Political Quotes

“I reluctantly rise to discuss an issue that troubles me greatly. For the past 16 years that I have served in this body I have tried to focus attention on the plight of the Nation's fire and emergency service providers. Across this country, we have fought for their interests. We have fought for the career and volunteer firefighters in 32,000 departments. We organized the largest caucus in the Congress. We have an annual dinner each April which brings all the focus together. We have had President Clinton, former President Bush and all of our major party leaders come together to support them. As we saw in the Washington Post 2 days ago, the good will we have developed is currently being undone by a resolution passed by the International Association of Fire Fighters, good friends of mine, supporters of mine, that tells their membership they can no longer volunteer in the course of serving the communities where they live. So a firefighter in the District of Columbia who lives in suburban Maryland or Virginia is no longer allowed on his own free time to serve the communities where he lives. If he wants to do that, he must give up his union card. Madam Speaker, this is like saying that teachers, and I was a teacher for 7 years, should withdraw from the teacher's association if they want to tutor poor kids on weekends or after school, or even teach Sunday school.”