Lynn N. Rivers

I do not approve of nor defend, the behavior of the president that has brought us here. I have no interest in helping him avoid the legal consequences of those acts. However, I have every interest in making sure those consequences are…

I will vote yes for H.R. 4569 with the expectation that Senate and Conference activity will remedy the serious flaws that exist in the bill. If these inadequacies are not addressed before it returns to the House, I will not support its…

in trying to draw a correlation between ATP and soft money, my recollection, in the 4 years I have served in this House, is that the majority of Republicans in this body have voted against the ATP program. But it is also my recollection…

I think when my colleague looks at the real data, that what he will find, and I know and I am familiar with the study, and if the gentleman had been at the Committee on Science, he would have seen a lot of the problems with that study when…

in 1913 Woodrow Wilson said: Publicity is one of the purifying elements of politics. Nothing checks all the bad practices of politics like public exposure. . . . An Irishman seen digging around the wall of a house was asked what he was…

there is a very interesting debate going on here, because the arguments are being put forward as if there is currently a provision within the system that allows for an offset of one individual, if a wealthy individual runs against them…

I applaud the fact that the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Stearns) is now interested in soft money and very interested in making sure that some people in the system do not abuse soft money. Those of us that are part of the reform group want…

I found it very interesting to hear the comments from the gentleman from Pennsylvania because I was very concerned when this came forward about what evil was trying to be remedied by this particular amendment. What the gentleman had to say…

I got involved with the particular efforts around campaign finance reform for one reason, because they were bipartisan. I did not believe that there was any chance to change the way this body operates unless there were people on both sides…

when the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Hefner) a few minutes ago raised the issue of honesty in ads, there was quite a lot of discussion about that. The argument was that courts could determine the honesty of particular ads and the…

That is what I was trying to say, is if we step outside of the law as it exists regarding independent expenditures, it is the FEC who enforces that; is it not?

I wish to speak today on 2 issues: the severability that has been discussed here and also the free speech issue. I want to speak especially though to the idea that the unwillingness of the sponsors to include a severability provision in…

I wanted to make sure the gentleman understood this issue in context. The argument seems to be that only people who are concerned about the constitutionality of their bill would disagree to a nonseverability clause. But a very quick review…

over the weekend, when I was driving to my district, I came up behind a car that had a bumper sticker that read ``Invest in America; buy a congressman.'' Interestingly enough, my chief of staff saw the same bumper sticker here in…

as a cosponsor of H.R. 3185, the Riley- Bachus Abolishing Child Pornography Act, I rise in support of this amendment, which contains elements of this bill. Mr. Chairman, this is an important step for Congress to take. Both bodies and the…

I have not been convinced that we need an amendment to the Constitution in order to enact real campaign finance reform in this Congress. In fact, throughout the time that I have served in this particular body, I have avoided all attempts…

during the budget hearing the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Kasich) made an amazing statement. He said, ``I know that most Americans, interestingly enough, do not believe that we are actually going to have a balanced budget. We are going to…

there are two issues I want to raise. I want to talk a little bit about the so-called 1 percent solution, but before I do that I want to speak to the issue that was just raised about decisions being made about eliminating programs. It is…

I will take just a brief amount of time to point out that in the committee meeting I did put forward a proposal to do what several of the Republicans on the committee as well as other members of the party have suggested, which is to send…

I wanted to make two comments to my friend from Arizona, the first one being relative to the argument that the President has already spent $2 billion of Social Security money. My recollection is that that came through the House here as a…

I took this picture off the wall of my office. I purchased it several years ago from a high school art competition in my district. It was produced by Jeff Vogelsberg, a student at that time in a high school in my district. As my colleagues…

if there is any belief that our constituents cling to with stubborn resolve, it is that each of us have come here to either enrich ourselves financially or advance ourselves politically. Frankly, in the last few days we have done very…

Do we have any indication at this point how many of that 13 percent are substantially unjustified and whether or not there is actually a need for this kind of proposal? And would that not in fact come out in a hearing and help us all make…

I will speak to that threshold. While the claim is that this amendment will produce greater equity by eliminating differences between the treatment of Members and ordinary citizens and greater efficacy within the Justice Department, I…

I did not go to med school. I went to law school. As such, I do not speak the language of medicine. I speak the language of logic. I have to tell my colleagues, the last few days have been a revelation here. Because if the way we reduce…