House Journal: Page 1910: Thursday, May 1, 2003
and I have roomed together for ten years and we have commiserated over bowls of chili
and all the other things that nobody needs to know about, but Mr. Speaker, you truly
deserve the honor of being Mr. Speaker. There are a lot of famous guys in that back
hallway there with their pictures up on the wall and it is a privilege to know that you
will someday join that group back there as well. You do an excellent job. We all should
be grateful for your participation. Thank you Mr. Speaker.
And now it is time to go home and unfortunately, we are going to be back in a short
time, but the House is going to complete its work. We've done a great job, I appreciate
the efforts of all of you. Go back and meet your families and get reacquainted with
your kids and your wives and your husbands and your friends and enjoy yourself for a
few days knowing full well that there is a lot more work to be done. We have a good
start with the things that we have done this year, but there is more work to be done. I
will be glad to be here to help you do that. Thank you Mr. Speaker.
REMARKS BY THE MINORITY LEADER
Minority Leader Dick Myers offered the following remarks:
Mr. Speaker, ladies and gentlemen of the House. You know the end of these
sessions are always remarkable, regardless of how you fight and sometimes don't get
along as best you should, but we really feel good about coming to the end of it. Not
because it is just the end, but because we really think we have a sense of
accomplishment about things. I think this session is remarkable because of the degree
of that accomplishment. We came in here after a pretty tough campaign and maybe
even some tough sessions before that, with a lot of new folks. My good friend
Representative Gipp said it is time to govern the campaign is over. Boy, I like that.
That set the tone for me. And I think the tone that was set by the leadership on the
Republican side coming into this place, helped me as the Minority Leader to work with
them to try to find some solutions for our state. I can sometimes hardly believe that I
am here and I am not quite sure what I'm going to say tonight, but I am going to try to
get through this.
First of all I want start out by thanking the people who allowed me to be their
leader, the members of the Democratic caucus. It truly was humbling for me to be the
leader of this caucus for this last session. As you know, I am going to be leaving and
the irony is that I have spent two years learning the job and now I am going to leave. I
kind of wondered about that. I used to get teased a lot when I first came in here. Some
of you new members don't know, but the first day that I was in the legislature the
Minority Leader at that time, Robert Arnold, handed me a piece of paper, told me that
my reputation had preceded me. On that piece of paper was a list of seven words that I
couldn't say. And I will tell you that the majority leader and the Speaker of the House
have spent the last ten sessions trying to get me to say one of those words. They aren't
going to make it. They also gave me a list of words I could say, like golly, and gee whiz
and shucks. I learned a lot up here. I really want to thank my Democratic caucus. I
want to, also, make special remarks about the newer people that came in here on my
side of the aisle and the Republican side of the aisle. I have never seen such a talented
group of people that came in here willing to work together and didn't have any of the
old, you know, sort of crosses to bear. They came in here, they wanted to listen to one
another. They didn't care who was a Republican or a Democrat necessarily, they cared
about representing their communities.
© 2003 Cornell College and
League of Women Voters of Iowa
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