[Congressional Record Volume 143, Number 32 (Thursday, March 13, 1997)]
[House]
[Page H951]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                             BIPARTISANSHIP

  (Mr. GINGRICH asked and was given permission to address the House for 
1 minute.)
  Mr. GINGRICH. Mr. Speaker, I simply wanted to rise to report to my 
colleagues and to our citizens that we had a very useful weekend 
retreat in Hershey on a bipartisan basis to talk about, I think, one of 
the most difficult and complex things that people do: How to engage in 
passionate and difficult differences, how to bring to this room 435 
people who represent the entire country, and how to do so in a way in 
which disagreement does not become disagreeable and in which the fact 
that people may have different dreams and different visions and 
sometimes different ideologies does not become so separating us and so 
divisive that it becomes difficult or impossible for us to do the 
people's business.
  This House has a long and a proud history of handling great conflicts 
in a very civil and orderly manner. Some of the greatest debates in 
this country's history have taken place in this building between people 
of great compassion who felt deeply what they were saying, but who 
recognized the legitimacy of the other person feeling equally deeply 
what they were saying.
  In addition to just the sense of handling debate, the more bipartisan 
our spirit can be, the more we can work together without the division 
of faction, as George Washington described it, the more good ideas we 
will have because on many topics, I would argue on most topics, the 
ideas are individual. They are not Democrat or Republican, liberal or 
conservative. They are just better, smarter, more effective ways to get 
the job done.
  So I hope that coming out of the experience we had in Hershey, that 
we begin to set this House back on a track of working together, of 
getting things done, or recognizing we may have deep differences at 
times but there are other times when we have many, many things that 
bring us together and many common interests, and that if we work at it, 
together we can do a better job for all the American people.

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