Political Quotes

“I thank the chairman and ranking member. Mr. Speaker, the chairman does not want to do this, with all due respect. The chairman has said publicly he does not want to do this. The chairman has said publicly he wants to do what historically we have done: gone forth in a bipartisan way. That is the bill he constructed last year, and his colleagues did not bring it to the floor. That's the bill he constructed this year, and it was brought to the floor. As Mr. Peterson has so eloquently stated, it was turned from a bipartisan bill into a partisan bill. Why, why, why, do we always have to do that? The response to its failure, because 62 of Mr. Lucas' party would not join him in the extraordinarily eloquent closing that he gave--not speaking to the motion to recommit--but said, look, I understand that some of you think this is too much and some of you think it is too little, but it's democracy. Yet the chairman's party rejected his bill. We reject it as well because you adopted three amendments that you knew beforehand were going to turn this into a more partisan bill. So what did you do?…”