Alcee Hastings

Mr. HASTINGS of Florida

Mr. HASTINGS of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for his response. Mr. Speaker, I yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. Matsui), my good friend.

Mr. HASTINGS of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume to advise my colleague that the Governor of the State of Florida, the President's brother, just scaled back his own tax cut in Florida. And I ask, did Governor Bush just raise the taxes of all Floridians? He is not calling it a tax increase. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from New York (Mr. Rangel), the distinguished ranking member of the Committee on Ways and Means and my good friend. (Mr. RANGEL asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. HASTINGS of Florida. I yield to the gentleman from Illinois.

Mr. HASTINGS of Florida. I yield to the gentleman from Alabama.

Mr. HASTINGS of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 20 seconds. Would the gentleman from Alabama (Mr. Bachus) stay at the stand for he and I to have an exchange? Am I correct that the surplus in the Social Security, and that we voted five times in the House of Representatives to have a lockbox so that Social Security surplus would not be utilized; can you answer both those questions yes or no?

Mr. HASTINGS of Florida. Reclaiming my time, I would like the gentleman to understand that last year's tax cut, if made permanent as proposed in the President's budget, would cost approximately over $2 trillion over the next 10 years when debt service costs are taken into account. That cost is almost exactly the same as the total raids on Social Security and Medicare that will occur over the next 10 years. There is a future and that is what I do not think anybody is saying, and there are human needs and they need to be addressed in a meaningful way. If we had no tax cut, we would be able to address them. Mr. Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from Texas (Mr. Doggett).

Mr. HASTINGS of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Levin), my good friend. (Mr. LEVIN asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. HASTINGS of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, I hope the reporter is not confused with these two Hastings this year. This is a first for the gentleman from Washington (Mr. Hastings), my good friend and colleague, and I thank him for yielding the time. Let me assure the gentleman that we will try to make this debate more friendly than the last Battle of Hastings in 1066. Mr. Speaker, as the gentleman from Washington (Mr. Hastings) has already explained, under rule XV of the House rules, bills may be considered on the House floor under suspension of the rules only on Mondays and Tuesdays. Therefore, this resolution is required in order to consider the bills on today's schedule. The gentleman has done an adequate job of explaining why, in the leadership's opinion, these bills must come to the floor today and in this manner. Mr. Speaker, I respectfully disagree and oppose adoption of this rule. There is no need to rush to judgment on these bills. There is simply no good reason to handle these bills outside the normal parameters of the way the House should conduct its business. Moreover, when the House does operate this way, it effectively curtails our rights, and I am talking about the Members, and responsibilities as serious legislators. Members should be very wary of allowing this leadership or any leadership to usurp our rights. There are Members of this body who have serious concerns with at least one of the resolutions we may consider today, and I think that we may hear quite a bit in due time from several distinguished members of the House Committee on Ways and Means regarding their concerns, in addition to other fiscally responsible Members. Mr. Speaker, it was shocking to me today to read on the front page of today's Washington Post about the deaths of six people in this city yesterday because of the cold weather. It strains credulity that we still have people freezing to death in this great country. So what is Congress going to do to help these people? Well, unfortunately, the answer from the administration is nothing more. Sorry, they say. No money for additional heating is available. In my home of Broward County in the State of Florida, we are facing millions of dollars of shortfalls to deal with serious human needs, from sheltering the homeless to feeding the hungry to administering medical care, and I spent a lot of time studying that particular problem during the last month in my area. To the infirm persons who are not to receive assistance, to paving roads and, most importantly, in leaving no child behind, we are getting ready to leave some behind in my home county because we do not have the funds to modernize the schools; we have already dropped the summer school program that is proposed, and cuts are everywhere, which means that there are serious problems. The people of south Florida and throughout this country have serious human needs which the President's budget neglects. As a member of the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, I am keenly aware of what our domestic and national security needs are. I do not quibble with the President's request for this funding. What I do take umbrage with is the insistence that the administration does not have enough cash or proposed same for the other serious needs in our country. At the same time I remain committed to homeland security, I also remain committed to security in folks' homes and in their families. We need to realize that September 11 was not just an attack on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon; rather, it was an attack against America's economy, America's values, and all of the American people. As we fund the war on terrorism abroad and within our own borders, we cannot and will not forget our casualties here at home. And, Mr. Speaker, I am not just talking about the significant number of Americans, nearly 3,000 or more, who died on September 11 or in the subsequent anthrax attacks. I am also talking about the more than 1.8 million hard-working Americans who are jobless as a result of our recession. Every day we pick up the paper and another company is firing or laying off thousands of workers. I am glad to see that the President includes a 13-week extension of unemployment benefits for those who lost their job as a result of the attacks on our Nation. This extension is a move that I, for one, along with several of my colleagues, in a bipartisan fashion have been pushing for since I first introduced my plan to extend unemployment and job training benefits, as well as health care benefits, to the unemployed, when I offered an amendment to the Airline Stabilization Act on September 21. My plan currently has more than 150 bipartisan cosponsors, the most of any plan in the House at this time. But while the budget extends unemployment, it cuts 20 out of 48 job training programs the Federal Government currently offers to those who wish to improve their on the job skills. In addition, the budget does nothing to extend the health care benefits to displaced workers. The bottom line, Mr. Speaker, is that in less than 1 year, the health care benefits for the 1.3 million already displaced workers and their families is going to expire. Although the recession may be slowing, we nonetheless remain in a recession. Just because unemployment levels may only be increasing by .1 percent every month and not the 1.5 percent as we saw a few months ago, we are in no way re-creating the jobs that we have already lost. It is going to be a long time until the economy will recover enough to the point that we can actually re-create jobs instead of losing them. Until then, we need to protect the unemployed because times are not getting any easier for them. As I mentioned at the outset, and for the reasons just explained, I oppose adoption of this rule. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. HASTINGS of Florida. Mr. Speaker, could I please be advised as to the amount of time remaining on both sides?

