David Dreier

Mr. DREIER

Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, again reclaiming my time, I think the very hard work of the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Fawell) and the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Goodling) has brought forth thoughtful legislation, and we are going to work our will here in the House.

Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, we certainly welcome the opportunity for all of our colleagues to submit amendments to us, as we had announced earlier on the House floor. And so I think that we have pretty well clarified the issue.

Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time, if we had an open rule, the gentleman would not offer any amendments. And we have now a very well-structured rule that would have made the amendments that the gentleman talks about offering and did initially submit in the Committee on Rules in order, and he has chosen not to do that.

Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, that is correct.

Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, I am happy to yield to the gentleman to clarify that.

Mr. DREIER. I yield to the gentleman from Missouri.

Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, let me just respond briefly to the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Clay), my good friend from St. Louis, and say that we in the Committee on Rules planned to make every amendment that was submitted in order. And while I found the gentleman's remarks very interesting, the one little caveat, the gentleman did say that he did not want to offer amendments and that he just did not like the bill and did not want to do that when we were holding the hearing up in the Committee on Rules. I think it is important for the Record to show that. Mr. Speaker, we were prepared to make the gentleman's amendments in order and, in fact, we did make them in order, and the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Moakley) offered the motion that unanimously passed in the Committee on Rules that, in fact, allowed for the withdrawal of those two amendments which had been submitted by the gentleman from Missouri.

Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to the distinguished gentleman from Naperville, Illinois (Mr. Fawell), chairman of the subcommittee.

Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, we are trying to protect the rights of employees, the small labor groups, organizations, and, of course, the backbone, the backbone of the United States of America, the small businessman and woman. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. DREIER. I yield to the gentleman from Massachusetts.

Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, all we are trying to do is make sure that small businesses have the exact same rights that the gentleman and I do in hiring practices in our offices.

Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, for the purposes of debate only, I yield the customary 30 minutes to the gentleman from south Boston (Mr. Moakley), my very good friend, who I am happy to say has just arrived in the Chamber, and pending that, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, all time yielded will be for debate purposes only. Mr. Speaker, this rule makes in order H.R. 3246, the Fairness for Small Business and Employees Act of 1998, under a structured rule providing for an hour of general debate, equally divided and controlled by the chairman and ranking minority member of the Committee on Education and the Workforce. The rule makes in order one amendment by the chairman of the Committee on Education and the Workforce, offered by the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Goodling). The rule provides that the amendment shall be considered as read and debatable for 20 minutes, equally divided and controlled by the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Goodling) and an opponent. The amendment shall not be subject to amendment, and shall not be subject to a demand for a division of the question. Further, the rule provides for one motion to recommit, with or without instructions. Mr. Speaker, although this is a structured rule, it would also be correct to characterize it as a very fair rule. As Members know, H.R. 3246 amends a broad cross-section of the National Labor Relations Act. The Committee on Rules required Members to prefile their amendments in advance, in an effort to ensure that the House would have a focused debate on the issues specific to this legislation. Four amendments were filed with the Committee on Rules, and of those, three were actually withdrawn. In fact, two amendments filed by the ranking minority member of the Committee on Education and the Workforce, the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Clay), were withdrawn as a result of a motion offered by the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Moakley), which the Committee on Rules adopted by a voice vote. Those two amendments would have added 20 minutes and 60 minutes, respectively, to the debate. Mr. Speaker, I want to applaud the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Chairman Goodling) and the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Fawell), the chairman of the Subcommittee on Employer-Employee Relations, for their very thoughtful work on this bill in moving it forward. If enacted, the bill will end abusive practices against workers by organized labor and the Federal bureaucracy. It will level the playing field for small businesses, small unions, and employees by creating an impartial National Labor Relations Board. It will also end the practice of what is known as salting, whereby professional agents and union employees are sent in to nonunion workplaces under the guise of seeking employment, only to inflict harm on those employers. So, Mr. Speaker, let me say, this is, I believe, a very fair and balanced structured rule. I urge my colleagues to support this measure, which makes in order this fair and commonsense bill which will provide relief for small businesses, for labor organizations, and employees. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, by direction of the Committee on Rules, I call up House Resolution 393 and ask for its immediate consideration.

