Danny Davis

Mr. DAVIS of Illinois

Mr. DAVIS of Illinois. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, as a member of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, I am pleased to join my colleagues in the consideration of H.R. 3470, which names the postal facility in Hinesville, Georgia, after John Sidney ``Sid'' Flowers. H.R. 3470 was introduced by Representative Jack Kingston on September 4, 2007, and was reported from the Oversight Committee on October 23 by a voice vote. This measure has the support of the entire Georgia congressional delegation. Mr. Speaker, Mr. John Sidney Flowers was born December 22, 1931, in Liberty County, Georgia. He served in the United States Army for 2 years before attending Mercer University and Mercer Law School in Macon, Georgia. He was indeed an outstanding citizen, and I want to commend Representative Kingston for moving to recognize his contributions by naming this postal facility in his honor. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. DAVIS of Illinois. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks.

Mr. DAVIS of Illinois

Mr. DAVIS of Illinois. Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and concur in the Senate concurrent resolution (S. Con. Res. 45) commending the Ed Block Courage Award Foundation for its work in aiding children and families affected by child abuse, and designating November 2007 as National Courage Month.

Mr. DAVIS of Illinois

Mr. DAVIS of Illinois. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, once again we have a member of the Armed Services who gave the true devotion of service and we seek to honor him by naming this post office in his honor. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. DAVIS of Illinois. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks.

Mr. DAVIS of Illinois

Mr. DAVIS of Illinois. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks.

Mr. DAVIS of Illinois. Mr. Speaker, it is my pleasure to yield such time as he may consume to the sponsor of this legislation, the gentleman from California (Mr. Baca). (Mr. BACA asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. DAVIS of Illinois

Mr. DAVIS of Illinois. It is my pleasure to yield such time as he might consume to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Payne). (Mr. PAYNE asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. DAVIS of Illinois

Mr. DAVIS of Illinois. Madam Speaker, telework continues to be under utilized by Federal agencies. Improvements are needed to allow more Federal employees to participate in telework programs. Today, Representative Sarbanes will join me in introducing legislation that will ensure that agencies make those much needed improvements. Telework provides numerous benefits including increased flexibilities for both employers and employees, continuity of operations during emergency events, and decreased energy use and air pollution. The Office of Personnel Management, OPM, defines telework as ``work arrangements in which an employee regularly performs officially assigned duties at home or other worksites geographically convenient to the residence of the employee.'' Many of the current Federal programs were developed in response to a provision included in an appropriations bill enacted in October 2000. This law requires each executive branch agency to establish a telework policy under which eligible employees ``may participate in telecommunting to the maximum extent possible without diminishing employee performance.'' Under the current legislative framework, the General Services Administration, GSA, and OPM have leading roles in implementing government-wide telework initiatives. Unfortunately, telework is not being used to the extent it should be. According to OPM's most recent report, only about 119,000 of the approximately 1.8 million Federal employees participated in telework in 2005. That figure represents only 6.6 percent of Federal agency employees. Some of the barriers to telework include office coverage, organizational culture, management resistance, and technology security and funding. Today we want to examine ways to address these barriers and encourage teleworking. On May 7, 2007, I, along with my colleagues, Representative Kenny Marchant, full committee Chairman Henry Waxman, and Ranking Member Tom Davis sent a letter to 25 Federal departments and agencies requesting information on the telework programs of those agencies. The letter was intended to help us better understand how well agency telework programs are working. What we found is that not only is telework inconsistently defined across agencies, many agencies, do not effectively measure and track teleworkers. Some agencies do not even know how many of their employees actually telework. In recent years, telework has increasingly been viewed as an important tool for ensuring continuity of essential government services in a time of crisis, such as in the event of a natural disaster or a terrorist attack. To help improve the preparedness of the Federal Government's operation in emergency situations, last session, I introduced H.R. 5366, the ``Continuity of Operations Demonstration Project Act.'' This legislation provided for a demonstration project under which at least two Federal agencies would perform services and operations under a simulated emergency in which Federal employees would have to work at locations away from their usual workplace, including home, for at least 10 consecutive days. A number of agencies have taken the initiative to perform demonstration exercises in the last several years but there are still many agencies that have not done so. I would like to see more agencies test their ability to continue operations in an emergency and incorporate telework into their continuity of operations plans. Representative John Sarbanes, House Oversight and Government Reform Chairman Henry Waxman, and Representative Frank Wolf have joined me in introducing the ``Telework Improvement Act of 2007.'' This legislation breaks new ground by ensuring that eligible Federal employees have the opportunity to telework and that agencies are incorporating telework into their continuity of operations planning. The Act spurs Federal agencies to improve their telework policies by requiring every Federal agency to develop a telework program that allows employees to telework at least 20 percent of every 2-week work period, designate a senior level employee as a telework managing officer, and incorporate telework into their continuity of operations planning. Our expectation is that this legislation will increase the number of Federal employees that are allowed to telework and thereby better prepare the Government for emergency events, reduce congestion and pollution, and create a more family-friendly workplace.

