Melvin Watt

Mr. Chairman, when you practice law for 22 years, as I have before coming to Congress, and served on the Judiciary Committee for 15 years and never even in all that time dealt with patents, you are tempted to think of patent lawyers and…

I did not choose the timing of this. This bill is on the floor today. And if my amendment is not on the bill, who knows when there will be another opportunity to deliver this message and to create an impediment pending the outcome of the…

I am offering this amendment not proudly, unfortunately, but because of circumstances that have arisen that I will describe briefly and create the context for the amendment. In 1866, after the Cherokee Nation, which at that time also owned…

in North Carolina at 9:35 on a Saturday night, I doubt that there are any people who are worried about what this Congress is doing to their constitutional rights, and probably that is so for people throughout America. I doubt that many of…

I think we come to the floor not because we feel like Mr. Flake's amendment is likely to pass, but he provides a unique opportunity for us to talk to each other and the American people about some of the problems and stresses that are…

I wanted to make the point too that when I am in Washington, I live just across the line between Northeast and Southeast. On a number of occasions on Friday evenings, I have had the occasion to be just on the Southeast side of that line…

Is the gentleman saying that his community is just Texas? He's not worried about Mississippi or Louisiana, in the general context--

I want to suggest the second step of the dance, from my perspective, is the money goes into the trust fund; housing is built; that generates economic activity and reduces the deficit. So the second step to this dance is a deficit reduction…

Reclaiming my time, that was exactly the point I was going to make. So a broader amendment, were it germane to this bill, would probably be received favorably by all of us because we believe that fiduciaries in general should be reporting…

I am just trying to be clear, under your amendment, who would make this determination of whether it is outside the norm? Where would the information come from? Has anybody done a cost analysis of what it would cost to obtain this…

I am struck because I was here about 15 or 20 minutes ago debating the last amendment. We operate in a structure that requires us to deal with one amendment at a time, and when you deal with one amendment at a time, you kind of get…

I have been listening with some interest to the comments on this amendment, and I think there would be substantially more credibility for the people who are advancing it if there had actually been some units constructed or even started in…

in October of 2002 I worked meticulously with Members of the Congressional Black Caucus to craft a statement of principles that has proven to be so absolutely prophetic. Listen to what our 2002 principle said, and it will put in context…

in many ways my amendment is quite simple. It simply preserves the authority of the United States Supreme Court to do its job. My amendment, however, is fundamental in its simplicity because it reflects the cornerstone of our…

I rise in opposition to Mr. Westmoreland's amendment. This amendment imposes far more federalism costs on states than does the current structure of the Voting Rights Act that its opponents criticize. In short, the amendment would permit…

I join Chairman Sensenbrenner in opposition to the Norwood amendment. The amendment represents a fundamental misunderstanding of the Voting Rights Act and its structural design by arbitrarily selecting the last three election cycles as the…

I rise to support the opposition of my chairman to this amendment. I am really amazed sometimes how much of an effort we put forth to support democracy around the world and yet won't do the same thing right here at home. One of the things…

I yield myself 15 seconds. I say to the gentleman that when we rise in the House, it is my intention to introduce for the Record a copy of the decision that was entered yesterday in the State of Georgia that declared recent actions…

the rules of the House won't allow me to do what George H. White did in 1901 when he rose to address an agriculture bill for 5 minutes and ended up speaking for an hour and a half, giving his farewell to Congress and saying these words…

during consideration of the rule this morning, our Republican colleagues suggested something pretty revolutionary, that is, that we do something we do not normally do often around here, and that is read the resolution. They said they…

if the gentlemen will give us some more time, we have a whole list of speakers over here. But we are going to run out of time before we run out of speakers, I can assure you.

Would the Chairman tell me what that means I have left total? The Acting CHAIRMAN. The gentleman from North Carolina has 2 minutes remaining.

tell us, how much time remains? The Acting CHAIRMAN. The gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Watt) has 17\1/2\ minutes remaining, and the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Mario Diaz-Balart) has 13 minutes remaining.

Can I make a parliamentary inquiry as to why that is the case? It is our amendment. The Acting CHAIRMAN. The gentleman from Florida is manager in opposition to the amendment. Under clause 3(c) of rule XVII, the manager in opposition has…

would the Chair repeat what he just said? The Acting CHAIRMAN. The gentleman from Florida has the right to close.