Political Quotes

“I yield myself such time as I may consume. I would just remind my friend from California that when Republicans brought disclosure, they didn't link it to the contracting process, which this potential Executive order does. I think that's out of bounds. I would also remind my friend the Democrats opposed that and when Democrats were in the majority, and overwhelmingly in the majority, they failed to enact legislation similar to what she suggests in the DISCLOSE Act. I think this is something that this legislative body has looked at. If my friend from California wants to introduce a bill to do this, that's perfectly appropriate to it, but doing it in the context of the contracting process is simply wrong. People that are submitting bids will somehow think inevitably that they will be helped or hurt by their political activity. That has no basis in judging the quality of a bid for a Federal contract. In addition, frankly, my friends have never wanted to apply that same standard to labor unions or to affiliated groups applying for Federal dollars. I would actually agree with them on that. I don't think it has any place in a disclosure in those areas either. There's a place to do this, and there's a place not to do it. Doing it on a contract is inevitably meant to try and use the Federal dollars to impact, one way or another, what groups do politically. That's wrong, we shouldn't allow it, and we should never, never risk politicizing the procurement process.…”