Political Quotes

“Mr. Speaker, I have listened with great, rapt attention this afternoon to my friends, Mr. Chaffetz and Mr. Meadows, who have gone on eloquently about protecting the Constitution of the United States at, of course, the collateral expense of the people of the District of Columbia. They cite the Constitution as if the Constitution and the Founders who wrote it were fully cognizant of the evolution that was going to take place in the District of Columbia when we know, as a historical fact, the Constitution was actually written before there was a District of Columbia, let alone almost 700,000 American citizens still denied voting representation in this body today. In fact, that very Constitution my friends cite protected slavery, decided that certain people of color were only worth three-fifths of the normal mortal, but allowed the South to count them for the purposes of representation in this body. The same Constitution. We changed it. We took cognizance of changes in reality. The fact that you exercise your will over an entire city just because you can does not make it right or noble. In fact, if we follow the logic of my friends on the other side of the aisle, why not just take over the day-to-day mechanics of running the government of the city? So let's do rezoning. Let's do emergency preparedness. Let's run the police department. Let's run the EMT and the fire department. Let's take over mental health facilities and human services. Why go only halfway? Why go only halfway?…”