Political Quotes

“as we all know, the leadership, the Speaker, made a commitment that we are going to vote on this issue in May. We are hearing rumors now that we are not going to vote in May and maybe vote after Memorial Day. We also are hearing rumors that maybe Shays-Meehan may not be proper. That was also a commitment made by the Speaker and the leadership to encourage those Republicans and others to withdraw the names from the discharge petition. It is our position, those of us who originated the petition, those of us who signed, if we do not have an answer on this within the next day or two, we are going to try and reinitiate the petition because we feel like we are getting the runaround. Somebody said a while ago in this chamber we are going to trust to verify. That is what we said. So far, we have trusted, but it had not been verified by the leadership. Now to avoid the discussion today, I think this is the height of arrogance. That is what got us here in the first place is arrogance. We would like to know what is going to be debated. We don't have but 2 or 3 more weeks in May. I think we all, not only the membership, but the public as a whole are entitled to know whether or not the commitment is going to be maintained by the Speaker or whether, once again, they are going to run from this issue which obviously they are afraid of.”