Tom DeLay

Mr. DeLAY

Mr. DeLAY. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Pence) to answer the gentleman from Connecticut's question about what is the harm, and his other question being why the harm of redefining marriage to include other lifestyles. (Mr. PENCE asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. DeLAY. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Shuster).

Mr. DeLAY. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, the gentleman obviously has not been watching the debate because no one has said anything about hate or the quotes the gentleman stated in this body. This is about marriage. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Alabama (Mr. Bachus).

Mr. DeLAY. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Burns).

Mr. DeLAY. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Oklahoma (Mr. Sullivan).

Mr. DeLAY. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Kingston).

Mr. DeLAY. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time. Mr. Speaker, I know some wanted to pick a fight here today, trying to get us to talk about same-sex marriage, about homosexuality and all those kinds of things. We did not talk about them because that is not what this is about. What this is about is the family and the definition of family, so I will define it for you: a family is a man and a woman that can create children. Peter and Paul cannot create children. Mary and Jane cannot create children. It is about regenerating and re- energizing our population by being able to create children. But more than that, it is about responsibility. A family is a man and a woman that can create children and rear them. It is how we create communities. It is how we transfer our values to our children, because if you destroy marriage and people do not get married, several things happen: first of all, men are let off the hook. Men can have the sex but not the responsibility of raising the children. That has happened in our society and societies in Europe and others. If you take away the responsibility, why should a man get married? But if he has a commitment with the woman, the mother of his child, then he realizes the responsibility of trying to raise that child. He also provides something more than Mary and Jane can provide. Mary and Jane can be great mothers and there are many of them that are great mothers. Peter and Paul can be great fathers. But Peter and Paul cannot be a mother. And Mary and Jane cannot be a father. The reason that one man and one woman is necessary to rear children is so that they can receive the benefits that a man can give them and that a woman can give them. They can see the commitment between a man and a woman, the trust that is committed between the two, the love. But more important than that, it is how that man and that woman transfer their values to their children. It is also how each family can transfer its values by families coming together as communities and transferring those values to those communities. So when you ask the question, what harm is it, the harm is if nobody gets married and they are having children out of wedlock, which has already been said, children born out of wedlock are more likely to have all the maladies of societal ills, whether it be quicker on drugs, dropouts. We know. Every social ill can come down on these children. If that happens, then we are not transferring our values to communities and from communities to States. Our values as a Nation start with one man, one woman having children. That is what is at stake here. That is what is harmful. You say, well, I am married. I am married for 37 years. I am very proud to be married. I have a daughter and a grandson. The point is that these breakups of marriage, and it is showing in the Netherlands and in Scandinavia, it is showing right here with all the pressures against marriage over the last 40 or 50 years, whether it be welfare or divorce. Divorce is a pressure against marriage. And when we take the responsibility for a marriage and do no-fault divorces, you are undermining marriage and making it easy to undermine marriage. All the results of that we have seen. The welfare system was a great experiment. What we saw was fathers not marrying the mothers of their children, just having many children by many mothers and not responsible for raising these children, leaving these children to mothers and grandmothers and aunts to raise. And then we see the deterioration of their lives because they are raising themselves because their mothers and aunts and grandmothers have to work in order to raise them to pay for the family, so they are raising themselves, no values, nothing. Gangs form because of that. Gangs become the substitute for families. Everybody knows that. If you get busted by a gang or mugged by a gang, that is the result of undermining marriage. That is the problem. It is nothing about same-sex marriage, or single moms or any other kind of marriage. Those are wonderful. There are wonderful families being raised by gay people. There are wonderful families by single moms. But they are not the ideal. The ideal is established in our Constitution and in our society. We want the ideal. So when the Massachusetts Supreme Court redefines marriage based upon not law, based on thin air, because we have these activist judges coming in to impose their definition of marriage on our society, we get a little concerned, because we have seen it before. We did not stand up before and there have been 45 million children killed, unborn children killed, because we did not stand up to activist judges responding to a strategy of using the courts to legislate. Every leader of the groups that are opposing this legislation has announced to the world that they are going to take this to the U.S. Supreme Court. They are already doing it. There are 11 court cases right now. Nebraska has been overturned, Washington State, Massachusetts. There is a huge, huge effort in every State in this Union, even though 44 States in this Union have protected the definition of marriage. They are after those State constitutions; and when they get at those, or using the full faith and credit clause, they can go to the Federal courts and then it begins. Then DOMA comes down. Then the United States Supreme Court, who has already signaled that they are going to, through Lawrence v. Texas, redefine marriage in this country, will amend the Constitution and redefine marriage. We are starting the effort today. Yes, it may not pass today. I wish it would. It may not pass today. This is only the beginning, I am telling you, because this Nation will protect marriage. This Nation knows, this Nation knows, that, if you destroy marriage as the definition of one man and one woman creating children so that we can transfer our values to those children and they can be raised in an ideal home, this country will go down. So, believe me, everybody in this country is going to know how you voted today. And they are going to know how you stood on the fundamental protection of marriage and the definition of marriage. And we will take it from here, and we will be back. And we will be back. And we will be back. We will never give up. We will protect marriage in this country.

