David Obey: “first of all, let me simply say I have heard many a time Members take the floor of this House and object to the fact…”

“first of all, let me simply say I have heard many a time Members take the floor of this House and object to the fact that the District of Columbia Government often did not seem to know what it was doing. At times I certainly have shared that perception. I know that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. But with all due respect, I think certainly on something which is such a major departure from existing law, the Congress ought to know what it is doing. Very frankly, on this issue, it does not. I walked into the meeting of the conference this morning. We voted on this package. But up until the moment that we voted, I had not seen a single page of the legislative language, and neither had the gentleman from California. I think that is a quaint way to do business. I have several objections to this bill. First of all, I am going to vote no because I do not believe that we should be adopting 168 pages of new language without at least having had the opportunity to analyze it, and we certainly did not. Second, this bill is going to be used as a national precedent. And as soon as this bill is passed we are then going to see organizations with an ideological agenda who will begin to pressure each and every school district in the country to follow the same model. With all due respect, I think if we are going to create that kind of a precedent, at least again we ought to know what it is we are doing. I doubt that many Members do tonight.”