Sam Farr

Mr. FARR of California

Mr. FARR of California. We do not even need to go back to last year. We can talk about this year. We have the same action by the Republican leadership in the Senate this year on the bill that was a counter bill to the one the gentleman has authored in this House.

Mr. FARR of California. I thank the Speaker.

Mr. FARR of California. I thank the Speaker. We have a few minutes left. I would rather not yield to the gentleman. He can have the next hour and speak as much as he wants.

Mr. FARR of California. Mr. Speaker, I am not sure they can even get enough support from their own Congress. Fortunately I do not think they will get the support.

Mr. FARR of California. Reclaiming my time, Mr. Speaker, does the gentleman get the sense that this reform effort, so-called reform effort by the Republican leadership is actually imploding on them, that it is blowing up? Because we frankly have, between the Members that have cosponsored your bill and the Members that have voted for my bill in the past, we have enough votes to put our bill out. Frankly, we have enough time left where that bill could become law and signed by the President, and we have a letter from the President saying, if the measure gets to his desk, he will sign it. He is very supportive of the Farr bill. I get the sense that one of the reasons we see a lot of this sort of slippage and speculation here that things are blowing up is because we really have a chance to do campaign reform because the American public has spoken. They want it. They like this bill. They like your bill. They like my bill. They like them so much better than the alternative that they have allowed their voices to be heard here in Washington. The letters are coming in. The League of Women Voters, a strong advocate group here, nonpartisan, has let Congress know that they want to see campaign reform. Does the gentleman have a sense that the Republican bill is really exploding in their face, so to speak?

Mr. FARR of California. It may speak to how bad it has gotten in Washington. That is that the interests that you just talked about and others really would not want a campaign reform bill. You can see them out lobbying against it. What it would do, it would limit the amount of money that they could give any one candidate. It would require that if they put out bulletins independent of the candidate, that they would have to disclose those as a campaign piece. If they put out your voting record and said your voting record is good because it supports us or it is bad because it opposes us, that at campaign time could be considered a campaign piece, and they would have to be registered as giving an in-kind contribution to the candidate that it benefited. They do not like that. They do not want that kind of disclosure. So this campaign reform really hits, the Democratic version hits at the very concerns that some of the biggest special interests and most controversial special interests in Washington have. On the other hand, the leadership bill comes to the floor with no limits. They could buy and sell and own campaign elections throughout America.

Mr. FARR of California. Thank you, Mr. Speaker. People come here from all over the world to watch Congress in session. It is an opportunity to see how in this country laws are made. What we are about tonight is the special order talking about what is going on in a room upstairs here called the Committee on Rules room, where they determine the rules to bring bills to the floor: whether the bill will come to the floor, what kind of amendments can be offered to the bill, how much time there will be for debate, whether the amendments are in order. As we saw, this was the promise that this would be the week that these issues would all be addressed on the floor. We are here at almost 10:30 at night in Washington, DC, and we have no resolution to this promise that was made to this Congress.

Mr. FARR of California. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the gentleman's remarks. I want to continue on, because we have in the gallery tonight guests that are here watching this debate, and I think we see night after night people coming here to watch. announcement by the speaker pro tempore

Mr. FARR of California. I appreciate you coming down tonight. You have a family, it is a little late, and you have young kids at home. I hope you will get a chance to see them tonight with the little time that is left. That will leave the gentleman from Massachusetts [Mr. Meehan] and myself here. We have been two of the sponsors of the major alternatives to the bad bill that we have been talking about all night. I want to just publicly thank you for the effort that you have had in leading the bipartisan effort to bring a sensible bill to the floor for a vote, and hopefully you will get that vote. I am certainly supportive of it. If that is not successful, then the bill that I have authored, which is just about the same bill with some minor changes, I hope will prevail in lieu of that.

Mr. FARR of California. I appreciate my colleague's passion on this, Mr. Speaker. The gentleman got married last weekend and he is down here giving up part of his honeymoon to be here and talk about reform week.

