Political Quotes

“I understand the reasoning--I do not accept it--for defeating this amendment. We are not talking about a House rule or a Senate rule. We are talking about law. We will have in the law a restriction of the Senate and no restriction of the House. The Senate, some years ago, decided that when the taxpayers were paying your air fare and you were a frequent flier--and most of us are--and you accumulated those frequent flier miles, and that belonged to your office. As the rules say, it is Government money, but it applies to your office, so you could use those frequent flier miles to reduce the cost to your office and therefore reduce the cost to the taxpayer. In the House, they have allowed the Congressmen to use the frequent flier mileage for personal use. So they were receiving a personal perk at the expense of the taxpayer dollar. All we are saying here is that we ought to be treated alike, and that the House should not, by rule, as my distinguished colleague from Iowa has said, change. But it is not a matter of law, unless they put it into a piece of legislation. It will be statutory. So if you make a rule, you change a rule. So what I think we need to do is to listen to Senator Glenn.”