Barney Frank

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Speaker, I yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from Oregon (Mr. Blumenauer), who has been one of the two leading Members of Congress in recent years to try to improve this program.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, I want to reinforce what the gentleman from Ohio, the chairman of the subcommittee, said. In the Committee on Financial Services, on a bipartisan basis, we marked up a bill that would authorize increased funding, but accompanied that with some reform. Let me go back to a couple of years ago, when, at the initiative of a bipartisan pairing of Members, our former colleague, Mr. Bereuter of Nebraska and our continuing colleague, the gentleman from Oregon (Mr. Blumenauer) took up the cause of reforming the flood insurance program. We began that process. Frankly, I find it a little ironic. Some of those who have been critical recently of the flood insurance program were some of those who resisted our efforts to make tougher reforms back then. But at the insistence of those two Members who I mentioned, the chairman of the full committee, the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Oxley); the chairman of the subcommittee Mr. Ney and I and others worked hard. We did insist on some reforms. We didn't get everything we wanted. This year, as the gentleman from Ohio pointed out, or last year, in this Congress, we again had a very serious markup in our full committee. It was controversial. One or two items that some of us supported were defeated, but we worked this out, and we had a bill to come to the floor that would have increased borrowing authority, but would also have further reformed the program, and this is a case, by the way, where environmentalism and protecting the taxpayers go together. It is not in anybody's interest to have buildings put into places inappropriately. Unfortunately, the Senate did not show any interest in doing the same, and we have heard some comments from some Members of the Senate about reform, but their preference for reform seems very abstract. It does not often make its way into legislation. The Senate sent us a bill, which, as I understand it, they intended to keep going until July. Frankly, that troubled me, because if we were to extend this program until July, given this being the even year of the session, with all that implies, the likelihood of our getting to the reforms would have diminished. What I like about this bill, and I hope it is a reassurance to some of those who want reforms, our understanding is you can't be precise if you don't know exactly how the spendout is going to be, but this should run out in May. That means that we have got to pass legislation again on this subject, as the gentleman from Ohio said. I want to serve notice now, and I think I speak for the Members on my side, and I know this is something that both the subcommittee chairman and the full committee chairman agree with in desirability, we need to do further reforms. We are not talking about depriving people of the benefit of this program, we are talking about improving it from an environmental and efficiency standpoint. By the way you do people no favor if you encourage them to build where they are then going to be the victims of a diaster. I know the chairmen of the full and subcommittee feel strongly about this. Let me speak for myself. I will support this bill. I will not support a further grant of increased borrowing authority unless we have had a chance to deal with the reforms. If some of the changes that I support are voted on, and I am defeated, I accept that. But to be confronted with a situation where the Senate sends us legislation that simply extends the money without any consideration of reform will be unacceptable to me. I don't want to victimize the people who are there, but it is simply does not comply with our duties to the taxpayers, to the environment, and elsewhere, to the public interest, to simply continue to put more money into this program without further reforms. As I said, we did begin the process. So I will support this now. I am pleased that the chairman of our committee has noted we have a bill which was marked up in our committee, which has some reform. I hope we will bring our further bill to the floor with those reforms and let Members work their will on it and send it to the Senate. But I again want to stress, I agree with those who say we need more reforms. I congratulate the leadership of the committee who have scaled this back in terms of how long it will last, so that we will not get an extension that makes it unlikely that we will be able to do some further reform. I do not plan to support a further increase in funding to keep this program going until both Houses have dealt seriously with the need for reform. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Speaker, a study completed last month by Alicia Sasser, of the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston's New England Public Policy Center, contains good news for those of us who have been pushing for an increase in the minimum wage. Ms. Sasser's very careful and well-documented conclusion is that an increase in the minimum wage in the State of Massachusetts would have significant overall benefits for the people of the State. To summarize her conclusion, ``increasing the minimum wage by $1.50 in Massachusetts is likely to have a small impact on employment--roughly on the order of 1 to 4 percent of affected workers. In addition, according to the analysis presented in this report, the combined impact of the two wage increases (contemplated and pending legislation in Massachusetts) would result in an estimated net wage gain of approximately $255 million. It should be noted, however, that the benefits of this increased wage gain may be diminished if employers respond by cutting hours or