Honorable Richard J. Durbin
United States Senator, Illinois, Democrat
Senator Durbin was first elected to the U.S. Senate in 1996. He served on the staff of Illinois Lieutenant Governor Paul Simon from 1969 to 1972, as Legal Counsel on the Illinois Senate Judiciary Committee from 1972 to 1982, and as a Member of the U.S. House of Representatives from 1982 to 1996. He is a member of the Appropriations Committee, the Governmental Affairs Committee, the Judiciary Committee, and the Select Committee on Intelligence. The following is from the March 12, 2002, Senate floor debate on amendments to S. 517, the National Laboratories Improvement Act.We will talk about a lot…