Political Quotes

“Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time. Mr. Speaker, the people's House should be approaching our work in a manner that is fair to all Americans, in a manner where the committees of jurisdiction hold hearings and markups, in a manner where experts in the field are consulted, in a manner where members of both parties have an opportunity to offer amendments and debate the contents of the bills that come before this body. None of that happened with today's bill. Instead, for reasons beyond understanding, we have to vote on a bill that no person in this body had sufficient time to understand, let alone time to consider the far-reaching consequences it could have on people living in this country and on our Constitution. The fact that Republican leadership insists on governing in such a manner is, as always, as disappointing as, in my opinion, it is shameful. Now, listen: 96 closed rules. I am fond of talking about when I first ran for Congress in 1992, the then leadership of the Republican Party did an effective job saying to the American public that the then leadership of the Democrats were having closed rules and closing out the process. Newt Gingrich was the person that was the author of that, in many respects in retrospect, brilliant strategy. That was one of the tenets that he put forward, that it was not right for Democrats to have as many closed rules as they had at that time. I don't remember the exact number, it was a number, but it didn't come close to 96.…”