Political Quotes

“I certainly want, first of all, to thank the gentlewoman from New York (Mrs. Maloney), who has done such an outstanding job of providing leadership on this issue over the past 2 years and more. As a matter of fact, the gentlewoman has been all across the country looking at different approaches, methods, techniques, talking to as many people as she possibly could, trying to get the message out; and I think all of America owes the gentlewoman a tremendous debt of gratitude for her unselfish efforts in trying to make sure that we do in fact have an accurate count. Mr. Speaker, an accurate census is in the best interests of our Nation. In less than 22 days the Census Bureau will undertake the enormous task of counting the entire population. It is an exercise that has been done since 1790 when the first census was commissioned. Unfortunately, during the first census, not everyone was counted. As a matter of fact, Africans in America were considered three-fifths of a person. Since 1790, we have evolved as a Nation to include at least on paper women and minorities as equal citizens of this democracy. However, the proposed methods of counting the population by many in the Republican Party, including its most likely presidential nominee, Governor George Bush, could lead to a serious undercount of our citizens. This is tantamount to moving backwards instead of going forward.”