Karen Shepherd: “I first want to commend the gentleman from Texas [Mr. Bryant] and the Democratic leadership for having the courage to…”

“I first want to commend the gentleman from Texas [Mr. Bryant] and the Democratic leadership for having the courage to come forward with this bill. Precisely what they were concerned would happen is happening, which is that people who do not want it to pass at all are trying to pick it apart and say it is not good enough. Madam Speaker, let me say what the people want. It does not matter if we are talking about the Salt Lake Tribune, where 75 percent of the people think that it is a conflict of interest for members of any legislative body to have lobbyists spend money on them, or whether we are talking about any poll, hundreds of polls taken across this country by the people of this country. They think that spending money to talk to us is a conflict of interest. Madam Speaker, it has been said here that this is half a loaf. That is wrong. It is not half a loaf. It is impossible to say that it is a full loaf, but I can tell the Members, it is every slice but the heel, and I invite each of the Members who think this bill is not strong enough to join with me in coming years and we will whittle away at it and we will make it stronger every year, because that is our responsibility to the people of this country.”