Jesse Jackson

Mr. JACKSON of Illinois

Mr. JACKSON of Illinois. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Chairman, I want to reiterate once again how important this particular amendment is. This is the family values amendment that will simply exempt single parents, grandparents, spouses of otherwise already exempt individuals under the bill who are the primary caretakers of one or more children who are under the age of 6, elderly persons, or persons with disabilities. I do not know what is so difficult about this particular amendment and why it has been such a tremendous source of concern for my colleagues on the other side of the aisle. This amendment is one that when we are no longer in public service we indeed will be able to provide the kind of opportunities, if in fact we have children under the age of 6, that we can spend time with them. Mr. Chairman, in a housing project in the city of Chicago, because the parents were not home, a 9-year-old child was thrown to his death from the 14th story of a building by a 13- and a 14-year-old. It was clear that the parents were delinquent because they were not present on that particular occasion. My amendment exempts those primary caretakers for children under the age of 6, those who have senior citizens who are senior citizens, and those who have disabilities from this particular community work requirement. We have an opportunity, Mr. Chairman, to make this particular provision a more humane bill. And let me just take a moment, if I can, Mr. Chairman, of personal privilege. This is the first time since I have been a Member of this Congress that I have had the opportunity to engage in a dialogue on substantive issues across the aisle with Members of this body. These are the first amendments that I have passed and attempted to pass in this institution, and I would certainly hope that my colleagues would support this amendment. Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. JACKSON of Illinois. Mr. Chairman, I offer amendment No. 9.

Mr. JACKSON of Illinois. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. JACKSON of Illinois. Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. JACKSON of Illinois. Mr. Chairman, to the best of my knowledge, there is not one Member of this body who is homeless and not one Member of the Senate who is homeless. Some of us I know stay in our office, which is certainly a Federal benefit because we do not pay rent here in Washington, DC. However, none of us have ever signed a lease term that evicts us as a condition of our Federal subsidy.

Mr. JACKSON of Illinois. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. JACKSON of Illinois. If the gentleman will continue to yield, he said to him; that is the operative word, to the gentleman from Connecticut [Mr. Chris Shays], to you. But the reality is that the scientific evidence says from zero to 6 they should stay close to their parent.

Mr. JACKSON of Illinois. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. JACKSON of Illinois

