Barney Frank

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Watt).

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 20 seconds. The gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Sensenbrenner) earlier implied that I was being inconsistent because I said I was for habeas corpus. He quoted something. He has just cited the inadequacy of habeas corpus in this case. Yes, I am for habeas corpus. This goes, as he just acknowledged, far beyond it. Secondly, he acknowledged our objections to this individual private bill on one case by blaming the Senate. In other words, he has acknowledged that this is an inappropriate bill and that is all we have said. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Cleaver).

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from Indiana (Ms. Carson).

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from Ohio (Ms. Kaptur).

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2\1/4\ minutes to the gentlewoman from Florida (Ms. Wasserman Schultz).

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Speaker, I yield the balance of my time to the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Hoyer), our whip, the ranking member on our side who is here tonight, to close on our side. The minority leader, who is traveling overseas, is unable, obviously, to be here.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Speaker, I recently had to be the bearer of bad news to the Town of Westport, Massachusetts. Westport is a wonderful place to live, in substantial part because of its natural environment, and the great care that the people of the town take to preserve the great gift which that environment is. Recently, I met with the selectmen of the town to discuss their very reasonable proposal for a dredging project, to cost between $500,000 and $600,000. I told them at the time that we would have trouble because of what has been, in my judgment, excessive tax-cutting leaving us unable to meet basic needs of our society in many ways. Not even the most ardent advocates of tax cuts have claimed that they are in any way capable of dredging a harbor. Subsequently, after sharing with the selectmen the fact that this would be tough, I received a copy of a letter from the Army Corps of Engineers, making clear that it would be even tougher because of cutbacks in their already inadequate funds imposed upon them by the Bush Administration. The newspaper Westport Shorelines initially editorialized in a very eloquent way about this very regrettable decision, and I ask that the Westport Shorelines' excellent analysis be printed here so that Members can get a fuller understanding of the implications of some of the budget cuts that are being imposed. [From Westport Shorelines, March 10, 2005] Our Little Harbor Doesn't Fit Into Feds' Big Picture Al Qaeda doesn't much care about Westport Harbor so neither do we. That is the gist of the federal message to Westport this week. In a brief note out of the blue, the feds notified Westport that they won't help dredge the harbor channel after all. Federal money, the note states, is ``now being allocated to those ports and harbors of greatest national significance . . . Future funding for small harbors such as Westport is unlikely at this time.'' In those few words, the Army Corps of Engineers cedes victory to the sand. Without dredging soon, the main channel will inevitably choke with sand--in places that has already happened. The fate of the fishermen, boatyard and ecosystems that rely on a free-flowing river rank low on the federal priority list. Don't blame the Army Corps for this one--the decision comes from much higher places. The Army Corps recognized the need and was an enthusiastic participant in the $600,000 project, assisting with expertise, studies and the lion's share of the funding. After years of effort by the Army Corps and Westport dredge committee, the long awaited job was about to happen. The feasibility study was complete (the project passed with flying colors), and final permitting was nearly set. Stopping it now amounts to much more than inconvenience and delay. All those costly studies have short shelf lives. If allowed to expire,they must be done anew from scratch. It really amounts to one more instance of a fiscal federal priority system overwhelmed by Iraq, tax cuts and all things anti-terrorism. Although the Iraq/terror link remains murky, the war continues to cost by some estimates $177 million a day, $7.4 million per hour (the Westport dredge project equals about five minutes on the Iraq clock), leaving precious little for much else. And while there is no denying the need to keep the homeland secure, throwing money at terrorists won't make them go away. Lawmakers trip over themselves to obtain ``anti-terror'' grants by the boatload for local police and fire departments, never mind that the ``terror'' link can be sketchy (last week it was $90,000 to the Portsmouth Fire Department for sprinklers). If we allow our nation terror obsession to drive this nation to financial ruin, the terrorists win anyway. We already pay dearly, and loss of this dredge project is but one small example. The Westport Harbor channel may not be of ``great national significance'' but it is no less than a lifeline for people here.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Speaker, last month, Anthony Barsamian, Chairman of the Board of Directors for the Armenian Assembly of America, made an eloquent speech at the ``International Refuge, Relief and Recognition Tribute'' hosted by the Armenian-American community in California. Mr. Barsamian eloquently stressed the importance to all of us of remembering that ``the history of genocide must remain inviolable and periodically affirmed regardless of political discomfort or cost so that we may learn its lessons.'' Mr. Speaker, I think it is a grave error that this Congress has not been allowed to vote on a resolution affirming this important point with regard to the terrible history of the genocide perpetrated against the Armenians. We cannot allow current foreign policy considerations to override our obligation in this critical area. Anthony Barsamian cogently and forcefully reminds us why such an omission is unacceptable, and I ask that his moving, thoughtful remarks be printed here. Assembly Board of Directors Chairman Anthony Barsamian's Remarks at the ``International Refuge, Relief and Recognition Tribute''--February 24, 2005 Your Eminence, Reverend clergy, Your Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen, This remembrance and recognition highlights two issues of critical importance to the horrific recurrence of Genocide and the apparent impotence of the world to stop this crime against us all. First, the history of genocide must remain inviolable and periodically affirmed regardless of political discomfort or cost so that we may learn its lessons. Second, the actions of 3rd parties are vital to raising awareness about the crime as soon as it becomes known, to taking resolute steps to end the genocidal process, to bring to account the perpetrators, to provide comfort to the survivors, and to forever remember all instances of genocide. This is why the Armenian Assembly joined with the AGBU and the Diocese to remember those nations and organizations that took action while the Armenian Genocide was being carried out and subsequently. Armenians remain deeply indebted to all who refused the easy path of indifference and inaction. You saved lives, you affirmed the truth, and you bore witness so that the world would be better equipped to act on the meaning of ``Never Again''. As is evident today, the Republic of Turkey refuses to accept the judgment of history that the Ottoman Turkish government committed genocide against its Armenian minority. Instead, Turkey attempts to impose its revisionism on a civilized world that knows better, but occasionally succumbs to Turkish demands and intimidation by refraining from affirming the truth. Nations who had initially committed to participate in this recognition commemoration withdrew in the face of such Turkish pressure. This solves nothing. The dead are not honored for their sacrifice. The actions of the righteous are not recalled. And ironically, the descendants of the victimizers are not allowed to come to terms with the truth. Nevertheless, we pause today as we begin this 90th commemorative year to give thanks to all nations and organizations that came to our aid--but particularly to those that attended today despite the Turkish government's campaign to stop you. For Turkey's state sponsored denial effort, having this event is a defeat. This is a good day for the truth. As Armenian-Americans, we recall with special appreciation the leading role of the United States in attempting to prevent the Armenian Genocide and in aiding those that survived. As Armenian-Americans, we look to the United States to continue this proud chapter of American history by reaffirming the facts of this most calamitous chapter of Armenian history. There is an inevitability to universal affirmation of the Armenian Genocide, and America has not and will not be an exception. A case in point is the recently concluded visit of U.S. Ambassador to Armenia John Evans with major Armenian-American communities across the country. In his public commentaries, Ambassador Evans repeatedly employed the words ``Armenian Genocide'' to properly characterize the attempted annihilation of our people by Ottoman Turkey. This is in keeping with President Reagan's proclamation of April 22, 1981 where he stated in part, ``like the genocide of the Armenians before it, and the genocide of the Cambodians which followed it--and like too many other persecutions of too many other people--the lessons of the Holocaust must never be forgotten''. . . And also with the thrust of President Bush's 2001 to 2004 April 24 messages that set forth the textbook definition of genocide without using the word. Ambassador Evans completed the thought. The Ambassador's characterization also is in keeping with the public declarations of over 120 renowned Holocaust and Genocide scholars regarding ``the incontestable fact of the Armenian Genocide''. Further, Ambassador Evans' characterization conforms to the summary conclusion of the International Center for Transitional Justice on the use of the term Armenian Genocide. ICTJ stated that ``the Events, viewed collectively, can thus be said to include all of the elements of the crime of genocide as defined in the Convention, and legal scholars as well as historians, politicians, journalists and other people would be justified in continuing to so describe them.'' The Armenian-American community will not rest until the United States formally and irrevocably reaffirms the Armenian Genocide. By so doing, we forever advance the special role of the United States in genocide prevention. Today, we are here to honor 17 nations who have joined the movement towards universal affirmation of the Armenian Genocide. You have appropriately remembered this instance of man's inhumanity to man. You have stepped forward to combat denial and revisionism. We will never forget your solidarity. As Voltaire said, ``to the living we owe respect, but to the dead we owe only the truth''.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent in the interest of civility that the vote on H.R. 841 be vacated and a rollcall be allowed.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Chairman, the history is ambiguous. Courts have been on both sides. The principle is what is involved. We are told that if we adopt this amendment, we are denying the liberty to religious organizations. The liberty that is being asked, frankly I am disappointed to hear this asserted, and I think the greatest denigration of religious organizations coming forward here are those who are saying this: there are religious groups in this country who are eager to help people in need, but if they get Federal tax dollars to help people in need and they are forced to associate with heathens and unbelievers and infidels, then they will be driven away. What is so terrible about saying to the Orthodox Jews in Brooklyn who were cited, you want to help the people in Brooklyn, the people you want to help will be black and Hispanic, they will be white and poor and Jewish and Christian, if you really want to help them, on your own, whatever you want to do, you can do. But if you want all of those people in Brooklyn who paid Federal taxes, if you want a share of their Federal taxes to run a program to help them, God forbid, I guess you mean this literally, God forbid you should have to hire one of them. Martin Luther King said, and it is sadly still true, that one of the most segregated times in America is the hour of worship. So understand that when you empower the religious groups to discriminate based on religion, you will also de facto empower some segregation. Those Orthodox Jewish groups in Brooklyn will hire very few black people in Brooklyn. And if in fact you have a policy that says all the money is going to go in these areas to the religious groups, then what about people who are not religious? The Constitution says you should not discriminate against them. You may not think much of them, but you should not be discriminating against them, but they cannot ever get a job. And you talk about message. I love this message. What we are going to be saying if you win here in the House of Representatives is, attention all Shiites, do not hire Sunnis. That is your principle. Apparently, we are going to be encouraging the people in Iraq with Iraqi Government money or American Government money, a lot of it is going to Iraq, do you really think you want to send that message to the Shiites that when they try to rebuild their country they should not hire Sunnis? And what are you saying? That there is something somehow so corrosive about associating with someone of a different religion that it disables you from doing good? What kind of motivation do you impute to these people? You want to do good, but you should not have to associate with one of those people. By the way, even you acknowledge that the people being served have to be of all religions. So this religious purity that apparently is so essential has already been dissolved. But here is the point: we are being asked to say to Americans, yes, you will pay taxes for this; but the taxes you pay, you are not eligible for a job because you believe in the wrong God. Or you believe in God in the wrong way. You believe in the wrong denomination. Or you do not believe. Again, what are you saying? Is it really the case that religious organizations, that they are somehow so angry towards outsiders, that they feel so unclean that they cannot help people in need if they have to associate with people who are otherwise perfectly qualified, who believe in the mission of this entity, but they do not share the same religion? I hope we will not so characterize religious people as being so narrow and so biased towards people not of their own religion that they cannot even work with them in this common cause to which you say they are committed.