Bill Lee: “first of all, with regard to the last unanimous consent request, it is important to remember a couple of things: First…”

“first of all, with regard to the last unanimous consent request, it is important to remember a couple of things: First of all, we saw that the whole bill together, with the congressionally directed spending elements, for the first time in just the last 48 hours or so. So it is not as though this has been through a public process with debate back and forth. An essential element of any legislative body is that there is an opportunity to amend, to discuss, and debate. In fact, that has been taken advantage of within the last 24 hours as another measure--a measure to remove something that has been characterized online as providing a million dollars to fund BDSM sex parties. That was removed. So if that can be removed, I don't know why this one can't. In any event, to say that this cake is baked--that this legislation must be treated as now passed when it is not passed is folly. And it doesn't bode well for this institution, which has long heralded itself and held itself out to the world as the world's greatest deliberative legislative body. Let's go to another one: Georgetown University. We have got nearly $1 million also going to Georgetown University--$963,000--nearly a million--to Georgetown University for something called the Prison Justice Initiative. Now, I don't know a whole lot about exactly what this will accomplish. It may well have good elements to it.…”