Political Quotes

“we have here Congress and American politics at its absolute worse. We have a very important issue, illegal immigration. I worked for a very long time in a bipartisan way with departing Senator Al Simpson, whose departure I regret now even more than before, and others, in 1986 and in 1990 to fashion legislation in a bipartisan way to deal with this problem. Bipartisan, because this is not and ought not be an ideological issue. Some issues are legitimately partisan. I was sorry to here hear the chairman of the Committee on the Judiciary defend the shabbiest legislative procedure I have ever seen here. Yes, we had full markups; yes, we had full debates. And then once we did, this bill disappeared into a series of secret meetings between the Republican House and Senate staffs, it seemed to me, with some input from the Members, and the Dole campaign, and virtually all of the things on which we seriously worked in committee disappeared, and others appeared. Now, this is a popular issue, getting rid of illegal immigrants to the extent that we can, as it ought to be. Unfortunately, this is a bill which does not do nearly as much as it could to diminish illegal immigration, and, instead, as the gentleman from Texas noted, makes it a little easier than it used to be for people to take advantage of them once they are here.”