Mr. DAVIS of Illinois

Mr. DAVIS of Illinois. Let me do this before you do. I would like to have this document included in the Record, because I think they are such a great indication of how mass media is beginning to understand the issue and beginning to recognize it as a problem. And I would like to include in the Record this document from the Chicago Tribune. [From the Chicago Tribune, Oct. 28, 2007] The Beekeepers (By Louise Kiernan) The men opened the hive and bees swirled up into the sky like sparks from a fire. Bees flew through the weedy yard and past the chain-link fence. They flew into the alley, where a woman braced herself against the hood of a police car. Bees flew toward the gas station, where the calls of hustlers selling drugs sliced the air. And beyond where the men could see them, bees scattered into the vacant lots and back-yard gardens, parks and parking lots of Chicago's West Side, searching, as always, for nectar. This sunny morning in September 2006 was warm, but a bite to the breeze signaled fall. A boy walked by, dressed in a white shirt and navy pants. School had opened today. It was time for a new start, time for what the people who work at the non-profit agency on this corner in East Garfield Park had decided to call Sweet Beginnings. The three men standing at the hive were learning how to become beekeepers. None had any experience at this job or, for that matter, much significant work history at all. Tony Smith, a pug of a man with a broad face, moved with the graceful, contained gestures of someone accustomed to negotiating small spaces. At 30, he had spent half his life in prison. Hovering uneasily behind him was Shelby Gallion, a 22-year- old former drug dealer. In an oversized T-shirt and jeans that blurred the outlines of his body, his expression unreadable, Shelby looked a little out of focus, as if he might eventually drift out of sight. He lived in a halfway house, still on parole. Gerald Whitehead, the oldest member of the trio at 49, had been released from jail just a week before, after being cleared of a heroin-possession charge, the most recent stumble in the struggle to turn his life around after decades of violence and addiction. Gerald seemed intimidating, with his heavy-lidded eyes and thrust-out chin, but when he smiled, his face cracked open wide and bright. The three men and 17 hives in this yard were the makings of a small experiment, an attempt to address one of the most stubborn and destructive problems in Chicago and other cities around the country: what to do with the hundreds of thousands of people released each year from prison. Over the last three decades, harsher penalties for drug crimes and stricter sentencing laws have helped fuel explosive growth in the nation's prison population and, inevitably, in the number of inmates returning to society. In Chicago alone, roughly 20,000 ex-offenders come home each year. Most end up in neighborhoods like this one, where unemployment is high, opportunity scant and the temptation of drugs and crime rarely more than a corner away. They don't stay long. More than half the state's prisoners find themselves back behind bars within three years of their release. Finding work can reduce someone's chances of returning to prison. Although getting a job with a criminal record is difficult, checking the conviction box on an application poses only one hurdle. Many former inmates face other problems, from poor education and little understanding of workplace rules to drug addiction or a lack of stable housing. And behaviors that help people thrive on the job-- teamwork, communication--are often the opposite of those that ensure survival in prison. For five years, the North Lawndale Employment Network, or NLEN, had helped ex-offenders find employment. With Sweet Beginnings, the agency decided to create its own jobs, in its own neighborhood, where people could learn how to work and build an employment history before they moved on. The idea attracted the attention of major philanthropies and companies, among them the MacArthur Foundation, Boeing Co. and Ben & Jerry's, each of which donated expertise or money to the effort. Now, what may have once seemed like little more than a quirky venture--using former prisoners to produce honey in the ghetto--stood on the verge of transforming itself into a high-profile business. Whether it would succeed depended in part upon the three men in the yard. The men measured success in starker terms. Failing, they feared, meant going back to the streets, going back to prison or getting killed. During the coming year, through the bees' final foraging in fall, the threat of winter, promise of spring and richness of summer, the men and the enterprise of Sweet Beginnings would attempt nothing less than their own reinvention. This morning's lesson was about survival. John Hansen, the beekeeper training the workers, showed them how to tilt the hives to get a sense of how much honey they contained. A heavy hive meant the bees had stored enough to make it through the winter. A lighter hive would need help. The hives, with their unevenly stacked wooden boxes, called supers, looked like tipsy filing cabinets scattered among the clumps of goldenrod, Queen Anne's lace and clover. The men moved among them, gently leaning each hive back and opening the lid to peer inside. An elderly woman stopped at the fence. ``What ya'll got in there? Bees?'' she asked. ``Yep,'' John answered, still bent over a hive. ``Oh, Lord, think I better get back.'' After a minute or two, Shelby disappeared inside the building. John continued to make his way around the yard, Gerald and Tony in tow. ``Look at that,'' John cried out at Hive No. 2, lifting a frame thick with honey, each cell a stud of gold. At Hive No. 6, bees crowded the entrance, but the supers felt suspiciously light. When they finished, John delivered his verdict. ``I think,'' he said, ``we can bring them through the winter.'' Second Chances ``To make a prairie it takes a clover and one bee,-- One clover, and a bee, And revery.''--Emily Dickinson In this pocket of the West Side, the past may fade or burn or erode almost to dust, but it persists. It holds on. Like the Star of David that adorns the front of the Independence Boulevard Seventh Day Adventist Church, a remnant from the time when Chicago's Jews lived and worshiped in the neighborhood. Or the cracked patches of concrete in the overgrown lot at 1550 S. Hamlin Ave., where Martin Luther King Jr. lived for a short time in a rundown apartment to protest the way Chicago's blacks were housed. Or, in the conference room at the North Lawndale Employment Network, the blotch of greenish ink on Tony Smith's right forearm, visible as he took notes in a narrow, slanting script. It had been a tattoo of a cobra until he removed what he could with lemon juice and a sewing needle. The cobra is a symbol of the Mickey Cobras street gang, as is the ``MC'' inked on Tony's left shoulder. Police records say Tony belonged to this gang. He won't say much about that or anything else in his past. What he will say is this: ``I was a naive, snotty-nosed street kid who didn't care about himself or other people.'' His first arrest came at age 9, for disorderly conduct. By the time he turned 13 he had been convicted in an attempted murder and was, according to a police officer who knew him, one of the most violent and feared gang members in the Cabrini-Green public housing complex. He marked his 16th birthday awaiting trial for beating three men with a gun and torturing two of them with a heated ice-chopper. That crime earned Tony a 30-year prison sentence. He emerged almost 15 years later, having never used a cell phone or filled out a job application. When he talked about what he wanted to see for the first time with his own eyes, he named--after Navy Pier and Millennium Park--a Jet Ski. Across the conference table, Shelby idly twirled one of the braids near his ear. Shelby's past was his shoes. The butterscotch Timberland boots imprinted with tiny hexagons or the candy-bright Bathing Ape sneakers. New shoes, like his new watch and new cell phone, the leather ``Scarface'' cell phone case--all accessories of the lifestyle he said he wanted to leave behind. He began selling drugs about the time he started high school, and by his senior year, the money and all it bought had easily trumped education. Then came two stints in prison and, during the second one, nights spent lying on his cot, wondering what would become of his two young daughters. That was why he had come to Sweet Beginnings. But he still thought about the old life. It took him a week at the agency to earn what he could have made in a matter of hours on the street. And Gerald, standing at the kitchen window, staring out at the hives? Gerald's past was the hovel of a building across the alley, where he had snorted $10 bags of heroin. And his grandmother's house three blocks away, where he had stayed as a child and sexually assaulted a young woman as an adult. The bar around the corner where he once got shot on his birthday. His past was the man crossing the street he knew from Narcotics Anonymous and the cap-shadowed teenager who walked in the door of the North Lawndale Employment Network and addressed him as ``Brother Bone.'' Gerald's past was everywhere. His earliest memory was of being bitten by a dog. He bit the dog back. Gerald wasn't sure whether he remembered this incident because it happened or remembered it because he was told it happened. It didn't matter. He became that story: the boy who would bite back. He grew up with two older brothers and 10 younger sisters, a mother who worked as a live-in nurse and a father who was, as he put it, ``kind of missing in action.'' Gerald struggled in school. He never learned how to read or write well. The other children made fun of him. By 6th grade, he had basically stopped going. ``I started out making a career,'' he said. ``Whatever I could steal to make a hustle.'' At the same time, he joined the Unknown Vice Lords. In the gang, he could force respect from all the people who had once belittled him. He moved up to become an ``elite,'' a top- ranking gang member and close associate of onetime Vice Lords kingpin Willie Lloyd. From the age of 20, Gerald bounced in and out of prison, spending more time inside than out: armed robbery, home invasion, criminal sexual assault, burglary, aggravated battery, drug possession. He was 43 before he decided he couldn't do the time anymore. He has his conversion story. One night in prison, he broke down. Was this all his life would ever be? Had God put him here for nothing more? He wanted to die. Then, in his cell, he sensed the spirit of his late grandmother, who always gave him a meal when he was hungry and a bed when he was homeless, and he felt at peace. He could