Political Quotes

“Mr. Chairman, at the appropriate time I will enter into the Record an editorial from the Fall River Herald News, a city which I represent in part. They are a very independent paper, and they make an excellent point in the editorial. In my district, as in districts all across the country, police officers have already been hired by local governments which took the word of the Federal Government that funds would be available for hiring police officers. What this bill would do would be to disrupt a process of hiring police officers that is already underway. I think the approach that we have in the current bill is better than this one, but that is not even the issue we are talking about. We are not here deciding between two variants of how to approach this. We have a program underway. It was passed last year. The Republican Party tried very hard to stop it, but it passed. President Clinton and the Justice Department have been doing an excellent job of getting these funds out there. Communities came to plea and said this bill says we can have the police officers in 3 years. We are worried about that. Is that good? I said I cannot believe Congress will disrupt that. Well, I underestimated the extent to which my colleagues on the other side were prepared to put partisanship ahead of sensible law enforcement. Because their bill will undeniably disrupt that process.”