Barney Frank

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. I withdraw my parliamentary reservation. I reinforce my substantive ones.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Speaker, pursuant to the instructions of the House in the motion to recommit, I report the bill, H.R. 1227, back to the House with an amendment.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Speaker, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to the amendment.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. The gentleman from Texas once again referred to an earlier amendment from yesterday, but trying to understand this particular amendment has nothing to do with whether you construct or destruct or replace public housing. What this says is the following: There were people who were living in the gulf area who were receiving some form of assistance under HUD programs. Some of them lived in public housing, some of them were in vouchers, some of them were living in subsidized housing for the elderly and the disabled. The places where they were living were washed away in the most literal, physical sense. We all agree that we have not yet, in the gulf area, replaced that housing. It's true there have been slowdowns, for instance, in Road Home money in New Orleans. But in Mississippi earlier this year, the Oreck Vacuum Company, which to its credit had tried to help the people in the gulf by reopening a factory that the company had in the gulf, shut the factory down because, they explained, the shortage of housing made it impossible for them to recruit people. There was a physical shortage of housing, and we have people who were once living in the area who have moved to other places. Some of them may still be in the area. We know that employment in the gulf area hasn't yet returned to its prior level, and we have this chicken-and-egg problem of housing and unemployment. We have now about 12,000 people, who were affected by this amendment, who were previously receiving HUD assistance. Because of the hurricane, the form of assistance they were receiving is no longer possible. They are the ones who were on these disaster vouchers. Now, before we brought this bill out, those people were legally going to lose those vouchers as of the end of this fiscal year, September 30, an uncontested part of the bill. I appreciate the minority's acquiescence in that. There is some agreement here between us. An uncontested part of this bill extends into November. The amendment today says that those people who were on HUD assistance before, they have to have been eligible before and still be eligible by various income and other qualifications for HUD assistance, that if as of December 31 of this year they have not been able to find alternative housing, we will not administer what my friend from Texas called ``tough love'' by kicking them out. I do not think these are appropriate candidates for tough love. These are not people who are in some situation through their own lack of character. They are people who were displaced by a great physical disaster. Now, I will acknowledge that the minority side in our committee offered an amendment in particular or raised an issue that we thought was correct. As originally drafted, this particular language would have not only extended the vouchers for those who have been in the disaster situation, but would have continued them, adding to the stock. Now, we did that because the gentleman from Texas correctly said you don't want to put these people ahead of other people who might be necessarily, who might have a need. So we wanted these to be additional vouchers, not to bite into the other section 8. But we incorrectly, in my judgment, drafted this originally so that even after the current recipients, the current recipients of the disaster vouchers, the victims of New Orleans, as they no longer needed the vouchers or were no longer eligible for them the vouchers would continue to be part of the overall number. We offered an amendment, unanimous in the committee, that said, no, they will be what we call disappearing vouchers. That is, there is a fixed number of people who now have these vouchers. As those people die, find other housing, become economically ineligible, as we hope many of them will be as they are able to return to jobs, for whatever reason, as they no longer need the vouchers or are eligible for them, the vouchers will cease to exist. So they are permanent in one sense, but not in another. They are permanent as long as this universe of 12,000 recipients of HUD help before the hurricane still need them. But as the people in that category no longer need them or are ineligible, they will disappear. So they are not permanent in that sense. Now, again, we have acknowledged that there have been slowdowns in trying to rebuild the housing. So the question is, if we cut this off as of December 31, what will happen to those people? How many thousands of them will have no place to live? And then, by the way, they will become competitors with others for section 8. This is a separate category of vouchers for people who were victims of disasters. Some of them live now in other parts of the country. Abolish this separate category as of December 31, and then these people will be competing with other people. And again I want to go back to a point I made yesterday. I don't understand the resistance to reaching out to these people. They were living in their homes, and a hurricane wiped their homes out. They are not wealthy people. They are not middle-income people. They are people who were otherwise eligible for HUD programs. They were people who were complying with the terms of those programs because they hadn't been expelled from them, and their homes were destroyed. And we had hoped that by now we would have done a better job collectively of helping them relocate. We haven't. There is plenty of blame to go around. One place that does not seem to me the blame sticks is with these people, these people who had vouchers, who had public housing residences. And the question now is, do we say to these victims of the hurricane, we are sorry that it has taken us 18 months to get things organized? But you know what? You have only the rest of this year to find a new place to live. There are elderly people here. There are disabled people