try to change. It proved difficult. He lost a job working in maintenance at a nursing home after a background check revealed his criminal record, he said. There was an arrest for domestic battery. He was using drugs too, crack and then heroin. He became a dope fiend, a hype. That went on for years, until his mother persuaded him to check into a residential drug treatment program, where he stayed for five months. Not long after he got out, in the spring of 2006, he stopped by the fence at NLEN on his way to sell loose cigarettes at the gas station nearby. He knew the agency; the month before, he had gone through its four-week job-training program for ex-offenders. A couple of men were setting up hives. Gerald asked if he could watch. Then he asked if he could help. He stepped into the yard and began handling the hives, as though, one of the men observed, he had been beekeeping all his life. At first, Gerald worked for free. He did whatever needed to be done: fixing the lawn mower, pulling weeds, picking up the trash that blew in from the alley. It was somewhere to go every day. Soon, the agency began to pay him, $7.25 an hour. Every day was a fight. Stay straight, go to work. Failing would be as easy as stumbling off the curb into the street. ``It's a wrassle trying to do good,'' Gerald said one afternoon. ``You always got evil whispering in your ear.'' He felt comfortable around the bees. He liked them. If you didn't know bees, he thought, they might scare you. But once you knew them, you came to respect them. Gerald understood bees. Finding sweetness The building that housed the North Lawndale Employment Network, near the corner of West Flournoy Street and South Independence Boulevard, had once been a duplex and still felt like someone's home. Walk in and you might find a worker bouncing a toddler on her knee while she interviewed the child's mother or an old woman grumbling about delays on the Pulaski bus. Most days, the center hummed with people who came for one of the agency's job-training programs, a computer class or to get help writing a resume. Amid the bustle, the Sweet Beginnings employees set up beekeeping class at whatever table happened to be free and began to learn about bees. They learned there are three types of honeybees: the worker bee, which is female; the drone, which is male; and the queen bee, which mates with the drones and lays the colony's eggs. They learned that a worker bee lives for about six weeks. They learned that it takes the nectar from 5 million flowers to make 1 pint of honey. They learned that pollen mixed with nectar is called bee bread. During these lessons, Tony took notes on a yellow legal pad. Gerald tilted his chair back or leaned forward, head propped on his arms, always restless. Shelby occasionally cleaned his nails with a public transit card. Their teacher, John Hansen, was 76 and white and jangled the change in his pocket. He had begun keeping bees 31 years before, after he saw a sign someone had posted on a bulletin board at the suburban publishing company where he worked, offering to sell two hives. He went on to become president of the Illinois State Beekeepers Association, and in his retirement, he still kept bees, sold honey and ran a small business managing hives and removing bees from people's homes. Of everything John taught the men about bees, they found nothing as interesting or amusing as what they learned about drones. When drones hatch, the worker bees help them out of their brood cells while the worker bees must emerge on their own. Drones that mate with the queen on what is euphemistically called the ``nuptial flight'' die because the act rips their sexual organs from their bodies. When winter approaches, worker bees drive the drones from the hive, to certain death. One morning, Tony walked in with his heavily underlined copy of ``Beekeeping in the Midwest,'' the book they were assigned to read. ``It said male drones are like human males,'' Tony told John. ``They don't do no work. I kid you not, that's what they said.'' The book doesn't compare men and bees; that was Tony's analysis. In the beginning, the men's hands-on instruction mostly involved learning how to care for the hives and prepare them for winter. While they worked, they used a smoker, a metal can with attached bellows, to blow smoke into the hives to distract the bees. The smoke causes the bees to act as though their hive is on fire, and they eat honey to fortify themselves to flee, ignoring intruders. Honey bees usually sting only if they feel threatened. Tony had never been stung, so John plucked a bee from a hive and stung him with it to make sure he wasn't allergic to the venom. Gerald hardly seemed to notice stings or care beyond issuing the occasional epithet. Shelby seemed the most leery, often hanging back while the others worked. But when Tony asked if the bees scared him, Shelby denied it. In the early fall, the men learned how to extract honey, to harvest it from the frames where bees build the combs. Because the Sweet Beginnings hives didn't contain enough honey to spare, John brought in eight frames from his own apiary. The frames, stacked in the kitchen of the resource center, looked a little like wood-frame screens, except that, instead of wire grids, the panels held hundreds of hexagons filled with honey. As the men crowded around a large metal tank, a lone bee banged against the kitchen window. ``Do we have to actually do it?'' Tony asked. ``Yeah, you guys are going to do it,'' John replied. To extract honey, a beekeeper uses a knife to cut open the wax caps that seal the individual cells of honey in the frame. Then, the frames are placed in an extractor, which spins them to release the honey. The honey drips down the walls of the extractor and exits through a tap. Slowly and delicately, Shelby slid the knife against the frame. Wax curled off in strips. A slight scent, sweet and floral, filled the kitchen. ``Just swipe it,'' Tony advised. ``Let it ride even and flat,'' Gerald said. ``You're doing fine,'' John said. ``Just watch your fingers.'' Tony and Gerald each took a turn. The knife, as it drew across the wax, made the thick, wet smack of a cartoon kiss. Sunlight warmed the honey in the frames to the color of amber, glowing against the black shadow of the blade. ``That honey look good, don't it?'' Tony asked. As the extractor spun, the air began to smell sweeter and sweeter. Thin streams ran down the inside of the tank. Minutes passed. A nickel-sized dollop of honey pooled on the filter atop the white bucket under the tap. ``There's the first drop,'' John said. While the extractor whirred, the men went outside to check on the bees. Brenda Palms Barber, the exuberant black woman who served as the North Lawndale Employment Network's chief executive officer, joined them. ``I want to see how the babies are doing,'' she called out, standing at the hives, perfectly at ease in her gray suit while the others wore jackets with netted hoods. More than two years before, Brenda had come up with the idea for Sweet Beginnings when she decided that the employment network needed to do more than help people find jobs; it needed to create them. She considered a landscaping business or delivery service but worried that customers might be reluctant to allow ex- offenders in their homes. A friend suggested a honey co-op. Brenda knew nothing about honey, but the idea intrigued her. She liked it even better when she learned that some people consider urban honey more flavorful than its rural counterpart because the bees can gather nectar from more varied flowers within a shorter distance. Imagine creating sweetness out of the asphalt and hardship of the West Side. The agency launched Sweet Beginnings in the spring of 2004 with a grant from the Illinois Department of Corrections. Two years later, after parting ways with the original group of beekeepers working with the agency, the program started over with fresh bees and a new idea. The bees came from Wisconsin, picked up and delivered by NLEN's chief operating officer, who had to roll down the windows of his Jeep Cherokee on the way back because the 30,000 bees generated so much heat and noise. The new idea came from a business plan created by volunteers at Boeing, the chairwoman of the board of Ben & Jerry's and others. It called for Sweet Beginnings to shift its focus from selling honey to selling honey-based products such as lotion and lip balm. They hoped the move would increase profits and, with the expansion into manufacturing, packaging and marketing, the job prospects of its workers. When Brenda and the beekeepers returned to the kitchen, about 4 inches of honey stood in the 5-gallon bucket. She passed out plastic spoons and everyone dipped in to taste. ``Yum,'' she said. ``It's really, really good.'' She continued to talk, in a stream of words as smooth and unbroken as the honey pouring into the bucket. She talked about biscuits and business competition and hosting a honey cook-off and social purpose and making lip balm. When she was almost done, she said, ``That's some of the stuff we're thinking.'' Then she paused and said something else, slowly, as if the idea had just struck her. ``Our demographic,'' she said, ``is the opposite of the people working on it.'' Under suspicion ``There is a Thief Amongst Us!'' the signs announced. ``IS IT YOU!'' One sign was posted above the sink in the kitchen of the resource center. Another was taped to the bathroom door. More hung on the walls next to inspirational quotes from Eleanor Roosevelt and Gail Sheehy. The signs went up in late September, after someone stole the agency's digital camera from a cabinet in the downstairs conference room. It was only the second theft in the two years since NLEN had moved into the building, and it hurt. The agency prided itself on being the kind of place where visitors wandered back to the kitchen to help themselves to coffee and bought candy for school fundraisers by dropping a dollar on a desktop. No doors barred the offices; no cameras peered down from the ceilings. The clients who came here already felt as though the world treated them like criminals; the people who helped them didn't want to do the same. That trust disappeared with the discovery of a dented cabinet door. Brenda felt betrayed. She didn't like thieves. She could find a job for a murderer before she could find one for a thief. Stealing was a crime of opportunity, and every time a thief saw something to steal, he had to decide not to steal it. If the signs shouted the crime, other conversations in the building occurred in whispers. Who would know the camera was kept in the basement conference room, in the cabinet with the VCR? The beekeepers, who watched videos for their classes. And Gerald? Well, he had been an addict, and everyone knows that hypes steal.

