Political Quotes

“Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time. In closing, Mr. Speaker, Congress has a chance to right a wrong in the law by passing this bill. We always say that, in the U.S., you are innocent until proven guilty, but the civil asset forfeiture policies imposed by the Federal Government don't always reflect that basic premise. I urge all of my colleagues to vote for this bill. But let me be clear. While we are correcting an injustice in one area, this bill reminds us of the importance of a larger discussion on much-needed criminal justice reform. I hope that this larger issue can also be tackled by this year's Congress. Just like the Clyde family and the Hirsch family and the Sowers family, whom we named this bill for, far too many American families have seen the U.S. justice system not work on behalf of them. We need to address that issue of criminal justice reform in the same bipartisan way, Mr. Speaker, that Mr. Roskam and the entire Ways and Means Committee dealt with civil asset forfeiture. Mr. Speaker, I don't know how difficult it is to birth a calf. I am a boy from Woodside, Queens. I used to say we had no running water growing up where I came from. Well, we had running water in my home, but we didn't have any streams; we had no ponds, no lakes. The closest I got to the water--I want the violins to come out now--the closest I got to the water was Rockaway Beach in Queens. But my wife is from Montana, and she grew up on a ranch.…”