David Thomas: “Before anyone thinks that this is a decision on a narrow, technical parliamentary discussion, I want you to understand…”

“Before anyone thinks that this is a decision on a narrow, technical parliamentary discussion, I want you to understand what is at stake. My friend, the gentleman from Massachusetts, said he could not believe that we would be doing this, or that Thomas Jefferson would not comprehend the fact that we were trying to run our business this way. The gentleman from Massachusetts had a popular politician at the time that Thomas Jefferson was a popular politician by the name of Elbridge Gerry. He created the gerrymander, to draw a district so bizarre that it was said, 'It looks like a salamander. Let's call it a gerrymander.' Why was it drawn that way? To retain political power. They would go to any lengths to retain political power. If you take the logical argument of the gentleman from Massachusetts and say that we really ought to express ourselves on each and every item, that you should not hide something in a bill, can you imagine what the procedure would be on the floor of the House if each and every item had to be voted on? Because if you did not vote on it, then you are hiding it behind another item. And that when you are in this kind of a structure, i.e., moving a supplemental bill, by its very nature it is supplemental, it means we have picked up some pieces, we have had some things happen we were not aware of and we have had to put them together to respond to the real world. Not the desired world, the real world. And that their problem is they do not want to vote on this.”