[Congressional Record Volume 143, Number 36 (Wednesday, March 19, 1997)]
[House]
[Page H1163]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                BIPARTISAN RETREAT IN HERSHEY A SUCCESS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentlewoman from Florida [Mrs. Meek] is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mrs. MEEK of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I am one of the fortunate Members 
of the House of Representatives who got the unique opportunity of 
attending the bipartisan retreat. I must admit, Mr. Speaker, when I was 
initially invited, I felt, well, this will be just another feel-good 
session, or it will just be another one of these innocent, well-
designed things that would lead to failure.
  I want to say, Mr. Speaker, that it was not. It was tremendously 
successful. I am an experienced educator and an experienced civic-
minded person. I have been on many retreats. In my opinion, this was 
one of the better ones that I have been fortunate enough to attend.
  First of all, I think that it is time the House of Representatives 
realized that it does take getting away from the 435 seats that we sit 
in on the floor of this House, many times. It takes that because the 
institution itself has divided us geographically from the way we sit on 
this floor. This retreat did a lot.
  I want to commend my colleagues, the gentleman from Colorado [Mr. 
Skaggs], the gentleman from Illinois [Mr. LaHood], the gentleman from 
New York, [Mr. Houghton], the Speaker of the House, the gentleman from 
Georgia [Mr. Gingrich], the minority leader, the gentleman from 
Missouri [Mr. Gephardt], and the gentleman from Ohio [Mr. Sawyer]. 
Because of the efforts they put forth in planning this and making it 
happen, we owe them a debt of gratitude.
  I welcomed the opportunity to meet outside of work with many of my 
colleagues, many of whom I had never met before, even though I had seen 
them passing in the hall. The event was well planned and well 
organized. Discussion group leaders were extremely helpful, and the 
sessions were productive. It was wonderful to see so many of my 
colleagues together with their families.
  The presentation by Dr. McCullough, a great scholar, a great writer, 
was extremely revealing and very provocative, because I have been here 
4 years and that was the first time I heard a scholarly approach to the 
historical perspective of this House.
  He gave us a reason to feel that we should be proud of all of the 
merits that perhaps the American public does not realize as to what 
this House has done. He did it in such a way, he did not pander to us, 
he dealt with facts and said we should be very proud. I think that 
proudness, Mr. Speaker, coming from each one of us, would certainly 
inhibit some of the incivility we have seen on the floor.
  Will it increase civility on the floor? I think it will. I think it 
improved the respect that we have for each other. I think it gave us a 
strong perspective of why the House is so important and why our 
decisions that we make here every day are very important and how they 
benefit the people of this country.
  The design of the workshop was superlative. It was not thrown 
together. It had goals, it had objectives, it had ways to reach the 
goals that we sought so well. It had an evaluation so that we could say 
to the committee, that is what we saw this year; when you have this 
again, maybe these are some improvements that we would like to see.
  I think it was a very, very good use of the money of the people who 
sponsored it. It was a team-building kind of device. Industry and 
business, they know how to do these kinds of things, that is, to take 
you away from the workplace and have you face your colleagues, to have 
you dialog and to have you meet each other's families. I think this 
Congress as an institution could take a lesson from business and 
industry, and this retreat did that. It created that kind of team-
building.
  There were many good readings which I liked very much. They sent each 
one of us some pre-readings, and if we read it, it set the tone of what 
we were there for, and they had research studies that showed. So it was 
not just a fun thing, even though we did have fun, but it was based on 
very sound research, and we had very good scholars and good speakers 
behind it.
  It was issue-oriented, family-friendly. It just did me proud as a 
grandmother to see the families there with their children and the 
children enjoyed it so much. Was the retreat good? Yes. Was the retreat 
successful? Yes. The retreat gave us an objective or an outcome that it 
would take us years to reach if we had not moved out of these 435 
seats.
  So I want to say to the people who sponsored it, we want it repeated 
again next year. It was the best.

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