Political Quotes

“I begin by noting that the chairman emeritus of the Judiciary Committee, Jim Sensenbrenner, had always had a very abiding interest in this matter. But we have a curious problem. Somebody is going to ask, how could a United States Supreme Court--a bill passed overwhelmingly bipartisan in 1990--and then in 1999 simultaneously give not one or two, but three decisions slamming some very fundamental interests that we had when the bill was passed? There wasn't anything complicated or ambiguous about the bill that was passed in this Congress in 1990. And we are now here fixing the three problems that these decisions brought forward. ``We prohibit the consideration of measures that might lessen the impact of an impairment--medication, insulin, a hearing aid.'' What kind of persons are on the Supreme Court of the United States that have some difficulty understanding that if you have to use a hearing aid, that does not lessen the nature of the disability? That's earlier than first year law school. I mean, what was going on in the majority of the members' minds? Second, ``substantially limits'' they've transferred to mean ``materially restricts'' and instructs the court that these words must be interpreted broadly and not restrictively.”