Jay Rockefeller: “I wish to express my support for the bipartisan alternative--offered by Senators Johnston and McConnell--to the…”

“I wish to express my support for the bipartisan alternative--offered by Senators Johnston and McConnell--to the underlying bill. I wish we were here debating health care reform, or even taking up the health care bill that we have promised this year to the American people. Or we could be spending this time talking about welfare reform, or what it will take to approve the GATT treaty on world trade. Instead, we have been forced to consider the bill before us, the gift ban bill. And I want to emphasize how much I appreciate my colleagues Senators Levin and Cohen for their painstaking efforts to come up with a more reasonable approach to the issues than what we first encountered. In translation, we are considering legislation designed to cure our image problems with the American people. Now, I strongly agree that the U.S. Senate should have to meet the highest ethical standards. Where laws and rules are necessary to govern our profession, they should be on the books and we should comply with them. But I am getting increasingly distressed at the way this Congress almost promotes the perception that we are being unduly influenced, are too easily corrupted, and are impossibly weak.”