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Speaker, this week the U.S. Congress is honoring one of the true giants of sports history, Jackie Robinson. There is a little-known chapter in Mr. Robinson's career that is chronicled in the attached narrative. That chapter details an act of courage and creativity in the political life of Boston by Isadore Muchnick, a Boston City Councillor who served in the 1940s in the city. He deserves recognition for his achievement in obtaining a tryout for Jackie Robinson with the Boston Red Sox. It also puts in context the courage and determination that Jackie Robinson displayed throughout his long and illustrious career in baseball. It is a privilege for me to place this excerpted chapter, from the book ``Shut Out: A Story of Race and Baseball in Boston'' by Howard Bryant, into the Record. Jackie Robinson's Tryout With the Boston Red Sox, April 1945, Excerpted From ``Shut Out: A Story of Race and Baseball in Boston,'' by Howard Bryant Virtually everything about Boston baseball is conditional. What would have happened if. . . So who knew that on April 16, 1945, the Red Sox would once more approach history's intersection? With FDR on his deathbed and World War II winding down, fate and the last vestige of a city's social conscience conspired and put the Red Sox in a historic position. At the end of World War II, the question of black rights in America was again relevant. Asking black soldiers to fight and die for the liberty denied them at home created renewed dialogue. Now, baseball found itself at the center of the argument. Black soldiers could not die on the battlefield and still be prohibited from playing center field in the major leagues. Segregation was an unbreakable rule. That blacks played in separate leagues was a practice that went largely unquestioned. When debate was stirred, either from a relentless black press or from the few mainstream white reporters who made integration a cause, there was always a reason why the time was not prudent for the majors to open their doors to blacks. The only groups that were truly vociferous in their appeals stood on the fringes of the mainstream. But during the latter half of 1944 and in the early months of 1945, Eddie Collins was uncomfortable. He was the vice president and general manager of the Red Sox and was now being pressured by Isadore Muchnick, a liberal Jewish city councilor, who demanded the Red Sox begin offering some form of talent evaluation of black players. It was a threatening concept. Baseball prohibited black players from the major leagues in 1884, and no serious challenges to that authority had arisen. The desire to keep blacks out of the major leagues existed in great degree from the players all the way to the commissioner's office. Shunned, blacks created their own leagues, and the races played the same game on patently uneven tracks. To some, the very existence of the Negro leagues was proof that blacks didn't care to play in the big leagues. Yet here was an emboldened Muchnick, potentially unsettling the balance. For emphasis, he approached Collins with a hammer. In those days in Boston, a permit was required to play baseball on Sundays. The city council required a unanimous vote for the permit to be granted. Muchnick told Collins he would withhold his vote unless the Red Sox agreed to sponsor a tryout for black players, a potentially crippling financial blow. This was a new pressure. Led by Muchnick's threat and with consistent commentary in the black press (and to a lesser degree the mainstream), integration advocates pushed baseball as they hadn't before the war. Dave Egan from the Boston Record pushed in his column for the Red Sox or the Braves to be consistent with the Boston pedigree and lead the major leagues into a new, integrated era. Wendell Smith, columnist from the black weekly Pittsburgh Courier, joined Egan in challenging Collins as well as other general managers across the league to offer tryouts to black players. Sam Lacy of the Baltimore Afro-American had vainly tried to push for integration in 1939. In 1945, Lacy and Collins began corresponding about integration. It was, however, Muchnick's voice and clout that turned a cadre of disparate voices into something of a movement. Mabray ``Doc'' Kountze, perhaps the preeminent black reporter in Boston, referred to Muchnick as a ``white modern abolitionist.'' Muchnick was the first person in the modern era to pressure baseball's power structure and come away with a tangible result. The Boston Red Sox would be the first team in the twentieth century to hold a tryout for black players. ``I cannot understand,'' Muchnick wrote to Collins in late 1944, ``how baseball, which claims to be the national sport and which . . . receives special favors and dispensation from the Federal Government because of alleged moral value can continue a pre-Civil War attitude toward American citizens because of the color of their skins.'' What Collins did next was a clear reflection of both the unassailable mindset of baseball as well as the arrogance of the Red Sox. ``As I wrote to one of your fellow councilors last April,'' Collins replied to Muchnick in a letter, ``I have been connected with the Red Sox for twelve years and during that time we have never had a single request for a tryout by a colored applicant. It is beyond my understanding how anyone could insinuate or believe that all ball players, regardless of race, color or creed have not been treated in the American way so far as having an equal opportunity to play for the Red Sox.'' Collins' cordial inaction insulted Muchnick, who pressed further. Collins had no intention of even granting the tryout, but he had badly underestimated Muchnick's tenacity. Collins was used to being in a position of strength when he dealt with baseball issues, but it was clear that he couldn't say a few positive, encouraging words to rid himself of Isadore Muchnick, a man who was determined to see tangible progress. When he received no satisfaction from their written correspondence in 1944, Muchnick alerted Collins to his intention to block the Red Sox from playing baseball on Sundays. It was a potentially crippling blow. In the 1940s, baseball clubs were almost completely dependent upon gate receipts as a revenue source. To infringe on that would surely get the attention of any baseball owner. Jackie Robinson was fatalistic about the tryout. He didn't believe the Red Sox were serious about integration and wasn't especially thrilled about his own situation. He had only played for the Negro League's Kansas City Monarchs for a few weeks and was already disappointed by the league's air of gambling and disorganization. When Robinson arrived in Boston, the tryout was delayed for two more days in the wake of Franklin Roosevelt's death. [It] finally took place at Fenway Park at eleven on the morning of April 16, 1945. Two above-average Negro leaguers, Sam Jethroe and Marvin Williams, joined Jackie Robinson. The players fielded, threw, and took batting practice. [Manager Joe] Cronin sat, according to one account, ``stone-faced.'' Another depicted Cronin barely watching at all. Muchnick marveled at the hitting ability of Robinson, whose mood apparently darkened. Joe Cashman of the Boston Record sat with Cronin that day and reported that the manager was impressed with Robinson. He wrote cryptically, with virtually little comprehension, that he could have been witnessing a historic moment. ``Before departing, Joe and his coaches spent some 90 minutes in the stands at Fenway surveying three Negro candidates. Why they came from such distant spots to work out for the Red Sox was not learned.'' Robinson himself was satisfied with his performance, although by the time he left Fenway he was smoldering about what he felt to be a humiliating charade. As the three players departed, Eddie Collins told them they would hear from the Red Sox in the near future. None of them ever heard from the Red Sox again. Eighteen months later, the Dodgers signed Robinson, who would begin a legendary career a year and half later. Jethroe, at age thirty-three, integrated Boston pro baseball with the Braves in 1950 and would become the National League Rookie of the Year. Williams would stay in the Negro leagues, never again coming so close to the majors. The remaining details of that morning are completely speculative. Robinson never spoke in real detail about the tryout. Joe Cronin never offered a complete account about the tryout except to say that he remembered that it occurred, although he and Robinson would never speak. Thirty-four years later, Cronin explained the Red Sox position as well as the game's: ``I remember the tryout very well. But after it, we told them our only farm club available was in Louisville, Kentucky, and we didn't think they'd be interested in going there because of the racial feelings at the time. Besides, this was after the season had started and we didn't sign players off tryouts in those days to play in the big leagues. I was in no position to offer them a job. The general manager did the hiring and there was an unwritten rule at that time against hiring black players. I was just the manager. ``It was a great mistake by us. He [Robinson] turned out to be a great player. But no feeling existed about it. We just accepted things the way they were. I recall talking to some players and they felt that they didn't want us to break up their league. We all thought because of the times, it was good to have separate leagues.'' Clif Keane would give the day its historical significance. A reporter for the Globe, Keane said he heard a person yell from the stands during the tryout. The words--``Get those niggers off the field''--were never attributed to one person, but they have haunted the Red Sox . . . Numerous Red Sox officials have been credited with the taunt, if it was ever said at all. What cannot be disputed about the events of that April day are the final results and the consequences that followed. It was an episode from which the reputation and perception of the franchise have never recovered. ``I still remember how I hit the ball that day, good to all fields,'' Robinson later said. ``What happened? Nothing!'' Thus the tryout ended bitterly for Jackie Robinson. But that evening, he accepted a dinner invitation at 9 Powelton Road in Dorchester. It was the home of Ann and Isadore Muchnick, the city councilor who pressured Eddie Collins and arranged the Boston tryout. Why young Robinson, who was 26 at the time, would be invited to dinner made perfect sense to Ann Muchnick. Fifty years later, she would recall the reason with a warm smile. ``Because no one else asked him.'' Isadore Harry Yaver Muchnick was born on January 11, 1908, in Boston's West End, on a residential neighborhood that no longer exists. There existed among the four children of Joseph and Fannie Muchnick strong beliefs in justice, fairness, competition, accomplishment, and the power of education. All four children of these Russian Jewish immigrants would attend college. Izzy received the first double promotion at the renowned Boston Latin School since Benjamin Franklin. He played goal in college hockey and lacrosse, lettering in lacrosse for Harvard in 1928. Activism was a trademark for Izzy Muchnick from almost the very beginning. [H]e and his wife Ann were active in HIAS, the Hebrew Immigrants in America Society, and Hadassah, the women's Zionist organization, as well as numerous other Jewish organizations in Boston. Izzy Muchnick commanded a principled, homespun rhetoric and possessed a natural political sense that would serve him well throughout his life. He taught his children lessons laced with humor, always containing morals of family and simple decency. Being Jewish in 1940s America carried a considerable weight of prejudice, but Muchnick possessed a skill and integrity that led him to be respected by both the Irish, who controlled city government, and the entrenched Yankees, who dominated Boston's cultural, legal, and financial world. He did this without becoming an outcast from his own community, and such a balance required real political skill. Muchnick graduated from Harvard College in 1928 and from Harvard Law in 1932. The Yankee law firms that wanted [to hire] him also wanted something else in return for their lucrative offers: A name change. ``Muchnick'' was too ethnic, too Jewish. It wasn't a request that Muchnick was asked to think over. That was a condition of employment. Muchnick responded by opening up his own law firm. If there existed in Isadore Muchnick the indignant streak of a person straddling two entrenched worlds, it was in the political realm where he felt he could best remedy injustices. [A]fter being elected to the city council in 1941, Muchnick found himself in constant opposition to the majority. He fought for equal pay for women in the city's patronage jobs and supported a redistricting of the city's schools that would have created some integration of public schools long before the eruptions of the 1970s. He was a classic East Coast liberal. There was something about Muchnick, something both admirable and self-destructive about his unfailing adherence to his principles. Both of his children would marvel at the number of times their father would align with the underdog. In her personal papers, his wife Ann would note how much her husband gave of himself, often at the expense of more lucrative prospects. He consistently found himself on the minority side of issues. Perhaps even had he wanted to opt for safer ground, his personal convictions wouldn't allow it. In this regard he found kinship with the uncompromising Robinson. The duplicity of baseball angered Izzy Muchnick. He was a Red Sox fan, but the game's contradictions conflicted with his worldview. If it was the game that was supposed to represent the goodness of America, the