Political Quotes

“I thank the gentlewoman for yielding. I thank her for her leadership on this bill, H.R. 1, and I thank Mr. Sarbanes for being a principal sponsor and proponent of H.R. 1. Mr. Chairman, I rise as the sponsor of the Help America Vote Act in 2002, which responded to the lack of performance on our voting system in the 2000 election, hanging chads and all. This bill expands on that. But let me, at the outset, remind those who would talk about what the Constitution says to read a portion of the Constitution. Let me say before I do that, throughout my lifetime, early in my lifetime, I heard a lot about States' rights. People talk about the right to vote. I was in Alabama this past weekend, and we commemorated the march over the Edmund Pettus Bridge, which was led by our colleague, John Lewis. There were State troopers meeting him on the other side of the bridge that beat and almost killed John Lewis. Why? Because he was marching from Selma to Montgomery to register to vote. I remember, as a child--not a child; I was a young man--watching Lester Maddox on television with an ax handle saying that nobody was going to integrate his premises. I have heard a lot about States' rights through the years. Now, what did our Founders say about States' rights as it relates to Members of Congress?…”