Political Quotes

“Mr. Speaker, let me just mention, we just had a vote, and, obviously, I was disappointed in the outcome. I was the sponsor, probably as the gentleman knows, of the Help America Vote Act, which created the Election Assistance Commission. The Election Assistance Commission bill, the HAVA bill, passed with a big bipartisan vote and was signed, as the gentleman knows, by President George W. Bush in a very bipartisan effort. The premise was that, for 200 years, the Federal Government had not participated in assisting the States in running Federal elections. I will repeat that. The vote for President, the vote for Senate, and the vote for the House were all done through State administrations with no participation by the Federal Government. In 2002, the Congress and the President made a determination that we would contribute to making sure that our elections ran correctly. The gentleman will remember the issue of hanging chads and the question of whether or not votes were properly counted. It was of great concern across the aisle. So we passed the legislation. Unfortunately, however, we have not continued to pursue that. And today's vote, we have a greater challenge today. The challenge in the 2000 election was inappropriate administration, domestically, of our election.…”