Mr. HASTINGS of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. My distinguished friend and colleague, the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Weller), I would like to advise the gentleman that I know of no Democrat that has signified that he or she is in favor of tax increases. The gentleman's analogy is a false analogy. Repealing these tax cuts would not be a tax increase.

Mr. HASTINGS of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I object to the vote on the ground that a quorum is not present and make the point of order that a quorum is not present.

Mr. HASTINGS of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of the time. I ask my colleagues on the other side, what part of $1\1/2\ trillion raid on Social Security do you not understand about the next 10 years? What we are going to do is unlock the lockbox and box up the economy of America. Mr. Speaker, I urge a ``no'' vote on the previous question. If the previous question is defeated, I am going to offer an amendment to the rule to remove from the suspension calendar H. Con. Res. 312, the sense of the House that the tax cuts enacted last year should go forward. I will replace it with legislation that will provide for a Social Security and Medicare lockbox for the sixth time in the House of Representatives. Mr. Speaker, regardless of how Members feel about last year's tax cuts, it is critical that we first work to protect and preserve Social Security and Medicare. Under the new budget resolution presented by the President this week, there will be, over the next 10 years, a nearly $1.5 trillion raid on the Social Security Trust Fund and over $.5 trillion from the Medicare Trust Fund. It is absolutely critical that we keep promises we have made to our Nation's senior citizens and protect their future. This bill is virtually identical to H.R. 2, which was passed nearly unanimously by the House last year. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to insert the text of the previous question immediately prior to the vote, and urge my colleagues once again to vote ``no'' on the previous question.

Mr. HASTINGS of Florida

Mr. HASTINGS of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to introduce the Independent Investment Advisors Act of 2002. The sudden and unexpected bankruptcy of the Enron Corporation has raised a multitude of questions and concerns regarding current auditor independence laws. Furthermore, it highlighted the obvious conflict of interest that arises when an auditor has a financial interest in the company he or she is auditing. In November, 2001, days before filing for Chapter 11, Enron disclosed to the public that it had overstated its profits by more than $580 million since 1997. This means that for five years, the Enron Corporation lied to its investors and employees about its earnings. At the same time, the company's auditor, Arthur Andersen, entrusted with the responsibility of providing investors with an accurate and honest evaluation of Enron's financial situation, failed to expose Enron's ongoing lies. Though Congressional and judicial investigations may yield otherwise, it is, nonetheless, fair to assume that the millions of dollars Enron was paying Arthur Andersen undoubtedly played a role in the firm's decision not to expose Enron's ongoing lies. In 2000 alone, Enron paid Arthur Andersen more than $55 million for its audit work and consulting fees. The most stirring fact surrounding the investigation of Arthur Andersen's failures with Enron is that concerns about auditor independence is nothing new. In a 1984 opinion, the U.S. Supreme Court stated, ``It is . . . not enough that financial statements be accurate; the public must also perceive them as being accurate. Public faith in the reliability of a corporation's financial statements depends upon the perception of the outside auditor as an independent professional.'' Former Chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Arthur Levitt, echoed the need for auditor independence during a Senate hearing on January 24, 2002. He noted, ``Any reforms must recognize the importance of gatekeepers (auditors) in safeguarding the interests of investors and the fundamental need to preserve and enhance these gatekeepers' independence.'' Using the model that Mr. Levitt proposed to a Congressional oversight committee in 2000, I come to the floor today to introduce the Independent Investment Advisors Act of 2002. My bill instructs the SEC to, within 60 days, revise current auditor independence laws to require that investment advisors (individuals or firms) provide full public disclosure of any financial ties to any company he, she, or it, is auditing. In addition, it also bans auditors from purchasing, selling, or engaging in any financial transactions with respect to the company being audited 30 days prior to and 30 days following the release of any financial statement regarding that company. Mr. Speaker, as the American public continues to deal with the economic affects of September 11 and the ongoing recession, it is essential that Congress do everything it can to restore the public's confidence in the ability of an auditor to provide an independent, accurate, and reliable evaluation of publicly owned enterprises. The Independent Investment Advisors Act of 2002 is a good start in accomplishing this difficult task, and I urge the House to pass it quickly.

