On the recordNovember 13, 2014
I appreciate my colleague from Illinois yielding to me. If Phil Crane were sitting here on the front row tonight, he wouldn't have any idea who I am, but when you do great things, you don't ever know who those efforts, who that toiling, that sweating, that genuine effort that goes into what you do, you never know who that is going to affect. You have heard it here tonight. It was 1973. Folks were talking about how it is that we could bring conservatism to the United States Congress. It is Paul Weyrich, it is Phil Crane, and the RSC, the Republican Study Committee, is born. At that time, they thought the Republican leadership was a little too liberal in the House. They thought we needed another voice to kind of balance that leadership out. Imagine that, the audacity that a young Congressman--he had been on the Hill about 4 years at that time, won in a special election in 1969--the audacity that Phil Crane had, as a young Congressman, was to say, ``Maybe we need some balance in the discussion. Maybe we need a place to debate.'' Now, that is 1973. Fast forward, it is 2014, and if you go and visit with colleagues today who are members of that Republican Study Committee that has survived and grown under Phil Crane's leadership and others, they will tell you that when it comes to healthy debate, that may be the single best location in the entire United States House of Representatives. I want you to think about that.…
