Political Quotes

“I thank my friend from Texas for yielding. We do have the great pleasure of serving on the Rules Committee together, though serving on the Rules Committee can be a benefit and a burden because historically there's been kind of a gentleman's agreement, I would tell you from what I've read about the institution; that if the committee of jurisdiction brings out a clever idea, they only bring out those clever ideas that they really like. And then the leadership of the House, whichever party is in control of the House, then only allows those reported bills that they really like to show up here on the floor of the House for us to debate. So then when the Rules Committee gets around to considering amendments, well, maybe the only amendments that are allowed are things that nibble around the edges but don't really make any substantive changes to the underlying bill. Five months, six now, I've been here in the U.S. House of Representatives as part of this freshman class, and what we're doing today excites me. And to folks who have been here a little bit longer, maybe it's not as exciting to you as it is to me. But what is happening here today, not only did we get a bill that went through the regular order process--coming out of committee, no special games played, went through the amendment process in committee, everybody got a vote, and in fact was reported unanimously out of committee, as I understand-- then it came to the Rules Committee.…”