Nick Rahall: “yesterday in a special order, I expressed my total disbelief that, at an event convened at taxpayer's expense, a Member…”

“yesterday in a special order, I expressed my total disbelief that, at an event convened at taxpayer's expense, a Member of this House would publicly charge that a Member of the U.S. Senate should be tarred and feathered and run out of the country. Was this a joke, Mr. Speaker? From press accounts, what we do know is that it was a reaction to a constituent's call for the murder of a Member of the other body, and that the murderer be given a medal. The Member from Washington State in question with whom I have spoken, did not object to the murder of a U.S. Senator. The member did not attempt to argue at all, instead Mr. Speaker, he fueled the flames of violence against members of the people's house, against the representatives elected by the American people. Let me read from a definition of ``tar and feathers'': Pouring molten tar over the body and covering it with feathers was an official punishment in England as early as the 12th century. It was never legal in the United States, but was always a mob--demonstration. The practice finally vanished in the late 19th Century. But now, Mr. Speaker, a Member of the House wants to resurrect the practice--to drag the American people, not toward the next millennium, but back to the last. Is this the course the new majorities in the Congress have set? Is this a new contract of tar and feathering, of drawing and quartering, of star chambers and chambers of torture for the American people?”