Political Quotes

“I rise in support of the Pence amendment, and I am aware of some very helpful work that Planned Parenthood has done to help some women with some difficult medical issues. But we have heard discussion here about a bill of attainder. And Article I, Section 9, paragraph 3 says: No bill of attainder or ex post facto law will be passed. That is the Constitution. A bill of attainder, according to William Rehnquist, is: a legislative act that singled out one or more persons and imposed punishment on them, without benefit of trial. No one is being found guilty of a crime here. I know about those things. I have found people guilty of crimes after a trial. That is not what is happening here any more than it was what was happening when people decided to defund Guantanamo Bay or defund ACORN because they were complicit in encouraging prostitution. To come in here and say that when this body finds that one entity does not deserve to be receiving more money that was pried out of taxpayers' hands is somehow a bill of attainder, then it means we can never withdraw money from someone to whom it was given previously. That is not a bill of attainder. In fact, to take it away, one would first have to assume that this money was the property of this entity before they ever received it. Now, that would be like saying that the taxpayers that earned the money and the taxpayers that had to give it up because we stole it, but we legalized the theft because we can do that, we can say, You earned it.…”