Mr. HASTINGS of Florida

Mr. HASTINGS of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to introduce a House Concurrent Resolution honoring the Civil Air Patrol for sixty years of service to the nation. Founded on December 1, 1941, the Civil Air Patrol was originally charged with mobilizing civilian pilots in domestic defense and rescue missions under the Office of Civilian Defense during World War II. CAP pilots would serve with distinction logging over 500,000 hours of flying time, sinking two German U-boats, and performing hundreds of search and rescue missions. With the end of hostilities, CAP's responsibilities only grew. On July 1, 1946, President Harry Truman signed Public Law 476, incorporating CAP as a benevolent, nonprofit organization. And on May 26, 1948, Congress passed Public Law 557 which permanently established CAP as the Auxiliary of the newly created U.S. Air Force. For the next fifty-four years CAP would mobilize its resources to fulfil its Congressionally mandated mission of providing aerospace education, cadet programs and emergency services to the American public. The CAP cadet program has trained over 750,000 youth in leadership and life skills over the course of the past sixty years. During that same period, CAP pilots have flown over one million hours on search and rescue missions, saving several thousand lives. In 1951, CAP initiated its aerospace educations program which has since trained over 300,000 teachers in math and science, as they relate to aviation. These teachers have, in turn, taught over 18 million students. I humbly urge my colleagues to join me in honoring the Civil Air Patrol on this, their sixtieth anniversary.

Mr. HASTINGS of Florida

Mr. HASTINGS of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I rise before you today to honor Mr. Henry Brown, Broward County's Teacher of the Year 2002 and the State of Florida's Teacher of the Year 2002, being named a finalist for the National Teacher of the Year Award. Mr. Speaker, Mr. Brown is one of only four teachers from around the United States named as a finalist for the title of the nation's top teacher! This is the first time in Broward's history--and only the seventh time for the State--that a Florida teacher has made it to the national level. Considered an at-risk student when he was in elementary school, Mr. Brown experienced many of the same problems today's students face. It wasn't until the day when a teacher saw a spark in young Henry and took an interest that he turned his life around. Because Mr. Brown has ``been there, done that,'' he understands how to connect with students. It's his ability to reach students and provide a rich learning environment that makes Mr. Brown an outstanding choice for National Teacher of the Year 2002. Mr. Brown's career began eight years ago as a mathematics teacher at Hallandale Adult/Community Center. Over the years, Mr. Brown has learned that the best way to reach students is to give them a sense of industry rather than a sense of inferiority. Having a classroom filled with students facing a wide variety of challenges, Mr. Brown learned early on that he needed different ways of teaching different students. Some of the ``real world'' activities he uses include resume writing, practicing interviewing skills and calculating sales tax and sales prices using newspaper ads. His approach has proven successful, with his students increasing standardized test scores by an average of 22 percent. Mr. Speaker, one thing is clear. Mr. Brown is a shining example that no student is a lost cause and that every student can learn and turn their lives around, given the opportunity. All it takes is a good teacher to see a spark and nurture it until it becomes a fire.

