Political Quotes

“this morning we are continuing to negotiate the reorganization of the responsibilities in this Senate. Those folks who observe the Senate and the goings on on the floor probably think there is not a whole lot going on, but it is kind of like a duck. He looks pretty calm and serene on top of the water, but under the water there is a lot of paddling going on. As we work our way through this, it is hopeful we will come up with some kind of an agreement in the near future. That being said, this morning we announced our agenda for the upcoming session as far as the Subcommittee on Telecommunications. I will share with my colleagues how these issues will rank and their importance. Last year, we passed a ``can spam'' bill out of committee. The bill came to the floor at the tail end of the session and was up for consideration in a package with a lot of other legislation, but it did not make it. It is broadly supported by this body. There is a similar bill in the House of Representatives which has to do with spam. Spam is the unwanted mail that one gets in e-mail. Whenever one clicks on their e-mail, they see a lot of unwanted messages that are selling everything from shoelaces to whatever. This unwanted mail continues not only to plague our system and clog it, but in rural areas, especially like my State of Montana where some Internet users actually have to pay long distance fees to their server, it becomes quite expensive.”