here. There are others. They came from a place where we know employment hasn't come back. Why the insistence on treating them as people who are somehow looking for something they don't deserve? Why the refusal to say, you know, we haven't done the right thing in terms of overall. We hope we will, but as long as you are in this situation where you were displaced physically by a disaster, and as long as back in your home area there isn't sufficient replacement housing, and you know, in Mississippi and it is true, Mississippi has done better on the CDBG than Louisiana. But you just have to pick up the paper to read about the insurance fights. There hasn't been a massive amount of rebuilding in Mississippi either. You then are telling the people who were the recipients of these vouchers as of December 31 you are on your own. Find the housing, or compete with a number of other people for limited stock. These vouchers go only to people who had previously been on HUD assistance who were physically displaced by the hurricane, and the vouchers are only for them. And as they begin to find other housing, as they die off, as they will, as people get new jobs and aren't eligible, the vouchers will disappear. I very much hope that this amendment is defeated. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Chairman, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Cleaver), a member of the committee.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Chairman, the gentleman from Texas has given us a good example of the meaning of true conservatism. He had a speech written on this amendment when the bill was first introduced. We have amended the section he is talking about, but he still likes that speech so much he won't get rid of it. He keeps talking about permanent section 8s. They were permanent when the bill was introduced, I agree. When the bill was introduced, they were not just disaster vouchers for the people who were displaced from their homes by a flood in New Orleans, but even after those people no longer used the vouchers, they would remain on the books. He objected to that and we agreed to that part of his objection. We adopted an amendment that says they disappear when the people disappear. So let me put it this way: These vouchers are permanent only if 12,000 refugees from the New Orleans hurricane are permanent human beings. If they live forever, so does the voucher program. But I do not think that every recipient of elderly housing is going to be permanently with us. I will lament their passing, they are undoubtedly decent people, but they are not permanent. And so the gentleman's politics and theology are both incorrect in this case. They are by no means permanent. He said anybody who had a voucher in New Orleans can go back and get it, but they were people who lived in public housing. They can't have a voucher. Public housing was physically destroyed. There were people who lived in 202 housing for the elderly, and housing for the disabled; that housing has been destroyed. What we are doing here is providing a replacement not just for the vouchers in New Orleans but for physical housing that was destroyed in New Orleans. Finally, the gentleman said they can go to Houston if they are eligible in Houston; but previously he said we don't want them competing. So either they compete with the people of Houston, who have already been very decent, or they get nothing. I hope the amendment is defeated.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Speaker, I have a parliamentary inquiry.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Madam Speaker, on Wednesday, March 14, former Senator Alan Simpson published an eloquent and well-reasoned argument for total repeal of the restrictions that now exist on patriotic gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered people serving in the military. It is particularly noteworthy that Senator Simpson, like General John Shalikashvili, was an influential supporter of the current restrictive policy when it was imposed in 1993. Like General Shalikashvili, Alan Simpson with the forthrightness and intellectual honesty that marked his distinguished career in the Senate now says that it is time to end that policy, noting that there has been a substantial diminution of anti-gay and lesbian prejudice among the American people, which means that the argument that allowing those of us who are gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered openly to serve would somehow cause morale problems because of widespread prejudice against us. Senator Simpson goes on to note that at a time when we are facing a shortage of people able and willing to serve in the military, it is particularly foolish to refuse to allow people who want to serve to do so based on outdated prejudices against them. And I do want to note in this context that even when he was defending a total ban on gays and lesbians in the military in 1990, then General Colin Powell acknowledged that that was not because there was any reason to conclude that gay or lesbian people would be inferior members of the military, but again, only that we were the victims of a prejudice that could be disruptive. It is particularly disappointing to me, Madam Speaker, therefore, that just as Senator Simpson and General Shalikashvili have acknowledged the diminution of this prejudice, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, General Peter Pace, has tried to reinvigorate it. General Pace's comment that we who are gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgendered are ``immoral'' solely because of that fact, without any judgment about how we in fact interact with other human beings, is prejudice at its worst. If he were a private citizen, the fact that he felt so unfairly negative towards so many of his fellow citizens would be purely his business. But in fact he cited his condemnation of us as one of the main justifications for a public policy that excludes patriotic gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered people from serving in the military. He has since, of course, retracted that part of his statement, but it is clear that he did so only because he has been criticized for it, and not because there has been any change in his opinion. Madam Speaker, it is entirely wrong for such a high position as