Mr. FARR of California. Mr. Speaker, before the gentleman leaves, I just want to comment, and I think it is true in your office, and I would be curious to know, we have received 362 letters in favor of limiting campaign finance in congressional campaigns. We have received two to suggest we ought to spend more money, or are opposed to the limits. It is running over 150 to 1 in favor of exactly what we are doing. I presume your mail is in the same category, so what boggles my mind is how do you come up with a bill they have come up with that goes just opposite, that blows all the lids, takes all the limits off current law and says just more money, more expensive campaigns, money buys influence, let us get more of it?

Mr. FARR of California. I am glad the gentleman asked, because in the 103d Congress with a bipartisan vote, we passed a bill over to the Senate. It was very similar to the bill that President Bush had vetoed in 1992. That bill ironically was filibustered by none other than Senator Gramm who blocked it from the conferees being appointed. It was again a Republican defeat of a Democratic bill as it had been in the 102d, in the 101st and 100th Congress, every one of those Congresses.

Mr. FARR of California

Mr. FARR of California. And look what has happened this year and last year. What we have seen here and why we even need to have a reform week is some of the abuses of this institution that have been carried out by this leadership, lobbyists literally sitting and writing the bills, not the paid professional staff of Congress. Lobbyists and former Members who are lobbyists being able to be at the dais during a debate, the fact that the attack has been on sort of the monied interests, the money interests that would rather cut it out for us rather than preserve it, the money interests that would rather pollute our drinking water than clean it up, the money interests that would rather keep minimum wage from being passed and signed into law, the money interests that would like to make sure that welfare reform is all about just making people work, which is fine, but who is going to provide the jobs out there? So you begin to see that there is a very conservative agenda building in Congress, and that agenda is only thwarted by the fact that this room is made up of a awful lot of diverse people who come here with viewpoints different from just a one standard cookie-cutter financial bottom line ``what is in it for me,'' and that has been able to make the Congress the vibrant place that it is. If you do not like the product that is coming out of here and the product that the Democratic leadership is adding here, you want to change that, and the best way to change that is to change the Members of Congress, and if you can make those Members of Congress more reflect just that bottom-line mentality that everything has a price tag on it, there is not a better way to do that than the campaign reform bill, the campaign--no reforming it--the campaign bill that has been introduced by our colleague, Mr. Thomas.

Mr. FARR of California. I agree with the gentleman. I want to defer here for a moment to our colleague, Frank Pallone, who has been in this well many, many nights. We just heard him on the concern of welfare reform. I really appreciate it. I think he pointed out to us that in that debate we have a lot of people to come down to the well as conservatives who seem to know the price of everything and the value of nothing. Transfer that into campaign reform and that price tag is in their favor. I appreciate you coming tonight to discuss this issue.

Mr. FARR of California. Well, I think what your bill and my bill, which is very similar to it, very minor differences, frankly, our bills, we are relatively new to Congress, but our bills are based on what this House has been able to produce in the 103d Congress, the 102d Congress, the 101st Congress, going all the way back to 1988 to the 100th Congress. The Democrats have led in putting our campaign reform bills that are very much similar to the bill that we are trying to get on the floor now and in fact had gotten through this House, and every time they have been blocked by the Republican leadership. In fact, in one case in 1992, President Bush just before the Presidential elections in 1992 vetoed the campaign reform passed by both the House and the Senate. We are back at it again, and I think what is so shocking about where we are now, because some of the controversies in that bill were that you had vouchers, essentially the process where taxpayers would help pay for the cost of campaigns and that was always very controversial. Took those out. No longer in the bill. And what do we see come along from the other side? Nothing about reform. There is no reform in the Republican leadership bill. There is no reform in the reform week of the Republican dialog. We are here tonight, three colleagues who are down in the trenches fighting for these issues and I think we are befuddled, we are just amazed that the bill they brought forth this week essentially allows you to auction off seats in the U.S. Congress. It says, if you have got money, come on down. Buy yourself a campaign seat. Move into a district where there is a poor person living or does not have much wealth. Use your own wealth, because you know to run for Congress, interesting thing that a lot of people do not understand, the first time you run, you do not have to live in the district. You can move in and I would not be surprised if there was not an attempt to sort of organize people around this country to say, hey, you with a lot of money, if you really want to get a seat in the U.S. Congress, go find a district under the Republican campaign reform bill that would allow you to use your own money to get elected. There is no reform in the Republican bill, and we are here tonight appalled not only at that, and we will go into some of the details, but I think to also express our dismay at the fact that we could not get reform week dealt with, we could not get your bill on the floor, and who knows whether we will ever get our bill, the Democratic majority bill on the floor.

