Melvin Watt: “For the record, I neglected to indicate in my comments that our colleague, the chair of the subcommittee, announced last…”

“For the record, I neglected to indicate in my comments that our colleague, the chair of the subcommittee, announced last week during the period that we were out on the Veterans Day district work period that he was not planning to run for Congress again, and I hadn't recognized that he was still on the floor. So I wanted to express how important a contribution he has made to this institution for many years. I am not going to tell you how many. More than I have been here, and I have been here 21 years. He was here when I got here. I always tell people that, of all of the people in the North Carolina delegation when I was elected to Congress, he was the first member of the North Carolina delegation to come to my office and welcome me to Congress, and we have been very good friends ever since then. I am sure all of his virtues in the next year will be appropriately extolled, but it is going to be a big loss for us. I appreciate the gentleman yielding to me to make those comments because I thought Mr. Coble had left the floor, and I had intended to make them earlier when he was here. I am glad to see he is here.”