Mr. DAVIS of Illinois. Well, there are so many barriers, when you sit and look at it, and you wonder, for example, the person who wants to go to college can't get a Pell Grant. And many of the individuals who are incarcerated are young individuals who got caught up maybe in a place where they were smoking cocaine or they may have gotten picked up and had some controlled substance on them. And now they're out of school, they can't get a Pell Grant. And fortunately, we're beginning to seriously look at that. And fortunately the Supreme Court is looking seriously at the sentencing disparities that have existed relative to the difference between the sentences that you get for a conviction of having crack cocaine versus powder cocaine. And I think what we're really saying is that these issues have to be brought to the forefront, and that's why these Special Orders are so important. I've always been told that awareness brings about dissatisfaction, and that the more people learn about the way things are, the more dissatisfied they become. And then if you can take that dissatisfaction and organize it into some action, now you've got a chance for some movement. And therefore, we want to thank all of those many groups who have been in support of the Second Chance Act, all of that coalition, The Working Group, individuals who work with criminal justice issues, individuals who work with drug courts, individuals who know that there is a better way and a different way, we just have to see that road. And, you know, the Bible has just so many great experiences. You know, I remember the story of Paul, you know, Saul of Tarsus on his way to persecute the Christians, but something turned him around. He met something and somebody along the road. And from being a prosecutor, he became the greatest advocate for Christianity that we have known, other than Jesus the Christ himself. And so, we hope that there are people who will change their opinions about what to do with individuals who have fallen off the path. And again, it's just a real pleasure to be here with you and to share this time.

