Steve Buyer: “the only thing I would note, as I listened to the Speaker speak in the well, is that when the Republicans presented…”

I thank the gentleman. Let me also thank Ike Skelton, who came to this compromise and led that back in 1993, when I was a freshman right out of Desert Storm, came here to the Congress and began to learn about compromise. Something that's…

I want to congratulate both of you on a job well done on your bill. To my friend Ike Skelton, Ike, I support the policy that you came up with years ago when I first came to Congress 18 years ago--the DOD's Don't Ask, Don't Tell--and we…

I thank the gentleman for yielding, and I want to compliment the authors of the legislation in your work on this. But I would like to point out something before we get too excited about whether we are doing a good thing today. Number one…

Reclaiming my time, the challenge before the body is we now have legislation before us which is on an issue which is now being thrown into the courts, and we've got a statute that's not being followed by the executive branch; and it is…