Political Quotes

“I quote from this letter. Congress Should Demand Religious-freedom Improvements As It Considers Vietnam Trade Agreement. The Senate will soon consider the Bilateral Trade Agreement with Vietnam approved by the House of Representatives last week. Given the very serious violations of religious freedom in that country, the Commission in May made a series of recommendations to the Bush administration and Congress. Primary among these was that U.S. lawmakers should ratify the BTA only after Hanoi undertakes to improve protection of religious freedom or after the Congress passes a resolution calling for the Vietnamese government to make such improvements. You have the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom asking us to do this. The House did it, and we are not doing it. The Vietnam Human Rights Act which passed the House last week implements this and other Commission recommendations. The Commission urges the Senate to do likewise. However, we cannot do that because of the fact that someone is holding it up. That, to me, is unfortunate. I am going to propose a unanimous consent request. At that time, I know the majority will object, but I want to propose it. I want to also say that I may ask for this a number of times. I believe the individual Senator or Senators who oppose having a vote on human rights should come down and defend themselves. I would like to hear why it is we can't pass something that passed the House 410-1.…”