Mr. JACKSON of Illinois. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding me this time. Let me first begin by congratulating the gentleman from Iowa [Mr. Leach], the gentleman from Texas [Mr. Gonzalez] and the gentleman from New York [Mr. Lazio] for working together on this bill. Mr. Chairman, I rise today in opposition to H.R. 2, a bill which I fear will add to the millions of Americans who are currently homeless, at risk of being homeless, or suffering under severe housing conditions. If H.R. 2 is passed in the form it was reported out of the Committee on Banking and Financial Services, it will, in essence, destroy the last remnant of the social safety net constructed to protect our Nation's most vulnerable citizens. While we all agree that comprehensive reform of our public and assisted housing system is of paramount importance, this bill, unfortunately, is not the vehicle to meet the needs of our Nation's housing needs. In fact, H.R. 2 will make worse an already bad condition. H.R. 2 will fundamentally repeal the underlying premise and principle of the Housing Act of 1937, legislation which encompassed President Franklin Delano Roosevelt's righteous position that safe, sanitary, and adequate housing is a human right and not a privilege. The abandonment of this 60-year commitment is a travesty for this technologically advanced industrial country, which is considered to be an economic superpower among nations. Mr. Chairman, I intend to offer amendments to this bill which will enable us to protect against one of its more onerous and demeaning consequences: the community work provisions of section 105, which I might add are uniformly opposed by virtually every housing authority in the Nation because in the first year alone it will cost $65 million and create the contradictory requirement of mandated volunteerism, an oxymoron. By requiring public housing residents to perform 8 hours of community work on top of the rent that they already pay or risk eviction from public housing, we are imposing a burden on low-income recipients of housing assistance that we do not likewise impose on middle and upper class recipients of housing subsidies like the millions of Americans who receive the benefit of a homeowner deduction each year. My amendments will ensure that H.R. 2 does not force tenants from their homes if they fail to meet this requirement. Mr. Chairman, if we mandate volunteerism in exchange for government assistance in the form of public housing, why not require the same for those who receive any form of Federal assistance, foreign subsidies, corporate welfare, Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, WIC, food stamps, mortgage deductions or mining rights. Mr. Chairman, H.R. 2 vilifies public housing residents solely because they are poor. In the final analysis, we measure ourselves as a society by how we treat the least of these and the most vulnerable. Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to H.R. 2, a bill which I fear will add to the millions of Americans who are currently homeless, at risk of being homeless, or suffering under severe housing conditions. If H.R. 2 is passed in the form it was reported out of the Banking Committee, it will, in essence, destroy the last remnant of the social safety net constructed to protect our Nation's most vulnerable citizens. While we all agree that comprehensive reform of our public and assisted housing system is of paramount importance to this nation, this bill unfortunately is not the vehicle to meet the magnitude of our housing needs. In fact, H.R. 2 will only make worse an already bad situation. H.R. 2 will fundamentally repeal the underlying premise and principle of the Housing Act of 1937--legislation which encompassed FDR's righteous position that safe, santiary, and adequate housing is a human right and not a privilege. The abandonment of this 60-year commitment is a travesty for this technologically advanced industrial country which is considered to be an economic superpower among nations. Without a firm commitment to this principle, we will never attain our stated objective of adequately housing our citizens, as is demonstrated by our history. In the late 1960's a White House conference on housing and urban issues called for 26 million new housing starts over the next 10 years in order to meet the housing needs of our Nation. That goal translated into 2.6 million housing starts each year, with 600,000 of those starts to be federally subsidized each year. The Nation has never even approximated that goal, and currently, the figure is only slightly over 1.5 million new housing starts annually. We know that we face an affordable housing crisis in this Nation-- 5.3 million Americans live under worst case housing needs scenarios-- that is they are forced to pay more than 50 percent of their income in rent and/or live under deplorable conditions. H.R. 