reducing their contributions to health insurance.'' It should be noted, Mr. Speaker, that this is an analysis of what will happen in one State if that State alone raises the minimum wage. One of the potential negative effects is the loss of jobs for competitive reasons to the nearby State of New Hampshire, which does not have a minimum wage. What this means is that if we were to adopt a minimum wage increase on the national level, we would get, I believe, the advantages that Ms. Sasser's analysis, shows without that particular competitive disadvantage that comes from two States of virtually identical social composition right next to each other, having significant minimum wage differentials. While obviously there is international economic competition, it is not nearly as direct, especially in the industries that are affected by minimum wage increase. Mr. Speaker, I recommend that Members read this report. It is too long for inclusion here in the Record, but it is New England Public Policy Center Research Report Series, No. 06-1, issued in January. This analysis in my view--I do not impute it to either the Federal Reserve or Ms. Sasser--strongly argues in favor of Federal legislation to raise the minimum wage.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Speaker, this week is Congenital Heart Defects, CHD, Awareness Week. Across America, over 1 million families face the challenges and hardships of raising children with congenital heart defects. Roughly 1 in 125 children are born with 1 of approximately 35 different congenital heart defects in the United States. Some of these are treatable with medications while others require surgeries or even transplants. Heart defects are the No. 1 birth defect in the United States, affecting 32,000 babies in the United States every year. They are also the leading cause of birth defect related deaths worldwide during the first year of life, and while genetics or environmental factors are assumed to be the cause for congenital heart defects, it will take more research to help uncover their cause. The Grace Alice Campbell Foundation, founded by her parents Brenda and Chris Campbell of Mansfield, MA, which is in my district, has been established to raise public awareness of these birth defects, assist in the treatment of these children, and raise research funds to help doctors discover the cause of congenital heart defects and find a cure. Grace Alice was born on September 4, 2003, with Hypoplastic Left Heart Syndrome, and by the time she was 5 months old, she had already had two open-heart surgeries. Now as a toddler, Grace Alice's perseverance is a wonderful example of love and courage for others every day. The foundation, launched by her parents, serves as a support group for the families of those affected, encouraging these families to celebrate life, remember loved ones lost, and to honor dedicated health professionals. I extend my congratulations and express my admiration to the Grace Alice Campbell Foundation for its hard work on behalf of those affected by congenital heart defects and their families. I also ask that, because of the resolve of the Campbell family as well as many others across the country, the article, ``Heart Buddies,'' by Deborah Knight Snyder in the Norton Mirror, published on Friday, February 3, 2006, documenting the courage and struggle of these families, be printed here. Heart Buddies (By Deborah Knight Snyder) One in every 100 babies is born with a heart defect. February 7-14 is Congenital Heart Defects (CHD) Awareness Week, and a group of Massachusetts mothers agrees word needs to get out about the many children living with CHDs. For these mothers, that awareness is simply a way of life, because their children were born with heart defects. ``People know more about conditions like Down's Syndrome and spina bifida than they do about heart defects, when heart defects are actually the number one birth defect in the United States,'' said Lyn McPhail of Braintree during a recent support group meeting in Mansfield for mothers of children with CHDs. Increased consciousness will hopefully lead to more help and, ultimately, to more funding, she said. There are approximately 35 different types of congenital--meaning present at birth--heart defects. McPhail is the mother of 15-month-old Cameron, who was diagnosed with a CHD when he was just 1\1/2\ days old. Cameron has had two heart valve operations already and still needs a valve replacement. The quandary, his mother explains, is what to do next. There is a small mechanical valve available for children who are at least 2 years old, but that valve will become too small as he grows and would ultimately require yet another operation. However, she said, there is clinical testing currently underway in Canada and Europe which could produce better options. ``You're just racing against time,'' she said. McPhail is a member of Heart Buddies, a group of mothers and kids from all over the Boston area who get together every month at each other's homes to lend and provide support. The mothers initially met through literature from Children's Hospital and through Little Hearts, Inc., a Connecticut-based organization which lends support to families of kids with CHDs. The children--who outwardly appear to be healthy, chubby babies and toddlers--play, while the mothers talk about their experiences. The mothers--who sound like cardiologists to the untrained ear--discuss the children's progress and their setbacks, and about new medicines and treatments which could help their kids. When the mothers are together, they share a special bond and code of understanding. Parents of kids who are ``heart healthy''--a term the mothers use to describe children without a CHD--just can't comprehend their daily lives. ``It's nice to able to talk and not have to explain everything,'' said Brenda Campbell of Mansfield, whose daughter, Grace, now 29 months