Mr. DAVIS of Illinois. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman for yielding. First of all, I want to commend our leader of the Congressional Black Caucus, the gentlewoman from Detroit, Michigan, who engages us in such a way that we are able to do a number of different things as she provides opportunity for different individuals to display leadership. And so having Representative Stephanie Tubbs Jones convene each Monday a Special Order, an hour, where the Congressional Black Caucus members come and discuss issues, I tell you it is a pleasure for me to be here with my Delta sister from Cleveland, Ohio, a distinguished jurist, having been a defense attorney, a judge, a prosecutor, legislator, who understands this issue from every angle, any way that you look at it. Individuals who are being defended, individuals who have gone into the system, having to pass judgment, in a sense, and having to bring charges. It is just a pleasure to be here and to commend you because you do this every week, every Monday night. I mean, I was struggling to get here because my plane had some difficulty, but I am so delighted that I made it. And to have the opportunity to work with individuals like Representative Barbara Lee, listening to Barbara with all of the things that are going on in the Oakland community, the neighborhood, it almost makes you dizzy. But the interesting thing about it is that you know that it's real because you get the opportunity to see it. I mean, just imagine that number of individuals that you all have helped clear their records so that they can get a job, so that they can go to work, so that they can have a chance. And to know that that's only one of the issues, because you're leading internationally in creating awareness about the AIDS pandemic, generating resources and money, bringing to the forefront health issues that people kind of forget about. Barbara, it is just a pleasure and an honor to have the opportunity to serve in the same body with you at the same time and to be inspired and motivated by the work that you do and by the spirit that you have and the energy. I mean, Members of the caucus trying to keep up with you and Sheila Jackson-Lee, with your energy levels, I mean, it's almost impossible. You can't do it. And so, you know, you just do the best that you can and follow along and follow suit. Because it has been a combination of all this work that has raised this issue to the point where I'm holding in my hand 17 pages of paper that the Chicago Tribune did last week on this issue, beginning last Sunday with a front page story, and then following through Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. And the first story was three pages. You know, the Chicago Tribune is a big newspaper, and they highlighted the work of the North Lawndale Employment Network that has a project where they're teaching ex-offenders how to make honey and how to tend to bees. And they've actually developed a business. And these individuals are able now to actually go to work every day, earn a living. Some of them have already been able to max out of that program, go into other areas and get jobs, as people have seen what they do. And so, we are making progress. But even so, the progress that we're making is awfully small compared to what is needed. And I thought it was just so important what you said about Booker Washington in terms of looking at where people have been and where they've come from. And so when we look at the history of this country and we recognize the travail, the difficulty that some population groups have had, that African Americans have experienced, and now we're trying to make sure that these individuals who have fallen off the path, who have succumbed in some ways to the difficulties of living in a tough environment, who are trying to find their way back, every day I come into contact with a story of somebody who is on the way up, on the way back, who found a way to get themselves a job. I agree with all of my colleagues who have talked about this being National Bible Week. And I was thinking, as I listened, that we all get awards and we all get plaques and we all get things given to us. And the greatest thing that I have ever had given to me was something called the Gutenburg Award, which came from the Chicago Bible Society, which is a group of theologians and Bible scholars who analyze work. And on the basis of one's work and whether or not the work that they're doing is in keeping with the principles of the Bible, they give awards. And so, when we talk about redemption and the need to redeem, there are more than 650,000 individuals who come out of jail and prison every year in the United States of America and they need to be redeemed. And so, if you want to be redeemed, you don't have to just go down by the Jordan Stream, you can go to some of the community programs that exist. You can help make sure that we provide resources so that those individuals who come home from jail and prison have some place to go, so that they have somebody to help them. Because if they get help, the chances of them recidivating are much less than if they don't. The statistics show that 67 percent of the individuals who don't get help are more than likely going to do what we call ``re-offend'' within a 3-year period of time. More than 50 percent of them will be reincarcerated. But the recidivism rate goes down contingent upon the amount of help that they get. Some programs has it down as low as 18-20 percent. Well, that's just doing a great job. And I would hope that before the week is over, and we're expecting certainly before we adjourn, that the United States Congress is going to see the wisdom of reclaiming lives, of helping put people back on the employment rolls so that they can pay taxes. You know, I would much rather help a person pay taxes. There is an old saying that if you give a man a fish, he can eat for a day, but if you teach him how to fish, he can eat for a lifetime. And so, if we help the individuals learn how to re-enter and function, then they're going to help further develop our Nation. So, I just thank you so much for your leadership and the great work that you've done on this issue and how you tie in the Ways and Means functions with the needs of these individuals. And we talk about, you know, people can't get food stamps.

