Barney Frank

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. I appreciate the indulgence of my colleagues. I am glad that we will finally be acting on this. I share the frustration of my friend from New York and, indeed, all of my friends from New York and elsewhere, Connecticut, who wanted a more comprehensive bill. There is a consolation. I think 1 year or so ago there were people who thought even a 7-year extension was much too much and were talking about phasing this out. I am glad that we are moving forward. I want to address those who say, well, this was supposed to be a temporary program until the market could take over. I never believed that. I always wanted this to be a government program. I am a believer in the market; I believe almost all of us are. I understand how the market principle works in insurance. If you have a greater risk, you pay more; your premiums go up. We do that because we want to discourage people from taking certain risks, or at least make them pay the full cost. We also want to give them an incentive to diminish the risk. Those principles don't apply to terrorism. I don't want a situation to exist whereby, if you build a large building, because that is essentially what we are talking about here; people can't build large buildings without bank loans, and they can't get bank loans without insurance. I don't want the cost to go up in any particular part of this country because murderous, vicious thugs want to do this country ill. I don't believe that those who have been the victims of these kinds of terrorism ought to bear that cost. That is national defense. No more should any one State have to pay to protect itself against an invasion. We should have a national defense system that includes saying, we will hold you harmless against these murderous attacks. And it is, of course, because there is very little you can do to protect yourself against this. What do they do, put anti-aircraft guns on the roof? This is not a case where the market is failing. It is a case where national purpose is what is relevant, not the market. Now, the other point to make is that I do regret the breakdown in the United States Senate of the legislative process. And, in particular, and I believe that the chairman of the banking committee, the Senator from Connecticut, wanted to move on this, but we were told, partly I think they made a mistake by waiting too long, but then they were told it had to be done unanimously. And we were told that the senior Republican on the committee, the Senator from Alabama, simply refused to deal with this. Had this been up in the Senate and had the Senate voted ``no'' to nuclear, biological, chemical, and radiological coverage, had the Senate voted ``no'' to group life and the very important provision of our colleague, the gentlewoman from Florida (Ms. Wasserman Schultz), to protect people against discrimination if they wanted to travel to Israel or elsewhere; if the Senate had voted against the reset mechanism, I would have been disappointed, but I would have said, well, that is the way it works. But to have the opposition of the senior Republican mean that no debate or discussion, much less a vote, could take place is a breakdown of the system. We are in a position where something at this point is better than nothing. But I want to say, as chairman of the Committee on Financial Services, we will begin early next year to try to get this back on the Senate agenda, and I will be urging my Senate colleagues not to put themselves in a position where this kind of one-person veto can prevent, not an outcome, none of us have the right to an outcome, but the American people ought to have a right to debate and discussion. Now, there is a problem, Mr. Speaker, that I acknowledge, and it is a problem that those of us who have been frustrated by this, really, I mentioned the Senator from Alabama. I disagree with his obstruction. But let's put the blame where it belongs also, on James Madison. We had an election last year, and we elected a new House and we elected one- third of the Senate, and that is part of the problem. We have a House that responded to the election of 2006. We have at this point a House and a Senate each responding to somewhat different electoral impulses. We are here as a result of the election of 2006, every single one of us. Or subsequent special elections, sadly, in some cases. In the Senate, two-thirds of that Senate was elected in 2002 and 2004. That is the disjunction. And it is not personal in general, it is electoral, and it is a frustration that cannot be overcome easily. But it does make me determined, as I go into the second year of this session, to pay more attention to that need. And we will be doing everything we can again. Again, we cannot guarantee outcome in the Senate or anywhere else, but the American people ought to be able to get the benefit of votes and debate. So this is a recognition that terrorism insurance, in my judgment, should be here as long as terrorism is here. It is not a case of waiting for the market. It is a case of stepping up, as we should, for national defense purposes. And we will work, and I will be following the lead of my colleague from New York (Mr. Ackerman) and others as we try to make this bill an even better bill, reflecting what it was in the House.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Speaker, I didn't want to just echo what my friend has said, and so I yield myself 30 seconds. My appreciation for the fact that we on both sides here, the majority and minority on the committee, were able to work so well together, and I mentioned some staffers, Mr. Pinder of the minority staff working well with Mr. Segel, Mr. McGlinchey and Mr. Tsentas and this is very well drafted legislation. I am very proud of it. It achieves a moral purpose in a very thoughtful way. Mr. Speaker, I submit the following exchange of letters on S. 2271: House of Representatives, Committee on Foreign Affairs, Washington, DC, December 14, 2007. Hon. Barney Frank, Chairman, Committee on Financial Services, Washington, DC. Dear Mr. Chairman: I am writing to you concerning the bill, S. 2271, the Sudan Accountability and Divestment Act of 2007. I understand that are certain provisions of this legislation as passed by the Senate that fall within the Rule X jurisdiction of the Committee on Foreign Affairs. Provisions within the jurisdiction of the Committee include sections 7, 8, 9 and 10 of the Senate passed bill. In the interest of permitting your Committee to proceed expeditiously to floor consideration of this important legislation and clear it for the President, I am willing to waive this Committee's right to an additional referral. I do so with the understanding that by waiving consideration of the bill, the Committee on Foreign Affairs does not waive any future jurisdictional claim over the subject matters contained in the bill which fall within its Rule X jurisdiction. I would ask that you place this letter into the Congressional Record when the Committee has S. 2271 under consideration. Sincerely, Tom Lantos, Chairman.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. I yield 3 minutes to a very hardworking member of our committee who has a great deal of concern for this issue, the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Cleaver).

