Political Quotes

“Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time I may consume. Madam Speaker, I just want to take this opportunity to say this is a great bill and there are great people in government at the State, Federal, and local level who really do care and help to try and do these things, and we have come a long way in the last 5 to 10 years on a lot of these issues. But I think it is really important to recognize that, oftentimes, the best people in organizations to help people reenter into society are often former felons themselves who have gone through these processes and have started community-based organizations and have continued to work with new people coming out of prison. While we have to treat criminal justice and we have to treat serious offenses in the manner that is deserving of what they are, we also believe in rehabilitation; and what we do with that, particularly more than anything else, is a return on investment because, as we can get these people through this process and keep them out of the revolving door that can sometimes occur in the criminal justice system, we save people's lives, we save families, and we actually save taxpayer money. This is a great bill, and I appreciate everybody's work on it. Madam Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.”