Political Quotes

“Mr. President, I rise to speak on Lee amendment No. 3897 that deals with the Federal Fair Housing Act, and I want to describe why many of my colleagues and I are opposed to the amendment. The amendment would eliminate the current affirmative furthering fair housing enforcement regulations promulgated by the Department of Housing and Urban Development. I want to go into that. I will start with a personal story. Before I was in partisan elected politics, I was a civil rights lawyer in Richmond for 17 years. About two-thirds of my legal practice was fair housing cases. I will just tell you the story about my first client and two lessons I learned from my first client that bear upon this amendment. I had barely hung my diploma on the wall in my office, where I was the junior person among 12 lawyers, when a client was referred to our firm. They did what is often the case; they sent it to the newest person. Somebody needed some help--pro bono assistance. This young woman's name was Loraine. Loraine was almost exactly my age. I think I was 25 at the time, and she was the same age. I had just moved to a new city and had just gone out to find my apartment in that new city and started my first real job after school. She was kind of in the same place--just out of college, just starting a new job, just looking for an apartment. Loraine had been at work one day and had read in the newspaper an ad for an apartment in a neighborhood she liked.…”