Mr. DeLAY

Mr. DeLAY. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Maryland for yielding to me. Mr. Speaker, next week the House will convene on Monday at 12:30 p.m. for morning hour and 2 p.m. for legislative business. We will consider several measures under suspension of the rules. A final list of those bills will be sent to Members' offices by the end of this week. We may also consider one or more motions to go to conference. Any votes called on those measures will be rolled until 6:30 p.m. On Tuesday and the balance of the week, it is likely that we will consider additional legislation under suspension of the rules. We also expect to consider three bills under a rule: S. 878, the Bankruptcy Judgeship Act; H.R. 5107, the Justice For All Act; and H.R. 10, the 9/ 11 Commission Implementation Act. In addition, there are a number of potential conference reports that we are working through, including several appropriations bills, the American Jobs Creation Act, and the Department of Defense Authorization bill. Members should be aware that these conference reports may be brought to the floor at any time next week. Finally, I would like to note, Mr. Speaker, that we are expecting to consider a second supplemental request for disaster relief sometime next week. We may have additional requests resulting from Hurricane Jeanne, so we are working through these requests and trying to figure out how best to address these needs. Obviously, we are expecting a very busy week. Members should expect to work some late nights and possibly into Friday evening or Saturday as we resolve these important pieces of legislation. I thank the gentleman for yielding, and I will be happy to answer any questions he may have.

Mr. DeLAY. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the gentleman yielding. As the gentleman knows, we have three appropriations bills that are out there that are eligible for motions to instruct. I do not know of any others. They are available when those Members want to bring a motion to instruct, and we are trying to fit them in as best we can during the week.

Mr. DeLAY. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the gentleman yielding. The gentleman touched on many issues; I will take the 9/11 Commission Implementation Act first. I do not agree with the gentleman's characterization of the Senate bill, because what I have seen in the Senate and what they are debating nowhere mirrors the 9/11 Commission Report or all of its recommendations. The bill being marked up by the House all of this week does mirror every recommendation by the 9/11 Commission in one way or another, and that is why it has taken us longer to get it through all our 12 committees. It is going to take us a little longer to get it to the floor. I expect that, looking at all the work that needs to be done in order to bring that bill to the floor, we would have to pass that bill sometime next week, probably at the end of the week. I believe there is a good chance that the Senate could pass their version even this week. Assuming that both bodies pass next week, I would expect that we could appoint conferees next week and work towards completing a conference report as soon as possible. In planning their schedules, Members should know that a conference report could be completed later in October, and that if it was completed, the House would certainly come back and vote on it.

Mr. DeLAY. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the gentleman informing me of rumors, but that is a rumor that I have not yet heard nor has anyone discussed such a thing. I would hope that the conference committee could go to work immediately and complete this as soon as possible. It is important. The conference report, as it comes out, I am sure will have many reforms that need to be implemented to keep the American people and American families safer, and we want to get it out as quickly as possible.

