Political Quotes

“I thank my friend from Oklahoma, the current Republican leader of the Rules Committee, for yielding. We are in unprecedented times, and unprecedented times do call for unprecedented actions. But using these times to smash a wrecking ball into the foundation of democratic lawmaking by making government more remote, more isolated from the people by dramatically centralizing even more power with those few at the top in the majority while giving the range of the House to fewer than 25 Members who show up with votes, with proxies, seems like a return to boss politics. This is not to say there is never room for improvement in the way the House conducts its business. Mr. Speaker, 10 years ago, I led the transition effort for House Republicans, and we looked at ways that we could modernize Congress and improve its operations. But I knew these were matters not to be taken lightly and we needed an inclusive, bipartisan approach, and I took great care to solicit input from Democrats and Republicans alike. We even put up a suggestion box. What we did was good work. The changes were relatively small, but the process was robust. Unfortunately, the reverse is true of this proposal. ``Regular order,'' ``accountability,'' ``transparency''--for the most part--``bipartisanship,'' these are words that govern the Energy and Commerce Committee, the Republicans and Democrats.…”