Mr. FARR of California. That is each year.

Mr. FARR of California. I would like to follow up on that point because the bill that we designed, I think it is important to point out, the Democratic bill and the bipartisan bill limit the amount of money you can spend in an election. ``Limit,'' you will not find that word in the Republican bill. The word ``limit'' is not there. What we have tried to look at in tailoring this bill, and frankly, you know why it has been so difficult, because everybody who got elected to Congress is an expert on how they got here. And everybody has their own way. And they are biased in one way or another. So it is very difficult to put together a bill that can garner enough votes to get off this House, but history has shown that Democrats have been able to do that. Let me point out quickly what we do here. The Supreme Court has said you cannot limit free speech and free speech is, essentially, you cannot limit what people want to spend by themselves or others want to spend on you unless you can show that that money is corrupting. And some of us argue that massive amounts of money do corrupt. But that is a debate yet to be held in the court. We have approached this saying, however, the court has never said, and we think it is constitutional, that if you voluntarily limit yourself and say, I want to run for U.S. Congress and I am going to operate under this proposal that we have here, that we are offering, that says, OK, you cannot spend more than $600,000. You limit yourself to that. You challenge your opponents to limit themselves to that. Once you have done that, that triggers the mix that you are talking about. OK, $600,000 is all you can spend. That is a lot of money. That is over a half a million dollars. That is what was the average to get elected, in 1994, to the U.S. Congress. You have districts like New York and Los Angeles and Chicago where you go out and buy media and radio and television, much more expensive than buying it in very small rural areas. So some campaigns are more expensive and some are less. But that is the average, $600,000. You say, all right, of that $600,000, going back to your mix, only a third of it, $200,000, can be raised from political action committees. By the way, we limit the amount that any one political action committee can give to you. We lower the current law rate. We say, OK, the other third, up to $200,000, can be raised from what we call wealthy contributions. We define those as anybody who can contribute $200 or more. The final third can be raised or even more can be raised by small contributions, but in no way can the small, large, and PAC contributions in aggregate exceed $600,000. So we have the mix there. You cannot be unduly influenced. We have limits there. And that is so important to beginning a step about campaign reform. And lastly let me say one of the things that really bothers me about the Republican bill. It sounds like good government, and I think a lot of people listening will say it is. They require that if you are going to run for Congress, you have to raise 50 percent of your money in your district. That sounds good, in your district. But think about it for a minute. What if you live in a really poor district, and because in their bill they put no limits on what an individual can contribute, and by the way in our bill you cannot contribute more than $50,000 of your own money. So if you are a very wealthy person, you are limited if you want to go by the campaign reform limits. But they do not do that. So what you are doing is you are saying this is where you get into this debate about the fairness of this in-district stuff, and you will find if you go around in Congress, it is not the people that have the money that are worrying about this. It is the people that come from districts that do not have the money that are very worried. They are worried that they are being penalized. I have to raise my money from my district, and I can have my opponent spend any kind of money they want and get help from their party on a national level on top of that. The reform bill, the bipartisan bill, was fair about that. They addressed it and say you have to raise the money in your State. They did not limit it just to your district. So I think, frankly, if we go back and look at the Republican effort and why it is so threatening, so damaging, to representational government is--and you listen to the people who got elected, people of color, women, the things that the kind of people that ought to be in the United States Congress--we ought to be reflective of the people we govern out there, and frankly we know, sitting here tonight, and, you know, three white males; that is the dominant composure of the United States Congress. That is not the dominant composure of the American electorate. Mr. MEEHAN, If the gentleman will yield, to follow up on that, not only those from poorer districts, but what has also happened with the recent United States Supreme Court decision relative to political parties making contributions in districts, this bill would allow, the Republican bill, would allow hundreds of thousands of dollars of special-interest contributions that a party would raise and go in and basically try to buy that election. Well, why would they want to do that? Well, they want to do that because they are out-raising Democrats by record numbers. Why are they out-raising Democrats? Because we do not have hearings any more in the House of Representatives. All of the legislation that we are dealing with, somebody decides over here or over there without a hearing, behind closed doors, and then it comes to the floor, and we see that the very interest that we are to be protecting people against have helped write the bills. And those same interests time and time again show up on campaign reports, show up contributing to the parties, and then the parties are going to be able to take this money and influence individual districts all over America. That is taking the power away from individual districts and bringing it into the party bosses in Washington where they will determine whether it is 2 or 3 or $400,000 in negative ads or whatever they are going to decide. That is exactly what the American people do not want. They do not want Washington to be determining who wins a congressional election. They want to decide those races at home. So that is the other point on that, this bill that would, according to the Republican bill, an individual could conceivably donate $3.1 million to State and national parties cumulatively. Think about it.

