Political Quotes

“I come to this well today following a long period of prayerful consideration. I want to talk to you about the choice of our next Chaplain, a man whose job it is to ask God's blessing on our work. When I became your Speaker last year, I stood in this very spot and said that this House needed to heal. Impeachment had hardened the hearts of too many of our Members and ruptured the trust necessary for effective legislating. Frankly, we had made progress toward that end. We successfully worked together to bring economic security to our country. We worked together to strengthen our schools and our national defense. And, working together, we lowered our rhetoric from this well and we returned some sense of civility to this chamber. When I first heard that our current Chaplain wanted to retire, I decided I wanted to build on that growing sense of trust. Instead of simply appointing a Chaplain, as some of my predecessors had done, I appointed the largest and most bipartisan search committee in the history of this House.”