Mr. HASTINGS of Florida

Mr. HASTINGS of Florida. Mr. Speaker, radio listeners and fans of fine entertainment suffered a great loss on January 8, 2002, with the passing of Jack Cole. In a broadcasting career that spanned more than 30 years, Jack provided both hard news and commentary to fans in Washington, DC, Boston, St. Louis, Phoenix, and South Florida. Early in his career, Jack worked in several jobs on Capitol Hill. His great love was journalism, though, and it is where he found his greatest success. Known throughout South Florida as the ``Inquisitor General,'' Jack Cole was a fixture on West Palm Beach radio stations since the 1980s. An unrepentant liberal, he interviewed the famous and the powerful, praising those he deemed worthy and condemning those who strayed from his ideal of honesty and sincerity. More than just a ``talk show host,'' Jack wrote and performed song parodies and entertained audiences with tales of his encounters with some of the 20th century's most interesting people. A brilliant man, Jack Cole infused his programs with references to opera, theater and classical music, and he educated his audiences with his take on famous events from world history. Jack's show, which he called ``World Headquarters,'' was truly a ``university of the air,'' and I was a frequent listener. Jack Cole has been referred to as a ``renaissance man.'' I definitely agree with that assessment, and I will miss him greatly.

Mr. HASTINGS of Florida

Mr. HASTINGS of Florida. Mr. Speaker, Sammy Davis, Jr., was more than a brilliant entertainer, he was a showbiz iconoclast--a breaker of barriers and a man who proved that talent, sheer talent, is the measure of greatness. Mr. Speaker, Sammy Davis, Jr., has left behind a rich body of work, such as his legendary ``Candy Man'', from his various film credits-- including his portrayal of Sportin' Life in the 1959 film ``Porgy and Bess'' and his role as a veteran hoofer in his last move ``Tap'' in 1989. Also to his credits can be added some 40 albums and appearances in more than 20 films. Mr. Speaker, Sammy Davis, Jr., was a versatile and dynamic singer, dancer, and actor who for over 60 years overcame extraordinary obstacles to become a leading American entertainer. He will forever be missed and remembered for years to come.

Mr. HASTINGS of Florida

Mr. HASTINGS of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I object to the vote on the grounds that a quorum is not present and make the point of order that a quorum is not present.

Mr. HASTINGS of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. HASTINGS of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I thank my good friend and colleague, the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Frost), for yielding me this time and for his distinguished leadership on this particular subject, and also my good friend, the gentleman from New York (Mr. Reynolds). All the members of the Committee on Rules heard me last night speak very passionately, moved by the fact that now we have a year that has passed and we still have not undertaken what I believe to be what the American people want in the way of ensuring that we have free, fair, and transparent elections. Before I get into the meat of my remarks, I want to share a vignette with everybody here. In 1974, in Florida, I ran for the Public Service Commission, and I lost that election by 2 percentage points. When I got home that night, my mother said to me, ``Something is wrong.'' My comment to her was, ``Mom, there can't be anything wrong with this election.'' I was kind of angry, upset, and hurt that I had lost. I said ``There can't be anything wrong, because we have this new punch card system.'' Well, now, 30-plus years have passed since that election, and the fact of the matter is that she has said to me, at times when we have spoken privately, that she thought something was wrong. And now I can say to you, ``Mom, you were right, something was wrong all that time.'' Mr. Speaker, I would like to think that when I speak on the floor, my words are eloquent and my thoughts are well expressed. But now is not the time for eloquence. Quite frankly, this rule just stinks. More than 13 months have passed since last year's debacle of an election. Now, when the House finally considers election reform legislation, the Republican leadership is eliminating the option of debate. The only word that I can use to describe this irresponsible act of poor leadership is shameful. During last night's hearing in the Committee on Rules, more than 20 amendments were offered by Members on both sides of the aisle. I offered four amendments that would have fixed some of the problems that I believe currently exist in the bill. My amendments would have required that every polling place in the country be fully accessible to people with disabilities, and somebody please tell me why we cannot accomplish that. They would have taken significant steps, my amendments, towards halting the illegal purging of voters' names, provided for the immediate restoration of former felons' rights to vote; and, finally, ensure that all Americans be given the right to cast a provisional ballot in the case their name does not appear on the list of eligible voters. However, the American people will never hear debate on these amendments, nor the more than 16 others, because the rule that the Republican leadership has reported is closed. Not one amendment that was offered last night will be permitted to be debated today. Granted, I do not agree with all of the amendments that were offered last night. In fact, I am quite opposed to some of them. However, if the House is going to consider an issue as important as the integrity of the American election system, I think that it should be open for debate. I believe that, and I believe the American people do also. Where has the leadership been on this issue? From the looks of this rule, we can tell where the leaders on the other side of the aisle have been. But what about the administration, the primary beneficiary of last year's sham of an election? The answer is we just do not know. I asked the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Ney) what is the position of the administration. To date, the administration has not even issued a statement on the Ney-Hoyer bill that is being considered. Mr. Speaker, realize I applaud the work of the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Ney) and the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Hoyer) on the work that they have done on this bill; and so should the rest of this body, and we should thank the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Conyers) and the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Waters) for helping to improve this measure. Under the constraints that were placed on the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Ney) and the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Hoyer), I do not think that we could have gotten a better bill. I am nonetheless astonished while we know what problems exist, and all of us know how to remedy them, I was astonished by the unwillingness of the Republican leadership to act on a bill that actually fixes all of the problems that exist in our country's broken election system, and it baffles me beyond comprehension that we are not doing it. If the underlying bill is the best that we can do, then it is not good enough. If we are to define our democracy by the rights we guarantee to our citizens and the methods by which we choose our leaders, then we must never find ourselves denying these rights or questioning the results of our methods. Mr. Speaker, few issues in this country ignite the tempers of the American citizenry as much as election reform. In the past year, many of us traveled across the country to hear voters speaking about the problems that they faced during last year's election. From these hearings and meetings, we have garnered a general understanding that the problems we saw in Florida last year are not unique to Florida. On the contrary, the travesty that the Florida's voters faced last November is merely a representative sample of the problems voters faced throughout the United States. Civil rights violations, lack of provisional ballots, increasing amounts of overvotes and undervotes, uneducated voters and poll workers, outdated voting machines, the purging of eligible voters, confusing ballots, lack of accessibility, and not enough funding for States to improve their voting technology, are not problems that are unique to Florida. The Ney-Hoyer bill fixes many of these problems, but at the same time it fails to mandate that others be addressed. Today, Members are faced with a difficult question: Do we allow the perfect to be the enemy of the good, or do we approve a bill that does not fix all of the problems that we know exist in our election system to date? This rule is not, in my view, just irresponsible and shameful; but it is an insult to this body, the American people and the integrity of our democracy. I urge my colleagues to oppose this closed rule.