Mr. FRANK

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

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Speaker, I yield 30 seconds to the gentlewoman from California.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Speaker, I yield for the purpose of making a unanimous consent request to the gentleman from California (Mr. George Miller). (Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the Senate bill (S. 2271) to authorize State and local governments to divest assets in companies that conduct business operations in Sudan, to prohibit United States Government contracts with such companies, and for other purposes.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Speaker, this is a very important piece of legislation on one of the gravest subjects facing the world: the terrible genocide in Darfur. Mr. Speaker, I want to begin by yielding such time as she may consume to a former member of our committee, the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Lee), who was from the beginning the major force behind this legislation.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. I want to join in thanking the people that have been thanked, particularly members of the staff, Mr. Tsentas, Mr. McGlinchey and Mr. Segel, because this took a great deal of work. This was one of those issues where there was a great deal of agreement in principle, but where a lot of work had to be done to translate that principle here in the House. And it was a case where the House took the lead, the Senate then acted, and some negotiation took place. There was some resistance, I am sad to say, from the administration. The State Department was busy getting Senators to hold us up for a while. But a good deal of good lobbying took place on a bipartisan basis. And many Republicans in the Senate resisted this effort to hold it up, and as a result we have a bill that does what it should do. And I want to be clear what that is. We are not here compelling anyone to divest. We ran into a situation in which a large number of Americans, revolted by the massive violation of basic human principle that has gone on in Sudan, engaged in by the Government of Sudan, sadly, protected in some ways by the Government of the People's Republic of China, too little resisted by other African nations, too little resisted, in particular, by some in the Arab world who, sadly, it seemed to me, allowed ethnicity to influence them, and for a variety of reasons there has not been the mobilization of international protection for these innocent victims of genocide that there should have been. What we have is a situation where a number of Americans said, I cannot in any way be part of this. And they approached those entities who invest money on their behalf. As we know, much of the investment that goes on in this country is done not by individuals directing their own investments, but through third parties, mutual funds, pension funds, other entities. And they were told, those who wanted to divest, Oh, we can't do that. We can't honor your moral conviction because we have an obligation to make as much money for you as possible. And indeed, there were invocations of potential lawsuits if, in fact, a mutual fund or pension fund were to say, Look, we're not going to divest in this way or stay an investment fund. We didn't think that those were real threats, but we figured we had to act. So, what this bill does is not to compel anybody to do anything. It empowers individuals who want to withdraw their funding from this genocide. It empowers entities that want to withdraw funding to do so without fear of lawsuit. And I think it is a solution that looks at how the marketplace works and uses that set of institutions and the law in a reasonable way. I cannot understand why we ran into the resistance that we did. And I don't think bureaucracy is a bad thing. Bureaucracy is an essential part of civilized governance. But bureaucracy in the bad sense, bureaucratic resistance in the bad sense, slowed this bill up. People have said, It's too late. I agree. It should have happened a long time ago. It certainly should have happened earlier this year. There was resistance that shouldn't have come from the State Department. There was some concern by the Treasury. They were excessive. I am very proud that both Houses have now overwhelmingly said, No, enough is enough. We're going to go forward. And we wish we could do more to stop this mass murder, but we can at least allow Americans to withdraw from any participation. And we hope that the cumulative effect of this and elsewhere would be to force a withdrawal. And there is one very important point. We have sometimes, when the United States Government expressed its revulsion at violations of human rights, people have tried to say, Well, that's just the government. That's not the people. This empowers the American people. When there are withdrawals as a result of this, it will be coming from State and local governments and individual citizens. So no one will be able to deny the concentrated force of this, and we hope that adds to its moral impact. So, I do intend to ask for a recorded vote on this because I hope we will have an overwhelming demonstration, once again, virtual unanimity, if not complete unanimity, that will send a message that will help get the bill signed. And particularly to the Government of Sudan and to those governments, and that includes some in the Arab world, it includes the People's Republic of China, they will understand the extent to which, across party lines, across ideological lines, they have instilled in the American people the feeling of revulsion. And they should understand our determination to do whatever we can to put an end to this terrible set of events. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Speaker, before yielding to my last two speakers, I do ask unanimous consent that all Members have 5 legislative days to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material on S. 2271.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Speaker, how much time is there remaining?

