Robert Torricelli: “I am very proud to join the Senator from North Dakota in offering this amendment. In our Federal system, there is always…”

“I am very proud to join the Senator from North Dakota in offering this amendment. In our Federal system, there is always a preference for State and local governments setting standards of health and safety for our citizens. By right, those judgments should be made in those levels of government closest to the people themselves. But there are instances where our State and local governments do not rise to those responsibilities to protect our citizens. Through the years, as our society changes, so, too, sometimes do the standards. We live in a highly mobile society, where in the course of any day, week, or month, citizens from any State in America can find themselves driving on the highways of another locality, in a different jurisdiction. Every Senator has the right and responsibility to know that in that travel, in the pursuit of commerce or recreation, their citizens are safe to some minimal standard. That, in my judgment, Mr. President, is what motivates the Senator from North Dakota today. It defies logic that in 22 States in this Union it is still legal for a passenger in an automobile on a highway to possess an open container of alcohol. And if that is not difficult enough to understand, it is unbelievable that in five States it is permissible, acceptable, it is legal for a person to have one hand on the steering wheel of a moving automobile and the other hand on a container of alcohol.”