John Sarbanes: “I think the Senator is on a very important point. As the Senator from New Mexico said, you have the Congress coming in…”

“I think the Senator is on a very important point. As the Senator from New Mexico said, you have the Congress coming in and trying to in effect dictate what the conclusions are going to be in the court proceedings--improper intrusion into the process, and a total lack of respect for the separation of powers. We are talking about a consent decree here. We are not even talking about a matter which is just in the initial stages of litigation in which we have traditionally shied away from intervening in saying it is a matter to be resolved by the courts. We have a matter here that was in extended litigation and which resulted in a consent decree entered into under an order of the court. Now we are coming along and we are going to play around with this consent decree, and it is treated as though there is no downside to it. In other words, they say, ``Well, we will not honor the consent decree that requires that we pay for the election but we will keep the election officer which was provided in the consent decree.'' Which is unprecedented. That is not the normal way you do an election with an election officer. So they are going to keep the election officer. But they are going to deny the court the ability to handle the apportioning of the cost of that, which is apparent currently available to the court under the consent decree. You are playing with fire.…”