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Madam Speaker, there are times when it is important for people to admit when they have made mistakes, and I made one. I voted last week ``present'' on a resolution that it was Christmas. Now, when I read the resolution, I decided to vote ``present'' because it made some controversial statements about the constitutional history of the United States and the role of Christianity in that. I am not a historian. I don't know whether that was an accurate statement or not, and I didn't want to vote on it one way or the other. It also made a number of statements about Christian theology, about which I am even less expert, being Jewish and not being an expert in other religions. So I voted ``present.'' But it was then called to my attention that earlier this year I had voted for a resolution congratulating people for observing Ramadan, so I was in the awkward position of having voted in favor of celebrating Ramadan and having abstained on Christmas, and the mistake was I should have abstained on Ramadan as well. The point is, and this reinforces it to me, it is really none of the business of the Congress of the United States as an official body whether or not people celebrate religious holidays. Our job is to preserve a free society in which people are able to celebrate their religious holidays if they wish to. But picking and choosing among religious holidays, seems to me, is odd. By the way, when you announce you have the power to approve a holiday, I assume that means ordinarily you have the power to disapprove it. Does that mean that we could have said we don't approve of Ramadan or we don't approve of Christmas? Again, these are examples of the intrusiveness. As I said, I find myself in an odd position, where people said, Are you pro-Ramadan and anti-Christmas? Frankly, I observe neither holiday. I wish well those who do, but as an individual, not as a Member of Congress. In fact, I have had obviously, living in this society, much more association with Christmas. But, again, that's as an individual. That was driven home to me when I see a debate, particularly on the Republican side, between candidates as to the nature of the religion of my former Governor. This whole tendency further to entangle religion and politics is harmful to both, in my judgment. So I will acknowledge, and I understood when the Ramadan resolution came forward, in fact it was brought forward, let's be honest, for a broadly political reason. People thought that having us celebrate Ramadan might in some way alleviate an anti-American feeling that has grown out of the Iraq war. That is not what you talk about religion for. So I should have voted ``present'' on both, not out of any disrespect for either religion, but out of respect for a system of democratic governance in which we politicians don't decide what is or isn't good religion. I would hope that that would no longer be part of the Republican Presidential debate. I don't believe Mormon theology has any point there. I will say this: I am no great fan of Governor Romney, nor he of me, but he served for 4 years as Governor of Massachusetts, and I don't remember a day when his religion was relevant. Deciding that will alleviate any anti-American feelings on Ramadan, and then, okay, we will get back and show you that we are going to talk about Christmas. And we're going to talk about the constitutional history of the United States in these terms, and then let's have a debate about religion. It is not negative about religion to say that religion is best served when politicians do not seek to use it, intrude into it. Our job, again, is to preserve a Nation of freedom in which people can practice religion as they wish. No one ought to be looking for my approval as to this or that religious holiday. So I will announce in the future I will not applaud people for Ramadan or for Christmas or for Yom Kippur or for any of the other holidays. I will work very hard to make sure every American and everyone in this country can observe those religious freedoms. But entangling us into religion for political purposes is simply a great mistake and serves no good. Therefore, I do apologize. I erred when I voted for the Ramadan resolution. I should have voted ``present'' on Ramadan. I should have voted ``present'' on Christmas. But, even better, we should simply abstain from bringing into this very political body of elected people issues about this or that religious holiday. Let's leave religious holidays in peace.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. I thank my friend from Ohio and the other friends who have gathered to, really, mourn our own loss. I served on the Financial Services Committee with Julia Carson. And let's be honest, there are Members of this body who, if you get to see them coming before they see you, you may not have a long conversation. But I sought Julia's company. She was a dedicated fighter for social justice, but she was also a delightful woman. She had that kind of air she put on of, ``Oh, poor me.'' I feel sorry for anybody who fell for it. She had a brilliant mind, a wonderful sense of strategy, and, as I said, she put all that at the service of caring for poor people. As a member of the Financial Services Committee, she was a constant unyielding advocate for fairness in our society. And I do also want to note, a number of people have mentioned my former colleague, many of us served with him, Andy Jacobs. Andy was the Congressman from that district. He retired. And rarely has any politician fought as hard for another politician as Andy Jacobs did to elect Julia Carson. And to the minds of many, Julia wasn't a natural fit. People thought that she was not conservative enough for the district, not, let's be honest, white enough for the district. And race continues to be the besetting problem of America. We have made some progress in it. We haven't solved it. Andy Jacobs' dedication to helping to elect Julia, and, obviously, she got there on her own, But Andy's helping run interference as Julia carried that ball really was one of the great acts of statesmanship, and then Julia made the most of the opportunity. I had the pleasure of going out to her district a couple of times because there was this sense on the part of some that a woman like Julia Carson, with her background and her set of values, couldn't possibly represent Indianapolis. Somehow they thought that something had gone wrong. But the people knew better, and the people stood by her. And they stood by her because she was, as I said, as staunch a fighter for making this the kind of America we all want to live in as I ever saw. I miss her a great deal. I miss coming into the committee and seeing her pretending to look kind or angry and sad, with a twinkle in her eye ready for that comment that was going to put everything in perspective. Julia Carson was a wonderful Member of this body. And the dignity with which she bore her last months of pain troubled all of us, but it was a fitting example of the extraordinary quality of a great woman. I thank the gentlewoman from Ohio and others for giving us this chance to express our appreciation for having had the benefit of her colleagueship for a while.