Mr. FARR of California. Mr. Speaker, I rise tonight during this hour of special orders to bring to the attention of this country, and particularly to my colleagues in this House, what is going on here in Washington, what is going on here in this Congress at this moment. We heard earlier speakers talk about this was going to be the week that has been postponed, and it had been postponed that we were going to have Reform Week, where Congress was going to address all of those issues that the constituents of this country, the people, have said are broken and need fixing. This was the week to fix things. Just hours ago we were told that the issue that we have all been waiting for, one of the biggest issues facing the United States in this election year, campaign reform, has now been taken off the table. Postponed until next week, and who knows, if not taken up next week, maybe indefinitely. I am here tonight to talk with some of my colleagues about the importance of campaign reform. I am serving in my 21st year of elective office, having been in local government, State government. I do not think there has been a time in those 21 years when people did not ask me what we are going to do about campaign reform. In California, a big State, we have done a lot. It certainly is not enough because there are two measures on the ballot this November that will radically change campaign law for election to State and local office. Perhaps the one that is most focused on is the Federal law that governs all of us who get elected to the United States Congress. This is an issue that we have been working on for many years. My colleague, Marty Meehan, from Massachusetts, has been a strong voice from the moment he arrived, talking about the need for Congress to address campaign reform. Indeed, he led a bipartisan effort to put together a bill that he spoke about earlier tonight that had about an even number of Democrats and Republicans cosponsor it. The Republican leadership will not even allow that bill to come to the floor for a vote. Why? Perhaps Mr. Meehan might want to join me here in discussing why his bill cannot even get to the floor, and I yield to the gentleman from Massachusetts [Mr. Meehan].

