Political Quotes

“I do not think is it is a good message to the rest of the Republicans who serve there. The message is if you challenge us, you are in trouble. So it silences even their own Members. It keeps them from having the ability to speak up and speak out. I have said before, we are elected to come here to represent the people who vote for us and make us their representative. We do not come here to serve the gentleman from Illinois (Speaker Hastert). We do not come here to serve the gentleman from Texas (Mr. DeLay) or the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Pelosi). We come here to represent the people who send us here. If my Republican friends do not have the freedom to speak up and speak out about what they think is right for their constituents without getting a committee taken away from them or getting a position taken away from them, well, then they become impotent, quite frankly. They are not able to be a true representative. I ask this question: Where are the friends of the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Smith)? Where are they in the Republican caucus? I want to tell you, if that happened to my friend from Washington State, if our Democratic leadership did that, or if our Democratic leadership did that to my colleague from the State of Ohio, I would be outraged, and I think Members of our caucus would be outraged. We would not stand for it. But there is a silence over there that is very, very troubling.”