Chairman of Joint Chiefs of Staff to be occupied by someone who is prepared to consign millions of other Americans to second class status because he disapproves of consensual, mutually respectful intimate behavior--that the Supreme Court has made clear can never be criminalized--between consenting adults. Such an effort to use public policy to enforce private views would be strongly rejected, I hope, by the President and others in the administration if it were to be aimed at any other group. I deeply regret that we have not seen a similar reaction when the victims are those of us who are gay or lesbian. The article by Alan Simpson follows: [From the Washington Post, Mar. 14, 2007] Bigotry That Hurts Our Military (By Alan K. Simpson) As a lifelong Republican who served in the Army in Germany, I believe it is critical that we review--and overturn--the ban on gay service in the military: I voted for ``don't ask, don't tell.'' But much has changed since 1993. My thinking shifted when I read that the military was firing translators because they are gay. According to the Government Accountability Office, more than 300 language experts have been fired under ``don't ask, don't tell,'' including more than 50 who are fluent in Arabic. This when even Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice recently acknowledged the nation's ``foreign language deficit'' and how much our government needs Farsi and Arabic speakers. Is there a ``straight'' way to translate Arabic? Is there a ``gay'' Farsi? My God, we'd better start talking sense before it is too late. We need every able-bodied, smart patriot to help us win this war. In today's perilous global security situation, the real question is whether allowing homosexuals to serve openly would enhance or degrade our readiness. The best way to answer this is to reconsider the original points of opposition to open service. First, America's views on homosexuals serving openly in the military have changed dramatically. The percentage of Americans in favor has grown from 57 percent in 1993 to a whopping 91 percent of 18- to 29-year-olds surveyed in a Gallup poll in 2003. Military attitudes have also shifted. Fully three-quarters of 500 vets returning from Iraq and Afghanistan said in a December Zogby poll that they were comfortable interacting with gay people. Also last year, a Zogby poll showed that a majority of service members who knew a gay member in their unit said the person's presence had no negative impact on the unit or personal morale. Senior leaders such as retired Gen. John Shalikashvili and Lt. Gen. Daniel Christman, a former West Point superintendent, are calling for a second look. Second, 24 nations, including 12 in Operation Enduring Freedom and nine in Operation Iraqi Freedom, permit open service. Despite controversy surrounding the policy change, it has had no negative impact on morale, cohesion, readiness or recruitment. Our allies did not display such acceptance back when we voted on ``don't ask, don't tell,'' but we should consider their common-sense example. Third, there are not enough troops to perform the required mission. The Army is ``about broken,'' in the words of Colin Powell. The Army's chief of staff, Gen. Peter Schoomaker, told the House Armed Services Committee in December that ``the active-duty Army of 507,000 will break unless the force is expanded by 7,000 more soldiers a year.'' To fill its needs, the Army is granting a record number of ``moral waivers,'' allowing even felons to enlist. Yet we turn away patriotic gay and lesbian citizens. The Urban Institute estimates that 65,000 gays are serving and that there are 1 million gay veterans. These gay vets include Capt. Cholene Espinoza, a former U-2 pilot who logged more than 200 combat hours over Iraq, and Marine Staff Sgt. Eric Alva, who lost his right leg to an Iraqi land mine. Since 2005, more than 800 personnel have been discharged from ``critical fields''--jobs considered essential but difficult in terms of training or retraining, such as linguists, medical personnel and combat engineers. Aside from allowing us to recruit and retain more personnel, permitting gays to serve openly would enhance the quality of the armed forces. In World War II, a British mathematician named Alan Turing led the effort to crack the Nazis' communication code. He mastered the complex German enciphering machine, helping to save the world, and his work laid the basis for modern computer science. Does it matter that Turing was gay? This week, Gen. Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs, said that homosexuality is ``immoral'' and that the ban on open service should therefore not be changed. Would Pace call Turing ``immoral''? Since 1993, I have had the rich satisfaction of knowing and working with many openly gay and lesbian Americans, and I have come to realize that ``gay'' is an artificial category when it comes to measuring a man or woman's on-the-job performance or commitment to shared goals. It says little about the person. Our differences and prejudices pale next to our historic challenge. Gen. Pace is entitled, like anyone, to his personal opinion, even if it is completely out of the mainstream of American thinking. But he should know better than to assert this opinion as the basis for policy of a military that represents and serves an entire nation. Let us end ``don't ask, don't tell.'' This policy has become a serious detriment to the readiness of America's forces as they attempt to accomplish what is arguably the most challenging mission in our long and cherished history.