Political Quotes

“Madam Speaker, I rise today in support of title II of H. Res. 6, which creates a Select Committee on the Modernization of Congress. Before I was elected to Congress, I was a political science professor. I studied and taught American Government, and my specialty was Congress. Whenever I was teaching a class on Congress, I would start by showing the old Schoolhouse Rock video ``I'm Just a Bill.'' In this video, Bill taught how a bill becomes a law. It was a great way of introducing, not just kids watching Saturday morning cartoons, but also teaching college students how a bill goes through the process in Congress to become a law. This was a 3-minute video from 40 years ago. Unfortunately, if the song was updated today, it would need to be much longer than 3 minutes, with the addition of many more verses that explained how difficult it is for a bill to become a law. Over the years, Congress has become increasingly dysfunctional. When I taught American Government, I would always point out that the Constitution established Congress in Article I, before the executive and judicial branches, because the drafters understood the critical importance of Congress leading in our representative democracy. Congressional dysfunction increasingly turns more power, however, over to the President and to the courts, which takes power away from the American people. So Congress needs reform so it can function as it was intended and return this power to the American people.…”