Political Quotes

“I am pleased to cosponsor S. 10. This bill could be called the Golden Rule bill because its premise boils down to Congress doing unto ourselves as we do unto others. I would be tempted to say that this is a reform whose time has come, if it were not already so painfully overdue. When I first arrived in Washington as a newly elected Senator from Vermont, I was struck by the double standard of rights. Congress passed laws that applied to employers in this country--except Congress. It was alien to anything I had ever experienced. Contrary to advice from older and far more senior Members of the Senate, in 1978 I introduced a bill that would extend coverage of several important civil rights and labor laws to Congress. It was a simple bill, founded on a simple premise: Congress, like everyone else in the country, must be governed by the law. Congress was not the last plantation, where everyone except the master was subject to the master's rules. The Senate represented the very seat of our democracy--and it was imperative that it act like one.”