ultimate arena of fairness, how could it be staunchly segregated? How, he wondered, could this impregnable line of segregation--which baseball maintained did not exist--go unchallenged for so long? Blacks were relegated to the inferior Negro leagues, went the baseball rhetoric, because they liked it there. Perhaps even more than the game's obvious contradictions, it offended Muchnick that its government-endowed protection against competition and uncontested national standing produced in team owners a certain kind of arrogance. Their dance around integration was especially off-putting to a man of his credentials. No law prohibiting black players existed in the league's charter, although no team had fielded a black player since 1884. For a man for whom standing on the right side of an issue was an absolute must, history would not be kind to Isadore Muchnick. [H]is reputation, in fact, would be destroyed by one [myth] that would be repeated so often that it became fact. Instead of being known as the first politician to use his clout courageously and confront a resistant power structure, Muchnick emerged as something worse than forgotten, as the opportunistic, oily politician who sought to exploit both Robinson and the black struggle for civil rights. Al Hirshberg, one of the first Jewish sportswriters in Boston, wrote in his 1973 book What's the Matter with the Red Sox? that Wendell Smith was the architect behind the tryout and that Muchnick saw a solution to a precarious political future: ``Wendell Smith, a television news announcer in Chicago before his death, had been fighting the color line for years as sports editor of a Negro newspaper in Pittsburgh. Because of a quirk in Boston's Sunday baseball law, he saw a chance to force one of the Boston clubs to give black players a tryout in the spring of 1945. ``At the time, although Boston had had Sunday baseball for some years, the law Smith found was that it had to be voted on unanimously for renewal every year by the Boston City Council. One of the council members, Isadore H.Y. Muchnick, represented Roxbury, originally a Jewish stronghold but becoming predominately black. Smith suggested to Muchnick that he could insure a big black vote in his district by withholding his vote for Sunday baseball until one of the two ball clubs tried out a few black players.'' In Baseball's Great Experiment: Jackie Robinson and His Legacy, Jules Tygiel wrote that in Boston, ``The Red Sox and Braves found themselves in a curious position as they prepared to start the new season. The city council, under the leadership of Isadore Muchnick, a white politician representing a predominately black district, was pressuring the two teams to employ blacks.'' Arnold Rampersad's thorough Jackie Robinson: A Biography stated, ``behind the tryout was the action of a Boston city councilman and Harvard College graduate Isadore H.Y. Muchnick. In 1944, seeing his constituency change steadily from mainly Jewish to mainly black, Muchnick joined the ragtag band of critics fighting Jim Crow in baseball.'' These historical accounts were not only inaccurate but were also a reflection of the crudity of the conventional thinking. The only reason Muchnick would become involved, so went the thinking, was to win a political prize. In the eyes of his children, it was not an innocent journalistic mistake that snowballed. Rather, the result, thought Fran Goldstein, was the permanent besmirching of her father's name. Muchnick was accused of acting to ingratiate himself to a new black constituency, but in 1940, Izzy Muchnick's Mattapan district was 99.69 percent white. In 1950, it was 99 percent white. During that year, 439 nonwhites lived among the district's 51,170 residents. In two of his elections, Muchnick ran unopposed. In short, there was no black vote for Muchnick to exploit, nor was there during the 1940s any difficult election year for him. It wasn't until the middle to late 1960s, after Muchnick was dead, that his old district turned from Jewish to black, which occurred long after Muchnick traded bitter letters with Eddie Collins. Hirshberg once apologized to Muchnick's son David for the error. Outside of his personal commitment to fairness, Izzy Muchnick had no political motive to act on behalf of blacks. There weren't yet many blacks to work for in the first place. How Muchnick's name was not only omitted from the Robinson tryout but was also subsequently brutalized in the retellings of the event is open to troubling interpretations. The truth, however, is that the first American politician to disrupt the idea of segregated baseball and emerge with a result was Isadore Muchnick, the former Hebrew School teacher who could have made a fortune in a Yankee law firm had he only changed his name. Muchnick pressured the Red Sox to integrate because he was the rare person who--like Robinson--often placed principle in front of political or personal pragmatism. Glenn Stout, who along with Dick Johnson would write the most complete book ever on the history of the Red Sox franchise, never believed that Muchnick approached the Red Sox with the intention of receiving anything. ``It's much more the opposite. Looking at what he did I'm sure was not very popular. Otherwise, he wouldn't have been the only one hanging out there. You could say that what he did was political suicide.'' What did emerge after the failed tryout of 1945 was a legitimate friendship between Jackie Robinson and the Muchnick family. When Robinson was signed by the Dodgers, Muchnick wrote him a letter that read in part, ``My congratulations and best wishes to you on your well-deserved promotion to the Brooklyn Dodgers! Since the day when you first came here with Wendell Smith of The Pittsburgh Courier and I arranged for you and two other boys to get a tryout with the Boston Red Sox, I have naturally followed your career with great interest. I have every confidence you will make the grade.'' The Muchnick house became a regular stop for Robinson when the Dodgers came to town to play the Boston Braves. After Robinson retired, he sent Muchnick a copy of his autobiography with journalist Carl Rowan with the inscription, ``To my friend Isadore Muchnick with sincere appreciation for all you meant to my baseball career. I hope you enjoy `Wait Til Next Year.' Much of it was inspired by your attitudes and beliefs.'' Izzy and Jackie remained in frequent contact over the years. Robinson and one of his sons came to Boston at Muchnick's invitation to speak at a father-and-son breakfast at Muchnick's synagogue. The two men engaged in heated debate about the 1960 presidential election. Muchnick was a lifelong Democrat, and Robinson, in a move he would later regret, backed Nixon. There was a clear spiritual connection between Robinson and Muchnick. Robinson, battered and weary from the fight, died too young of a heart attack in 1972. He was only fifty-three years old. Isadore Muchnick died nine years earlier, in 1963, but he was just as young, fifty-five at the time. His will to live, David Muchnick believed, was enormous. Over his final five years, Muchnick suffered seven heart attacks. On a rainy night in 1957, Muchnick received a frantic call at 5 A.M. from a former city councilor's wife. Her husband had gone out drinking and had not come home that night. Muchnick crawled out of bed and went out into the drizzly Boston night to look for his old colleague. At 9 A.M., Ann Muchnick received a phone call of her own. Izzy had suffered a major heart attack and had been rushed to Massachusetts General Hospital, which sits in Boston's old West End near Izzy Muchnick's boyhood home. It was Muchnick who used his influence to push the door open, to force the Red Sox and baseball to publicly face itself. Even if Joe Cronin and Eddie Collins weren't paying attention, Branch Rickey most certainly was. Slowly, the landscape began to change. In 1998, Ann Muchnick died. She was eighty-nine. In prior years, the daughter asked for family information and the mother obliged with poignant recollections. She wrote that her husband ``was a wonderful man . . . helped so many, so many abused his help, took advantage of him. I could name dozens, but better forgotten.'' They also spoke of Jackie Robinson not as the man spurned by the Red Sox, but as their friend. ``It was the Red Sox's loss,'' Ann Muchnick said of the whole tryout affair. ``It wasn't his loss. Look at the career he had. He lost nothing. It was the Red Sox who lost everything.'' In Robinson's autobiography with Carl Rowan lay another tribute to Muchnick. ``Without the pushers and the crusaders, the waiters wait in vain; without people like Damon Runyon, and Branch Rickey, Wendell Smith and Isadore Muchnick, Jackie and the Negro might still be waiting for their hour in organized baseball.'' In the end, the Robinson tryout failed because the Boston Red Sox were reticent from the outset. Led by Eddie Collins, the club had no real intention of acting beyond that April morning or as history would show for more than a decade thereafter. Within the organization, there was no guiding force, no catalyst with the vision to make integration a reality, and in years to come this would become the critical characteristic of the Boston Red Sox regarding race. Had there been a central figure in Boston, a Branch Rickey or even a Gussie Busch, who provided some form of vision, the Red Sox script would indeed have been different. It is more than a little damning that the months before the tryout and even after, it was Collins who represented the club and not Tom Yawkey, who stood invisible. At a time when the Red Sox stood at the precipice of baseball history, the team's owner lay deep in the background. Tom Yawkey was the only figure in the organization with the power to act boldly, and whether or not he harbored a personal dislike for blacks is secondary to his silence. That silence, in effect, would become a closing indictment. No different than the curved maze of streets in its city, the Red Sox lacked a clear-cut moral direction on race; against this, the combined pioneering spirit of Isadore Muchnick and Jackie Robinson never stood a chance.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Speaker, the town of Wellesley, Massachusetts, recently suffered a great loss with the death of R. Arnold Wakelin, Jr., who was the town's Executive Director of General Government, and who had served the residents of the town with dedication, distinction and creativity through 47 years. Local government isn't glamorous. It is simply necessary. It is to our local governments that we entrust some of the most important responsibilities that affect our lives. Policing, fire fighting, public sanitation, snow removal, street maintenance, recreation, and of course education are carried out along with a number of other activities essential to the quality of our lives, especially in urban areas, at the local government level. R. Arnold Wakelin was a gifted individual who, fortunately for the people of the town of Wellesley, chose to employ his considerable talents on behalf of the fellow citizens of the town he loved and served so well. He began his work for the town in 1957 after leaving the Air Force where he served for 3 years, and his ability and dedication quickly led to a series of promotions which culminated in his being the Chief Executive of the town. In addition, he served on the town's retirement board and he was a leader in the Wellesley Kiwanis Club, additional outlets for his desire to serve his fellow citizens. Mr. Speaker, I join with the residents of the town in mourning his passing while celebrating and expressing thanks for his extraordinary service. The example he set of effective concern for the well being of others is an inspiring one and I ask that the recognition by the town of Wellesley of the wonderful career of Arnold Wakelin be noted here. Resolution in Memory of R. Arnold Wakelin, Jr. Whereas, on November 8th 2004, the Town of Wellesley was saddened by the death of our esteemed Executive Director of General Government, R. Arnold Wakelin, Jr. Arnold made numerous and impressive contributions to the Town of Wellesley and its residents throughout his forty-seven years of service. With his passing, Wellesley lost a dedicated leader and faithful friend; Whereas, in addition to Executive Director, Arnold served as a valued member of the Town's Retirement Board. He was also an active member of the Wellesley Kiwanis Club for over forty years, having served as President and most recently Treasurer. Arnold served our community with a deep sense of commitment and devotion. He earned the regard and heartfelt respect of all who were privileged to know him; Whereas, Arnold gave earnestly of his time to our community and we think of the many citizens who have benfited from his leadership and participation in the Town of Wellesley. His former associates and the citizens of the Town regard his passing as a great loss; Whereas, the thanks of this meeting and the community are due Arnold Wakelin for the able manner in which he performed his various appointed and volunteer duties. We sincerely regret his passing; Whereas, on behalf of the Citizens of Wellesley, this Resolution is being presented as an opportunity to express the esteem in which we hold him as a faithful and devoted citizen: Now, therefore be it Resolved, That this town meeting, on behalf of the residents and municipal employees of the Town of Wellesley, expresses its deep regret at the passing of R. Arnold Wakelin, Jr. and publicly acknowledges its appreciation for his dedicated service and significant contributions to the citizens of our Town, and further, that the Town Clerk be instructed to record this Resolution in the minutes of this Meeting, and to transmit copies to Mr. Wakelin's family.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. I thank the gentlewoman for yielding. I have to say after listening to the gentleman there in that strong condemnation of the current state of the American Government, the Republican Party has been in control of the Presidency, the executive branch and both Houses of Congress for more than 4 years, and yet the gentleman and others have talked in a very condemnatory tone. Are you not being a little hard on yourselves? If, in fact, things are still so bad, what has the Republican Party been doing for the 4 years in which it has been in complete control of the government, not to mention seven of the nine Supreme Court Justices appointed by Republican Presidents?

