Political Quotes

“That is not the point the Senator made last night. It is not the point the Senator is making this morning. What the Senator is describing is when I describe something which is substantially recreational as not being considered to be directly related to the official duties of a Member, the Senator said last night, ``Well, my gosh. What happens if you go 4 hours here in the morning to seminars, what happens if you go to 3 hours to play golf in the afternoon, and what happens if you have dinner with a lobbyist in the evening?'' The words in the Senator's amendment to this committee bill are exactly the same. They are precisely the same. I agree that the Senator has a different rule when it comes to the charitable trips. I agree with that. But we are not talking about that. The Senator last night spent a great deal of time on noncharitable travel pointing out, How can you possibly define what is substantially recreational? What does that mean? The Senator said, if you go 3 hours in the morning to the seminars and so forth, how do you then make that distinction as to whether or not it is substantially recreational? To which I must respond that is what the amendment provides, his amendment. The Senator from Louisiana, and the Senator from Kentucky have the same language. You talk about problems of definition. Sure there are problems of definition. There is risk any time you try to come up with something which is common sense and reasonable.”