mr. chairman , i yield myself such time as i may consume . 
i appreciate the comments of my colleague , the chairman of the committee . 
just to add that , yes , we do work in a very bipartisan way . 
if the chairman and i were making decisions as to who would receive the gold medal , i think we would work it out amongst ourselves to make sure that it was done in a very bipartisan way . 
that , unfortunately , has not been the history of the house , and i just point out , for instance , as i mentioned earlier , back when we created the commemorative coin legislation in 1999 , out of the 16 coins that have been created , 15 have been introduced by republican members , only one by the minority . 
the majority has had 15 of the 16 . 
the minority has had one . 
i do not think that is a very fair and balanced way in which we can collectively and bipartisanly recognize those who have made tremendous sacrifices or achievements or contributed to this country . 
and i believe that we are limiting it to , in this case , this legislation , if passed the way it does , four congressional gold medals that we in the minority may very well find ourselves in a very difficult position in that we may not have any of our honorees awarded the medal even though we go through the process of collecting the two-thirds . 
it then becomes a political decision as to which honorees will get the gold medal in that particular year and which will not . 
for instance , if there are 16 individuals who are sponsored by members of the house and those individuals get two-thirds of the signatures required , which of the 16 will get the four medals ? 
which of those 16 ? 
that decision will be made based on a political decision that is made within the house , and i dare say that outside influence would also come to bear on that decision that was made as well . 
that is why i am asking for this fair and balanced approach ; that if we are going to limit it to just four , that it will be two per year . 
i do not think it is unreasonable to ask that it is done in this way . 
quite frankly , if there is someone that the democratic side of the aisle , if we have used up our one per year and we have another extraordinary person , i think we can work with each other to ask a republican member of the house to sponsor that bill . 
and vice versa . 
if we somehow find we have run out of opportunities on our side to introduce legislation , i do not think it is unusual to ask a member of the other side of the aisle to sponsor the bill . 
that is the spirit in which i think we can work in a bipartisan way to ensure that every person who receives this gold medal , besides getting a two-thirds vote , it is done in a bipartisan way . 
i do not think this is frivolous , and i do not think this trivial . 
that is why i offered the amendment , and i hope we pass it . 