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

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Speaker, before I proceed with the subject of my own Special Order, I want to continue the discussion I tried to have and it became kind of one-sided when I was not recognized to continue it. The gentleman from Kentucky particularly interested me because he objected to my introducing a note of partisanship. But I did not. It was the gentlewoman who had the floor who talked about the Republican way of doing things. When they were talking about it and boasting about the extent to which they were going to end these wasteful practices, they talked about it as a Republican proposal. When I asked why the Republican Party had allowed this apparently to happen for 4 years, suddenly nonpartisanship popped up. The fact is that the gentlewoman's premise was repeatedly, explicitly, there is a different Republican way. The fact is that the Republican Party has controlled the entire Federal Government since 2001. The gentlewoman said, what about 40 prior years that they had to deal with? I think she is being a little hard on Ronald Reagan. Ronald Reagan, of course, was President for 8 of those years. He never vetoed a spending bill; so apparently he thought the spending levels were appropriate. And it was not just Ronald Reagan, but for 6 of his 8 years, the United States Senate was Republican. Then we had 4 years of George Bush, the father of the current President. So we come back to this: The Republican Party has had very strong control of the entire Federal Government for 4 years and apparently it is still ridden with waste, riddled with abuse, and bloated, because we have these Republicans who just spoke, boasting about how they will change it. The gentleman from North Carolina did give us a very interesting history of an incident he was involved in in North Carolina. I now know more about that particular aspect of North Carolina than I had ever expected to, but I do not understand how that in any way explains why after 4 years of Republican control of the White House and the Congress, members of the Republican Party come here to denounce this bloated Federal Government, over which their party has presided over for 4 years and promise to make it better in the future. I now want to turn to one of the important subjects now facing us, and it is good news. I know people do not often come down here to talk about good news, Mr. Speaker, but I am very optimistic about the Middle East. We have an excellent chance, I believe, if we all work constructively, to end one of the conflicts that has caused considerable anguish and misery and the loss of human life, and that is if we are all constructive, there is a chance. I guess ``optimistic'' was too optimistic, but I feel better about this prospect than I have in a long time, namely of there being within reach of an agreement between Israel and the Arab world, particularly the Palestinians, that can lead to peace. I want to talk a little bit about that. Particularly I want to talk about what those of us not directly involved can do, or, more clearly, as I will point out, what we can refrain from doing. Peace will have to be made by the Israelis and the Palestinians themselves. Two developments recently have made that possible. One, the death of Yasser Arafat. Those of us who have long believed that Yasser Arafat was an obstacle to peace and, in fact, the enemy of the best interests of the people he represented, I think that has been vindicated. People have debated back and forth Arafat's role. I think the fact that we are in one of the best moments we have been in in the history of that troubled area is because, not since, but because of his death. That speaks to the historical record. And I join with people in the Israeli Government in their willingness to recognize the courage and commitment of the President now of the Palestinian Authority, of Mahmoud Abbas, and I share the view that a major difference is that he has succeeded Yasser Arafat. The other major change has been the evolution of the views of the Prime Minister of Israel, Ariel Sharon. I should say at the outset, if I were an Israeli citizen, I would not vote for Ariel Sharon. I do not think that is too harsh. If Ariel Sharon lived in Massachusetts, I do not think he would vote for me. What we have, however, is a man whose views, from my standpoint, are further to the right than I would like, but who has done an extraordinarily courageous thing in recognizing a central truth, central to the survival in its best form of his own country, central to the prosperity and quality of life of his own country, even though recognizing that truth contradicted some of his own past political history and in particular many in his own party. We who are in politics like to talk about how courageous we are when we stand up to our enemies. People boast about the fact that I defied them, I stood up to them. I remember the great book by A.J. Liebling, the Earl of Louisiana. He noted how fiercely Earl Long repudiated the support of the Communist Party and of the NAACP at times when neither one of them was, of course, interested in supporting him, when they were both unpopular, though with widely different justifications, it seems to me. Standing up to one's enemies is not only easy for most of us in politics, and, frankly, it is certainly true in America, standing up in politics is generally the best way to raise money. People are always praising their own courage by standing up to people who have been opposed to them in fundraising letters. The hard thing in politics is to stand up to one's friends. The hard thing in politics is to tell people whose values they share, whose traditions they come from, the people who are aligned with them on most issues, the hard thing is to say to them on this I think they are wrong, in this I think in our own best interest we have to rethink it. And Ariel Sharon has done it, and he has done it, along with others. The number two man in the government, the former mayor of Jerusalem, Ehud Olmert, deserves a lot of credit for this, for articulating this. And here is the central truth that they have articulated, which is that for Israel to be a Jewish democratic state, it cannot continue to preside over millions of Palestinians who live in Gaza and in the entire West Bank. If Israel continues to be the ruler over lands in which so many millions of Palestinians live, because there is also a significant number of Palestinians within Israel, then Israel has two choices: Either indefinitely it does not allow them to participate politically, in which case its own democracy will be jeopardized; or it allows them to vote and it will not continue to be a Jewish state because it will not be the Jewish majority they need. They do not need a majority only. They need a large enough majority so that divisions within the Jewish population are not going to be fodder for a very large minority. And let me just address now those who have begun to say, wait a minute, we should not have a Jewish state. Let us have a binational state. People who argue against a religious state, when we are talking about Israel being a Jewish state, do not have a great deal of credibility when they see no problem with the existence of a number of very strict Islamic states. How can we accept the existence of the theocracy of Saudi Arabia and then object to a Jewish state in Israel? Ideally, I suppose, there are people who could argue that no state should be a religious state, but I do not know anyone in the world who consistently holds that position. Certainly in the Middle East, a large number of the states are religious states. They are Islamic states. Iraq, the predominant party of the last Iraq election, which we consider to be a great triumph of democracy, they are committed to an Islamic state. There is debate about how strictly they will hold to it. So objecting to Israel being a Jewish state, especially given the history of the Holocaust, given the lack of a place to which Jews could go when their lives were at risk, to quibble about Israel being a Jewish state, when we do not at all object to the proliferation of Arab states, clearly is not a morally coherent position. It can be disregarded. So it is valid for Israel to be a Jewish democratic state, and to do that it must not rule over millions of Palestinians, or at least it should try hard to avoid it. Because I should say while I hope very much that we get a solution in which Israel withdraws from all of Gaza and most of the West Bank, I think it is reasonable for Israel to continue to have some of the places, an expanded Jerusalem, with some exchanges of territory that work that out. I think that is the goal. I should add that as I look at this historically, I do not blame Israel for the fact that it has been in occupation of those areas. Indeed, if the Arabs had in 1948 accepted the U.N. resolution, there would today be an Israel much smaller even than the pre-1967 Israel. And if before 1967 the Arab states had not engaged in their warfare against Israel, the 1967 war would not have produced the expansion of Israel. Indeed, if the Arab states really, genuinely, sincerely, had wanted from the outset a nation known as Palestine occupying the lands of Gaza and the West Bank, they could have created one. Gaza was controlled by Egypt and the West Bank by Jordan until 1967. They could have created such a state. Israel might have been angry. Certainly early on in the years, Israel would not have been able to do anything about it and probably would have been restrained by others from trying if they had been so inclined. So I do believe that the occupation was provoked. Having said that, I have been some critical of some aspects of it. I do not think that the Israelis have always in the course of the occupation been as respectful of their own traditions and values as they should be. Let me deal here with the notion that says, well, wait a minute, if one is criticizing Israel, somehow that must mean they do not support the country. We should be very clear. Criticism of specific policies of any Israeli Government, at any given time, in no way implies that someone is anti-Israel, much less anti-Semitic. Indeed, if people want to hear at any given time, vigorous, even virulent criticisms of the Israeli Government in power, go to the Knesset, go to Israel. There is certainly nothing remotely anti-Israel about being critical, any more than my saying that I deplore the Iraq War and I feel every day that I was right to vote against it. I do not think that makes me anti- American. And I do not think it makes me anti-Israel to say that some aspects of the occupation were wrong. It is, in fact, an argument against the continued occupation that it is almost impossible for one nation physically to occupy another group of people and be fully respectful of human rights. One does not send young people into these kinds of difficult situations or middle-aged people, for that matter, and put them in situations where their lives are at risk and their safety is endangered and have them act as if they were all members in good standing of the Civil Liberties Union or the equivalent Israeli organizations. But the point is central. It is important for Israel to try very hard to withdraw. And it does now seem that you have, in Abbas and Sharon, leaders who are prepared to do that. Each dealing with dissidents, the dissidents that Abbas has to deal with, seem to me far worse in many ways than those Sharon has to deal with. I do not mean to equate Hamas and the conservative element in the Israeli Knesset, but both leaders have got to be willing to meet with each other and negotiate with each other while dealing with some of their own more extreme followers. The question then is, what should the rest of us do about it? And one of the things that we can do is to refrain from causing harm. This means that the Arab leadership, the Egyptians and the Saudis in particular, because the Jordanians have been more constructive, and hopefully the Syrians, but that is probably a hope too far, that they will do everything that they can to restrain those elements within the Palestinian community who believe that murder is still a good idea, and who in fact want to engage in violence precisely because they do not want to see a solution which would have an Israel and a Palestine side by side. And let us be clear. There will be people, particularly in the Palestine area, who will try to undermine this, who will try to, by murdering others, stop this. They must not be allowed to succeed. This will call upon the Israelis for some restraint. Understanding that there are murderers who will kill, because they want to kill individuals as a part of killing the peace process, means that you cannot let them succeed, and that allowing their violence which will undoubtedly, unfortunately, succeed to some extent, allowing that to derail the peace process gives them a greater victory than even the one they get if they are able to kill some innocent people. That has to be resisted. But the Arab world has got to be fully supportive of Abbas and help prevent what goes on in the area of terror. And this will be particularly a challenge with regard to Syria. Another thing people can do, and this leads me, the mention of Syria leads me to this, people can stop the unfair demonization of Israel. I have said I think the Israeli occupation ought to end. I agree that in the course of the occupation, Israeli personnel have done things they should not do. That happens, I think they have not always been as tough as they should be in preventing it. But the Israeli occupation of Gaza and the West Bank does not seem to me to be the worst occupation by far in the Middle East. The occupation that is enduring, far less justified, and apparently open ended, is the occupation of Lebanon by Syria. Remember what happened? Lebanon was, outside of Israel, the only nation in the Middle East that qualified as a democracy. And it was a multi-religious democracy. It was a democracy in which Christian and various Islamic sects coexisted. And then the PLO was expelled from Jordan. And the PLO was not welcome in any Arab country. So they went to Lebanon, because only Lebanon, a thriving, commercial democratic society, was too weak to keep them out. And so first the PLO come into Lebanon, and that caused great turmoil in Lebanon, and then Syria used that as an excuse to take it over. We recently saw the murder of a Lebanese patriot who was a critic