Political Quotes

“Reclaiming my time, the annual fee, I guess, was going to be $50. To impose a penalty of $500 for failure to file timely reports--these lobbyists walk around with $5,000 bills in their pockets. I would like to see, if we had time to discuss this in committee, a $500 penalty. They get that in a half hour's work. That isn't much of an incentive for them to file in a timely manner. The bigger, broader point, Mr. Speaker, is these are the types of discussions that really should happen in the subcommittee and in the committee, the timing of these issues, why we would make this change. Mr. Speaker, I would just make a further point on H.R. 5751. While it moves the structure slightly and gives more flexibility to the Attorney General, obviously we want to see these laws and the compliance fulfilled as much as possible. If this will in any way help the Attorney General in doing so, so be it; we're happy to support this bill. I still must reiterate that the speed in which this bill was offered, the lack of opportunity for members within the Judiciary Committee to properly debate this, vet this, the fact that we were still dealing back and forth with some staff--and, again, I appreciate the bipartisan way in which it was done, but at the same time, these are the types of things that get vetted and ferreted out with better discussion and review. I think we could have made it stronger, quite frankly.…”