Mr. HASTINGS of Florida

Mr. HASTINGS of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my good friend and colleague from Florida for yielding me the time. It is a pleasure for me to serve with Chairman Goss on both the Committee on Rules and the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of this rule, providing for the consideration of H.R. 2883, the Intelligence Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2002. H. Res. 252 is a modified open rule requiring that amendments be preprinted in the Congressional Record. However, Mr. Speaker, the preprinting requirement has been the accepted practice for a number of years because of the sensitive nature of much of the bill and the need to protect its classified documents. The bill is not controversial and was reported from the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence by a unanimous vote. Members who wish to do so, and I urge Members to pay attention to this, can go to the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence Office to examine the classified schedule of authorizations for the programs and activities of the intelligence and intelligence-related activities of the national intelligence program, which includes the Central Intelligence Agency as well as the foreign intelligence and counterintelligence programs within, among others, the Department of Defense, the National Security Agency, the Departments of State, Treasury and Energy and the FBI. Also included in the classified documents are the authorizations for the Tactical Intelligence and Related Activities and Joint Military Intelligence Program of the Department of Defense. Members can go to the committee and review those matters. Mr. Speaker, last week the House considered and passed the authorization for the Department of Defense for fiscal year 2002. The intelligence bill we consider today is another critical component in our national defense. Today, more than ever, we need to be vigilant about the myriad threats to our national security. Mr. Speaker, while there will be debate on some worthy amendments, this is a noncontroversial bill providing authorizations for important national security programs. I urge my colleagues to support this rule and to support the underlying bill. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. HASTINGS of Florida

Mr. HASTINGS of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 15 seconds to remind the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Pence) that American workers cannot buy food with trust and cannot pay mortgages with trust. Certainly none of us distrust the President. I trust the American worker, but the American worker has a problem having jobs under the lack of consultation that we provide here. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the distinguished ranking member, the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Frost), a person that has done an outstanding job not only on trade, but on the Committee on Rules, in trying to provide fair and open rules for all the Members of this body.

Mr. HASTINGS of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to yield 1 minute to my very good friend, the gentleman from Oregon (Mr. DeFazio).

Mr. HASTINGS of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Houston, Texas (Mr. Green), my very good friend.

Mr. HASTINGS of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from New York (Mr. Rangel), the distinguished ranking member of the Committee on Ways and Means.