[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 147 (2001), Part 9]
[House]
[Page 13109]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]



                        CAMPAIGN FINANCE REFORM

  (Ms. JACKSON-LEE of Texas asked and was given permission to address 
the House for 1 minute and to revise and extend her remarks.)
  Ms. JACKSON-LEE of Texas. Mr. Speaker, it is confusing as to what 
just occurred. I just hope that we will have an opportunity to fully 
address what a good portion of this House wanted to do today, and that 
is to debate in front of the American people the whole question of 
ridding this system of special interests.
  I, for one, want to discuss the empowerment of those who are least 
empowered, the involvement of the grass roots, the inclusion of every 
voter. And I had hoped that we would have written a rule that would 
have allowed the kind of formidable debate that would have addressed 
the question of making sure that democracy prevails in this Nation. I 
am equally disappointed that we have not given ourselves the 
opportunity to debate, as the Senate debated, for a period of time for 
the American voter to understand that we too believe that the best 
democracy is that of their vote, and that anything that we do in this 
House is based upon our representation of all of our citizens.
  So I hope, as we end this week, that we will act upon the comments of 
the distinguished minority leader and that we will be able to review 
this and assess this for further consideration. We do need campaign 
finance reform.

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