Political Quotes

“Mr. Speaker, I am fascinated by this piece of legislation. It is an act of repudiation of several of the principles that the majority has said it was governed by. In some cases I am glad to see the repudiation because I was not too crazy about the principles; in other cases I like the principles and I am sorry to see them eroded. But let us look at what this bill does. The expansion of gambling has on the whole been a matter of decisions by the States. It is true that there is a Federal statute which grants the rights of Indian tribes, in return for their having given up rights to property, by the way. The Indian tribes did not get this right to conduct gambling one-sidedly. They gave up, as a result of this act, some substantial property claims. But Indian gambling is only a part of what is being studied here. If this is a bill to study and look at the Indian Gaming Act, it would have been a different story. It would have come out of a different committee. Much of the impetus for this comes from the feeling of the Members of Congress, apparently very much on the majority side, too, that we cannot trust State and local officials to make good decisions without our supervision. I have to say I think the chairman of the committee has been very responsible and has helped improve the bill. It is a better bill than before.”