Byron Dorgan: “Let me say to the Presiding Officer, it is a fair point. I have not directed questions to other Members of the Senate. I…”

“Let me say to the Presiding Officer, it is a fair point. I have not directed questions to other Members of the Senate. I ask a rhetorical question, and perhaps the Presiding Officer, in his capacity as a Senator from New Hampshire, would respond. But I ask the question, is there anything in this trade agreement that deals with exotic dancers or strip clubs? And if any of my colleagues would like to come to the floor to respond to that today, I would be glad to hear it. Let me tell you why I ask the question. We debated something called NAFTA on the floor of the Senate some years ago. It did not turn out very well--huge trade deficits, American jobs rushing off to Mexico. It did not turn out well at all. But now I discovered, going to the computer last night, using a Google search, that NAFTA had something in it about ``special skills.'' Let me read this to you. This is from my Google search last evening on the computer: ``Claiming a shortage of homegrown talent, strip clubs in Canada have used NAFTA to find new recruits in Mexico.'' I thought, well, that is interesting. NAFTA had something that allows strip clubs in Canada to search for dancers from Mexico? Well, I found out what that was with a little further Google search: Employment authorizations based on NAFTA agreements were available for professionals, company transferees, traders, investors, and people with special knowledge: exotic dancers, et cetera--apparently, under this ``special skills'' category.…”