Speech #980147001

I thank the gentleman for yielding. I would like to compliment the gentleman also because it does bring to mind two things that occurred during the last several months of last year. One was that when I was home in southwest Florida having town meetings and we were discussing the immigration reform bill and the people in southwest Florida were wondering why that particular piece of legislation was not coming to the floor. And the explanation that I gave them was that the Speaker has decided. for whatever reason he may have chosen. that he did not want that legislation to come to the floor. And the first reaction. the tendency is to say. as the gentleman indicated a minute ago. that well. there is nothing we can do about it. that we are outnumbered so much that we cannot really make a change there.