THE 104TH CONGRESS : Voices

“I think . . . the Republicans will try to take care of their wealthy friends again, and we’re going to try to force them back towards taking care of middle-income folks.”

--House Minority Whip David Bonoir (D-Mich.)

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“What rules in this town is power and access to power.”

“Lobbyists will still go out and try to work the votes. If members reject the advances of lobbyists, that will be a real change. I ain’t holding my breath.”

--Alex Benes, managing director of the Center for Public Integrity, an ethics watchdog group.

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“I give the new speaker the benefit of the doubt and will be prepared, unless he should suggest otherwise, to work with him and to assume that the things that he referenced today about children and caring and pain and ending suffering and doing away with many of the great sins of this country and providing a better day is what he really wants.”

--Rep. Kweisi Mfume (D-Md.)

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“Well, this is going to permit the American people to have a much closer relationship with their Congress and trust with the Congress. For example, making Congress live under the rules that it applies to all Americans is going to end some of the cynicism that the American people have about the Congress.”

--Rep. Christopher Cox (R-Newport Beach)

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“If each of us will reach out prayerfully and try to genuinely understand the other, if we’ll recognize that in this building we symbolize America writ small, that we have an obligation to talk with each other, then I think a year from now we can look on the 104th as a truly amazing institution and without regard to party, regard to ideology, we can say here America comes to work and here we are preparing for those children a better future.”

--House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.)

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“With resignation but with resolve, I hereby end 40 years of Democratic rule of this House. With faith and with friendship and with the deepest respect, you are now my Speaker, and let the great debate begin.”

“I hope and believe that we can work with the Republicans to operate this institution in a peaceful, civil way with mutual respect. I hope they will use more open rules, and we will try, as best we can, to make that kind of a system work, because I think that’s better for the House, I think it’s better for the American people, to the extent it can be done. Many times it can’t be done and everybody understands that.”

--House Minority Leader Dick Gephardt (D-Mo.)