of Syrian domination, and we do not know who did it. But I have no reason to disagree with the apparent view of our administration that Syrians are the likeliest culprits in this murder, and certainly Syria has throttled the one democracy that existed in the Arab world, and Syria continues to be a destabilizing force. So one of the things that we have to do if we are to get this peace is to put pressure on, and this is something that the other Arab states have to take the lead in doing, to restrain Syria from encouraging the murderers. Similarly, our European allies have been working with Iran, and yet they are trying to restrain Iran from nuclear activity. But Iran must also be restrained, if they can do this at all, from financing the terror or Hezbollah and the murders of Israelis. And this means that the Europeans ought to stop the unfair and excessive demonization of Israel. I am critical of some things that Israel has done. I thought the recent decision by Natan Sharansky, a man who was a great hero himself in his own light, a decision to say that Arabs who could not get to their land in Jerusalem should lose that land, when the reason they could not get to the land was that they were physically prevented by Israel for doing that; that was a terrible thing. I was glad that the Attorney General overruled that. It is a credit to the Israeli legal system that there have been a number of occasions when unfair denials of the human rights of Arabs in the greater Jerusalem area were denied by policies, and frequently they have been reversed. So I think that is legitimate to be critical of that. But people go beyond that. I am a man of the left in American politics, I think to some extent in the world. And by every value that motivates me to be in politics, the Nation of Israel is by far the superior nation in the Middle East. There is no value by which those of us on the left measure societies and governments where Israel does not far exceed any of its neighbors. If you are an Arab, and you wish in the Middle East to be bitterly critical of the government which presides over you, you are probably better off living in Israel than in Egypt, Syria, Jordan or Saudi Arabia. I should note one other thing which a whole lot of people do not want me to talk about. But one of the things the Nation of Israel does is to offer refuge to gay Palestinians who face severe oppression and who fear death if they stay in the Palestine Authority once they have acknowledged being gay. And the Nation of Israel, true to its traditions, true to its own experience of the lack of a haven for an oppressed people, provides a refuge for some of those gay Palestinians. I am critical of some aspects of religious domination in Israel. But by no standard does Israel fall anywhere but number one in all of those categories. So when people on the left condemn Israel and leave out of the account the fact that it is democratic, not just democratic, there is one aspect of Israeli society which I think all defenders of civil liberty and freedom ought to be particularly grateful. Israel, through no fault of its own through 1948 on, throughout its entire existence, has been under assault. It has been assailed by enemies. Despite living in that difficult situation, it has remained a vibrant democracy. Those who believe that democracy is somehow a luxury for the prosperous and the secure have to cope with the example of Israel; Israel, a country which has been a vigorous and vibrant democracy in the face of these assaults. By the way, just to revert to an earlier topic, Israel is also a country in which gay men and lesbians are allowed openly to serve in the military. Now, I know some who defend our terribly unfair and inefficient policy of kicking gay men and lesbians out of the military and not letting brave and able young men and women serve our country. They say, well, if you allow these people in there, it would somehow undermine morale. And we say, ``Well, other militaries don't do that.'' They say, ``Well, yeah, but what are you talking about, these other militaries?'' They kind of dismiss these other militaries as not being really combat forces. No one denies, I think, that the Israeli defense forces are as effective a military fighting force as exists in the world. They have had to be. And the fact that this fighting force has gay and lesbian people serving openly without any negative effect on morale is not only an important argument, but it ought to get some recognition from those on the left who have been so critical. It ought to be possible to be critical of some aspects of Israeli policy without condemning Israel as a nation, denying its right to exist. And it certainly ought to be possible, if you are going to be critical of some things that Israel does, to take note of the far worse things, in virtually every category in which Israel is criticized, that are done by its neighbors. So there are things that the Europeans can do and that the other Arabs can do to strengthen the hand of those in Israel, who now include the Prime Minister, who are prepared to tell some unpleasant truths to some of their people, who are prepared to give up territory won in a war that they considered a defensive war, countries do not always do that, restore these lands to people who have been their enemies, and allow a Palestinian state. I think that is in Israel's interest and it is in the rest of the world's interest to allow that to happen. But there are also things that friends of Israel should refrain from doing, and that brings me to this Chamber right here, Mr. Speaker. Explicitly, I think we should resolve that those on the right wing in Israel who object to Prime Minister Sharon's decision to withdraw from Gaza and to begin a withdrawal from the West Bank and to begin a process that we hope will lead to a Palestinian state, we have got to be careful that they do not win in the United States House of Representatives what they have lost in the Knesset, because they are going to try and they will, unfortunately, have allies here. We have a history here of people in this body and in American politics taking the overwhelming support that exists for the Nation of Israel's existence and for Israel's general cause and manipulating this in ways that I think are intended to have a negative effect on the chances for peace, but certainly can have that. Let me give you one example. In 1995, I believe Prime Minister Rabin was still alive, Bill Clinton was the President and the Labor Party was in power in Israel and Oslo had been signed and there was a genuine effort to bring peace in the Middle East. It ultimately failed. I think the murder of Yitzhak Rabin by right-wing extremists in Israel was one of the reasons. But Arafat's ultimate unwillingness ever to make peace was a greater reason. But while there was a serious effort to bring about peace, this House of Representatives passed a resolution brought forward by the majority, the Republicans, to demand that the United States Embassy be moved from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. Now, I believe that Jerusalem ought ultimately to be recognized as the capital of Israel for a variety of reasons, and I believe as part of the peace process it will be. But to raise that issue at that time was intended to undermine the peace process. Do you know how I know that, Mr. Speaker? That was in 1995 when Bill Clinton was in power in the White House and the Labor Party was in power in Israel, and they were trying to make peace. At that point, the Likud Party, the conservative party, opposed those peace efforts. So when the Democrats and Labor were in power, this House was asked to pass a resolution to move the embassy. I voted ``present,'' because I think the embassy should ultimately be moved, but I objected to the timing. I could not say no; I did not think it was the right time to say yes. But overwhelmingly it passed, because people here believe in Israel's cause and believe the embassy ought to be in Jerusalem. But it was not the right time to do it. And people knew that, because in 2001, when things had changed and you had a Republican President and Likud in power, you know what you did not see, Mr. Speaker? You did not see the moving trucks going down the highway from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem with the American Embassy's furniture in it. In other words, when the Labor and the Democrats were in power, moving the embassy to Jerusalem was used to destabilize the situation. But when the Republicans and Likud were in power, have you heard of any of that since? Have we passed such a resolution since? No. Not because people do not think the capital of Israel ultimately should be Jerusalem, but because they recognize that it is an inappropriate time and place to do that. I hope we will not see more of that. We have not recently, partly I think because the Israeli Government asked them not to. I will tell you, when the Israeli representatives of Prime Minister Sharon came here in 2001 during the Bush administration, I asked them if there had been conversations about acting on that resolution and moving the embassy. They were not pleased with the question and said no very shortly. But that is not the only thing we have done of this sort. We have passed resolutions here, we passed the one last June, I believe it was, House Concurrent Resolution 460, we passed it June 23. I voted for it. I was a little troubled. I agreed with everything it said, but I also agreed with some things it did not say. I agreed with most of it. It, I think, suggested that perhaps Israel should not have to withdraw from most of the West Bank, and I think that would be fatal to the peace process and therefore damaging to Israel's own legitimate best interests. But it did not give sufficient recognition to what ultimately should be the Palestinian's result in this process. It stated the legitimate concerns of Israel, and it left silent some of the concerns of the Palestinians. Of course, it came before us unamendable and you had to vote yes or no. This is the kind of dilemma we had. I hope we will now determine, Mr. Speaker, that the Members of this House will not be put in the position of voting on an unamendable resolution with only 40 minutes' debate which will be the truth, nothing but the truth, but not the whole truth, and which will perhaps be designed to undercut the peace process. I mean that quite seriously. We know there are people who do not think there should be two States. There are people who think Israel should not withdraw from Gaza and the West Bank. Let me deal with one of those arguments, by the way. There are some within Israel and within the United States, some orthodox Jews, some very deeply believing Christians, who believe that the authority for Israel to continue to rule in the West Bank particularly and, in many cases, Gaza, comes from the Bible. Mr. Speaker, the Bible is a document worthy of veneration, but it cannot be taken as a map for dividing up territory today. Those of us who have been critical of Islamist fundamentalism, who have been critical of those who would use the Koran to control the lives of others cannot then say, but it is okay to take the Bible, the Old Testament, and let it be the map that governs modern society. That has to be repudiated, just as efforts to impose any other particular religious tradition on people who do not subscribe to it must be repudiated. Now, it is important for America to show its support for Israel, the Israeli people. It is a democracy. They are being asked by vote to give up territories they conquered in wars they thought were wars of self- defense. They have already done some of that. They have given up the Sinai. They have now announced they are giving up Gaza. They came very close, under Prime Minister Barak, to giving up most of the Golan Heights; but they were not able to make a deal with the Syrian regime. That is the fault of the Syrian regime, a hard-line regime that has recently, I think, shown its irreconcilable side. But you are not going to get those votes in Israel if the Israeli people do not feel secure, and they will not feel secure without first the strong support of the United States, but they also will not feel secure in the face of unremitting and unfair hostility from the rest of the world. Israel was created by the United Nations, but today it is prohibited from full participation in the U.N. the way other countries can, by participation in regional blocks. And some of that anti-Israel sentiment in the rest of the world, particularly in Europe, is unfortunately growing. You have an elected Prime Minister who is offering to give up significant territory. And I think it is important that he do that. I think it is important that he give up Gaza and almost all of the West Bank. I think it is also important, by the way, with regard to the wall that Israel is constructing, that Israel follow its own high court. Mr. Speaker, last year, we had two examples of the judiciary and democracies acting at the finest tradition of the judiciary. I know it is fashionable, particularly on the Republican side of the aisle, to beat up the judiciary, seven of the nine Supreme Court Justices of course being Republican and, in fact, Republican appointees. In fact, if we want to make a list of laws stricken by Supreme Court Justices, the very creative jurisprudence by Justice Scalia on the 11th amendment, which he has used to strike down a whole range of antidiscrimination laws enacted by the Federal Government, he would be in first place, I believe, along with Clarence Thomas in striking down laws. But the overwhelming majority of the United States Supreme Court, 8 to 1, and the high court in Israel in the same week said to their government, you know, we understand you have problems. You have security, but you cannot let that be a basis for ignoring basic human rights. In America they said, no, Mr. President, you cannot just lock up any American citizen you want for as long as you want to on your own say-so. It was a very important 8 to 1 decision, only Thomas believing that the Federal Government can do whatever it wants whenever it wants to, but the other eight said no. The high court in Israel said, yes, you can build a fence for security, but you cannot build it in a way that violates other people's rights. And I think that is very important. A fence for security, yes. A fence that unfairly cuts off Arabs from their land and inflames passions, that is not in Israel's interest. It is in Israel's interest