Dan Coats: “All Members of this body remember early in this Congress we introduced and passed into law the Congressional…”

“All Members of this body remember early in this Congress we introduced and passed into law the Congressional Accountability Act which applied the various civil rights and labor laws that are currently applicable to employers and employees throughout America's workplaces, and applied this same restrictions to Members of Congress. For too long we had exempted ourselves from the laws and regulations that we had imposed on virtually every other business operation in America. There were only a couple of workplaces that were exempted: The Labor Standards Act, the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Americans With Disability Act, and the other items that we discussed. Those institutions were the U.S. Congress and the executive branch, in particular, the White House. We remedied that, partially, for the Congress with the adoption of the Congressional Accountability Act. Now, these 11 specific items apply to Members of Congress as well as to the private sector. I think what we are learning is that some of these laws are good, some of these laws are applicable to what we do, but some of them are overly burdensome and overly restrictive and therefore need to be examined.”