Chuck Schumer: “Let me say this debate will test this House as it has not been tested in a decade. Admittedly, this is not the number…”

“Let me say this debate will test this House as it has not been tested in a decade. Admittedly, this is not the number one political issue on the minds of the public. Probably no one will lose their reelection because of it. But clearly, if we care about this Congress and care about this democracy, this is the issue that is driving the Government further and further and further from the people. Reform it we must. Those who love this democracy, those who believe in what the Founding Fathers said, should be on the side of this issue. And second, I have heard more crocodile tears shed over the First Amendment from the very same people who spend a career bashing the National Endowment for the Arts and everything else that I am just amazed. Methinks that there is too much protest here. I do not think the issue is the First Amendment. No amendment is absolute. I do not think that these newfound converts to the First Amendment fear that that amendment will be infringed. They try to infringe on it every week on the floor of this House. I think they are afraid of reform, they are afraid of government coming clean.”