Mr. DeLAY. Mr. Speaker, the gentleman brings up many issues. First and foremost, I do not know if the gentleman has been advised, but I would refer the gentleman to the votes of the committees that have been marking up this bill. If I do recall exactly what the vote was, it was a very bipartisan effort. I think and I hope that the bill that is coming to the House floor is very strongly supported by both sides. In the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, for instance, I think there was a 17-to-2 vote in passing that bill out. Now, 17 to two tells me that most of the Democrats and most of the Republicans voted for that bill. So I am very encouraged by the markups that we are having and the kind of support that the Democrats and Republicans are showing for the product that is being put together. Having said that, the gentleman may support the bill that came out of the Senate committee. I looked at it. I think it is woefully lacking in sufficient reforms, particularly in immigration policy, border security, law enforcement. It basically is a bill that creates a national intelligence director and a counterterrorism center. There is more to protecting the American people than creating a new bureaucracy and keeping our borders safe, giving our law enforcement officials more tools to go after terrorists. There are many things that we need to be doing. Having said that, the bill the gentleman refers to may not be the bill that comes out of the Senate because I have been informed that there are over 100 amendments, 100 amendments, filed for the debate in the other body. So who knows what that bill is going to look like when it comes out of the other body, and I think it would be highly irresponsible for this House to pick up something that came out of the Senate committee and bring it down here on the floor, unseen by most Members and not worked on by our committees, and just vote on it, up and down. I do not think that keeps the American people safer.

Mr. DeLAY. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman would yield, the gentleman obviously did not read the 9/11 Commission recommendations because many of those recommendations were very general in nature, very unspecific. Yet, we took their recommendations in those areas and did actual detailed pieces of legislation, much beyond what the 9/11 Commission even envisioned because they did not have the expertise to recommend specific items. It is unfortunate the gentleman questions my motive, but I must tell the gentleman that ever since the 9/11 Commission has come out we have reached out to any Democrat who is willing to work on this issue. Those Democrats that have been willing to work on those issues, we have been working with them, and I have not been privy to every discussion or every meeting on this issue, particularly within the committees, but I think if my colleague will go back and check with his ranking members, those who wanted to work on the legislation were more than just informed. They have a very big part to play, particularly in the Committee on Armed Services, the Committee on International Relations. So we worked with the willing Democrats that wanted to work on this issue rather than to have a political issue, and they had a very big part to play in it. I think that is reflected in the kinds of votes we are getting coming out of committee.

Mr. DeLAY. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman would yield, first of all, I do not think this is a proper forum to debate the bill, and I am not prepared to debate the bill. I have not personally been able to go over the volumes of work that has been done by 12 committees. So the provision that the gentleman may be speaking to, all I can tell him is that I remember in the list of things that were presented to me a day or so ago, it did address that very issue. I can go back and look at it, but the gentleman will have plenty of opportunity during the debate of this bill to debate the bill up or down, to amend it, to substitute for it, and the gentleman knows he can go before the Committee on Rules and ask for that kind of action.

Mr. DeLAY. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman would yield and repeat all the legislation he is talking about?

Mr. DeLAY. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman would yield.

Mr. DeLAY. I think I addressed in my opening remarks the Defense authorization conference. We are hoping to get that out. The highway bill I think has been debated or talked about a lot on this floor in the last couple of days. The House is ready to go. The House is ready to negotiate with the Senate, and the House has cleaned out a lot of the brush, but it seems that the Senate is going to have a very hard time getting their members in the conference committee to support a highway bill. So that is why we did the extension today on 8 months to give them more time to work. The FSC/jobs bill, the conferees met on that bill last night. It was a very good conference. Democrats were certainly included, and we have scheduled another meeting for next Tuesday. I believe there is a good chance that a conference report could be ready for the House to vote on later at the end of next week. The appropriations process, the gentleman being on the Committee on Appropriations, knows very well, as he stated, that we passed 12 of the 13 bills. The thirteenth bill has problems. We know there is going to be an omnibus bill, and we will solve those problems in an omnibus bill, but the problem is in the other body. They are passing as many bills as they can get done, and we will go to conference on every one of those bills to try to get them done before the end of next week. That would include Homeland Security appropriation, MilCon, Foreign Ops, the Legislative Branch, and D.C., which are the only ones I know of that the Senate has passed so far. The rest, as the gentleman knows, we did a continuing resolution until November 20. We have instructed our committees, and the Senate leadership has instructed their committees to work on those as best they can so that, when we get back in November, the Members can vote on those bills up or down. The higher education bill, right now, I am not advised where it is, so I cannot answer the gentleman on that one.