old, was born with a congenital heart defect. ``We can ask each other `does she look blue to you?' That's our life now,'' Campbell said. A bluish color could be an indicator that the child is not getting enough oxygen, and is a possible precursor to these parents' worst fear: that their child is going into congestive heart failure. ``That's certainly a daily worry,'' Lyn McPhail said. Many of the mothers got their diagnoses while they were still pregnant, while others received the news--which they all called ``devastating''--when their babies were just one or two days old. Grace Campbell was born without a left ventricle in her heart. She had her first surgery when she was just six days old and her second surgery at 5\1/2\ months. ``They put in totally different plumbing to help her right ventricle do all the work,'' Brenda Campbell explained. The Campbells have taken a proactive approach by organizing the Mansfield based ``Grace's Run,'' which annually raises money for families with children with CHDs and for Children's Hospital. Zachary Duong of Wilmington was born on the same day as Grace, and his mother, Sheila, met Brenda Campbell in the hospital. Zachary is now 2 years old. He was diagnosed with his CHD the day he was born and was rushed to Children's Hospital, where he spent the first three months of his life. Megan Lea of Mansfield, now 18 months old, was born with a very rare set of CHDs. She has a condition known as Ebstein's anomaly, an abnormality in the tricuspid valve. She also has cardiomyopathy, a disease of the heart muscle that can cause it to lose its pumping strength. With cardiomyopathy, doctors have told the Leas that about one-third of the kids get better, one-third stay the same, and one-third get worse, so Megan's parents have no choice but to wait that one out. There is a possibility that she will need a heart transplant at some point. She will also probably need valve surgery for the Ebstein's anomaly. Right now doctors are trying to manage her conditions with medications, and she is currently on four different heart drugs. Megan was on oxygen for the first 10 months of her life but is now breathing well on her own. ``The progress they're making is unbelievable, but it's scary because we don't know what their future is,'' Ellie Lea said. ``Her cardiologist said that Megan looks a lot better than expected. We just take it one day at a time.'' ``The mother's group is good, because we understand each other,'' she continued. ``Friends who aren't `heart moms' ask, `So, is she all fixed?' '' ``I hate it when people ask that!'' exclaimed Delys Poynton of Braintree, the mother of 19-month-old Amy, who was born with Hypoplastic Left Heart Syndrome (HLHP). Kids with HLHP undergo a total of three operations--known as the Norton procedure, after the doctor who discovered it--and then hope for the best. Like some of her friends in Heart Buddies, Amy has undergone two of those three operations already. ``These little kids have already experienced things most people never have to experience in their whole lives,'' Delys Poynton said. ``They get so used to seeing doctors, they get stranger fatigue'' which affects the way they react to other people. Ellie Lea recalled taking Megan to a hospital to visit a friend, and Megan ``freaked out'' as soon as she got into the hospital. Though just a baby, Megan understood exactly where she was, and she wasn't happy about it. There's a name for the babies' reaction: ``white coat syndrome.'' The children are so used to being poked and prodded by doctors that they develop an aversion to them. Also, Delys Poynton said, many of the CHD kids develop eating problems. ``When you have tubes up your nose for so long, you don't want anything in your mouth,'' she said. Liz Bogyo of Chelmsford is the mother of 14-month-old twins: Allison, who is heart healthy, and Andrew, who was born with a CHD. Andrew was diagnosed when Liz was 17 weeks pregnant. She recalled the trauma and exhaustion of having a brand new baby at home, Allison--``who we didn't even get a chance to know'' because she and her husband were spending so much time at the hospital with Andrew. Andrew has undergone two operations and will have to have one more. If that one goes well, he has an 85 percent chance of survival, his doctors have said. Like the other families, the Bogyos said they take each day at a time and hope for the best. Ruth Kennedy of North Reading found out when she was 19 weeks pregnant that her son, Ewan, now 2 years old, had a CHD. She received an initial diagnosis of just ``heart defect'' with no additional details and recalls ``just sobbing'' as she walked past the other women at Mass General who were waiting to get their ultrasounds. Ewan has had two operations with another one coming up. ``Long-term, they can't tell you what to expect. No one survived before. You just have to take it day by day and be happy with what you have,'' Ruth Kennedy said. Because of the advances they've made in the last 20 years, there is no existing group of adults who would have had access to the medical care these babies are now receiving, the mothers said. Consequently, there is no real information available on what kind of future awaits these children. Their parents have been told by the children's doctors not to expect Olympic athletes, but to hope for a normal life. Still, no one knows for sure. The situation has given the mothers a different outlook on life. ``It's like a poem I heard about,'' Lyn McPhail said. The poem is all about planning for a trip to Italy, and anticipating being in Italy, but when you arrive at your destination, you're actually in Holland. You deal with being in Holland, she said, ``but the dream you had of going to Italy is still very real.'' ``You just appreciate every little thing all the more. You're so grateful for the good things,'' said Ellie Lea. ``It's a very humbling experience.''

