Mike Pence: “I come to the floor weary but well after a week in which I have had the privilege of being involved in not one but two…”

“I come to the floor weary but well after a week in which I have had the privilege of being involved in not one but two debates over the very freedoms enshrined in the first amendment of the Constitution of the United States. I am humbled as someone who not only has been charged with public duties in representing the good people of eastern Indiana here on the floor of the Congress, but I am humbled as someone who, from my youth, has been fascinated with the freedoms enshrined in the first amendment of the Constitution of the United States. This week, I had the privilege of seeing legislation that I authored 3 years ago come to the floor of this Congress and be adopted in overwhelming and bipartisan measure. It was legislation known as the Free Flow of Information Act that I first introduced in the last Congress in partnership with Congressman Rick Boucher of Virginia, and our journey over these last 36 months brought us to that moment, this Tuesday, where we were able, through regular order, through a thorough process of committee hearings and markups and amendments on the floor, to see the first Federal legislation concerning the freedom of the press to be adopted by this Congress, a sense that freedom was enshrined in the first amendment and added by Congress to the Constitution itself. What was especially gratifying to me was that we did it in a bipartisan way.”