Mr. DREIER

Mr. DREIER. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of words. Mr. Chairman, I rise in support of the McCollum amendment. I would like to bring up the name of our very dear, departed colleague Sonny Bono. Sonny Bono was someone who got very involved in this issue. He felt very strongly about it. Sonny Bono had a very unique perspective on this issue. He was a restaurateur, and he was also a songwriter. I believe that as we look at this issue, that Sonny would have supported what I do believe is a compromise. The gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Sensenbrenner) indicated this is not a compromise, but as I have talked to lots of people on this issue, it seems to me that this is in fact a compromise. Obviously not everyone agrees to it, but it is a compromise. What does it do? It actually increases, as the gentleman from Texas said, the number of exemptions by 400 percent, to 65 percent of those restaurants that actually will be exempt. That is information that was provided to us by the Congressional Research Service. There is another issue here that is rather troubling to me, and that is as we deal in this global economy today, which obviously is getting smaller and smaller and smaller as we have found from the trip of the President to Africa who was there touting the agreement which we just passed in this House last week on expanding new trade opportunities with sub-Saharan Africa, it seems to me that as we look at that very important issue which we as Americans continue to argue in behalf of, that being intellectual property, the fact that when an individual has an idea, a concept, that person should be remunerated for that. If we were to pass the Sensenbrenner amendment, it would send, I believe, a terrible signal to our global trading partners that we as a nation are not going to be there on the front line arguing in behalf of intellectual property. Mr. Chairman, I am strongly supporting the McCollum amendment. Frankly, I do not think it is the very best measure but I am in support of it as a compromise. It is a compromise that many of our friends in the entertainment industry seem to be accepting.

Mr. DREIER. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for his contribution on that. I would simply say that the only argument that we will be able to use with our international trading partners is the fact that we have been able to come to a compromise with those who do in fact hold that intellectual property here. I urge strong support of the McCollum amendment as a compromise. I hope very much that we will finally be able to put to rest this battle which has been going on for literally years and recognize the very important rights of talent that exists in this country. Also in closing, I see our former colleague Carlos Moorhead has just come into the Chamber. He deserves a great deal of respect for his work on this copyright legislation, which he has pursued for a long period of time. Resolving this whole overall bill, it will be a great day for this institution.

Mr. DREIER. I yield to the gentleman from Massachusetts.

Mr. DREIER. If I could reclaim my time, I would say maybe the gentleman went even further than I might have in this negotiating process. I will nevertheless continue to support the amendment.

Mr. DREIER. I yield to the gentleman from Florida.

Mr. DREIER

Mr. DREIER. Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that my name be withdrawn as a cosponsor of H.R. 1415.

Mr. DREIER

Mr. DREIER. Madam Speaker, the Committee on Rules is planning to meet next week to grant a rule to limit the amendments which may be offered to H.R. 3246, the Fairness for Small Business and Employees Act of 1998. Any Member who wishes to offer an amendment should submit 55 copies and a brief explanation of the amendment by 2 p.m. on Monday, March 23rd, to the Committee on Rules, room H-312 of the Capitol. H.R. 3246 was ordered reported by the Committee on Education and the Workforce on March 11th, and the report is expected to be filed Wednesday. Amendments should be drafted to the text of the bill as reported by the Committee on Education and the Workforce. Until the report is available in the document room, copies of the text of the bill as reported can be obtained from the Committee on Education and the Workforce. Members should use the Office of Legislative Counsel to ensure their amendments are properly drafted and should check with the Office of Parliamentarian to be certain their amendments comply with the rules of the House.

Mr. DREIER

Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong support of this rule. This is actually a very great day for this institution. I believe that the American people would be very proud of the process that went into fashioning this measure. It is clearly bipartisan; it crosses ideological lines. We have some of the most conservative Members of this institution strongly supportive of the measure, and some of the most liberal. On the Committee on Ways and Means we have the leadership, including the gentleman from California (Mr. Thomas) who is here on the floor, along with the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Archer), chairman of the Committee on Ways and Means, the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Crane), the gentleman from New York (Mr. Rangel), the gentleman from California (Mr. Matsui), the gentleman from Washington (Mr. McDermott) and others who have played a role in looking at this issue. And quite frankly, while we hear about this question of whether or not we are allowing for the free flow of ideas here on the floor, the opportunity existed there in the Committee on Ways and Means. And frankly, as this measure moved, there was very little debate, but opportunity for it, and we also saw that there were no amendments when this measure moved out on a voice vote. Mr. Speaker, I would also say that there is a complete open process with every germane amendment that is considered under the international relations portion, and I should praise my colleague, the gentleman from California (Mr. Royce), chairman of the Subcommittee on Africa, who has also worked long and hard on this. So what we have here, Mr. Speaker, is I believe a measure which is really based on goals that we as Americans and as Democrats and Republicans share. Every one of us clearly wants to help the poorest and most disadvantaged among us. Every one of us wants to encourage individuals to help themselves, and so this measure is really based on the proverb, ``Give a man a fish and he will eat for a day. Teach him to fish and he will eat for a lifetime.'' As we look at the problems that my friend Mr. Rangel mentioned of Sub-Saharan Africa, it is a very tragic history that I am very pleased to say is beginning to turn around. Sub-Saharan Africa is the only place on the face of the Earth where actually the children are doing worse than their grandparents. As we look at the last 2 decades, what has existed in the United States? We have continued to funnel more and more U.S. taxpayer assistance to Africa. We, in fact, have followed the policy of aid, not trade. Well, with this measure we are by 180 degrees, I am happy to say, reversing that pattern, and we know that it is going to create the kind of opportunity that is necessary there, not only for people who are recognizing free markets and political pluralism in Sub-Saharan Africa, but also for the people of the United States of America who are going to also be beneficiaries. The gentleman from New York (Mr. Rangel), was also right as he in the Committee on Rules yesterday talked about how we have spent years focusing on Asia and Latin America, and unfortunately, we have not put enough attention on that very, very important and most impoverished spot on the face of the Earth, Sub-Saharan Africa. So this measure, Mr. Speaker, is going to be beneficial. We are not going to be seeing countries using Sub-Saharan Africa as a launching pad to export into the United States, because again, as Mr. Rangel said, we clearly will be able to differentiate between those goods that are coming from Sub-Saharan Africa and those that might come from other parts of the world, and we know that there is a 35 percent value-added content that is required, so we will have U.S. customs and, as the gentleman from New York (Mr. Rangel) said, the World Trade Organization and other entities very closely monitoring that. Mr. Speaker, this is a very good measure. I am very pleased that it has come out under Republican leadership here in the House of Representatives, and I urge my colleagues to support this rule and support the measure as we move forward.