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to the motion to recommit.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Speaker, I want to begin with the schizophrenic attitude towards the Senate. The gentleman said a number of times that the Senate passed this unanimously. Yes, by avoiding conference, by making a deal. But he also continually said, correctly, that this bill was passed way too late. Why are we here now? The answer as to why we're here now, Mr. Speaker, it's the Senate that he was so admiring of. Yes, the Senate passed it without a vote, on November 16. We passed the bill on September 19. The House passed the bill with 3\1/2\ months left to go in the year. The Senate passed the bill less than a month ago. The Senate passed the bill, by the way, a different bill than ours, after we had adjourned for the recess. So the Senate, whom he extols for having managed to put everything under the rug and make one of their deals where nobody gets fingerprinted for anything, they sent us this bill, and the earliest we could have passed it was last week. So all this rhetoric about 6 months, et cetera, well, that's, Mr. Speaker, his friends in the Senate who caused that problem. If they had worked with us, we would have had several months. Now, we are going to pass a bill. We understand that. And we may well be able to pass only the Senate bill early next week. We have preserved our ability to do that. There is no chance of this expiring. The question is this: Should we acquiesce in a procedure by which the United States Senate waits until after we have adjourned for the Thanksgiving recess and sends us a bill and says, this is it, take it or leave it, or do we say, no, we don't like that and we're going to at least try to make you vote on things. Now, I know the gentleman from Alabama likes the Senate version apparently where you just have unanimity so-called. I prefer democracy. I prefer letting things get voted on. Maybe the Senate won't vote, but let's at least give them one more option. It may take us another 3 or 4 days. So the notion that we are somehow delaying this for 3 or 4 days, no. We waited from our bill in September to theirs in November. Two months later they passed it. Three days or 4 days isn't going to make any difference and we'll get the bill through. Here's what we want to do. We want to say that the point that the gentlewoman from Florida made that you should not arbitrarily cancel people's life insurance because they're traveling to a country that's on the State Department watch list, whether it's the nation of Israel or others that Americans want to travel to. Yes, if you can show that there's danger there, you can cut off their insurance. But don't say that we're just going to give up on that. Maybe we can't do it this year. Let's take the motion to recommit, then, because we're going to pass this bill soon, anyway, and we may have to pass the Senate version. Let's have a referendum on the freedom to travel provision. Let's have a referendum on whether or not we include group life or say that we insure buildings in this country but not life. Let's have a referendum on whether smaller insurance companies should be able to participate. Under our bill they can. Under the Senate bill they can't. And let's have that reset mechanism that the gentleman from Queens, New York, talked about so eloquently, which says we're going to rebuild and any place that's hit, we will rebuild them again. Let me say, we have a referendum on those issues. We may not be able to win this year, but I want to be able, as chairman of the committee, to go back early next year and say to our friends in the Senate, okay, your rope-a-dope tactics may have worked, but they didn't work on the merits. And we want to go back at you on small insurance companies and on group life and on the question of freedom to travel, and we want to bring it up again. And the last point, when we're talking about why is this being done now, it's supposed to be temporary? I never thought it would be temporary. Here's the point: If you go through the private market, it is paid for by the insured, ultimately. I do not think that those people who are choosing to do business in areas that may be singled out by the terrorists ought to have to pay the higher cost of insuring themselves for that. Against fire, against theft, against liability for someone falling down, sure, that's their responsibility. But defending ourselves against terrorism is not a market matter; it's a matter of national security. And the whole country ought to come together in a unified way and say you may not threaten New York or Chicago or Atlanta or Miami, or any other part of America, or Los Angeles, as they threatened the airport. You may not threaten us and make us pay more. You cannot make it more expensive to do business in one part of this country than another. We will come together as one Nation in this program and say, yes, you are responsible for insuring yourself against various dangers. But for insuring yourself against murderous thugs seeking to do harm to this country, this country will come together as one in a national program and rebut that, and we will not allow them to intrude. Now, again, it may be that in the end the best we can get is the Senate bill. But at this point, I urge the Members not to vote down, in principle, a reset mechanism that says, okay, you only get hit once and then you're gone, or the freedom to travel, or group life, or smaller companies. I hope the motion to recommit is defeated and that we let the Senate know that we will continue to engage in democracy in this part of the Capitol.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2\1/2\ 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 New York (Mr. Crowley).

