Discussion · Senate
James Lankford Republican
“I oppose this bill as it is written. I got my facts by reading the bill itself, not from an outside group. The bill would force farmers and small business owners to sell their family businesses to serve in the Senate. If anyone is illegally talking to their blind trust manager, report them to the Ethics Committee now, because that is already against the law. Finally, voter ID laws are not racist. We need to follow the normal process and write a better bill.”
“Madam President, I appreciate the conversation from my colleague. I look forward to getting a chance to be able to work on the bill that is actually complete. He asked where I got my information from that I actually listed out on this. I got it from a ``secret source,’’ the 31 pages of the text of his bill. There was no outside group. I appreciate the conspiracy theory that some secret group must have manipulated it somehow and given me the information. I just read the text. There are issues with the text. Again, we are back to--we can’t have farmers on the Ag Committee and small business owners who may have to get rid of their family businesses to be able to run in the Senate. That is a problem. As far as the accusation of the qualified blind trust and that there is someone who has said to my colleague that they talk to their qualified blind trust person every quarter, I would encourage my colleague to submit that to the Ethics Committee because that is a violation of current statute, if that is actually occurring, and it is already a violation. So, if my colleague knows of someone who is interacting with their broker and they have a qualified blind trust and they are interacting, as he claims, every month or every quarter, please let us know because that is something the bipartisan Ethics Committee would address immediately because that is already against Federal law to be able to do that. My simple statement for today is: Listen, there is a right way to be able to do this. Let’s do it. Let’s go through the process. Let’s actually figure out how to be able to get this done and get it done right, but this is not it. The way this bill is written has so many problems within the bill that I have to come down as the chairman of Ethics to say I would have to be the one charged to actually enforce this, and there will be major problems with this. As far as the voting issues, I was listening with wonder on all of the issues about problems with voter ID. Apparently, my colleague believes that, if you have voter ID, you are Jim Crow 2.0; you are a racist State. Well, I am confident the folks in Rhode Island would be shocked to hear that.”
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Speech in the House
Reasoning 20 of 100
This statement drew 5 conclusions, but gave no reasons for 4 of them.
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Madam President, I appreciate the conversation from my colleague. I look forward to getting a chance to be able to work on the bill that is actually complete. He asked where I got my information from that I actually listed out on this. I got it from a ``secret source,’’ the 31 pages of the text of his bill. There was no outside group. I appreciate the conspiracy theory that some secret group must have manipulated it somehow and given me the information. I just read the text. There are issues with the text. Again, we are back to--we can’t have farmers on the Ag Committee and small business owners who may have to get rid of their family businesses to be able to run in the Senate. That is a problem. As far as the accusation of the qualified blind trust and that there is someone who has said to my colleague that they talk to their qualified blind trust person every quarter, I would encourage my colleague to submit that to the Ethics Committee because that is a violation of current statute, if that is actually occurring, and it is already a violation. So, if my colleague knows of someone who is interacting with their broker and they have a qualified blind trust and they are interacting, as he claims, every month or every quarter, please let us know because that is something the bipartisan Ethics Committee would address immediately because that is already against Federal law to be able to do that. My simple statement for today is: Listen, there is a right way to be able to do this. Let’s do it. Let’s go through the process. Let’s actually figure out how to be able to get this done and get it done right, but this is not it. The way this bill is written has so many problems within the bill that I have to come down as the chairman of Ethics to say I would have to be the one charged to actually enforce this, and there will be major problems with this. As far as the voting issues, I was listening with wonder on all of the issues about problems with voter ID. Apparently, my colleague believes that, if you have voter ID, you are Jim Crow 2.0; you are a racist State. Well, I am confident the folks in Rhode Island would be shocked to hear that.