Political Quotes

“I rise today to comment briefly on some remarks made earlier during debate on the McConnell amendment. In this debate, several of my colleagues noted that the percentage of state-awarded highway contract dollars realized by minority and woman-owned firms dropped dramatically in states that abolished their set-aside programs. Several speakers pointed to what happened in my own state of Michigan as an example of this phenomenon. What the speakers did not explain is how Michigan ended its program. In 1989, the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals struck Michigan's state DBE program as being unconstitutional, as a result of which Michigan was forced to abandon it. What this proves, though, is the opposite of what my colleagues supporting the tabling motion are claiming. We need to devise methods that will pass constitutional muster for reaching out to minority and women-owned firms, rather than reenacting a program that the courts surely will strike down, leaving us with no mechanism for aiding disadvantaged businesses.”