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Speaker, in the February 8 issue of the Sun Chronicle, published in Attleboro, Massachusetts, there is a very good article about the reaction of hospitals to the President's proposal to change the Medicare law so that future spending would be less on Medicare than it otherwise would be. In particular, the article quotes Linda Shyavitz, who is the president and CEO of Sturdy Memorial Hospital, an excellent medical facility that serves a very important and diverse population in the city of Attleboro. Reading the article, including the comments of Ms. Shyavitz, reinforced my view that these proposed changes that the President has put forward are ill advised and would do social damage. I think it is important for Members to understand what people who are charged with important responsibilities think about these proposed reductions in future spending patterns that the President has called for, and because Ms. Shyavitz is an extremely well-qualified and thoughtful administrator of a very important medical facility, I was particularly pleased to have this chance to share her views with our colleagues. [From the Sun Chronicle, Feb. 8, 2006] U.S. Budget Cuts Worry Hospitals (By Gloria LaBounty) Attleboro.--Hospital administrators are keeping a wary eye on Congress as it plows through the Bush administration's's proposed cuts in Medicare. ``I think hospitals all over the country will be fighting this,'' said Linda Shyavitz, president and chief executive officer of Sturdy Memorial Hospital in Attleboro. According to initial reports, Bush's new $2.7 trillion budget plan would mean a loss in Massachusetts of $758 million in Medicaid funds. It would also mean a reduction of $213 million in Medicare payments to health-care providers over five years. The Medicaid impact is still vague, however, because the state is redesigning its program, the Massachusetts Hospital Association says. The Medicare piece already has hospitals concerned. Although information so far has been presented in broad terms and details are still days away, Shyavitz said indications are that the proposal could mean a reduction to Sturdy of $575,000 per in Medicare payments. All elderly patients would still be cared for at Sturdy, but the hospital would get less reimbursement for the care it provides. Shyavitz said. Asked how the hospital would compensate for the loss in revenue, Shyavitz said it would be premature to speculate because the information has just come out and the president's intentions are still being absorbed. But she said what hospitals will do in the short term is urge members of Congress to reject the cuts and not support the budget. Paul Wingle, senior director of communications for the state hospital association or MHA, said the Medicare cuts would put a financial strain on hospitals, and more of them would serve patients at a loss, or at a very thin margin. ``Hospitals would have to scramble to make up the loss,'' he said, and some might do that through cutbacks, or through attempts to make up the revenue elsewhere. That in turn creates pressure for rate increases. Shyavitz said hospitals cannot simply raise rates, and would have to negotiate increases with health insurance companies. But she said many hospitals will want to do that if the cuts materialize. Shyavitz said she is confident that Massachusetts congressmen and senators, including Sen. John Kerry and Sen. Edward Kennedy, and U.S. Reps. James McGovern and Barney Frank. will oppose the cuts. Kennedy has already spoken out by telling the Associated Press that Bush's budget proposal ``shortchanges our competitiveness, shortchanges our opportunity, and shortchanges our future.''

