Sales was House minority leader in 2009, during a session when the House was evenly divided between Democrats and Republicans. During his opening speech in 2009, Sales read out eight quotations and attributed them to Abraham Lincoln, although Lincoln in fact never said them. Once the spurious origin of the quotations were brought to light, Sales said that he had "got them off the Internet" and had no intention to mislead. Sales raised a point of personal privilege in the House to apologize.