On the recordJune 21, 2019
I have comments about my giving remarks at the end of the week, so it might be worth setting a little history of these Special Order remarks. In 2005 and 2006, my first term, I was not prone to give any remarks in Special Orders, but I observed during those 2 years that one of my classmates that came in January 2005, like I did, Debbie Wasserman Schultz, and some other Democrats arranged each night, often taking both hours of Special Orders that their party was afforded. I was told by Republicans who had been here for a long time, ``You know, nobody is paying any attention to what they are saying. They are making themselves look bad. They make us look good by what they say.'' There were times I would say, ``But are you paying attention to what they are saying?'' You could see on C-SPAN sometimes when the sound was off, it would be scrolling, and I would say, ``Look what they are saying. They are blaming us for all kinds of things. We need to respond. This isn't accurate.'' And I was told, ``Look, you know, don't worry about it. It doesn't make any difference.'' And over the course of 2 years, I saw that a group that called themselves the 30 Somethings--everyone that was probably in their sixties or seventies, but otherwise in their thirties--that they did affect national opinion. I mean, you could see over that many nights, they made a difference.…
