[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 2 (Thursday, January 4, 1996)]
[House]
[Page H125]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                     IT IS TIME TO RETURN TO SANITY

  (Mr. MENENDEZ asked and was given permission to address the House for 
1 minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. MENENDEZ. Mr. Speaker, I was listening to this debate on the 
floor, and I decided to come down. I wanted to tell some of my radical 
friends, since I always hear them called liberal friends, it is time to 
stop using our Federal employees, who are our fellow citizens, American 
citizens, as hostages.
  I feel like we are in the Iran hostage situation again. It is time to 
stop using Americans who depend upon those Federal employees as 
hostages, and it is time to stop asking them to be the ultimate 
sacrifice in this process.
  The fact of the matter is you want to impose your will, your extreme 
agenda as the law of the land, and that is not the American way. It is 
about negotiation, it is about compromise. It is not about blackmail 
and threat, and that is what is at stake here.
  We are discussing about deeply rooted principles. I know you have 
yours, and we have ours. But it is time to stop using Federal employees 
and the American citizens who depend upon their services as hostages, 
and it is time to take the gun away from the President, which is what 
you are doing, at his head; it is time to return to some sanity in this 
House and in this country.

                          ____________________