Mr. DREIER

Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, I have the highest regard for my colleagues who have stood in opposition to this measure. But the fact of the matter is they are using little more than rhetoric. The gentleman from California (Mr. Thomas) got right to the facts. We have a responsibility in this Congress. It is the responsibility to protect that very precious franchise: the right to vote. Everyone acknowledges that we have witnessed fraud in elections that have taken place. And as an institution, we have been over the past several Congresses encouraging greater participation. And yet what has happened? We have seen a lowering in participation and an increase in fraud. This is, as my friend said, a very cautious step. The gentleman from California (Mr. Horn) is one of the key authors of the Voting Rights Act, and I know that he would do nothing whatsoever, nothing whatsoever to overturn that very important legislation which he worked on. Mr. Speaker, we should support this very modest measure to ensure that that franchise is in no way jeopardized.

Mr. DREIER

Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, I would like to join in expressing appreciation to the gentleman from California (Mr. Lewis) and the gentleman from California (Mr. Brown) for taking this time and pursuing this very important resolution. We were all very shocked and saddened, the world was shocked and saddened, with the tragedy that struck Sonny Bono, and I have got to say that I miss him. I think about him constantly. I think about Mary and the children, and I think about the impact that he had on so many of us. Like most, I plead guilty to having been a little bit skeptical when this 1970s, long-haired, mustachioed, bell-bottomed singer-songwriter decided that he was going to come to the United States Congress, and I wondered what impact it would have. Then I began to think about what it was that the founders envisaged for this institution. James Madison and Thomas Jefferson both talked about how disparate walks of life should be represented here in the people's House. And, to my knowledge, Sonny was, in fact, the only 1970s long-haired, mustachioed, bell-bottomed singer-songwriter to serve in the institution. So, actually, Sonny Bono's presence here was exactly what Thomas Jefferson and James Madison wanted. One of the things that Sonny got very involved in, I remember his coming to me shortly after he was elected, and he said, ``David, I want to sit down and work with you and the Speaker and others and put together a task force that will underscore the very important relationship that should exist between the Congress and the Republican party and the entertainment industry, the music industry, the film industry, the television industry.'' He took a very, very important leadership role in pursuing that and did, I believe, a spectacular job. We have gotten to the point where there is an understanding of how it is that the Republican party, quite frankly, really does embody many of those shared goals: An opposition to censorship and dealing with intellectual property violations, finding new markets for exports coming from the entertainment industry in California. So there are a lot of very important things that have been to this point unheralded that Sonny was intimately involved in. I think that one of my colleagues probably said it best in a statement that I read in the paper when he said, many people run for Congress and come to Washington acting like they are very smart, and they are really not too bright. Well, Sonny Bono ran for Congress with this image of being less than intelligent, and it was obvious from his work and his life that he was an extraordinarily bright person. Mr. Speaker, I will miss him greatly and join in sending condolences, as we all have time and time again, officially here from the floor of the Congress to all the members of Sonny Bono's family.

Mr. DREIER

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

Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, I thank my friend for yielding. I rise because I am really somewhat shocked this evening, having heard the remarks of my friend from Arizona, my friend from Washington, my friend from Texas. I had been up to this moment convinced I was the only person in this Chamber that Ed Nichols had came to and said, you know, I will do anything for you that I possibly can to help you. But I find that he was more evenhanded than any of us could have possibly thought. He did a great deal, not only ceremonially, but in providing assistance to many of us, and I have to say that I had the great opportunity to get to know Ed and his wife Joan when we used to have those wonderful trips that would go in a bipartisan way every other year to New York City, and I remember those many visits. My friend from New York City, Mr. Gilman, is applauding once again, hoping we can once again have those sorts of bipartisan quarters. Ed will not be here for those, but he clearly did play a role in facilitating those, making them a very, very enjoyable experience for every one of us. Obviously, here in this Chamber, as I said, he obviously has helped many, many others, and I appreciate his friendship, and I am very gratified by the directive that has come from my friend from Wisconsin that Mr. Nichols not write a book. Thank you very much.