Charles Rangel: “so many times we see Republicans coming on over to the Democratic side and Democrats going on the other side and some of…”

“so many times we see Republicans coming on over to the Democratic side and Democrats going on the other side and some of the newer Members wonder, What is that all about? Well, it is about what they call the good old days. The days where people were elected to represent their districts and at the same time thought that we could disagree without being disagreeable. And if they had any problems in trying to figure out what type of legislator that I am talking about, I refer them to my friend, my brother, my colleague, Ben Gilman. And I say ``brother'' because we can have a lot of problems with our brothers, especially on some of the votes that he is being lauded for on the other side. But one thing is abundantly clear, that he believed in everything that he was doing, and that he would put himself out of the way to try to listen to the problems of different people in different parts of our country or in different parts of the world. Ben and I traveled all over fighting the scourge of drugs. It was one task force that no one really volunteered to go on. We went into the mountains, the valleys. We stood in Colombia and saw what the rebels have done. We have known the list of people that have died in these countries fighting the drug traffickers. We went into Mexico and saw just how corrupt they were and stood up against them.…”