Mr. FARR of California

Mr. FARR of California. Mr. Speaker, I rise tonight on the eve of this august body going into a debate on campaign finance reform. I think it is important in this hour of special orders to really discuss what is reform. The choice before this Congress is going to very clear. One bill will come before us that says we need to spend more money in campaigns. The other bill will be coming before us that says we have to spend less. I believe that less money is reform. More power to small contributors is reform. Preventing rich people from buying public office is reform. Eliminating soft money is reform. Leveling the playing field is reform. Limiting special influence in campaigns is reform. The bill that I authored, called the Farr bill does all these things. The Farr bill is reform. The Farr bill imposes voluntary spending limits. It imposes aggregate PAC limits. It reduces the PAC's max out from $10,000 to $8,000. It imposes aggregate large donor limits. Large donor in my bill is defined as anyone who gives $200 or more. It provides public benefits to all candidates, challengers, and incumbents alike. It levels the playing field for those who abide by the spending limits. It curbs campaign persuasion mail that is sent out under the phony guise of educational information. The American people want reform, not more of the same. For a Congress that despite its partisan differences has addressed the issue of reform, the gift ban, the lobbying reform, the congressional compliance, we should not let the opportunity for real campaign finance reform get away from us now. The American people want this. In the past months my office has logged 368 constituent letters in support of limits on money in congressional raises. In that same period of time, my office has logged exactly two constituent letters against limits on money in congressional races. I submit to my colleagues, if they check their offices, I think they will find the same ratio. My bill, which I hope to offer on Thursday during the floor debate, has one priority and one priority only: To control campaign spending. The money chase now in this country is out of control. In the past years, Congress has tried to put the break on the money chase. But each time the Republican leadership has prevented that from happening. Let us look at the record. In 1987, the Republicans filibustered a camapaign fiance bill in the Senate. In 1989, the House passed a bill but the Republicans delayed action in 1990 and set it until it was too late to appoint the conferees. In 1991, the House and Senate passed bills and later, in 1992, a final conference report was signed and sent to President George Bush and he vetoed it. In 1993, the House and Senate passed bills but in 1994, the Republicans blocked the appointment of conferees. Since 1987, Democrats have been in the forefront of moving campaign finance reform. Here we are again today. We have toiled at bringing campaign finance reform to American politics for nearly a decade. We will not rest until we get it. The Democrat bill which I offer contains real reform that will make real changes to the electoral process in this country. My will seeks to reduce the power of money in elections and return that power to the people. Too much money too often decides who gets to Congress and who does not. Congress should be more reflective of the American population. Right now Congress is full of, and I must admit, white males like me. But my bill levels the playing field so that we will see more minorities, more women, more moderate income persons serving in the United States Congress, those who can run for office and be competitive. If we do not stop the money chase, if we do not stop wealthy people from buying office, this Congress will be one big elitist white boys club. If we do not impose some limits, as my bill does, if we do not enhance disclosure requirements, as my bill does, if we do not level the playing field, as my bill does, the American people will continue to complain about the influence of money in elections, about not being able to trace where the money comes from, about Congress not doing what it is supposed to to clean up the system. We have a chance this week on Thursday to clean up the system. I urge Members to take a look at my bill, take a look, and I speak to my colleagues on the other side of the aisle, take a look at H.R. 3505 and join me in voting for something that is really positive. Join me in showing the American people that like the gift ban, like lobbying reform, like the compliance act, this Congress can do what is right and enact serious reform to bring order out of chaos.

Mr. FARR of California

Mr. FARR of California. Mr. Speaker, today I rise to pay tribute to Carlos Lleras, a man who exemplifies the very best in public service. He retires this month after valiantly serving his country of Colombia for the past 2 years as their Ambassador to the United States. Ambassador Lleras has diligently represented his people, and it has been my pleasure to work with him through his tenure. His distinguished background will serve him well as he enters the next stage of his professional career. Ambassador Lleras came to the United States of America in 1994 with impressive credentials. While he draws upon his vast intellectual capacity in fields as expansive as agrology, economics, and law, he is masterful in his application of this knowledge. His past is as broad as it is deep, and I am confident that he will continue to hold the people of Colombia close and dear to his heart in his future endeavors. Ambassador Lleras received his juris doctor in law and social science from the Colegio Mayor de Nuestra Senora del Rosario. He received a diploma in civil cassation in 1960. By the time he was 24 years of age, Ambassador Lleras had already become a municipal judge and professor of economics at the Fundacion Universidad de Bogota Jorge Tadeo Lozano. One year later, in 1962, he had become professor of political science at the Universidad de America, and was also appointed dean of the faculty of natural resources at the Fundacion Universidad de Bogota Jorge Tadeo Lozano, a post he would hold for the ensuing 4 years. By 1966, Ambassador Lleras had additionally been appointed academic dean, and given an honorary degree in agrology. Ambassador Lleras then went on to lead the Universidad de Bogota Jorge Tadeo Lozano to excellence as their president from 1969 to 1972. In addition to Ambassador Lleras' impressive academic achievements, he has also pursued other fields of interest with the same tenacity. He has been the president of numerous organizations, such as the Edible Grase and Oil Producers Federation and the National Federation of Automobile Dealers. Ambassador Lleras has also been the honorary president of the Colombian Society of Business Administrators, president of the Advisory Committee of the Colombian Institute of Foreign Trade for the reform of the Andean Pact and a columnist for the ``El Tiempo'' newspaper in Bogota. In 1993 he became cojudge for the Constitutional Court and within a year he was a precandidate for the Presidency of Colombia with the liberal party. Though the United States and Colombia have not always seen eye to eye, I am proud to say that we have worked together through these differences, and Ambassador Lleras has played a pivotal role in this dichotomy. Having spent several years in Colombia during the 1960's in the Peace Corps, I am reassured knowing that he will be returning to his wonderful and beautiful homeland, with a renewed interest in serving the people of Colombia. As Ambassador, he pulled together the Returned Peace Corps volunteers who have formed Friends of Colombia to begin a continued copartnership to help the Peace Corps spirit to flourish. During his tenure I have developed a close and strong liaison with Ambassador Lleras and I will not only be sad to see him leave on a personal level, but also for the sake of the Colombian people, whom he has so well served for the past 2 years. Mr. Speaker, I ask my colleagues to join with me today in honoring Ambassador Lleras, a very rare and special individual who combines the best of both the academic and professional worlds. Throughout his life, and especially during the past 2 years, Ambassador Lleras has been committed to the ideals of leadership based upon the principle of compassion. Ambassador Lleras is a true public servant and will be dearly missed. I wish him well in his future endeavors.

