Political Quotes

“I thank the President. I am happy to stand this morning in support of the pending amendment before the U.S. Senate to this tobacco legislation. It is an amendment offered by Senator DeWine, Republican of Ohio, and myself, a bipartisan effort to make this important bill more effective. I would like to pause for a moment before addressing the amendment and speak to the historical significance of this debate. About 11 years ago I was involved in a struggle as a Member of the House of Representatives to pass one of the first tobacco-controlled bills ever considered by the House of Representatives. In comparison to this bill, ours was a very modest measure. We were setting out to achieve something which on its face appeared very simple, but turned out to be politically very difficult. What we wanted to achieve 11 years ago was to ban smoking on airplanes. You would have thought that we were proposing a second American revolution.”