David Thomas: “I have been, frankly, disappointed that it has taken us as long as it has. We have been on this measure, I understand…”

“I have been, frankly, disappointed that it has taken us as long as it has. We have been on this measure, I understand, now for about 7 weeks, and we are still not finished--a bill that needs to be finished. It needs to be there for security. Yet we continue to debate and worry over issues that are not as significant as the passage of this bill. I hope we are getting closer to passing a homeland security bill. It is our responsibility to do that. I am almost embarrassed that we are not. I am pleased that cloture was invoked and that we can move forward on this bill that gives the President the tools he needs to protect our homeland. We have talked about the details. That is good. On the other hand, there are provisions in there that generally most everyone would agree we ought to be moving forward with: Immigration, to change the reorganization of that department so that you have more emphasis on the immigration aspect with regard to terrorism; reorganization of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms so that it can work better in terms of terrorism as opposed to law enforcement activities. Personnel flexibility has been one we have talked about for a very long time.”