Mr. DAVIS of Illinois

Mr. DAVIS of Illinois. Mr. Speaker, listening to my colleague from New York, Representative Clarke, it reinforced for me how important it is to deal seriously with the whole question of subprime lending and how vast foreclosures are all across the Nation. I, like others, have been working with the coalition in my community, and many of them have come up with excellent ideas about what to do. But rather than just massaging the problem, than coming up with solutions, one solution that was put on the table the other day that I liked was the idea that rather than foreclosing on individuals who cannot pay the mortgages, why not rent the property to them and let them continue to live in it paying rent? Who knows, the time may very well come when they can go back to paying the mortgage. Their lives never would have been disrupted. Plus we're finding that foreclosed properties oftentimes end up being lose-lose situations; that is, it's a loss for the lender as well as a loss for the homeowner, because in many neighborhoods, once a foreclosure occurs and people move out, the houses are boarded up, and of course, vandals prey upon them, destroy everything that was in it. And so I simply wanted to appreciate all of those individuals who are part of the coalition of community groups and organizations with whom I've been working. And I join with others across the Nation to say to our government that we must correct the subprime lending process. But we also must do something that will aid those individuals who find themselves in tough situations right now. So I join with Representative Clarke.

Mr. DAVIS of Illinois

Mr. DAVIS of Illinois. Madam Speaker, I rise today to pay tribute to a good husband, a good father, a good friend, a good son, and a good man; who devoted his life to his family, to his union and to his work on behalf of the working people throughout the world. Madam Speaker, Michael Fitzgerald was a third-generation electrician who joined Local 134 in December of 1974. He was appointed special assistant to the business manager in 1991 prior to being elected as business manager in 1995, where he served until 2006. He served on the executive board of the Chicago Federation of Labor, and as its second vice-president. He also served as vice president of the Chicago Cook County Building Trades Council, and served as chairman and as president of the Illinois State Conference of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers. Under Michael's leadership, Local 134 continued the tradition of strong and aggressive growth and has become one of the largest and most influential Electricians locals in North America, with over 17,000 members. At the 36th Convention of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, Michael Fitzgerald served as Secretary to the Law Committee at the 37th Convention. In addition, Michael Fitzgerald was active in many other civic and community endeavors. He served on the Mayor's Zoning Reform Commission from 2000 to 2004, and on the Illinois Medical Center Commission from 1998 until his death. He was president of the Chicago Children's Advocacy Center for abused children from 1999 to 2005, and on the executive committee of the board of directors of the Metropolitan Pier and Exposition Authority, which governs the activities at Navy Pier and the McCormick Place complex from 2001 through 2005. Michael was also an attorney and member of the American Bar Association and the Illinois Trial Lawyers Association. Michael Fitzgerald gained recognition for his outstanding work and commitment to humankind. He was named Man of the Year by several organizations including, The Coalition for United Community Action, 1996; Irish American Alliance, 1997; Maritime Trades and The Greater Chicago and Vicinity Port Council, 1998; Hispanic Electricians Alliance, 1999; Italian American Labor Council, 2001; and The Anti- Defamation League, 2001. He also received the Rerun Novarum Award for Labor from the Archdiocese of Chicago in 1999. He served as a member of the board of directors of Amalgamated Bank of Chicago and was appointed to the Catholic Charities Advisory Board. He has been recognized for his commitment to St. Xavier University in 2007; Mayor Richard M. Daley presented Mr. Fitzgerald with the John E. Rooney Corporate Hero Award for his tireless efforts on behalf of the city of Chicago Children's Advocacy Center. We extend our heartfelt condolences to his wife and their two children, Marty and Sarah. Madam Speaker, the steps of a good man are ordered and directed by the Lord. Michael Fitzgerald was a good man; may his soul rest in peace.

