Bob Dole: “as a member of the Martin Luther King, Jr. Federal Holiday Commission, I intend to vote for the reauthorization bill…”

“as a member of the Martin Luther King, Jr. Federal Holiday Commission, I intend to vote for the reauthorization bill, but I am concerned about the precedent we are setting. I have been listening to the debate on both sides. I have been involved with this from the very beginning. The Senator from North Carolina repeated my remarks from 1986. We were assured there would never be any request for Federal funds. Then we were assured it would never go over $300,000 a year. That was worked out in an arrangement, as I recall, with President Bush at that time, who said he would go along with $300,000 a year. It has been properly stated that when the Commission was first established, Congress intended that its activities would be financed exclusively with contributions from private sources. In fact, I was one of those who went out and raised money in the private sector because I thought it was an important thing. We stood here on the Senate floor. We made a pledge to the American people: This is going to be like all the other Commissions. We are not going to ask for any Federal funds. In fact, one of the reasons why I supported the original legislation was because of what we said: We are going to use outside sources. Like many nonprofit organizations, the Commission soon encountered some fundraising difficulties, and it was very difficult to promote the King holiday.”