Joe Crowley: “The reality is, though, a country of 300 million people, only 20 medals have been awarded in the past decade. That is…”

“The reality is, though, a country of 300 million people, only 20 medals have been awarded in the past decade. That is not an awful lot of medals. The point that the gentleman is making is that it has been extraordinary when we have actually issued this medal to groups. Why are we now limiting ourselves; when it is extraordinary, recognized as extraordinary, why are we now officially and legally limiting the ability of Congress to issue this medal to groups? I do not understand that. We understand the process is hard. The gentleman has just said himself to get two-thirds of the Members of this House truly requires bipartisanship to get this done. This is not done, as I mentioned before, in a willy-nilly manner. There is great effort involved. I understand it. I remember when my friend from New York (Mr. Fossella) was doing this for John Cardinal O'Connor and the effort that it took to get both sides to get enough Members to sign onto that. I do understand the difficulties in that, but I hope the gentleman understands the appreciation that has been set forth by my testimony here today as well as my good friend from Texas (Ms. Jackson-Lee) that sometimes, not ofttimes, it is not just individuals, but it is groups who are responsible for incredible, incredible events in this country and I believe are deserving of the Congressional Gold Medal.”