William Tauzin: “There is another thing we ought to mention before we conclude this special order tonight. That is that we all share some…”

“There is another thing we ought to mention before we conclude this special order tonight. That is that we all share some responsibility for the decline of civility in this place, for the decline of civility in politics in general. A recent study by the Center for Media and Public Affairs, a nonpartisan foundation group, did a study of the 1996 Presidential race coverage. They found that it was so negative. They found that it was highly negative coverage, heavy but misleading coverage of the horserace, and much less attention on the meat, the debate that was going on between the candidates. We are in an election year right now. We see too much of that, I think, in the coverage of this Chamber. C-SPAN now brings this debate to so many people's homes, and I think when we look at television coverage of our campaigns and we see that negativism, we think maybe they ought to see it on C-SPAN, too, and we emulate it here. I think all of that contributes generally to the decline of civility, not only in our politics, not only in this Chamber, but in the society at large. I think Zach probably said it best: We should be a better example for America. If we expect our children and our citizens to lead a more civil life, to not run each other on the road, and to insult one another and eventually drive-by shoot one another, we ought to start by being a little more civil in this Chamber, where they watch us every day on C-SPAN.”