[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 150 (2004), Part 16]
[House]
[Pages 21469-21470]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




             HOMELAND SECURITY SHOULD BRING UNITY IN HOUSE

  (Mr. BLUMENAUER asked and was given permission to address the House 
for 1 minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. BLUMENAUER. Mr. Speaker, as an ethical cloud hovers over the 
House of Representatives, as the fog of misrepresentation on the war in 
Iraq is slowly lifting, homeland security should be one thing that 
unites this country. But sadly, the greatest failure of the Republican 
leadership is the inability to bring us together around this issue.
  The squabbling on a flawed bill later this morning is just one more 
example. It is not just its bad provisions; it ducks entirely the issue 
of unifying our fractured intelligence service. The 9/11 Commission 
under Governor Kean and Lee Hamilton did their job in a bipartisan 
manner. The Senate, working together with every, every Republican 
supporting it, did theirs. The tragedy

[[Page 21470]]

for the House and the American people is that the House Republican 
leadership is unable to do their job with this critical task. The good 
news is the Senate and the 9/11 Commission did their job.
  Mr. Speaker, it is more important than ever that the American people 
do their job on Election Day.

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