alien.'' What the majority is doing here, as I said, is setting Congress up as the word police. Where are we going to stop?…”