Mr. DAVIS of Illinois

Mr. DAVIS of Illinois. Madam Speaker, in 2006, the American Planning Association--known as APA--declared October ``National Month of Community Planning'' to encourage the visibility of planning efforts in communities throughout the United States. During this month, we recognize the many individuals--the local officials, business leaders, and planners--that have contributed to the planning profession, making some of the great communities we have today. For example, in Highland Park, Illinois, Mayor Michael Belsky publicly thanked the City's planning staff for their dedication via the local newspaper. In Urbana, Illinois, the Planning Film Festival highlights different cities and their efforts to work with their city halls to design better neighborhoods. The theme for this year's celebration is: ``Great Streets, Great Neighborhoods.'' This theme acknowledges three particular building blocks of great communities: streets, neighborhoods, and the people who make communities unique. As part of this effort, APA celebrates excellence in planning via its ``Great Places in America'' program, recognizing both great streets and great neighborhoods across our county. I am proud to say that one of these ``Great Streets'' is North Michigan Avenue that stands in the 7th District of Illinois which I currently represent. West Urbana, Illinois, also received the distinction of being a ``Great Neighborhood.'' As I close, I want to recognize APA as a non-profit public interest and research organization devoted to promoting quality planning. Since its founding in 1978, it has served more than 41,000 members. I honor the National Month of Community Planning and the efforts of planners to pioneer concepts that influence our communities both now and in the future.

Mr. DAVIS of Illinois

Mr. DAVIS of Illinois. Madam Speaker, Former President Clinton once said, ``Only by changing the nature of federal labor-management relations, so that managers, employees, and employees' representatives serve as partners, will it be possible to design and implement comprehensive changes necessary to government.'' With this ideal in mind, I am proud to introduce the Federal Labor-Management Partnership Act of 2007, the Act. The Act codifies Executive Order 12871, signed by former President Clinton in 1993. During its implementation, labor-management partnerships created a co-equal forum for managers and labor representatives to negotiate, plan, and exercise collective bargaining and effective decision-making. The impetus behind the Executive Order was recognition of the need to transform hostile, adversarial labor- management relationships into valuable problem solving partnerships. This method of bilateral affiliation proved to be successful for the civil service. It helped boost employee morale, and aided agencies in improving and upholding their service missions. The need to re-establish labor-management partnerships is clear. In many Government agencies there is a lack of trust exhibited between managers, employees, and their representatives. This has created a morale problem at many mission critical agencies; including the Department of Homeland Security, DHS, which was named in a recent study by the Office of Personnel Management as having the lowest level of morale in the Federal Government. Now, more than ever, the American people expect Government to lead by example. Therefore, it is imperative to restore labor-management partnerships. Partnership is a proven practice that works. Partnership gives added value to the federal workforce; and it is my fervent belief that partnership is essential for a more productive civil service.

Mr. DAVIS of Illinois

Mr. DAVIS of Illinois. Madam Speaker, I would like to take this opportunity to recognize the service of a distinguished faculty member in the College of Medicine at the University of Illinois at Chicago. Dr. Dharmapuri Vidyasager currently serves as the Director of Neonatology and Co-Director of the Perinatal Center at UIC. Hired specifically to establish a Neonatal Intensive Care unit, he began his career with UIC as the Director of Newborn Nurseries in 1974. During the interim 33 years, he became a full professor in 1977 and served as the interim Head of the Department of Pediatrics in 1983. I seek to recognize Dr. Vidyasager today in anticipation of his retirement in November of this year. Without question, Dr. Vidyasager has contributed significantly to the field of neonatology as a physician, a researcher, and an educator. From establishing the first neonatal care unit in the State of Illinois at Cook County Hospital in 1971 to helping decrease the Illinois infant mortality rate from 25 to 7 deaths per 1,000 births to aiding other nations in reducing neonatal and infant mortality, his medical work has had a substantial, direct effect on newborn children. Dr. Vidyasager's research on surfactant systems in lungs and the treatment of the hyaline membrane disease has proved quite essential to the major advancements that have taken place in the field of neonatology. In addition, Dr. Vidyasager has demonstrated a strong commitment to developing high caliber physicians. During his tenure, Dr. Vidyasager trained more than 70 neonatologists, some of whom are nationally and internationally known academicians. He was responsible for developing the UIC Medical Center's teaching program into one of the most highly recognized physician training centers. Further, he has conducted training sessions and provided free consultations on the establishment of modern neonatal intensive care units across the globe including--but not limited to--China, India, Poland, Lithuania, and Uzbekistan. In 2006, Dr. Vidyasager's work was honored via his nomination for inclusion in the Castle Connolly Medical Ltd.'s Top Doctors of America and The Best Doctors Directory. His service to the field of neonatology, his patients, the University of Illinois at Chicago, and to the City of Chicago has been quite extraordinary. I honor his retirement in November 2007 with the words of Frederick Douglass as he once said, ``Man's greatness consists in his ability to do and the proper application of his powers to things needed to be done.'' The accomplishments of Dr. Vidyasager over the last three decades have done a great deal to illustrate his greatness.

