Democrats' Broken Promises

DEMOCRATS' BROKEN PROMISES -- (House of Representatives - January 29, 2007)

Ms. FOXX. Mr. Speaker, last year, Democrats promised the most bipartisan Congress ever in the history of our Congress. What we have seen so far is about as far from that as I could imagine. Not only have the rules been broken in terms of bills being rammed through, not going through regular order so that there can be debate and discussions, but even when there are bills that all Members can support, albeit that they are not as strong as we would like, they are mischaracterized.

Over the weekend, I read most of the debate that went on last week about H.R. 476 dealing with ethics reform in the Congressional Record: ``Please take note. The Democratic leadership of this institution plans to clean up the criminal and ethical morass it inherited. This bill is a down payment on the new ethical climate control system we are building.

``The American people deserve to know that criminal unethical behavior by any of our colleagues will be punished and that the penalties for violating the sacred trust which has been bestowed upon us by our voters and the States we represent will be substantive, serious and not window dressing.'

Well, ladies and gentlemen, we passed a bill tougher than the bill that was passed last week in the last Congress, and we don't need to keep making these kinds of comments if we want a bipartisan relationship.

http://thomas.loc.gov/