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Speaker, many of us want to join in wishing Mrs. Gingrey a happy birthday. And I guess we would say it is 8 o'clock, and she knows where her son is tonight at least. Mr. Speaker, I am troubled by the assault on freedom of expression that we are seeing in the world today. I want to be very clear. The newspaper in Denmark, the name of which I will not even try to pronounce, had every right to print the cartoon. That does not mean the cartoon was not offensive or disrespectful. Free speech, freedom of expression means nothing if it does not mean the right to be mean and disrespectful and obnoxious. It is easy to be for free speech when it is polite and civil and when you agree with it. One of the dangers that comes to free speech are those who say, well, yes, we believe in freedom of speech, but it should be respectful. We believe in freedom of speech, but it has to be reined in. No it does not. Freedom of expression means that as long as you are speaking or writing, as long as you are not acting, you are free to exercise what you think you need to say, what you think you need to write. Now, people who are offended by that writing have every right in return to be very critical and, indeed, even to boycott the organ that printed it. But we see something today that is terribly frightening that goes far beyond it. First of all, we see this extraordinarily disproportionate violent reaction. I am struck that in parts of the Middle East and elsewhere, people who were apparently not moved to action by death and destruction and murder and famine, are moved to violence because somebody printed a cartoon. The values of people who put a cartoon ahead of serious damage to individuals as a cause of outrage are seriously deficient. But it is also wrong when people say they are going to put pressure on the entire nation of Denmark because it will not censor a newspaper. Again, people have a right to boycott the newspaper. People who exercise their free speech have to expect there might be a response. But what we are being told is that people are going to punish the entire nation of Denmark because that government will not censor a newspaper. That is a terrible threat to free speech. It would be a grave error for the country of Denmark to give in. When I read that people are going to boycott Danish goods, I am myself moved to try to go out and buy some Danish food. I wish some of it was not quite so fattening, from what I look at. But we must repudiate the notion that it is legitimate to punish the government and the country of that government because it will not censor a newspaper. That is a terrible threat to free speech. It is a threat to free speech again when people defend the newspaper in such a halfhearted way or when people say, well, they should not have printed that, and we understand why people are doing this. And freedom of speech must be tempered by respect for the views of others. No, it must not. And I speak as someone who has espoused that principle in a variety of categories. I am Jewish and I believe that the Nazis had a legal right to march in Skokie, as despicable as I thought that was, as much as I thought people ought to have expressed their disagreement. I am a patriotic American, but I would not vote to put you in prison if you burned the American flag. And I must say, let us have some consistency here. People who are for jailing those who disrespect the American flag seem to me ought to be thinking about what kind of reaction they are seeing now because people dishonored the prophet Mohammed. There are people who put their religion ahead of their country. That is not necessarily an irrational or an immoral thing to do. Let us be very careful. And by the way, I think that newspapers in the Arab world have a legal right to print vicious anti-Semitic cartoons that deny the Holocaust, that talk about ``The Protocols of the Elders of Zion.'' Again, let us have some consistency here. The consistency ought to be this: people have a right to write or say whatever they wish. People who are offended by that writing or that speech are entitled to retaliate, nonviolently, but by boycotts, by criticism from the person who expresses it. But when we see this kind of violence, when it is suggested that a cartoon justifies violence, when people are halfhearted in condemning the violence, when we have people say that it is legitimate to punish a government, not for publishing a cartoon, but for failing to censor the publication of that cartoon, then free speech is in danger. So I think it is very important for us to say that people may have whatever view they have about the cartoon, but we must speak up against what is a growing systematic campaign of intimidation that will result in a diminution of those important freedoms.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to speak in the gentleman from California's place.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time, the gentleman misses the point entirely. The question is not whether we pass something, which frankly seems to me rather trivial. I am going to vote for it, I think it is better than not. It is interesting it took the party of reform, what, 11 years to stumble across it. But what is important is what is not here. The gentleman misunderstands the legislative process if he thinks that he satisfies it by saying, okay, we will take one piece of this and we will bring it up and we will decide what is up and what is not, and we will open it up to debate. It is the lack of debate that has been a problem. It is also the case, of course, that the corruption we are dealing with goes very deep. And I have to say that the suggestion that the Republican Party, the assertion, is a party of reform simply does not square with the facts. Let us talk about some of the legislation. The problem frankly has not been former Members. When you came to prescription drugs and dealing with the pharmaceutical industry in general, it has been future former Members. That is current Members who plan to be former Members in the arms of the industry that they were voting to regulate. Frankly, Mr. Speaker, we have got a serious systemic problem of corruption that I am prepared at this point to correct myself. I am one of those who talks about in Washington a vast right-wing conspiracy. It now seems clear to me that we instead have had a vast right-wing kleptocracy, and putting people out of the gym is not a beginning of dealing seriously with that problem.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Speaker, the problem that we are dealing with is exemplified by what we are dealing with today, a bill that comes to the floor under suspension of the rules. I do not think the party of reform distinguishes itself by bringing up this issue in a way that does not allow amendment. Why not bring this to the floor in an open rule? The fact is that we have had in this House for years now, under Republican rule, a suppression of democracy, a failure to throw things open. Why was there a necessity to have this under a suspension? Why should not this be open?

