Political Quotes

“I am slow to come to the floor because you can't compete with a Muhammad Ali commemorative Special Order. That is too much passion to follow. I just have little old legislative business on my mind. I am not talking about changing the world. I am just talking about changing our little part of the world. I don't know if you remember, Mr. Speaker, when you first got here, you had to go downstairs and sign your name so that we could use that instead of a postage stamp on every piece of mail that you sent out the door. It is called the franking privilege. I have a bill--it is H.R. 1873--that Tammy Duckworth and I introduced together to abolish that franking privilege. It is not going to take a lot to get that done. It is something that is within the complete control of us here in this institution, but it has been a challenge that is hundreds of years in the making. I put mine on here, Mr. Speaker. This is my signature there on the front of every envelope I send out. If you want to know how to forge a check in my name, all you need to do is look at any envelope I send out the door. Back in the day, had we been here in 1817, it might have been hard to find a postage stamp. In the name of getting congressional business done, the law of the land, carried over from England, was that you could sign your name on all of your government documents in order to get that important government business done. You couldn't just walk down to the local grocery store and buy stamps.…”