David Dreier

Mr. DREIER

Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, by direction of the Committee on Rules, I call up House Resolution 269 and ask for its immediate consideration.

Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, for purposes of debate only, I yield the customary 30 minutes to my very good friend, the gentleman from South Boston, MA [Mr. Moakley], the distinguished ranking minority member of the Committee on Rules, pending which I yield myself such time as I may consume. During consideration of this resolution, all time yielded is for the purpose of debate only. (Mr. DREIER asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks and to include extraneous material.)

Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Del Mar, CA [Mr. Cunningham].

Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Sanibel, FL [Mr. Goss], the chairman of the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence and the Subcommittee on Legislative and Budget Process. (Mr. GOSS asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. DREIER

Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, the Committee on Rules is expected to meet on Friday, October 24, this Friday, to grant a rule which may restrict amendments for consideration of H.R. 1270, the Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1997. Any Member contemplating an amendment to H.R. 1270 should submit 55 copies of the amendment and a brief explanation of the amendment to the Committee on Rules no later than 5 p.m. on this Thursday, tomorrow, October 23. The Committee on Rules office, for those who are not aware of it, is upstairs in H-312. Members should draft their amendments to the Committee on Commerce reported version of the bill, which the Committee on Rules intends to make in order as the base text for the purpose of amendment. Members should use the Office of Legislative Counsel to ensure that their amendments are properly drafted and should check with the distinguished Parliamentarian to be certain that their amendments comply with the rules of the House.

Mr. DREIER

Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3\1/2\ minutes to my very good friend, the gentleman from Kansas [Mr. Tiahrt], a hard-working member of the Subcommittee on the District of Columbia of the Committee on Appropriations.

Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, I would respond to my good friend, the gentleman from Los Angeles, who I should say has spent a good deal of time working on behalf of the issues of concern here in the District of Columbia. I would simply point to the fact that under our proposal that exists here, the amount spent for public schools is literally twice that that would be expended under the voucher program. In fact, for those 76,000 students, we propose spending $570 million, which is twice as much per student than those who would actually receive the parental choice scholarships.

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

Mr. DREIER. Reclaiming my time, Mr. Speaker, the point is to try and encourage competition, to try to improve education, to try to get a system into place which can be successful, rather than the one that we have seen which virtually everyone has acknowledged is a failure.

Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 1\1/2\ minutes to respond to my friend, and let me say that I have the highest regard for the gentlewoman from the District of Columbia. She and I have worked together on a wide range of issues. I do not seek to stand here and speak as the greatest authority on the District of Columbia. I do happen to reside here when I am in Washington, DC. But I think that it is important for us to look at a couple of facts. First of all, District voters have never actually voted on a voucher or scholarship referendum. In 1981, which is over a decade and a half ago, voters rejected a referendum that would have permitted tax credits for educational expenses, but this is not actually a tax credit, because a tax credit would primarily help those who pay taxes and are generally not poor. In contrast, the scholarship legislation is targeted at children from low-income families. In addition, I think it is important for us to recognize that an awful lot has changed since 1981, including public opinion on a wide range of issues. Polls show that parental choice enjoys strong support in the District of Columbia, especially among African-Americans. There was a recent poll that was conducted of District residents showing that 44 percent favor scholarships while only 31 percent oppose them, and among African-Americans support outweighs opposition by a margin of 48 to 29. A poll conducted by the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, an African-American think tank that opposes school choice, found that 57 percent of African-Americans actually support parental choice.

Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, I object to the vote on the ground that a quorum is not present and make the point of order that a quorum is not present.

Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, for the purpose of debate only, I yield the customary 30 minutes to the gentleman from Dallas, TX [Mr. Frost], pending which I yield myself such time as I may consume. During consideration of this resolution, all time yielded is for the purpose of debate only. (Mr. DREIER asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks and to include extraneous material.)

Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Virginia [Mr. Moran] also for his very strong support of this bipartisan rule, which I am happy to say that we have been able to work out. Mr. Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from Virginia [Mr. Davis], chairman of the District of Columbia Subcommittee on Government Reform and Oversight and my very dear friend.

Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. My very good friend from Connecticut just quoted the town crier of liberalism, the Washington Post, and I would like to actually share a little bit of a Post editorial that was carried about 10 days ago in which they said: A modest voucher experiment might help energize the public schools. It won't replace them. People who think of vouchers as a way somehow of evading the responsibility for public education are blowing smoke. And such a program, we believe, will not do harm to the system or by implication suggest that it is a permanent loser. As we say, the schools in this city do not present one solid, bleak picture such as the political critics somehow paint. The point, the hope, would be that such an experiment could be one small part of the effort being undertaken with vigor and optimism by the new school team to bring the District system to a higher, more even standard of achievement, one that reflects the quality of our best schools, which are the models. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to my very good friend, the gentleman from San Diego, CA [Mr. Cunningham].

