Political Quotes

“I wish to take a little bit of time to talk about at least two of the amendments and probably make a mention of the one we just had. As to the underlying bill, we have two amendments that have been suggested--one for a public employees bill of rights and the other one for an unfunded mandate exemption--and I want to comment on those a little bit. I haven't gotten to speak much, and there are several on the other side who have spoken to some extent. I did notice that the Senator from New Jersey, the former mayor of a community of 60,000, made some comments about how this bill would work, and I wished to point out that 60,000 is a pretty big city in a lot of States around this country. That would be bigger than any city in Wyoming. So when we are talking about how easy it is to do these negotiations, I think we are leaving out some crucial factors. The bill says it applies if a municipality has more than 5,000 people or--this is very important. It says 5,000 people or 25 employees. If it has 25 employees, no matter what they do for the city, the city comes under this bill. It becomes an unfunded mandate for the city even if there are less than 5,000 people. I can tell my colleagues there are a lot of towns that have less than 5,000 that would have, depending on what services they provide, more than 25 employees.”