Mr. FARR of California

Mr. FARR of California. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman from Massachusetts for yielding. As one of the great leaders of human rights issues, I appreciate his time. I cannot believe that we call ourselves lawmakers. I think we fail to ask ourselves what is broke here that needs fixing. Our country has just gone through 220 years without Federal law on marriages. Think about it. We do not have Federal a marriage license. People get married under State law. Some States allow people to marry cousins. Some States allow persons committing statutory rape to have the rape dropped if they marry the person. States do not regulate how many times someone can get married, they do not regulate how many times someone can get a divorce. So why is this bill called the Defense of Marriage Act? It does not improve marriages, and it takes away States' rights. This bill is not about marriage, because the Federal Government does not marry people. This bill is about meanness, it is about taking away States' right to enact a law that would allow an elderly man or an elderly woman, maybe a grandmother, even someone's grandfather, from receiving the benefits or giving benefits to a caretaker of the same sex who they may marry for only the reasons of being able to inherit property. It says that the only way someone can leave Social Security benefits or medical care benefits or Federal estate tax deductions is if they married someone of the opposite sex. Elderly people often live together with friends of the same sex. If a State wants to honor that arrangement for tax benefit purposes equal to marriage, this bill would ban it. My wife and I have raised our daughter in a loving supportive relationship. Our daughter recently asked us, ``Why is your generation so homophobic?'' I told her that it was the last civil rights battle in America. She said, ``I hope you solve it because our generation, it's no big deal.'' Let us listen to our elderly, let us listen to our youth; make laws that help people, not hurt them. Reject this mean-spirited bill. Women could not own property. There could not be marriage between the races. Many things change over time, Mr. Chairman. This, too, is going to change. I would like to pay tribute, special personal tribute to the gentleman from Georgia [Mr. Lewis], to Dr. King, to all those of both parties and no parties. There was nothing partisan about that movement; there is and ought never to be anything partisan about this, the final chapter in the history of the civil rights of this country. I wish I could remember, I used to know the entirety of that ``I Have a Dream'' speech, but we will rise up and live out the full meaning of our Creator. It may not be this year and it certainly will not be this Congress, but it will happen As I said earlier, we can embrace that change and welcome it, or we can resist it, but there is nothing on God's Earth that we can do to stop it.

Mr. FARR of California

Mr. FARR of California. Mr. Chairman, I obviously will be very brief. As my colleagues can tell, I am a great supporter of AmeriCorps. I think it is one of the greatest programs that we have done here in Congress, and I hope that we will give it strong support, increasing support. The issue here is not AmeriCorps. It is about cost. And remember that it is not just a debate about cost, but it is a debate about value. Defeat these amendments. It is not just the price of everything, but it is also the value of something. The AmeriCorps is a great value to this country.