2 will exacerbate this crisis through making public housing available to higher income residents who can pay higher rents at the expense of thousands of low income families. When we talk about our priorities of enabling mixed income communities--which I believe is a laudable goal under ideal circumstances--we must be sure not to pull the housing safety net out from underneath the poorest and most vulnerable Americans. Over the course of this debate, we will speak at length about the dangerous targeting provisions in this bill which set aside only 35 percent of public housing units for those earning below 30 percent of area median income, leaving the remainder of units to house people who earn up to 80 percent of the area median income. In Chicago, that means 65 percent of all public housing units could be set aside for people earning $44,650. Should we be displacing full-time minimum wage workers to make room for professionals who can better afford to find housing in the private market? Even at this point, this is a false debate. Let me be clear. When we target low-income tenants as those with incomes under 30 percent of the median income, in a large metropolitan area like Chicago we are talking about those who earn $16,312. This is $5,000 more than a full-time minimum wage worker earns in a year, and nearly $10,000 more than a welfare recipient. People who will necessarily be displaced by the proposed income-mix equation, will include vast numbers of the working poor. As a result, low wage workers and Americans who we are ostensibly encouraging to successfully make the transition from welfare to work will either be forced into homelessness or to forgo basic human necessities like health care, groceries, and clothing in order to find alternative shelter. We must be vigilant in our efforts to ensure that just at the time that we are requiring the most from the most vulnerable among us, we do not remove the stability and security of adequate housing--an essential resource as people attempt to move from welfare to work. When we considered this legislation in the last Congress, welfare reform had not yet been enacted; 70 percent of the residents of the Chicago Housing Authority receive public assistance and half of all residents are children. If there are not enough jobs to meet the welfare-to-work requirements, the potentially devastating implications of this bill are magnified. Mr. Speaker, I intend to offer amendments to this bill which will enable us to protect against one of its more onerous and demeaning consequences. The community work provisions of section 105--which, I might add, are uniformly opposed by virtually every public housing authority in the Nation because in the first year alone, it will cost them $65 in the first year alone--create the contradictory requirement of ``mandated volunteerism.'' By requiring public housing residents to perform 8 hours of community work on top of the rent they pay or risk eviction from public housing, we are imposing a burden on low-income recipients of housing assistance that we do not likewise impose upon middle and upper class recipients of housing subsidies, like the millions of Americans who receive the benefit of homeownership deductions each year. My amendments will leave the section intact, yet will ensure that H.R. 2 does not force tenants from their homes if they fail to meet this requirement. In light of the Colin Powell summit elevating a sound concept, ``volunteerism,'' why refer to such a ``mandated condition'' as ``voluntary.'' Why give volunteerism a bad name? Why not call it what it is, a mandatory condition for living in public housing? The second concern is practical. While section 105 of H.R. 2 is technically legal, where will the poor go if they are evicted from public housing? Will they join the ranks of a growing homeless community on the streets of America? Will they move in with friends or relatives, adding to those already living in overcrowded and unsafe circumstances? What are the real alternatives of the poor if they are evicted from public housing? If we mandate volunteerism in exchange for Government assistance in the form of public housing, why not require the same from those who receive any form of federal assistance, farm subsidies, corporate welfare, Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, WIC, Food Stamps, mortgage deductions, or mining rights? Why do we require this only from the poor living in public housing? Are public housing residents being denied equal protection under the law? Mr. Chairman, H.R. 2 vilifies public housing residents because they find themselves in the unfortunate predicament of being poor. In the final analysis, we are measured as a society by the way that we treat our most vulnerable. Let us not require the most from those who are in the most in need. I urge a ``no'' vote on this mean-spirited and dangerous bill.