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. I do suggest a possible compromise, because there is a certain self-interest. Let us be honest among the Members. Perhaps the modification could be that any former Member using any piece of equipment would have to yield to a current Member.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. I yield to the gentleman from California.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume, and I agree with what the gentleman from Arizona said. We have made a bipartisan effort on our committee, the Committee on Financial Services, to really address the problem of Indian housing, which has shamefully been, I think, ignored and given inadequate attention by both the executive and the legislative branch, and by both parties. There is more than enough blame to go around. We also need to say, and I am myself a supporter of casino enterprises by Indians, but not every tribe has one. Not every tribe wants one. And we need to deal with the fact that while some people have this image of those tribes which have casinos doing very well, there continues to be some of the worst poverty in America on the reservations and among the tribes. This legislation is very important. The gentleman from Arizona and I and others, also earlier this year, had a hearing in which I must say I was dissatisfied with the responses we got. There are questions when you do Indian housing that come out of the land title situation, because of the atypicality by American legal standards of Indian landholding; and we have not had at either the legislative or executive branch or on behalf of either party the attention that the people deserve to their housing needs. This is a step. It is not the end. I am glad we are doing this. But I think I can serve notice, and I know the gentleman from Arizona agrees with me, that next year those people in the executive branch charged with this can be expected to be held to a much higher standard of performance than they have been held to before. We are determined to correct this situation. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 30 seconds. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the gentleman mentioning our colleague from Utah (Mr. Matheson), who has been very active in this, and also the staffs from our committee have worked very well together. I think it is the first time that such attention has been devoted at both the Member and staff level. I am very appreciative of our ability to do that together. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Kucinich).

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Speaker, first I would yield to the gentlewoman from New York (Mrs. Maloney) for a unanimous consent request. (Mrs. MALONEY asked and was given permission to revise and extend her remarks.)

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Reserving the right to object, Mr. Speaker, we have before us a very well-done bill, and what is before us is good and useful and constructive. I do have to call attention, however, to a glaring omission caused by the Senate. When our committee considered this measure to merge the insurance funds, the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Waters) offered a proposal to establish what we call lifeline banking, a provision to extend to very low-income people the ability to get into the banking system at no cost to themselves, lessening the likelihood that they would go to payday lenders or check-cashing institutions to send excessively expensive money orders. And we worked this out and there were discussions with the representatives of the bankers, and we arrived at a satisfactory means of paying for it. It is not a very expensive proposal, and it would have done significant social good. Unfortunately, the Senate simply refused to consider it. The Senate procedure on a number of the bills we have sent over has been arbitrary and the result has been unfortunate. What is left, it is still a good bill and worth passing; but I did want to call attention to this just to say to some who do not understand this, there are many of us prepared to work constructively with the financial community and the business community to help advance their ability to serve the economy. When they insist that we do that, without paying some attention to the needs of the lowest-income people in this society, they make a great mistake. They are making that mistake here; there is nothing that we can correct. Mr. Speaker, I withdraw my reservation of objection.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Speaker, in the combination of institutional incompetence and ideological extremism that has us contemplating this bill at this hour with further important legislation to go, all kinds of stuff gets put in and the regular process gets degraded. I just want to call attention to one wholly irrelevant provision, irrelevant to the defense. The Boy Scouts of America have been found by States and cities to be violating their anti-discrimination policies with regard to both sexual orientation and religion, and some cities have said that they do not want anyone who fails to follow their State or city's policy getting free facilities. That I suppose can be debated or not as to whether it is right or wrong, but it does not seem to me that there is any argument for having it in the Armed Services authorization bill in a Congress run by supposed States rights conservatives, a provision that says to every city in America you will let the Boy Scouts use your facilities for free whether or not you think they violate the law against discrimination based on religion or sexual orientation. Now, that is probably going to be found unconstitutional, but I find that to be way beyond the scope of this bill and an example of the degradation of the legislative process that it is in here.