David Thomas: “this is always a very difficult time for Members because we are dealing with something which affects every one of us. It…”

“this is always a very difficult time for Members because we are dealing with something which affects every one of us. It is also especially troublesome because we are dealing with an attempt to write law in an area where the Constitution is fairly clear and the Supreme Court, periodically and most recently, reclarified where we are dealing with people's fundamental first amendment right of freedom of speech. But I do have to say that the gentleman from West Virginia and several other speakers have certainly exercised their free speech rights in characterizing and perhaps overzealously characterizing provisions in both bills. These bills do in fact limit. Ours limits, it limits in a different way. When we get into discussions about the bills and their substance, we obviously will have a lot of time to talk about the new way in which we limit. I am going to spend some time talking about the common way in which both bills limit and reform. It just seems to me that as we discuss what we are doing here, we do have to keep in mind that there is a Constitution, that there are rights. The Supreme Court has corrected the overzealousness of Congress in the past. We should move reform. It should be done carefully. We will talk about the substance. But as we deal with the rhetoric, and it appears that we are warming up on the rhetoric, we really ought to try to stick to the facts and the substance, because, frankly, some folks are getting just a little carried away.”