to put an end to this war, to let the Israeli people live in peace. Israel has done marvelous things with its economy. It has done that while having to pay a higher percentage of its gross domestic product to the military than any society in recent times. Think what marvels it could perform, think what it could do for the quality of its own life and for the lives of others if it were able to reduce, not abolish, but reduce that military burden. So, Mr. Speaker, I hope we will say that what President Abbas and Prime Minister Sharon are trying to do is reach an agreement whereby two states can live side by side and in which Israel can have a Jewish democratic majority, with an expanded Jerusalem, with some of the areas in the West Bank that have been settled, but with most of the West Bank and all of Gaza being part of a viable Palestinian state. I was very pleased in Switzerland at the World Economic Forum when Shimon Peres said, well, one of the things we have to do right away, now the vice premier of Israel, is to ease the ability of people to send goods from Gaza to the West Bank, and he said, we are going to spend some money to do that; and I am glad they are doing it. I should have added, Mr. Speaker, there is one other thing we can refrain from doing. We in this Congress can refrain from trying to stop money from being sent to the Palestinian Authority. The Israeli Government wants to do that. Recently, in December, we had an effort here by some to say no, no, we are going to criticize the United States Government for sending money to the Palestinians. If we are not prepared to send money to them, it will not work. As long as Abbas is trying as he is, yes, we should be sending money to the Palestinians. I was pleased, and I do not mean to be entirely negative about the Congress, I was pleased that when the so-called REAL ID Act, the REAL ID Act was the bill sponsored by the chairman of the Committee on the Judiciary which dealt with asylum and driver's licenses came forward, there was initially a provision that said that people who belonged to the Palestinian Liberation Organization could not come to America. Well, we are in the process of sending them money. We are in the process of negotiating with them. That was a very bad idea. It was dropped, and I am glad it was dropped. That is the kind of thing that never should have been even, I think, considered. We need to understand that for the Israelis and Palestinians to make peace, America must be seen as a willing facilitator. That also means we are going to have to spend some money. We are going to help spend money to relocate the settlers. We are going to help spend money, I believe, to compensate Palestinians who will not be returning to Israel. And let me make what I think is a very important point that has to be explicit. The basis on which Prime Minister Sharon and his allies within his party and the greater majority of the Israeli people, the basis on which they are willing voluntarily to give up this territory that they won is essentially the need for Israel to be a Jewish democratic state in which there will be a sufficient Jewish majority, a sufficient majority that believes in the State of Israel, so that they can have the normal give-and-take of a democracy, which Israel alone in that area has, and not have it jeopardized. That means getting out of Gaza, it means getting out of most of the West Bank, and it means no right of return, physically exercised by the Palestinians. Because how does it advance the cause of having a Jewish democratic state with a majority in Israel who believe in a Jewish State of Israel, if you give up the territories where the Palestinians live, but bring the Palestinians into Israel. That does not work. So, clearly, there should be some compensation. But it should not come from America alone, and here I think we have a right to say to the Western Europeans, you have been very critical; there ought to be participation by the Western Europeans. I was glad to hear Vice Prime Minister Peres say the World Bank is participating in this. So that is where we are, Mr. Speaker. We should recognize that two men, Mahmoud Abbas and Ariel Sharon, have committed themselves to peace. And I do not mean to equate them; there are great differences in their backgrounds and histories, but they are both in this position now. They are both moving in opposition to some with whom they have previously been allied to some who have formed their political bases in different ways, a more violent one in the case of the Palestinians, a more democratic one in the case of the Israelis. They are prepared to break with them and to do what democratically elected officials do not always do, which is to say to their people we have to give a little; we have to give up some. We are not that good at that around here. When other people are prepared to tell their people to make sacrifices, I think we ought to understand how important that is and be fully supportive. That means no resolutions here which are designed or will have the effect of unsettling things and making things harder. Mr. Speaker, I think that the Israeli Government and the Palestinians will be able to make peace, if they can, with no help from resolutions from this House. Yes, we should be willing to provide funding, funding to continue to support the Israelis' necessary self-defense capacity, funding to help relocate settlers, funding for the Palestinian Authority. But I think they do very well without a lot of politically motivated resolutions coming out of this place. And I hope that we will refrain from doing that. I hope that the Arab world will fully support Abbas as he cracks down on those people who want to use murder to kill the peace process. I hope that the Europeans and others will get a little more balanced in this and not regard the democratic nation of Israel as the arch villain while, apparently, not being too concerned when the Syrians continue to oppress Lebanon. I hope that the American Government, and I must say I think the Bush administration was absent more than it should have been, but with the death of Arafat we have this opportunity. And the opportunity should be to work with those people in Israel, Prime Minister Sharon, Shimon Peres, Ehud Olmert, and others, because they represent the majority in Israel, to say, look, we will be at your side. We understand you are being asked to make painful sacrifices; we think they are in your long- term interests, although they will be short-term difficult. That means getting out of Gaza and almost all of the West Bank, not mistreating Palestinians, defending yourself, but defending yourself with the full understanding of the importance, not just morally, but politically, of not doing anything that exacerbates, not appearing to be doing things for the purpose of seizing land rather than for protecting yourselves. If we are prepared to be fully supportive of the Israelis during that and recognize the importance of fair treatment for the Palestinians within the context of complete security for Israel, then we have a real chance. So, Mr. Speaker, let me just say in closing, there is a lot of urging for us to do; but, in particular, I want to make this clear now: what happens in some of these resolutions that come forward, like the one on moving Jerusalem, we do not have enough time to debate them; we only have 40 minutes. I want to announce now, and I hope others will join me, we are not going to be quiescent if politically motivated resolutions come forward which will have the effect of causing troubles in the peace process. I am a strong believer in the importance morally and in other ways of a vibrant, free, and democratic Israel. I want to do everything I can to promote that, and I think the best way to do that is to create the conditions in which Abbas and Sharon are able to come to a genuine agreement, which will mean a viable, independent Palestinian state in Gaza and most of the West Bank, and a secure, democratic Jewish Israel with Jerusalem as its capital. That is now within our reach. Not our reach, their reach. What we have to do is to be supportive and to restrain any political impulses to undercut that situation. Mr. Speaker, I cannot think of a more solemn obligation or important task for us going forward.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Speaker, the comments from the floor manager of the bill made clear one of the major goals of the Republican Party. It is to shorten the attention span of the American people. Among the things they think are inappropriate are not just things we might see on television but things we might hear on the floor of the House. The gentlewoman apparently thinks it is inappropriate for us to discuss on the floor of the United States House of Representatives the issue of media concentration. That is what we are talking about. The gentlewoman said no, no, no, you are off the subject. Well, many of us believe that excessive media concentration is a subject that ought to be addressed, and it is, of course, the intention of the majority party not to allow that to be discussed. Inappropriate to criticize those corporations that are increasing media ownership. The gentleman from Oklahoma said this is a fair rule. Well it is fair if the scale is poor, fair, good and excellent. In that case, I guess it is a fair rule because my colleagues let in one amendment. We will be debating, after this rule is adopted, the substance of this bill, probably the only bill that the majority will allow on our communications matter, for 1 hour and 20 minutes; 1 hour and 20 minutes. If the Provisional Assembly in Iraq gave only an hour and 20 minutes to a subject, we would be very critical of them. Once again I have to say, with regard to the people in Iraq who have been elected to the Provisional Assembly and who we are urging to practice democracy and respect minority rights, if any of them happen to be watching this proceeding, please do not try this at home. Please show more respect for full discussion than these people are showing. Now, I also want to talk about indecency. It may be one of my last chances to do it because the gentleman from Vermont is correct. What this has done, this furor, is to lead to censorship, self-censorship, but also censorship by the administration. I regret things like the Janet Jackson incident and what happened with her and that guy, but I think we have a greater danger now. The greater danger is the censorship of the free and open debate of this country. I guess I have more confidence than the majority in the families of America and the parents to be the main protectors of their children, not the majority party; and instead what happens is we have the Secretary of Education criticizing PBS and pressuring them not to run a show because it showed two lesbians. I guess maybe I am speaking out of self-interest. If these people keep this up, we just had some fool in the Department of Health and Human Services insist that a panel on youth suicide aimed at gay, lesbian, and transgendered teenagers not use the words gay, lesbian and transgendered, because those things are inappropriate; showing lesbians is inappropriate. I guess, Mr. Speaker, if some of these people had their way, I would be bleeped. I guess there would be a blank screen when I appeared on here, lest some people be somehow corrupted by the very fact that a gay man takes the floor of the House to talk about a rule that is undemocratic and a furor that leads to ``Saving Private Ryan'' being shut off, that leads to PBS being pressured not to show young people that there is in this world such a thing as lesbians, because that might somehow corrupt them. I voted for this bill last year, so I am grateful to the majority for one thing. I voted for it, and it resulted in a degree of pressure and a degree of intimidation and a degree of intolerance and a failure to understand the value of free debate that I regretted and felt a little guilty about. So I am glad I have a chance to vote against it, as I will do. But I regret very much that the gentlewoman from West Virginia and those in the majority feel it is inappropriate to discuss media concentrations or any oppositions that might exist. And that is where we are today. We have a bill that will, I believe, result in more censorship, in more excessive attention to a fairly small problem while ignoring very large ones. I should say, finally, Mr. Speaker, understand why we have to cut this debate so short: because of our workload. We might actually be here until 4 o'clock this Wednesday, today, and we may even begin tomorrow. Of course, we are getting ready for a 10-day recess, so we may need a little extra time to relax. This House has met very little, we have done very little, and so the refusal of the majority to allow a debate on the important topics that we are talking about here, the effort by the gentlewoman from West Virginia to chide us, to say do not bring up media concentration and all those unimportant irrelevancies, is an example of the majority's disrespect of democracy, which they unfortunately continue to manifest.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Speaker, I would say to the gentlewoman from West Virginia, and I regret she would not want to yield, I guess she did not want to respond to me, even though she has a lot of time left. She is going to turn back her time. But she said she was not saying we should not debate these. I will make a prediction: she and the majority will never allow a debate on concentration. She says, oh no, we just do not want to debate it now. You do not want to debate it now, you do not want to debate it next month, you do not ever want to debate it. So the fact is this is not simply a case of, oh well, we are only on this one issue. It is the effort of the majority to suppress debate on the important question of media concentration. They will not bring it up now, and they will do everything they can to prevent it. So, yes, I think I am on the right side of democracy when we talk about whether or not to discuss this issue. Democracy says you should discuss it.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts

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

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Speaker, does the gentleman really believe that 20 minutes of debate, 10 on each side, on these complicated issues, is free and flowing debate? We got out early yesterday; we are here today. Why only 10 minutes of debate on each side on these complicated issues?