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

Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, I yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from California [Mr. Cunningham], my very good friend and fellow Californian.

Mr. DREIER. I continue to yield to my friend, the gentleman from San Diego, CA [Mr. Cunningham].

Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, this is a modified closed rule providing for consideration of H.R. 2607, the District of Columbia appropriations bill for fiscal year 1998. The rule provides for 1 hour of general debate divided equally between the chairman and ranking minority member of the Committee on Appropriations, waives all points of order against consideration of the bill, and provides that the amendment printed in part 1 of the Committee on Rules report shall be considered as adopted. The rule waives points of order against provisions in the bill, as amended, for failure to comply with clause 2 and clause 6 of rule XXI regarding unauthorized appropriations, legislative provisions, and reappropriations in appropriations bills. The rule provides for consideration of only those amendments printed in part 2 of the Committee on Rules report, by the Member designated, shall be considered as read, shall be debatable for the time specified, shall not be subject to amendment except as specified in the report, and shall not be subject to a division of the question. All points of order against the amendments are waived. The rule also grants the authority to the chairman of the Committee of the Whole to postpone recorded votes on amendments and to reduce the voting time on amendments to 5 minutes provided that the first vote in a series is not less than 15 minutes. Finally, the rule provides for one motion to recommit with or without instructions. Mr. Speaker, earlier this year the Congress passed the National Capital Revitalization Act which transferred certain State functions to the Federal Government and eliminated the traditional Federal payment. The committee's bill reflects those actions, providing for a total of $828 million in Federal funds, including funds to provide pay raises to police officers, firefighters, and teachers. Mr. Speaker, of all the troubles and problems facing our Nation's Capital, I believe the most sad and distressing is in the school system. The district's children, especially those at the lower end of the economic spectrum, are having their futures stolen from them by a failed education system that eats up over half a billion dollars and spends more per student than schools offering a far better education. In the D.C. school system, money is not the problem. Education is first, last and always, Mr. Speaker, about children. Children are the future of the Nation. That is why we must do whatever it takes to improve the education system here. While I believe that parents and local communities can best solve our education problems, this is our Nation's Capital. This Congress has the obligation to step in and do what is right. Every child in America has the right to a safe, drug-free environment in which to learn. That is all too often an unrealized dream for children in this city. We must put parents at the head of the line when it comes to making decisions about education, not government bureaucrats or union bosses. Most important, every child, regardless of income, should receive a quality education. Not one should be left behind because of where she or he lives or because her parents' financial situation is not that strong. Mr. Speaker, this bill is first and foremost prochild because it supports education. Opposition to the education section of this bill cannot be about money. The committee bill spends more on the D.C. public school system than actually was requested by the city. Instead, the opposition to the parental choice provisions in the bill are driven by politics and ideology. It is sad that there are special interests that will do anything to block parental choice. Where we should expect overwhelming support for bold experiments to empower parents to give their children the best education possible, we get extremism in defense of a failed bureaucracy. Well, I believe that we owe it to children starting in this city to give them a better opportunity for a brighter future. Mr. Speaker, I urge Members on both sides of the aisle to look beyond the blinders of special interest ideology and support both the rule and the committee bill. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to my good friend, the gentleman from Falls Church, VA [Mr. Davis], the chairman of the Subcommittee of the District of Columbia of the Committee on Government Reform and Oversight.

Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, I am happy to yield 2 minutes to my good friend and congressional classmate, the gentleman from Virginia [Mr. Wolf].

Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time. I should say, Mr. Speaker, I have a very brief one minute remaining, so I do not plan to yield, even to my friend, the gentleman from Los Angeles, CA [Mr. Dixon]. Mr. Speaker, let me say that what we have come down to here, Mr. Speaker, is a very important question. My friend, the gentleman from Maryland [Mr. Hoyer] just talked about partisanship and ideology. The fact of the matter is we should get beyond those things. I agree with that. What we should do is look at why it is that we are here dealing with this very important question. What is it? We want to empower parents to have some choice to do what? Help their children, improve their plight. Everyone acknowledges that the education system here in the District of Columbia is in very serious trouble. The Washington Post has said we should try this experiment of parental choice, and when we do that, with this experiment we will be spending half as much as is being expended on a per student basis today here in the District of Columbia. So let us put this issue of partisanship and ties to these special interests to the side, and at least try some creativity, an innovative way to deal with this very serious question. I urge support of this bipartisan rule. I said on WAMU this morning, in response to Mark Plotkin, we have a bipartisan agreement on the rule. Let us pass the rule, and then move ahead with what obviously will be a very interesting debate. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time, and I move the previous question on the resolution. The previous question was ordered.

Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, by direction of the Committee on Rules, I call up House Resolution 264 and ask for its immediate consideration.

Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to my friend, the gentleman from Palm Bay, FL [Mr. Weldon].

Mr. DREIER

Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, I object to the vote on the ground that a quorum is not present and make the point of order that a quorum is not present.