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Speaker, pursuant to House Resolution 862, I call up the bill (H.R. 4299) to extend the Terrorism Insurance Program of the Department of the Treasury, and for other purposes, and ask for its immediate consideration.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Speaker, first of all, there is no chance of waiting until after it expires. I don't know why the gentleman would have said that. He knows there is zero chance of that. Now, I agree it has waited too long. But I would have been more impressed with the urgency if I had had people joining us in trying to get the Senate to act. We passed the bill months ago. We would have liked to have seen an act. But I didn't hear all this passion trying to force the Senate to act, and it was partly the minority in the Senate that was blocking it, that is, block the ability to have a conference. Here is the point. I think telling the life insurance companies that they should not be restricting people's ability to travel unfairly is important. We think group life is important. We think that not allowing your community to be disadvantaged if it has been attacked once is important. And we may not be able to accomplish them this year, but we think it is important not simply to cave in and say those aren't even worth fighting for. We are going to send a message, I hope, by voting for those principles because we pass the bill this year, and we may have to accept a minimal position, but we will be back here in a month or two and we hope to renew some of these things. So I just reject the notion that the Senate can achieve this by waiting and waiting and waiting and then saying, Oh, well, there isn't enough time. There is not enough time because they held it up. No one can seriously argue that having seen this delay of many months, and again I didn't hear all this passion trying to make the Senate act for all of those months, nobody can argue that another day or two is going to make a difference. And that's what we're talking about. So I reiterate, there is no chance of this expiring. Everybody knows that. We have preserved our ability at any point simply to accept this bill. The question is do we give up now or do we send them the message that the ability to travel to Israel, the concern for the small insurance companies being able to insure commercial properties and the concern for group life and not just property, that those are important issues. We can take that vote today and send that message. And if we have to, we will accommodate reality. But we will have sent that message, and it gives us a basis upon which to act next year. I yield now 6 minutes to the gentleman from New York (Mr. Ackerman).

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentlewoman from New York (Mrs. Maloney), a representative from the city who is Chair of the Financial Institution Subcommittee and has been very active on this issue.

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

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts

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

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. I thank the gentleman. If it were up to me, obviously, we would have done this earlier. The only thing I can say is, and I appreciate the spirit of cooperation, I only regret that he cannot love me in December as he did in May.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. I would just say on this, and I didn't want to make it in any way partisan, but what we have been told is that the senior Republican on the committee, the gentleman from Alabama, has said this is all he will accept. I have talked to the chairman of the committee, the Senator from Connecticut, I've talked to the Senator from New York, and they were ready to discuss it. But they said that given Senate rules, they could not get the Senator from Alabama to do anything else, and they didn't feel they could change that. There were also concerns that even if we were to send back exactly the bill that he had wanted, another Senator might object, because that is a volatile place. But we did talk to the Senator from Connecticut, we talked to the Senator from New York. The Senator from Alabama, the ranking minority member, was the major opponent. I would yield to my friend.

Mr. FRANK

Mr. FRANK. No, this is not ping pong. This is ping. We're keeping pong over here. That is, we are going to send them and give them one more chance. But we are keeping their version over here if all else fails.