[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 152 (2006), Part 8]
[House]
[Page 10977]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




       WELCOMING THE HONORABLE BRIAN P. BILBRAY TO THE HOUSE OF 
                            REPRESENTATIVES

  (Mr. STARK asked and was given permission to address the House for 1 
minute.)
  Mr. STARK. Mr. Speaker, as dean of the California delegation, it is 
my distinct honor at this point to yield to the senior member of the 
Republican California delegation, Mr. Dreier.
  Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, I thank my friend for yielding.
  Mr. Speaker, since March 4, 1789, when the United States Congress was 
established, 11,792 individuals have had the opportunity to serve as 
Members of the United States Congress. During that period of time, a 
grand total of 29 have left this institution and come back representing 
a different district. Five of our sitting colleagues now fall among 
those 29: Mr. Inslee; Mr. Cooper; Mr. Paul; our California colleague 
Mr. Lungren; and now the gentleman who is here to work and ready to 
make sure that we stop the problem of illegal immigration, deal with 
the global war on terror, and make sure that we succeed in growing our 
economy, our colleague, Mr. Bilbray.
  Mr. BILBRAY. Mr. Speaker, I would like to, first of all, in the 
traditional way, thank my family and my friends, who were willing to 
support me through this quite unusual campaign. I would like to thank 
the people of the 50th District for giving me their trust and huge 
responsibility to represent them.
  For those who may not know, the 50th District is a classic California 
coastline district, very environmentally sensitive; and I am grateful 
today that they believe in recycling Congressmen.
  I know there are those in this room that are not happy to see me 
return, and all I ask of those is give me a chance to work with you 
again. I think we had a good working relationship in the past, and I 
look forward to a great working relationship in the future.
  I would like to thank those of you that stood up and helped me in 
every way. This was obviously a team effort, and it was one that was 
well thought, hard fought, and well won.
  Ladies and gentlemen, I leave you with one message: there were 18 
people running for this seat. The voters had one of the broadest 
choices of any congressional race. But there was one issue and only one 
issue that allowed me to be elected. It was not my experience. It was 
not my hard work, and God knows it was not my intellect. It was the 
fact that the people in the 50th District wanted something done, they 
wanted a job and a message sent to Washington, that now and here is the 
time to address illegal immigration.
  We did not enjoy the situation or appreciate the problem that created 
the vacancy, but let me say quite clearly what is obvious in the last 
few months is that the greatest scandal in America is not that one man 
broke the law, but that 12 million illegal immigrants are in this 
country and Washington is not doing enough about it.
  So I ask you, even if you disagree with me on this issue, let us join 
together and work to address this issue so that both sides, Democrat 
and Republican, and Independent, can go home proud that we did right by 
the American people and worked together for our future and our 
grandchildren's future.
  Thank you very much.

                          ____________________