Political Quotes

“Mr. Speaker, this morning's news talks about the elections in Russia. At the same time it speaks about elections, it talks about the steady erosion of democratic freedoms embodied in these elections, and it says there is mounting national and international criticism of those elections because of the denial of democracy as defined by free societies, which is because of the heavy hand of the Putin majority. We are blind if we do not see analogous denials of democracy American-style wrapped up in this omnibus bill. Is it democracy when, for the first time, we hold open votes unconscionably long, pressure Members, it has been alleged illegally, with threats or bribes until you win what the vote shows you had already lost? We have done that at least a half a dozen times, ranging from 25 minutes to 3 hours. Is it democracy when you reverse the votes of the House, as we have done on the overtime provision? Is it democracy when we have one-party conferences, locking out the other party? Is it democracy when there are in this bill, a major bill, provisions for which there have been no votes at all? Like the D.C. voucher provision, there was no vote in the Senate because they had no votes. The ultimate abuse is they removed the few routine accountability provisions that by voice vote did get in the bill for D.C. vouchers. One was that teachers have to have a college degree.…”