Orrin Hatch: “I don't know anybody on the Senate floor who can roar better than my ``lion'' friend from Massachusetts. He is a great…”

“I don't know anybody on the Senate floor who can roar better than my ``lion'' friend from Massachusetts. He is a great Senator. And he certainly feels very deeply on this issue. Apparently I have irritated him, and I feel sorry about that, but he is totally wrong in what he says. I can see why he might feel that way. Now, let me just say this, that I believe the letters that he was referring to, with regard to the courts of this country complaining about this, were before the compromise we enacted in this particular conference report. I got a lot of complaints, too. That is why I tried to make the change and worked it out with Chairman Sensenbrenner and others in the House who were not very happy to make the change. My friend called and said: Can you do something in this area? I said I would try, which I did. And we came up with the Hatch-Graham-Sensenbrenner amendment. I apologize for my voice, but I have semi-laryngitis. But we came up with the Hatch-Graham-Sensenbrenner amendment, which I believed moved this in the right direction and I thought would please my friend from Massachusetts, but it did not. Now, it needs to be pointed out that this is a bipartisan conference report. On the Senate side, we voted for this report 5 to 2, meaning it was bipartisan. On the House side, they voted in larger numbers for this report.…”