[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 152 (2006), Part 11]
[House]
[Page 14779]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                    TIME TO MOVE IN A NEW DIRECTION

  (Ms. WATSON asked and was given permission to address the House for 1 
minute and to revise and extend her remarks.)
  Ms. WATSON. Mr. Speaker, it is becoming an election year tradition: 
House Republicans bringing up hot-button issues that have absolutely no 
chance of ever becoming law.
  This week, House Republicans will use pledge protection and gay 
marriage as a means to distract and divide our Nation. Are these really 
the priorities of the Republican majority when we have a hot spot 
virtually spinning out of control in the Middle East?
  The truth is this is nothing but an attempt to turn attention away 
from their failures over the last year on the issues that are the most 
important to the majority of the American people.
  Republicans have failed to join us in increasing the minimum wage, 
they have yet to provide any relief to the American consumer at the gas 
pump, they continue to stall negotiations on comprehensive border 
security and immigration reform, and they have allowed the issue of 
lobbying reform to fall off the legislative agenda after all of the 
lobbying corruption we have witnessed over the last year from the other 
side of the aisle.

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