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Chairman, the amendment offered by the gentlewoman from Illinois is absolutely irrelevant to whether or not people ought to be occupying existing units. That is not what is involved here. First of all, let me say the gentleman from Alabama and others said they have these plans to build these great new places. Who is stopping them? The hurricane was in September of 2005. It is now March of 2007. Have they started this? Have I stopped them? Have the tenants stopped them? Has the gentlewoman from California stopped them? Nobody has stopped them. And the New Orleans Housing Authority, by the way, is HUD in drag. So nobody here has prevented them. Here is what we are saying. What is amended is this: if you plan to tear down units that are now habitable, you cannot do that until you have met with the tenants, talked about this and replaced them. This is an issue not about whether you live in the existing units. This isn't about rehabbing existing units. This is as to what is the obligation to replace the units. The fact is that, according to HUD's own figures, more than half of the rental units in New Orleans were destroyed by the hurricane. People talk about job problems. That is because they have nowhere to live. The gentlewoman's amendment would reduce by 2,000 the number of units they would be obligated to build before tearing down things that now exist. And you know, it is very nice. We have been doing this for years. We have promised the poor people all kinds of things, and those promises don't always materialize. All we are saying is do whatever destruction you want after you have found places to live. And let me make it clear: we are talking about people who don't live here, who live in Texas and elsewhere and they want to come back. And it is not simply former residents of public housing. There were a lot of people who were displaced from New Orleans. We don't think we are in danger of running out of people who want to come back.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Chairman, I begin by yielding myself 1 minute, and then yield to the main author of this bill, the gentlewoman from California. This is a bill which comes to this House about 18 months late. It is in response to the problems of the hurricane in the gulf. It is the result of very diligent work. One week after the committee was organized, the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Waters), who is the Chair of the Housing Subcommittee, and I began to work on this. We had a very long all-day hearing in Washington. During the February break, the gentlewoman from California took her subcommittee to Louisiana and Mississippi and had very extensive hearings. As a result of these very extensive hearings and consultations, we have brought forward a bill of which she is the primary author, which we believe does as much as can be done to respond to the needs of the people in that area that have sadly been, in some ways, neglected since the hurricane. I am very pleased to be able to yield to the gentlewoman from California, who is the moving spirit behind this bill, as much time as she consumes as we describe our very belated, but still very necessary efforts to respond to these human needs.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Chairman, first for 1 minute I would like to recognize myself to acknowledge the spirit in which this happened. I think this bill is a very good blend of partisanship and bipartisanship, and they are equally important. Partisanship, there has never been a democracy in the history of the world where you did not have political parties. People who are on trying to govern themselves cannot do that as a kind of a random mass. And there are general philosophical differences. The key is not to allow those legitimate differences of ideology and partisanship to poison the ability to work together. I think this bill shows that. And I am very grateful to the gentlewoman from Illinois, the gentleman from Texas, the gentleman from Alabama. We worked together on this. There were some strong disagreements. We had a number of rollcall votes. Some of them were close; some of them weren't. We have managed to reproduce through the rule most of those, not all I acknowledge, but most of those substantive disagreements about this bill, they are in here in the rule to the extent that people wanted to redebate them. And that is important. But I acknowledge the fact that while we had some differences, that did not prevent us from coming together on some commonality. There was never in this bill any effort to delay or divert. We managed to talk seriously. And, yes, there are differences between the parties. There is on our side, I believe, a greater willingness to provide some funding for some of these things. Those will be legitimately debated. Mr. Chairman, let me now yield to the gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Oberstar), who is the chairman of the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, who has been very helpful, because the lives of FEMA and HUD are deeply intertwined, and trying to legislate here requires treading this. And the gentleman from Minnesota is an example to others not to allow turf consciousness and jurisdictional hypersensitivity to get in the way of good public policy. So I thank the gentleman. I yield him such time as he will consume.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 30 seconds. We agree on all the things the gentleman from Alabama said we should do. Nothing in this bill stops them from doing it. All we say is this: please don't tear down the houses that people now live in before you replace them. We are not in any way opposed to that; but if you don't think the housing the people live in now is great, and neither do I, understand that they are only there because they can't get anything better, and that is the only point of difference. We are saying do not displace them before that nice, new stuff is ready. And as for one-for-one, we aren't saying it has to be one-for-one right on-site. If you get a one-for-one replacement that is in mixed housing, that will be fine; but just don't displace people. Mr. Chairman, I now yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from Louisiana.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 15 seconds to say I agree with the gentleman that we should not be spending a lot more money where it has been badly spent. Also, I did not think we were going to be talking about Iraq until later in the week. Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. Baca). (Mr. BACA asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 15 seconds to thank the gentleman for his work on this and to say that one of the things the gentleman talked about last year when I worked with him and we decided whoever would be in the majority, we need to straighten out going forward the FEMA-HUD relationship with regard to housing. Part of the problem is, in fairness to FEMA, they should not still be in the housing business. That was not their expertise.