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Speaker, hearing the chairman of the Committee on Rules describe this restricted rule as fair and balanced reinforces the fact that when people on the right in America politically tell you something is fair and balanced, you had better ask for another deck of cards. The rule not only limits the amendments; and it makes sense, the chairman's defense makes sense if you start from the perspective that no amendments ought to be allowed. And then when you let in two out of 10, or two out of six, somehow you have been generous. Ought not the assumption be in favor of openness, especially since the House has not been doing very much? Then the chairman said, Well, we do not have to have long debate on these things; after all, we had a hearing in the Committee on Rules, and it was streamed on line. Anyone who thinks that a hearing in the Committee on Rules that is streamed on line is a substitute for open and free debate in the United States House of Representatives, or anyone who says that, ought to remember, I would give just one piece of advice. No matter how pressed one feels in a debate, try to avoid saying something that no one is going to believe. It really does not help your cause. No one thinks that an online hearing in the Committee on Rules with a handful of Members in a room that has 30 seats substitutes for free and open debate in the House of Representatives, and particularly when you only give 10 minutes on a particular amendment. I want to talk about the amendment on asylum. We heard a lot of discussion last year in the election from people complaining that religion had been driven from the public square. Well, guess who is ignoring religion this year? The majority. The provisions on asylum have evoked overwhelming opposition from the various religious communities in America. I noted yesterday that the Commission on Interreligious Freedom set up by this Congress to protect religious freedom in the world put out earlier this week a report saying that our asylum procedures are too restrictive. And what is the response of the majority? To make what the Commission on Interreligious Freedom says is a bad situation much worse. I noted yesterday, in Leviticus it says, and I have looked at various translations, various renderings, and in every one it sometimes says ``stranger,'' it sometimes says ``alien.'' It is clear it means people we would describe as immigrants. It says, Treat them as you would treat the native born. Now, I do not purport to be a religious scholar. I do not purport to be an expert in religious interpretation, but I am puzzled. Can we turn Leviticus on and off that way? I mean, often I have heard Leviticus quoted as justification for measures that are critical of homosexuals. Do you not have to take it as a package? I mean, if you are going to use Leviticus to disadvantage homosexuals, do you not have to use it to be nice to immigrants? Is it not true that what is Leviticus for the goose is Leviticus for the gander? Again, I acknowledge I am not a theological expert, so I will turn to some who are. I got a copy yesterday from the Interfaith Statement. ``The REAL ID act,'' it says, ``threatens the ability of victims of persecution to find safe haven in the United States,'' signed by a variety of Jewish and Catholic and Protestant groups, the Jesuit Religious Service, the Episcopal Migration Ministries, the Church World Service, the Jubilee Campaign, the Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service. Mr. Speaker, because I do not think that religion ought to be driven from the public square on an issue on which there is such an overwhelming religious consensus, I will offer a statement condemning this bill and its asylum provisions be inserted here. REAL ID Act Threatens Ability of Victims of Persecution To Find Safe Haven in the United States As representatives of various faith traditions, we are deeply concerned that the REAL ID Act, legislation proposed by Representative Jim Sensenbrenner (R-WI), would make asylum a more remote possibility for hundreds of persons who need protection. We understand that safeguarding our national security is an urgent issue, and we support measures that honor that concern. We also subscribe to core beliefs which require that we provide safety to victims of persecution, particularly those who have no recourse to the projection that democratic societies traditionally provide. Restricting access to asylum beyond current practice and does not serve the cause of national security and, moreover, erodes a sacred and legal responsibility to give safety to those whose only protection comes from asylum. Each of our traditions has witnessed the suffering of persons whose beliefs often place them in jeopardy and possibly in mortal danger. As American-based faith communities, we have cherished the ability of asylum seekers to find safety in communities around our nation. We are, therefore, saddened by a further erosion of our asylum system under the pretext of national security. We urge Members of Congress to reject the notion that all asylees are prospective terrorists and that the current system needs to be made more restrictive. The belief that we must receive persons who have been rejected and persecuted because of their ideas and religious practices is anchored in both our histories and sacred texts. We have contributed over the years to supporting and enriching practices which embrace hospitality as not only a religious but an American value. We also appreciate the need to prevent terrorism from violating both our freedom and safety. We believe that hospitality to the stranger-- particularly one who has been persecuted--and security are compatible national goals. We, therefore, reject legislation that subverts hospitality in the name of security. The current asylum system includes rigorous safeguards against terrorists abusing the asylum system. The changes proposed by the REAL ID Act raise a false issue in further victimizing legitimate asylum seekers. Requiring unreasonable levels of evidence to prove an asylum claim, placing a greater burden on asylum seekers to convince reviewers of the key motivation of their accusers, and allowing subjective considerations to guide the review process all send a chilling message to those who desperately seek the safety and protection which they have a right to expect of our great nation. We have all seen how fear can pervert justice. We believe that the religious traditions which we embrace calls us to oppose a narrowing of the door to asylum by some of the world's most at-risk persons. We are committed to resisting a fear driven agenda which violates our faith-based principles. Anti-Defamation League B'nai B'rith International Church World Service Episcopal Migration Ministries HIAS and Council Migration Service of Philadelphia Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society Institute on Religion and Public Policy Jesuit Refugee Service Jewish Council for Public Affairs Jewish Labor Committee Jubilee Campaign Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service Midland Alliances Midland Association of Churches Midland Ministerial Alliance National Council of Jewish Women Project for International Religious Liberty Religoius Freedom Coalition Workmen's Circle/Arbeter Ring World Relief Mr. Speaker, the asylum provisions make it much harder for people to get asylum. We will have 20 minutes to debate this issue. It would take me half of that time to read the full list of signers. Last week, we were visited, those of us on the Democratic side, by a representative of the Catholic bishops, who asked us specifically to oppose this bill and particularly to condemn the asylum provisions. I do not think there has been any showing that asylumees have been terrorists. But, in any case, I do want to stress, those of you who have said we have insufficiently paid attention to religious values, Mr. Speaker, I urge them not to turn their back on the religious community now and not to give the religious communities, a broad range of them, 10 minutes in which we can make the case that this bill violates biblical injunctions about aliens and undercuts our mission to be a haven for the religiously persecuted.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Speaker, first we have to talk about the procedure. This is a complicated bill. It includes several different subjects, asylum, identification, a fence, yet apparently the majority is contemplating, at most, one amendment. This is legislation by hostage-taking. You put a whole bunch of things together, including several that are controversial, so if Members oppose any one of them, they will be extorted into voting for the whole package. We are in the process now, after the election in Iraq, of trying to persuade the Shiia, who will be in the overwhelming majority, to practice democracy, not to abuse their majority, but in fact to encourage members of the minority to participate. It is essential for us to be able to salvage what is going on in Iraq for there to be an agreement on the part of the Sunni Muslims to participate. In other words, we are telling the people of Iraq that to practice democracy means respect for minority rights. And here we have the majority in the House of Representatives, a fairly narrow majority, apparently contemplating forcing an up-or-down vote on controversial legislation, maybe allowing one amendment, clearly repressing the strong desire of the minority to be able fully to debate it. In the end, the majority will decide, but they don't even want the debate. And I guess I know, Mr. Speaker, it is a violation to address the TV audience, and I will not do so. But I will express the hope that if there are any members of the Iraqi Provisional Assembly watching this, they understand the message that is very important. Please do not try this at home. Do not, in the Iraqi assembly, show disrespect for the rights of the minority. That is the hallmark of this outrageous procedure. And why are we doing it? It is 1:35 on Wednesday. We are going to finish this debate, general debate and have the rest of the day to do nothing, tomorrow then maybe debate one or two amendments. There is no reason why. You know what? What about an open rule? What about democracy? What about bringing a complicated bill to the floor and letting Members offer amendments and the majority will win. You are not afraid, apparently, of losing the vote. You are afraid of losing the argument. And I understand why. Let me talk now about asylum. This Congress created the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom in 1998. That commission just issued a very lengthy report, very critical of the inhumane aspects of our asylum operation. Mr. Speaker, I include for the Record the article from the New York Times, documenting that report at this point. [From the New York Times, Feb. 8, 2005] Asylum Seekers Treated Poorly, U.S. Panel Says (By Nina Bernstein and Marc Santora) Thousands of people who come to the United States saying they are seeking refuge from persecution are treated like criminals while their claims are evaluated--strip-searched, shackled and often thrown into solitary confinement in local jails and federal detention centers--a bipartisan federal commission found in a report to be released today. The report, by the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom, an agency created by Congress in 1998, describes an ad hoc system run by the Department of Homeland Security that has extreme disparities in who is released or granted asylum, depending on whether someone seeks refuge in Texas or New York, comes from Iraq or Haiti, or is represented by a lawyer. The New York metropolitan region ranks among the harshest in terms of the conditions of detention centers, with constant surveillance, stark quarters and degrading treatment. Those awaiting a court decision on asylum are also less likely to be freed. For example, 3.8 percent of asylum seekers were freed from the detention center in Elizabeth, N.J., compared with 94 percent in San Antonio. There were 8.4 percent released from the detention center in Queens, while in Chicago 81 percent were let go. One of the experts who examined the centers for the commission, Craig Haney, a psychologist who briefed the Senate Judiciary Committee on the subject yesterday, said he was shocked by what he found. ``I was taken aback by the severity of conditions, the severity of deprivations and, frankly, the expense,'' he said in an interview. He said that one of 19 centers examined handled asylum seekers differently from criminals--in Broward County, Fla., where many seeking refuge are from Cuba and where former Cuban refugees form a potent political force. At $83 a day, the Florida center costs less than half the $200 per detainee of the Queens detention center, though both are run by the same company. The report said that women and children seeking asylum, ``whose trauma histories and emotional needs may be more severe and require more specialized training,'' were at greater risk of harm. Among other recommendations, the commission urged that a high-level protector of refugees be appointed to monitor the system and correct inequities. Manny Van Pelt, a spokesman for Immigration and Customs Enforcement, an agency within Homeland Security that oversees the detention of asylum seekers, defended the system. ``We have a robust inspections program that conducts audits of our detention facilities nationwide, and our detention facilities are accredited and subjected to regular inspection by the U.N. High Commission for Refugees,'' he said in an interview. ``They are clean and they are