Political Quotes

“I thank the gentleman from New York (Mr. Engel), the chairman of the committee, for yielding. I thank Mr. Smith for his career-long advocacy of human rights and protecting the most vulnerable, not only in this country but throughout the world. Mr. Smith and I had the opportunity to travel behind the Iron Curtain when it existed, talking about human rights, talking about the right to immigrate, the right to worship, the right to freedom of speech. We talked about the Helsinki Final Act. He and I were both members of the Helsinki Commission for a couple of decades together. He and I visited Turkey together, talking about particularly the freedom of the press and how many members and how many journalists were imprisoned. Mr. Smith, Mr. Engel, and I, and certainly Mr. Schiff, and so many others have been supporters of this resolution for a very long time. It has not come to the floor. One of my duties as the majority leader is to bring bills to the floor, and I am proud, along with the chairman and the ranking member, to bring this bill to the floor. This resolution, Mr. Speaker, recognizes the horrific and systematic efforts to commit genocide against the Armenian people a century ago. There can be no denial of the Armenian genocide, which is evidenced by historical documentation and the emotional scars still borne by the descendants of its survivors.…”