John Hope Bryant: “I do not know where the folks who have been talking on the Republican side have been the last 10 years. They are as…”

“I do not know where the folks who have been talking on the Republican side have been the last 10 years. They are as capable of reading the law as we are. It is available to them. I guess they do not want to read it. The law as of 10 years ago said Members of Congress were covered by this act. They continue to say that we are not. They are covered, just like any other American, and it has been that way since 1983. They say they want Congress to be covered by the laws just as everybody else, and I agree, there are some instances where we should have been and we were not. But this is not one of those instances, and they know it is not one of them. Look at the statute. We are treated just like every other American under that statute, and we would be under my amendment as well. Now, the fact of the matter is this rhetoric is part of a premeditated strategy to pound on a Republican theme that even though this does not quite fit into it, it is OK with them, apparently, to come up here and say that it does.”