safe environments. Even better, the detention system protects the public.'' The commission had been asked by Congress to examine the effectiveness of the nation's asylum regulations, created in part as a response to the 1993 World Trade Center bombings, in an effort to balance the country's desire to shelter those suffering from persecution abroad with its need to keep out criminals and terrorists. The system, known as expedited removal, requires those seeking asylum at airports and borders to be sent back immediately unless they are found to have a ``credible fear'' of persecution when questioned by immigration officers. Those who pass the test--a vast majority--are then detained until an immigration judge decides the validity of their claim. Unless they are released pending a decision, the average detainee is held for 64 days and a third stay more than 90 days--some even years, the report found. The number of asylum seekers, and the rate at which they are freed, have both dropped sharply since the terrorist attacks of 2001, the study showed. But rates of asylum also differed sharply by national groups between 2000 and 2004, with more than 80 percent of Cubans given a permanent right to stay, along with more than 60 percent of Iraqis. By contrast, just more than 10 percent of those from Haiti and fewer than 5 percent of those from EI Salvador were granted asylum. Detainees represented by lawyers were up to 30 times more likely to gain asylum, but in some places fewer than half the detainees had lawyers. With the exception of the operation at George Bush Intercontinental Airport in Houston, the report found that asylum seekers were not pressed to withdraw their asylum claims before the interview, nor were claims summarily denied. But it found that judges often wrongly used airport statements to deny asylum later. Before the change in the law, only asylum seekers with criminal records were detained. Now, nearly all are locked up with ordinary criminals. In 2003, 5,585 men and 1,015 women seeking asylum were jailed. To cut down on that number, the commission recommended that the airport interviewers, and not just immigration judges, be given the authority to grant asylum on the spot when warranted. Severe psychological damage is among the effects of throwing people seeking refuge together with criminals in ``stark conditions,'' the report said, describing 24-hour lights, chained walks to go eat, no privacy even to use the toilet and little chance to exercise outdoors. Detainees are allowed to work but paid $1 a day. Five of the 19 detention centers examined had mental health staff, and none had guards trained to work with victims of torture or repression. In most places the treatment for those considered suicidal was solitary confinement. A footnote pointed out that isolation was ``likely to exacerbate depression,'' not prevent suicide. ``The whole detention system is there to break you down further,'' one former detainee told interviewers in the report. ``You are not even allowed to cry. If you do, they take you to isolation.'' Cut off from the outside world and not allowed incoming calls, even from a lawyer, the detainees are at high risk for depression, the commission said, and some even said they gave up their quest for asylum because of the unbearable conditions. Since the 1996 change in immigration law, critics have complained that the system is subjecting those fleeing torture and repression to harsh conditions in detention that can drag on for years. But this is the first bipartisan examination based on an inside view. One of the Republican commission members, Michael K. Young, the president of the University of Utah and an adviser to President George H. W. Bush, said great pains were taken to make the two-year effort politically balanced. ``That is one of the things that gives this report real strength,'' he said. Preeta D. Bansal, a Democrat who chaired the commission, said more research is needed, especially on the reasons for the sharp drop in asylum seekers. ``We have been told that in foreign countries the Department of Homeland Security is being employed to prevent people from even getting on board airplanes,'' said Ms. Bansal, a former solicitor general of New York State. ``We think further follow-up needs to be done.'' The report comes the same week that asylum legislation is to be introduced in the House by Representative F. James Sensenbrenner Jr., a Wisconsin Republican and chairman of the Judiciary Committee. Among other visions, the bill, known as the Real ID Act, would make it harder for refugees to get asylum. So we have a bipartisan Committee on International Religious Freedom critical of our denial of asylum rights. And what is the response of the majority? Let us make a bad situation worse. Mr. Speaker, why not an open amendment procedure so those of us who have paid attention to this report could offer amendments that embody it? Why will we not be allowed to offer amendments from this interreligious commission, and it is an interreligious commission. I know one of the problems the majority has, and I sympathize, but apparently somebody has Bowdlerized their Bibles. And I sympathize; these are people who have Bibles, but their Bibles have big things missing. For example, we often hear Leviticus quoted on the floor of the House. Leviticus 19, chapters 33 and 34, ``When an alien lives with you in your land, do not mistreat him. The alien living with you must be treated as one of your native-born. Love him as yourself, for you were aliens in Egypt.'' Now, that is in Leviticus. I know Leviticus gets turned on and off here like an electric bulb, but it does now seem to me that kind of cafeteria approach to religion is something the majority has adopted. Here we have it in Leviticus. This is undoubtedly why the Catholic bishops have spoken out against this bill and have asked some of us to oppose it. But again, religion is to be invoked selectively so religious values are for another time, not when there is political hay to be made by taking this popular stance. What we have is an undemocratic procedure being mobilized to suppress, even debate, and an opportunity to consider the report of this commission in the service of a doctrine which would seem to me to violate some fundamental religious principles. I guess the majority has the votes to do that if they want to, but they have a day to reconsider, and I hope perhaps something will change their minds.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Speaker, I am wondering, based on that argument, in the interest of efficiency, whether we might not substitute chat rooms for the floor of the House, and if being on the Web site is a satisfactory way to bring a bill out. Maybe if we had chat rooms or instant messaging, we could probably save a lot more. I would urge the majority, since this traditional kind of old- fashioned type of democracy does not seem to have much appeal, to go right ahead, might even save a little more money, by cutting back on what Thomas Jefferson or Abe Lincoln or one of those people might have thought was an appropriate way to conduct the business of democracy.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. To begin, Mr. Speaker, it is absolutely backwards to decry this policy of excluding recruiters from using the facilities of a university. Let us be clear: no university can ban a recruiter from coming to that city or that town. No university can say that students will not talk to the recruiter. The question is not whether the recruiters can come and advertise; it is whether they can compel the university to offer its facilities involving a policy with which they disagree. But to say that that causes a problem in getting people in the military, it is the supporters of a policy that say to able-bodied men and women, we disapprove of your sexuality, and, therefore, no matter how talented you are, no matter how patriotic you are, no matter what skills you bring, you are not allowed here. Colin Powell, when he was chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, testified before this Congress that there was no argument that gay and lesbian men and women in the military were in any way deficient as members of the military. He made it clear. The only reason for excluding them was the prejudice of others. That was the only reason. The argument was: if you let these people in, and he said they had been good soldiers and good airmen and good sailors, it would be disruptive. Well, one, that was 15 years ago when he said that. I think society has moved some. But, second, we have experience to the contrary. I know there have been people critical of the Israeli Defense Forces in some respects. I think they deserve, on the whole, a lot of credit for a difficult job. In the Israeli Defense Forces, people serve who are openly gay and lesbian. So the argument that somehow allowing people who are honest about their sexuality, if they are gay or lesbian, to serve in the military makes you an ineffectual military, how do they explain the Israeli Defense Forces? In fact, what we are again being told is that good people, able people, and we heard reference to the linguists. This has become the policy of ``Don't ask, don't tell, and by no means translate.'' You who support this policy are the ones, Mr. Speaker, who are depriving the armed services of able-bodied people. You are the ones who have driven thousands, literally thousands of perfectly capable men and women out of the military because you disapprove of what they do in their spare time. So then to claim that it is the universities trying to stand up for a principle that are weakening the military gets it absolutely backwards. I was also saddened, I must say, by one of the previous speakers who said he wanted to express his disdain for the universities involved. We have universities here which are trying to express their disagreement with what they believe, and I agree, but what they believe to be an unfair prejudice that singles out some of their students. I understand disagreement with that, but disdain? Disdain because people in these positions feel that their students should not be unduly stigmatized and denied this opportunity? If it is so important to have the opportunity, Mr. Speaker, should not people on the other side say, you cannot deny these young people the opportunity to serve in the military. Should you not say, you should not deny these young people the opportunity to serve in the military unless they are gay or lesbian. Because if they are gay or lesbian, you want to deny them the opportunity to serve in the military regardless of any fault. Remember, this is one that says we just stigmatize you from the outset. There is nothing you can do, there is no degree of service you can perform, there is no sacrifice you can offer to make that will allow you to serve your country. And then we will complain because we do not have enough people to serve in the military. And, again, literally thousands have been turned away. The universities are not blocking recruitment. They cannot. They are asking for the right to stand up for principle. And now we are told by one other speaker, well, if they do not agree with the policy, you would think they would not accept the money. Please. I would say to Members, one rule in parliamentary debate: try to avoid saying something that no one will believe. I mean, this notion that if you do not agree with a policy you should boycott the government, which is using your tax money, nobody believes that. People get taxed, and sometimes they agree and sometimes they disagree. We say to people, look, you can voice your opinion, but you cannot avoid paying the taxes. And, by the way, it is not money from the military they are seeking. Typically, what we have here are law schools. It is law schools, as people have noted, who are doing this. So people have said, well, what about the poor people? We are not getting enough wealthy people to offset the number of poor people. Well, we are talking about lawyers who are being recruited. Frankly, the poor people are not being recruited for the Judge Advocate General's office. It just does not compute. But what they are saying is, we are not going to allow our facilities to be used in this discriminatory way. And the law schools, by the way, are not themselves, and this is an important point, under the Clinton administration the ruling was that we would look at each element of a university separately. And if the law school said no military recruiting, that did not stop the medical school or the school of engineering from applying for Federal funds. What you now have is a policy that says if the law school says no, no other entity can get the money. So there is no connection there. The key issue here is this: Have we not in this country come to the point where patriotic young gay men and lesbians who are prepared to serve their country will at least be given a chance? Can you not judge them on their merits? Can you not say, okay, we admire your willingness to do this. We will judge you. If it turns out you become disruptive, we will act. But this blanket denial of even the opportunity no matter how talented, no matter how diligent? You enforce that as a policy, and then you complain that we have people being turned away? Mr. Speaker, I hope this resolution is not adopted, and I hope we will begin to reverse this blanket prejudicial policy that says to millions, millions of young American men and women, you need not apply to defend your country because we do not like some aspect about you, even if it is going to be entirely irrelevant to your service.

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