Political Quotes

“Madam Chair, I rise to strike the last word in support of the Ellison amendment. I would also like to respond to what my colleague from Minnesota (Congressman Ellison) spoke about in terms of the amendment that he was going to offer which he decided not to offer, but it would have imposed a 20 percent penalty to Byrne/JAG grants for States with shoot first laws. Shoot first laws are also known as ``stand your ground'' laws. In 2005, Florida passed the first State law explicitly expanding an armed person's right to use deadly force against an unarmed person in ``any place where he has a right to be,'' even if the confrontation could be safely avoided. Florida's law, like so many similar laws in other States, was the result of collusion by some of the Nation's wealthiest corporations, along with the National Rifle Association, through a secretive organization called the American Legislative Exchange Council, or ALEC. ALEC promotes model legislation written by its corporate members and disseminated to conservative State lawmakers around the country. In fact, about 60 percent of all State legislators are members of ALEC. The Florida stand your ground law was written by an NRA lobbyist. After the law passed in 2005, the NRA presented the bill to ALEC's Criminal Justice Task Force and boasted that the presentation was well received. The corporations and State legislators on the task force voted unanimously to approve the bill as an ALEC model.…”