I want to thank you for that overly kind introduction and inviting me to be with you today.

As I was standing in the back with the escort committee, it reminded me of a story.

My dad was a coal miner, and he spent about 44 years underground. And one day we were at an event and somebody gave me an overly kind introduction, and he... was sitting beside me and he listened for a few minutes, and finally he looked up at me and he said, "You know something, boy, that sounds like a man that can't hold a job to me."

I want to thank you for your warm welcome. It's great to see so many old friends and, quite frankly, make some new ones, and to be side by side at the tables here in Las Vegas with so many confident winners. Everybody won last night, didn't they? They have a saying now in Las Vegas. It says, "What happens here, stays here." Well, don't quite be fooled by that, because what they're talking about is gambling, because that's what happens here, and I'll let you figure out what stays here.

Now, I bring you warm greetings from my partners at the AFL-CIO, President John Sweeney and Executive Vice President Linda Chavez Thompson and from our entire AFL-CIO Executive Council.

And I know they join me, Newt, in congratulating you and your entire leadership team on behalf of this terrific convention and, quite frankly, for the job you do everyday and thanking you for the support that all of you have been doing for the AFL-CIO.

But I want to thank you on a personal note for the personal support and the friendship that we have developed over the years.

This has been a tough year for labor, but I can't think of a single time — not one time — when I personally or our labor movement was facing the challenge that I could have looked right beside me and not found you and the Boilermakers right there. I just want you to know that this is a stand-up AFL-CIO union, and you're a stand-up union leader and a stand-up friend, and I want to say from the bottom of my heart, thank you. Thank you for all you do, Brother.

Well, Brothers and Sisters, I bring you some good news, and I bring you some bad news today from Washington, D.C.

First, the good news. See, thanks to a lot of hard work by union activists from all across our country, the United States Senate last week voted to guarantee every citizen of our country the right to participate in our democracy by extending the Voter's Right Act for another 25 years. The vote was 98 to nothing. So it was a rare victory over partisanship as well as over bigotry and discrimination, and a rare victory for unions and for our allies.