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

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Chairman, we will work that out. Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentlewoman from New York (Mrs. Maloney).

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts

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

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Yes, I do agree, but it was changed as of Friday, and so people could have looked at that on Friday and gotten it right. And I appreciate that. So, yeah, the section changed and as somebody even picked it up as of Friday, in the case of the gentleman from Louisiana, it was a different thing. We didn't get the CBO's scoring until too late, and then we had to work it out. The scoring came in. Part of the problem was CBO is very busy, and we passed the bill on March 7 and we didn't get their scoring until that Friday, and that was one of the reasons for the delay. I thank the gentleman from the Rules Committee.

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

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Well, first, the Parliamentarian ruled that the gentlewoman from Illinois' amendment which we debated in committee was not germane because it went far beyond the hurricane. So that was the reason for that. The second thing is I want to concede one point to the gentleman. He has chided us because we have set ourselves too low a standard. We have set ourselves the standard of simply being better than they were last year. I acknowledge that is too low a bar. I think we have met it with ease, but I am inclined to do better. So I promise him, as far as I am concerned, I will try to have a higher standard.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Madam Speaker, I rise to correct myself. The gentleman from Georgia asked me to acknowledge that his amendment was originally misfiled because of a change in the section that occurred last Friday. I acknowledged that, but incorrectly. In fact, the change happened during the markup. The section was renumbered during the markup. And the gentleman, of course, being a member of the committee, could have done that. I want to stress again no change was made in the text of that bill from March 7 until today; so anybody who wanted to offer amendments knew that on March 7. Secondly, as to the gentlewoman from Illinois, as I said, I guess I am coming here, Madam Speaker, confessing all day. I mean, I confess that I have not reached as high enough a standard as I should in parliamentary terms because I have taken simply being better than the Republicans as my standard, and I pledge to do better. Similarly, I guess I should be scolded for being lax on the rules. The gentlewoman from Illinois offered her amendment in committee. We did not raise a point of order against it in committee. Now, I do want to point out the parliamentarian for our committee is the parliamentarian that was the parliamentarian under my predecessor. That is one of the first things I did after the election was to call the parliamentarian, Mr. Duncan, a former member of the Parliamentarian's Office, who had been hired by my predecessor, the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Oxley), and asked him to stay on. I believe it should be totally nonpartisan, and I believe it has been. It was the Parliamentarian's Office that told the Rules Committee that the gentlewoman from Illinois' amendment was not germane. Now, I acknowledge my excessive tolerance. I have learned I am more tolerant of a lot of things than a lot of people here, and I accept that. I perhaps should have been more strict with regard to the committee. We had that debated, and the rule is generally that you do not take something that is narrowly applied and make it broader. There is language in this bill that applies to how vouchers are allocated where there was a hurricane. The gentlewoman wanted to change something that had been in the CR. She said it shouldn't have been in the CR. And I will say this: We will in our committee be revisiting that. We will have a voucher bill. That will come before our committee going forward. But I do want to make it clear in defense of the Rules Committee that where I allowed the amendment without getting a ruling on it, the Rules Committee, when they restricted the gentlewoman's amendment from being offered, were following the ruling of the parliamentarian that it was not germane. I will yield to the gentlewoman from Illinois.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. I understand.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Madam Speaker, reclaiming my time, I acknowledge that I did not raise a point of order. I acknowledge that I was very tolerant and did not make a point of order that apparently would have been sustained by the parliamentarian. But it was the parliamentarian who said that. I am sorry the woman spent over an hour in the Rules Committee. Sometimes that is fun; sometimes it is not, but that is part of the job. But the fact is that the decision to exclude her particular amendment was made on the ruling of the parliamentarian that it was not germane.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members have 5 legislative days within which to revise and extend their remarks on H.R. 1227 and include therein extraneous material.