Kendrick Meek: “I am one of the fortunate Members of the House of Representatives who got the unique opportunity of attending the…”

“I am one of the fortunate Members of the House of Representatives who got the unique opportunity of attending the bipartisan retreat. I must admit, Mr. Speaker, when I was initially invited, I felt, well, this will be just another feel-good session, or it will just be another one of these innocent, well-designed things that would lead to failure. I want to say, Mr. Speaker, that it was not. It was tremendously successful. I am an experienced educator and an experienced civic-minded person. I have been on many retreats. In my opinion, this was one of the better ones that I have been fortunate enough to attend. First of all, I think that it is time the House of Representatives realized that it does take getting away from the 435 seats that we sit in on the floor of this House, many times. It takes that because the institution itself has divided us geographically from the way we sit on this floor. This retreat did a lot. I want to commend my colleagues, the gentleman from Colorado [Mr. Skaggs], the gentleman from Illinois [Mr. LaHood], the gentleman from New York, [Mr. Houghton], the Speaker of the House, the gentleman from Georgia [Mr. Gingrich], the minority leader, the gentleman from Missouri [Mr. Gephardt], and the gentleman from Ohio [Mr. Sawyer]. Because of the efforts they put forth in planning this and making it happen, we owe them a debt of gratitude.”