I thank my friend on the Rules Committee for yielding. I rise in strong support of this rule today. Now, I hear a lot of conversation about States' rights here on the House floor--federalism, you know, that debate that James Madison and Thomas Jefferson had more than two centuries ago. It's an important debate to have, and I hope we have that debate on every single thing that we do in this body. I hope we ask ourselves that question every single day: Is this a responsibility and a role the Federal Government ought to be playing, or should this be something that's left to the States? Sadly, I've heard more of that enthusiasm today than I usually hear down here, but I welcome it--not as a step in the wrong direction, but a step towards that new beginning. I believe that we can absolutely come together around those kinds of uniting issues: Does the Federal Government need to be involved in this or does it not? The reason I'm in strong support of this rule, however, is that it made 10 amendments in order. You know, this bill, this concealed-carry reciprocity bill--and in fairness, full disclosure, I'm literally a card-carrying member of the concealed-carry bandwagon. I've got my Georgia carry permit here in my pocket, I have since I was 22 and living in a neighborhood that I thought I needed some self-protection living in. This is a discussion that this body has been trying to have for about 15 years.…
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On that I demand the yeas and nays. The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to section 3 of House Resolution 965, the yeas and nays are ordered. The vote was taken by electronic device, and there were--yeas 230, nays 171, not voting 29, as…
I want to thank the gentleman from Florida, not just for yielding the time, but for his friendship over these 10 years that I have had the honor of serving here. Mr. Speaker, he may not remember because he is just the kind of man that he…
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I thank my friend from Colorado for yielding me the time. One of these days, Mr. Speaker, he is going to come down here and he is going to leave out that he yields the time for the purposes of debate only, and he and I are going to solve…





