Political Quotes

“Mr. Chairman, I do so to commend the gentlewoman for her amendment. There have been points made here today that we were going to be ceding too much power to the President, and that we should in some way limit that. I think what this amendment does is make the case that were the President is deemed to have done an egregious thing in the exercise of the line-item veto, something that was punitive or an improper use, shall we say, of the line-item veto, and that was apparent to 50 or more Members, that that would rise to the level where we should be able to pull that back and say no, he has gone too far. Our concern with the gentlewoman from New York's amendment is allowing one Member to do that it seemed to us was going to open up perhaps a Pandora's box, where a lot of Members would have various things they would like to see pulled out of that, and we have a cherry picking. I really think where we are talking about the kind of egregious thing the President might engage in, the gentlewoman's amendment allowing 50 Members to indicate that is strong, and I am pleased to accept the gentlewoman's amendment.”