[Congressional Record Volume 155, Number 162 (Tuesday, November 3, 2009)]
[House]
[Page H12200]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                        AMERICA DESERVES BETTER

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
Oregon (Mr. Blumenauer) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. BLUMENAUER. One of the most sad expressions that we heard in this 
Congress was by John Boehner, the Republican minority leader, March 15, 
2009. ``As I told my colleagues, we don't have enough votes to 
legislate. We are not in the majority. They,'' referring to his 
Republican colleagues, ``ought to get the idea out of their minds that 
they are legislators. But what they can be is communicators.''
  Madam Speaker, that is an unfortunate misreading of the role of 
Members of Congress. It is much too narrow and limited, tragically so.
  I spent 11 years in the minority in this Congress, and at times I 
must confess extraordinary frustration on some of what I thought were 
decidedly wrongheaded policies like the tragic consequences we are 
seeing played out on Wall Street and in Iraq today. But in the course 
of those 11 years, I never stopped looking for ways to work 
cooperatively to find a majority of people on both sides of the aisle 
to make productive change for America.
  Some of my proudest moments were as a member of the minority when we 
were able to take small, bipartisan steps that made a huge impact. For 
example, the passage of my Water for the Poor Act, that was bipartisan 
legislation in both the House and the Senate that now enshrines in 
Federal policy an active effort to provide safe drinking water and 
sanitation around the world to save lives, while it improves the role 
and image of Americans abroad.
  There has been described by some commentators, including some of my 
friends on the other side of the aisle, a ``take no prisoners'' 
approach. It's disturbing, as one who authored the end-of-life 
provisions that were hijacked and blatantly lied about to deal with 
what they called death panels, to see that ``take no prisoner'' 
approach in action. Well, we exploded that myth and I'm pleased that we 
do have strong, voluntary end-of-life provisions in the bill to protect 
the wishes of American families about how their families would be dealt 
with.
  But one of the myths is that this ``take no prisoners'' attitude is 
just directed towards the Democrats because the consequence of a ``take 
no prisoner'' attitude might be, if they're successful, destroying our 
efforts at health care reform, where we have come further than any time 
in our history. In that case, the prisoners will be the American public 
that will be sentenced to continuing a process where we have millions 
uninsured and others who are not protected by the insurance which they 
are paying for.
  Sadly, ``take no prisoners'' has actually affected the minority 
itself, because this attitude of being dismissive of a constructive 
role of legislation, being dismissive of the truth, actually has 
resulted in holding them hostage to the lowest common denominator--the 
TEA Party, tin-foil-hat people who have a paranoid, limited view of 
what America is and can be.
  In the end, Madam Speaker, America deserves better. I think it will 
get better. But I sincerely hope that Republicans choose to stop being 
communicators, especially misrepresenting what we have brought before 
the American people, roll up their sleeves, and work with us 
constructively to reform America's broken health care system with costs 
out of control and coverage too limited.
  Madam Speaker, together, we can make progress. Together, we can 
legislate and work on things where there is a common vision and a 
common goal. Together, we can make our government work better and our 
communities more livable and our families safer, healthier, and more 
economically secure.

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