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Speaker, I am struck by the extent to which the right wing seems not to understand how unpopular their agenda is. It is their inability to get a majority for it that keeps us here so many days after we should have gone. It is also interesting to watch them try to deny the very, very deep conservatism of the nominee for the Supreme Court, Judge Alito. They are hiding his views on abortion. Recently, in the Boston Globe, an article by Kenneth Starr and Ronald Cass tried to explain away one of the most astounding examples of his extreme conservatism: his opposition to the basic principle of one man, one vote as articulated by the Warren Court. And given the difficulty of trying to get someone confirmed who has views that extreme, these two advocates tried to explain it away by claiming it was all about gerrymandering and proportional representation. Fortunately, Professor Michael Tolley of Northeastern University wrote a very good letter exposing the inaccuracy of this attempted defense of Judge Alito and reaffirming that in fact what was involved in his 1985 statement was an objection to that basic principle of democracy articulated by the Warren Court, that it should be one man, one vote. The following are the inaccurate article and the correction: Alito's Sticky Thicket (By Kenneth W. Starr and Ronald A. Cass) A Political sidebar that made surprising news the last few weeks is a phrase in a 1986 job application from now-Judge Sam Alito questioning the Warren Court's reappointment decisions. That tidbit sent shock waves through the political and pundit classes. It shouldn't have. Justice-to-be Alito's statement wasn't an attack on equality, voting rights, or protecting victims of racial discrimination. It was a simple observation that a liberal court created a doctrine that, however salutary, has significant problems. Americans have long embraced the idea of equality from ``all men are created equal'' forward. Equality did not mean identical political influence in every respect. Yet the past 40 years have seen repeated judicial efforts to prescribe something that looks like identical influence for voters. Prior to 1962, the Supreme Court rejected efforts to draw the judiciary into the ``political thicket'' of apportionment. That changed with Baker v. Carr, when the court decreed that states could not depart too far from the principle of ``one-man, one-vote'' in allocating legislative representatives. Since then, the problem has been figuring, out what is too far. Politicians often attempt to allocate political representation in ways that both dramatically increase and decrease the influence of citizens' votes. But the Framers designed checks and balances to prevent any group from dominating another permanently or from taking property or liberty to serve prejudice or politics. Integral was a division of government power reflecting different influences, some defined by historical boundaries, others by more local populations. The Constitution does not sweepingly embrace one theory of political representation but instead allocates power in several disparate ways. Useful as ``one-person, one-vote'' is, it isn't a universal directive. Consider the Senate. The Constitution decrees that each state has two senators, regardless of the state's population or acreage. In contrast, the House of Representatives is based mostly on population, except for the requirement that each state have at least one representative. Making House districts roughly equal has been a source of dispute for 200 years. In the early 1800s, Elbridge Gerry redistricted Massachusetts to help his political allies, creating one district shaped like a salamander--thus giving birth to the term ``Gerrymander.'' After Baker v. Carr, the courts have insisted on greater degrees of mathematical equivalence in votes across districts. Since then, the problems associated with apportionment have grown. The Supreme Court rejected a plan with less than seven-10ths of one percent difference among districts. Courts have repeatedly invalidated efforts to draw lines between districts without totally disrupting traditionally established communities. At times the result has been to divide neighborhoods. Added attention to other aspects of the reapportionment process, encompassing equality along racial and ethnic lines as well as across geographic districts, spawned further opportunities for realigning political districts to suit political interests rather than historical ones. Although boundary adjustments probably have increased minority representation in Congress, the jurisprudence of reapportionment has become needlessly complex and largely ineffective. The court has permitted a realignment of political power to advantage incumbents, create more safe districts, and facilitate greater division among elected representatives who no longer have to appeal to swing voters. After fragments on the standards on racial gerrymandering, the court came up with no realistic way to assess what constitutes political gerrymandering. As Justice O'Connor said in Davis v. Bandemer in 1986--roughly contemporaneous with Judge Alito's statement--the court's effort to identify political gerrymandering was ``flawed from its inception.'' Justice O'Connor charged that the court's decisions have been ``contrary to the intent of [the] Framers and to the traditions of this Republic.'' No one should be alarmed that Alito--like many other justices--found some aspect of the court's reapportionment decisions unfortunate. His position should reassure us that, as a justice, he will be open to seeing the flaws as well as the virtues of constitutional decision-making by judges. That is an important virtue in a Supreme Court justice. Alito's Views and O'Connor's (By Michael Tolley) Be alarmed when two partisan advocates--Kenneth W. Starr and Ronald A. Cass--say ``no one should be alarmed'' (``Alito's sticky thicket,'' op ed, Dec. 11). Their attempt to defend Judge Samuel Alito's disagreement with the Warren Court's reapportionment decisions by linking his position to Justice Sandra Day O'Connor's views fails for two reasons: The two quotes they rely on in Davis v. Bandemer (1986) express O'Connor's view on whether the 14th Amendment's equal protection clause requires the principle of ``proportional representation,'' not the principle of fundamental voting equality--one person, one vote. Second, Baker v. Carr (1962) and Reynolds v. Sims (1964), two of the landmark Warren Court decisions on reapportionment that Alito disagreed with, are actually treated favorably in O'Connor's concurring opinion in Davis v. Bandemer. O'Connor was careful to distinguish the Supreme Court's legitimate concern about racial gerrymandering from partisan gerrymandering at issue in Davis v. Bandemer. Only by misreading O'Connor's opinion can Starr and Cass bring Alito's views in line with moderate justice he has been nominated to replace. Does Alito believe, like O'Connor, in the principle of ``one person, one vote''? Or is he against the use of federal judicial power to remedy discrimination resulting from malapportioned legislative districts? The difference between disagreeing with the extension of the principle ``on person, one vote'' to issues such as partisan gerrymandering and disagreeing with the principle of ``one person, one vote'' is the difference between a moderate and someone out of the judicial mainstream.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman will yield for just a moment, I want to thank the gentleman for his graciousness on that, and I appreciate that.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Speaker, if someone had said some of the most fiscally, self-proclaimed, conservative members of the House were going to come to the floor and ask us to spend $100 billion or $200 billion on a nonessential project, people would have said, when pigs fly. Well, that is this bill. Did you see who got up to speak? Everybody who has got a NASA facility. The pork is very much in this bill, but it is flying pork. So this is literally the occasion when pigs fly, at least in the nature of pork, when all of the representatives of the NASA places come up here. Now, I agree with the gentleman from New York and my friend from Cleveland.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. I yield briefly to my friend from Ohio.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. The gentleman may not consume pork, but he sure produces it. The fact is that we are about to take up a continuing resolution that will make severe cuts in many, many important programs here on earth, and we will be told that the problem is the fiscal constraints. Members will lament the fact that we cannot adequately fund health care and environment and transportation and other things, and then we vote for a bill that says, as a binding policy, we are going to send a man to Mars. My friend from Missouri asks me, well, what happens when he gets there? Well, he comes back. That is why it is so expensive. I agree about what was said about aeronautics; it is so important. I agree with space experimentation, primarily unmanned. But sending human beings to Mars, which this bill unfortunately endorses, is an extravagance; it is a psychological stunt. The amount of scientific gain you get comes from the aeronautics, from the unmanned space, even from some of the manned space in a more limited way. But when I first got here, we were told we had to do the space shuttle because we had to compete with the Soviet Union, and I did not think it was a good idea, the space station, not the space shuttle. Then the Cold War ended, and now we are told we have to keep doing the space station to cooperate with the Soviet Union. If we go a few more years, we will have to do it in memory of the Soviet Union. There is a determination to spend far beyond any rational principle. I agree with much of what is here, but going to Mars? A country that faces the fiscal problems we face? We are quibbling, we are arguing over how well to protect New Orleans: Do we go to category 3 or category 4? But then in this parallel universe, we are going to spend $200 billion to send men to Mars. Of course, you can tell it is a parallel universe; it is the one no one lives in; it is the one where they are willing to spend money. So as you are told to accept the tough cuts that the gentleman from Wisconsin is going to outline when you vote for that CR and when you try to tell people back home, ``I am sorry, I could not give you money for health care and for education and for the environment and for transportation,'' remember that you are mortgaging that with this useless piece of flying pork of sending men to Mars.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?