Political Quotes

“Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to this bill in its entirety but especially to that provision which attempts to eliminate the Election Assistance Commission. I need to address a few points that have been made by the proponents of this bill because I was there when this original bill came up for consideration years ago, and I've been there for the subsequent hearings in the committee of jurisdiction. First of all, when it comes to the secretaries of state, they've been opposed to the creation of the Election Assistance Commission from its very beginning. This is nothing new. Their renewal of opposition basically used a form letter that didn't even change the 2006 date. The 2010 opposition letter actually referred and still used the same letter of previous years. But the most important thing to point out is that secretaries of state have multifaceted responsibilities and obligations. One of them is to conduct elections. But each one of us in this body knows who really runs an election, and it's going to be your local election administrators. You and I and anybody involved in the electoral process knows that on Election Day you're not going to find secretary of state personnel at the polling places. When the ballots are mailed for absentee voting, you're not going to find anyone from the Secretary of State's Office. They're not going to count the ballots. They're not going to be there. It is a local effort, and that's what the Election Assistance Commission is doing.…”