Political Quotes

“this bill has a lot of good things in it, but one it does not have is increased competition. In a real effort to provide more competition, I offered an amendment that simply said that a Bell Co. has to have at least the availability of 10 percent of the customers going to a competitor, not that 10 percent have to be signed up for competition, but that 10 percent have to be able to sign up for competition. That was ruled out of order to protect the manager's amendment. Mr. Chairman, the manager's amendment goes a long way to shut down realistic competition. If the manager's amendment passes, consumers lose. We need to reject the manager's amendment, go back to the language that came out of the committee or ensure that we put in language that would allow real competition, ensuring that at least 10 percent of the customers have the ability to ask for service from a competitor. Mr. Chairman, I do not think 10 percent is unreasonable. However, I think the manager's amendment is very unreasonable, and I would urge a ``no'' vote.”