Mr. FARR of California. Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to these amendments to cut back on AmeriCorps. Let me just tell my colleagues a personal story. In 1960, when President Kennedy got elected, I was a young college student. He introduced the concept that young Americans could serve this country by serving in the Peace Corps. I and 60 other Members of Congress now serving joined the Peace Corps all at different times and had this incredible experience. That cost this country probably about $18,000 for 2 years experience. I think everybody will recognize that on the 35th anniversary of the Peace Corps that this country has gotten out a lot more than it has put in. I think AmeriCorps serves the same purpose in this country and certainly it has gotten even stronger support by the private sector than Peace Corps ever had. AmeriCorps is getting private funding from General Electric Corp., from Tenneco Gas, from Nike Shoes, from Fannie Mae, and others because this program is out reaching the needs of this country and in places where all of the good programs that we in the Federal Government try to trickle down to the people, they still do not reach certain hard niche areas. AmeriCorps is doing that. Part of AmeriCorps is certainly bringing together the attention of the private nonprofits in this country that we need to collaborate. I find that the AmeriCorps volunteers in our district are doing an incredible job and get complimented all the time. In fact, what they want is more and more. It gets to the issue here then, as you get more sophisticated in your dealing with the management of AmeriCorps and the management of felt needs in the local communities, you are going to need these leadership training programs sufficient as offered at the Presidio in San Francisco. I think it would be a great damage to this country to even cut back on AmeriCorps, to cut back on the programs that are supporting AmeriCorps and, in fact, if anything this Congress ought to be increasing it, not making a political football out of it. I ask that Members reject these amendments.

Mr. FARR of California

Mr. FARR of California. Mr. Chairman, I was inadvertently detained during rollcall vote No. 278. Had I been present I would have voted ``no.''

Mr. FARR of California

Mr. FARR of California. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in recognition of a highly acclaimed cartoonist and cultural advocate who recently announced his retirement. Gustavo Montano Arriola, known to most as Gus, is the creator of the famous cartoon ``Gordo.'' For more than 44 years he maintained a large and faithful following while introducing an American audience to Mexican customs and traditions. Mr. Arriola began animating directly after high school at Screen Gems, then with Columbia on ``Krazy Kat.'' He pursued his art working in the MGM Cartoon Department on the story sketch of the cat and mouse series ``Tom and Jerry,'' then created the incomparable `'Gordo'' strip. Mr. Arriola has earned many awards and honors which exemplify his great contributions to society. In 1957, ``in recognition of his pioneering and bringing design and color to a `new high' in the field of newspaper comic strips,'' he was awarded a distinguished artist citation by the San Francisco Artists Club. Mr. Arriola was also honored with the Citizen of the Year award from Parade of Nations, Inc., which stated, `` `Gordo' exemplified the positive attitudes and educational efforts that best produce intercultural understanding.'' The California State Assembly and Senate awarded Mr. Arriola with a great honor from the people of California by declaring a `'Gus Arriola Day,'' thus, immortalizing this great man. Mr. Arriola was also awarded two National Cartoonist Society awards, both in 1957 and 1965 for best humor strip. In addition, he was honored by the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, DC, for his tribute to author Rachel Carson. Mr. Arriola has also contributed his artwork to support numerous community causes. He has lent his creative talent to the Alliance on Aging, Beacon House, Carmel Art Association, Carmel Foundation, Carmel Public Library Foundation, Community Hospital of the Monterey Peninsula, Crosby Golf Youth Center, Friends of Sunset Foundation, Guide Dogs for the Blind, Hospice of the Central Coast, Monterey History and Art Association, Monterey Jazz Festival, Monterey Peninsula Museum of Art, Ombudsmen, Pacific Grove Art Association, Pacific Grove Museum of National History, Red Cross, Salvation Army, and the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. He is a humanitarian willing to help people by contributing his influential work to their issue. In response to a question about his retirement, Mr. Arriola quotes from the late writer and naturalist John Burroughs stating: ``I still find the days too short for all the thought I want to think, all the books I want to read, all the walks I want to take and all the friends I want to see.'' I continue to wish the best for Gus Arriola, who I know is finding new and creative ways to make his mark on the world.