Political Quotes

“Mr. Speaker, if I could inform Ambassador Watson that I have some more remarks to make, I yield myself such time as I may consume. I want to take a moment to highlight an unfortunate absurdity that we are confronted with today, Mr. Speaker. I'm proud to support the resolution before us, but all of us recognize that dedicated people of the American Red Cross will continue to do their good work regardless of whether they are congratulated by this body. Yet the Democratic leadership has taken care to ensure that this symbolic resolution will receive a vote today--something that they may deny to the trillion- dollar Senate health care bill. To recap, we're able to debate and vote on this nonbinding resolution. That is well and good. Yet we are denied the chance to vote on this huge, expensive Senate health care bill. The procedure being discussed in the press attempts to get around the basic requirements of the Constitution--that both Houses of Congress must pass the same bill text before it is presented to the President and signed into law. As the director of the Constitutional Law Center at Stanford Law School, former Federal Circuit Court Judge Michael McConnell wrote in yesterday's Wall Street Journal: ``Under Article I, section 7, passage of one bill cannot be deemed to be enactment of another.'' I'm sorry if the Democratic leadership feels that the burdens of representative government outlined by our Constitution are too great a burden for their agenda to bear.…”