[Congressional Record Volume 146, Number 154 (Thursday, December 14, 2000)]
[Senate]
[Page S11769]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                       THE PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION

  Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, the American people last evening heard a 
concession speech by Vice President Gore and a speech by Gov. George W. 
Bush, who is now the President-elect.
  I supported Vice President Gore. I wish the result had been different 
in this election. But we have a process for contesting elections, and 
that process was finalized by the actions of the U.S. Supreme Court. I 
accept those actions, and we now have a new President-elect.
  We went through some difficult times after the election day, and 
those times inflamed the passions of many Americans. The fact is, the 
American people created almost a dead even tie in casting votes for the 
Presidency. It wasn't just the Presidency. It was a 50-50 split in the 
membership of the Senate, and nearly a 50-50 split in the House, and as 
I indicated, a near tie vote for the Presidency. That is not likely to 
happen again in our lifetime. It is not unusual for the person on the 
losing end to want to make certain that all the votes are counted and 
counted correctly. So that is why we went through that process.
  I know many passions were inflamed as a result of it. In fact, some 
of my colleagues--not so much in this body but in the other body--were 
using words such as ``stealing elections,'' and so on. I regret that 
those words were used. I don't think it contributes to what we ought to 
be doing. That is all gone and done.
  As of last evening, we have a President-elect who addressed this 
country, and we have a Vice President who conceded that election.
  Despite the fact that Congress is divided almost evenly between the 
Republicans and Democrats, all of us wish the new President-elect well.
  It will behoove all of us to work together and extend ourselves to 
each other and try to create some unity, and move forward on things on 
which we can agree. There will still be policy differences, I might 
say, and we should aggressively debate them. But I think the American 
people want us to try to work together to find areas of bipartisanship, 
and we will do that. I, for one, am interested in seeing us make the 
progress on important issues for our country.
  Let me make this comment as well. We not only will now have a new 
President. This new President inherits an economy that is going through 
some changes, some subtle and some not so subtle.

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