Mr. DAVIS of Illinois

Mr. DAVIS of Illinois. Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I might consume. Madam Speaker, as a member of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, I'm pleased to join my colleagues in the consideration of H.R. 3297, which names the postal facility in Morrisville, Pennsylvania, after Nate DeTample. H.R. 3297, which was introduced by Representative Patrick Murphy on August 1, 2007, was reported from the Oversight Committee on September 20, 2007, by voice vote. This measure has the support of the entire Pennsylvania congressional delegation. Madam Speaker, Private First Class Nathaniel E. DeTample was killed on August 9, 2005, in an attack by small arms fire in Beiji, Iraq. The attack occurred while he was investigating a rocket-propelled grenade incident. He was assigned to the 1st Battalion, 111 Infantry Regiment, Pennsylvania Army National Guard in Philadelphia. Private DeTample was a wrestler, an Eagle Scout, and a criminal justice major at Shippenburg University. He was deployed to Iraq in March 2005 for the purpose of performing stability and support operations in the Beiji area north of Baghdad. He served his country with honor and distinction. And so, Madam Speaker, I commend my colleague, Representative Murphy, for introducing this legislation, and urge its swift passage. Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. DAVIS of Illinois. Madam Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. DAVIS of Illinois. Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that Members may have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks.

Mr. DAVIS of Illinois. Madam Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (H.R. 3297) to designate the facility of the United States Postal Service located at 950 West Trenton Avenue in Morrisville, Pennsylvania, as the ``Nate DeTample Post Office Building''.

Mr. DAVIS of Illinois

Mr. DAVIS of Illinois. Madam Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (H.R. 2089) to designate the facility of the United States Postal Service located at 701 Loyola Avenue in New Orleans, Louisiana, as the ``Louisiana Armed Services Veterans Post Office''.

Mr. DAVIS of Illinois. Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks.

Mr. DAVIS of Illinois. Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I might consume. Madam Speaker, as a Member of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, I am pleased to join my colleague in the consideration of H.R. 2089, which names a postal facility in New Orleans, Louisiana, after the Louisiana armed services veterans. H.R. 2089 which was introduced by Representative William Jefferson on May 1, 2007, was reported from the Oversight Committee on September 20, 2007, by voice vote. This measure has the support of the entire Louisiana congressional delegation. Madam Speaker, the Louisiana armed services veterans were recognized for their significant contributions to our country early in the 19th and 20th centuries. During the War of 1812, Louisiana's veteran troops, which included French, Spanish, African, Anglo, Creole, and Native American people, under General Andrew Jackson, decisively defeated the British forces on January 8, 1815. This battle forced the British to recognize the United States' claim to Louisiana and helped establish America as a political and military power. In the 20th century, the famous Louisiana maneuvers held at Fort Polk, Louisiana, in 1940 tested the mettle of future World War II Army Generals Dwight D. Eisenhower and George Patton and the soldiers who served under their leadership. President Eisenhower referred to Louisianan Andrew Jackson Higgins as ``the man who won the war.'' In New Orleans, Higgins designed and built amphibious landing craft that made possible the invasions of enemy-held Pacific Islands and the coast of France D-Day invasion. Rural southeast Louisiana was native soil for two Marine Corps commanders, General John Archer Lejeune and General Robert Barrow. The Nation's first black woman to earn her stars as a U.S. Army General, Sherian Grace Cadoria, grew up in Marksville, Louisiana. The Louisiana veterans for centuries have served and defended our country with exemplary valor and honor. And so, Madam Speaker, I commend my colleague, Representative William Jefferson, for introducing this legislation and urge its passage. I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. DAVIS of Illinois

Mr. DAVIS of Illinois. Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. As a member of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, I am pleased to join my colleague in the consideration of H.R. 3572, which names a postal facility in Kansas City, Missouri, after Wallace S. Hartsfield, Sr. H.R. 3572, which was introduced by Representative Emanuel Cleaver on September 18, 2007, was reported from the Oversight Committee on October 4, 2007, by voice vote. This measure has the support of the entire Missouri congressional delegation. Madam Speaker, Rev. Dr. Wallace S. Hartsfield, Sr.'s dedication and service to the people of Kansas City goes back many years. He is a committed community activist, civil servant, and has served as the senior pastor of the Metropolitan Missionary Baptist Church since 1972. He is the vice president-at-large of the Economic Development Commission of the National Baptist Convention of America, Incorporated. He is a former chairman of the Congress of National Black Churches and past president of the General Baptist State Convention of Missouri, Kansas, and Nebraska. He has served as an adjunct professor and guest lecturer at numerous colleges and universities. Rev. Hartsfield is a well-respected man of faith, and on January 1, 2008, he will retire as senior pastor of the Metropolitan Missionary Baptist Church. So, Madam Speaker, I commend my colleague, the Reverend Representative Emanuel Cleaver, for introducing this legislation. I enthusiastically support this legislation and urge its passage. Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.