Political Quotes

“I want to compliment all the Members that have come to the well to debate what I think is an incredibly important subject and which ultimately governs the way this Congress polices its own. It is not a pleasant process, but it is a necessary one, and I think that the product of the votes so far have been fair and well thought out by the membership at large. I compliment my friend, the gentleman from Kentucky [Mr. Bunning] for his amendment. However well-intentioned it is, I think under the old rules and under the experiences that the gentleman has had under the old rules it may have been necessary, but I do not think it is necessary in the context of the package that is before the House today. We have provided respondents subject to ethics complaints more due process than has ever been imagined before. The fact is there is ample notification, warning, opportunities for counsel and instruction, opportunities for finding out the charges against you, opportunities for agreeing to or negotiating with the people in charge of the complaints without the fear that those negotiations would be used against you. All of these various forms of due process have been built into the system so that this amendment becomes unnecessary. If this amendment were adopted, we will see the bifurcation process disturbed and we will see a complication in the free flow of the process that becomes, I think, in some circumstances, unworkable and encourages a partisan breakdown.”