Mr. DeLAY. Mr. Speaker, that is still hard to say. I can answer that question better at the end of next week. I am still hoping, against all odds, that the appropriations process could be done. Willing people coming together can get a lot of things done in a very short period of time around here. It is just a matter of finding the willing people to get it done, and we are still working on it. It could happen. Lightning could strike. And if it does, then we would not have to come back in a lame duck. Obviously, the appropriations process is the most important. And if we cannot get all the appropriations done, then I would anticipate having a lame duck sometime in that week that both parties are organizing.

Mr. DeLAY. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding. As the gentleman knows, the chairman of the Committee on Rules is sitting here. I think he is going to make an announcement about amendments and substitutes.

Mr. DeLAY

Mr. DeLAY. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that the business in order under the Calendar Wednesday rule be dispensed with on Wednesday next.

Mr. DeLAY

Mr. DeLAY. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that when the House adjourns today, it adjourn to meet at 12:30 p.m. on Monday next for morning hour debates.

Mr. DeLAY

Mr. DeLAY. Madam Speaker, John F. Kennedy once defined America's audacious priorities at home, abroad and in space by saying, ``We choose to do these things not because they were easy, but because they are hard.'' He was right, about the 1960s and about America at all times. In America, there are always challenging issues facing the future of our country. The only choice we have in the matter is whether to tackle them or leave them for future generations. For the last few decades, many have unfortunately preferred to put political expedience over responsible governance and allow major issues to be decided by someone else. For too long Congress has ceded its legislative authority to the executive branch and to the courts. But, Madam Speaker, article 1 of the Constitution says the buck stops right here. And this week, the House will do its duty by the Constitution and the American people and make our voices heard on two of the toughest challenges facing our Nation today. First, we will take up the District of Columbia Personal Protection Act which would guarantee the second amendment rights of District residents. For years American citizens in Washington, D.C., have had their right to self-protection denied them, and it is time to set things right. Washington residents are American citizens and, therefore, deserve the same right to bear arms, to defend themselves, as much as anyone else. The homes of this city will be safer when its law-abiding citizens are on a equal footing with its violent criminals. Second, we will take up the Marriage Protection Amendment which would reaffirm the definition of marriage as the union between one man and one woman. The marriage issue, like too many issues these days, is being forced upon the American people by judicial activists overstepping their authority. Congress must assert itself. The voice of the people must be heard. It is our job to make the laws in this country. And as easy as life would be for us if the most controversial bill we had to vote on was to rename a post office, that is not what we were elected to do. We were elected to deliberate over difficult issues, to come down on one side or the other and to ultimately defend our decisions in open debate before the American people. That is how the framers wanted it. And this week, Madam Speaker, that is how it is going to be.

Mr. DeLAY

Mr. DeLAY. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. DeLAY. Mr. Speaker, next week the House will convene on Tuesday at 12:30 p.m. for morning hour debates and 2 p.m. for legislative business. We will consider several measures under suspension of the rules. A final list of those bills will be sent to the Members' offices by the end of this week. Any votes on these measures will be rolled until 6:30 p.m. On Wednesday and the balance of the week, we expect to consider additional legislation under suspension of the rules. Next week we also expect to consider two bills under a rule: H.R. 3193, the District of Columbia Personal Protection Act; and H.J. Res. 106, the Marriage Protection Amendment. I thank the gentleman for yielding to me. I would be glad to answer any questions he may have.

Mr. DeLAY. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the gentleman yielding to me. The committee has held four hearings on this bill, and I do anticipate bringing it to the floor without being marked up by the committee, under a rule.