Mr. JACKSON of Illinois

Mr. JACKSON of Illinois. Mr. Speaker, I am particularly honored on this occasion to welcome the distinguished gentleman from Illinois [Mr. Shimkus] to the 105th Congress. I know he gave his first special order just a few moments ago. He, like I, when I first became a Member of this institution, was quite nervous, and we talked about it just before he began. But I wanted to take this opportunity to welcome him to the 105th Congress and indicate to him how much I look forward to serving with him in this institution. Today for the better part of this special order I want to talk about a subject that is near and dear to my heart, that is near and dear to 39 Members of this institution, the Congressional Black Caucus. This is African-American History Month. We find ourselves this February confronting some challenges as a nation. We have heard our Speaker talk about racial reconciliation. We have heard our President address the issue of racial reconciliation. And I thought what a better start we could have if we could just begin an honest dialogue about racial reconciliation in the context of Black History Month. Carter G. Woodson is known as the father of black history. Originally it was designated to be just one week long, and then it eventually became a month. He knew that the African-American experience was unique and that the chronologizing of the African-American history and the chronologists of American history did not, would not and could not acknowledge the contributions that African-Americans have made. Recently racial reconciliation has become a widely talked about issue. The O.J. case has forced us to face the wide gap separating white and black Americans in their views of our criminal justice system. How can people have such different perspectives of the same case according to the color of their skin? It becomes obvious that blacks and whites are not speaking from the same page because both groups are looking at the case through the lens of their own experiences, in this case, the experiences of whites versus the experiences of people of color with the criminal justice system. The first step in a process of racial reconciliation is to build understanding between the races. We cannot have an effective conversation about racial reconciliation, which is one of the Speaker's goals, which is certainly one of the President's goals, if we do not try to understand the other group and their experiences. This is what Carter G. Woodson was thinking about and reflecting about when he wanted us as a Nation to pause during the month of February to acknowledge the contribution of African-Americans. The purpose of this special order today is to take that first step, a serious dialogue about race issues, by beginning to explain the historical experience of African-Americans and by explaining the history of obstacles and advances which have allowed me to stand in this room and speak to you today as the 91st African-American Member of Congress. To talk about the history of blacks in America, one cannot avoid the story of the struggle against discrimination in America. The two are intertwined. It is hard for many people to sit down and listen to a history full of discrimination. Many people do not want to relive it. Others do not feel like, they feel more like they are being blamed, but the history has to be told because many people are not aware of the full history, Mr. Speaker. To build bridges, we have to build awareness. One of the greatest problems in race relations is the lack of awareness about discrimination. The discrimination that many blacks experience every day as common knowledge is the same discrimination that many whites do not experience and do not realize even exists. As a Member of this institution, I found myself in the 104th Congress, since I do not wear the identification pin that most Members of Congress tend to wear, late at night standing out in front of the Capitol of the United States trying to catch a taxi. Why can I not catch a taxi late at night in Washington, DC? I do not know. But I have some assumptions. That young African-American males in America trying to catch a cab late at night, where the cab driver is white or black, brings certain prejudices to the whole notion of catching a cab. For example, they may think that I am going to rob them. They may think that I am going to take something from them when the reality is nothing could be further from the truth. Discrimination exists even for Members of this institution as Members of Congress whether we talk about it in our daily lives on the floor of this Congress or not. The purpose of this speech today is not to blame or create guilt over black history. It is to build an understanding, to begin to explain the experiences of African-Americans. A better understanding, I genuinely believe, will help us move past the guilt to create positive change. So I must ask each and every one, particularly the Members who are in their offices today to do just one thing: Put aside your opinions for now and try to imagine with me for a moment what it is like to be an African-American. I ask those of you who are not African-Americans to imagine that you are experiencing the history as being an African- American, that is the history of your people in this country, the history of your sisters, your brothers, your parents and your grandparents. I ask you to imagine what it would feel like had you had to have that certain outlook on the world. I ask if you are an African-American to listen to this story as if you were white, as if this was the first time you heard some of these accounts. How would you react? My first special order, one of five special orders I plan to have this month, is entitled, ``O.J. and Race Entertainment.'' The noted historian John Hope Franklin in his book, ``The Color Line,'' 1993, said perhaps the very first thing we need to do as a nation and as individual members of society is to confront our past and to see it for what it is. If we do that, he says, whites will discover that African- Americans possess the same human qualities that other Americans possess, and African-Americans will discover that white Americans are capable of the most sublime expressions of human conduct of which all human beings are capable. Then he suggests we need to do everything possible to emphasize the positive qualities that all of us have, qualities that we have never had to utilize to the fullest but which remain, but which we must utilize if we are to solve the problem of the color line in the 21st century. America is a nation that is in dire need of entertainment. And the media, Mr. Speaker, knows how to provide it. You want movie entertainment, go see Independence Day. You go see a movie that does what no Democrats or Republicans could ever do, watch the aliens blow up Capitol Hill, not the deficit or the debt, but aliens. Watch them blow up the White House, watch them destroy Wall Street. If you want good movie entertainment, go see Independence Day. If you want sports entertainment, you have the best, Michael Jordan, and, some could arguably say, the worst, Dennis Rodman on the same team. Why is that? Because Dennis Rodman--multicolored hair, many tatoos, more earrings on his body than a fishing lure--he understands entertainment. You want race entertainment and you do not want to have a serious dialog about race, about injustice in America. Here is O.J. In fact, race entertainment is becoming increasingly popular. Name another subject that could give Geraldo Rivera the same television viewer ratings or Rush Limbaugh the same radio listenership. O.J. Simpson has given virtual rise to a new entertainment network, race entertainment television. It is not substantive discussion about understandings from African- Americans, Asian-Americans, native Americans, women in our society or people who are working upward in the society to make a difference for their families. No, that is not O.J. entertainment or race entertainment. You want race entertainment, nonsensical dialog about moving the society forward, engage in it. Talking about race and racial reconciliation is clearly becoming the in thing. It is the politically acceptable thing. The Nation responded positively to President Clinton's discussion of racial diversity in his inaugural address on Martin Luther King, Jr.'s holiday and again in his State of the Union Address. Speaker Gingrich followed with a call on race ignorance and drugs. Nobody in the media wants to just talk about the O.J. Simpson verdict. They wanted to talk about the O.J. Simpson verdict and what it is revealing about the current state of race relations in America. The fact that the O.J. Simpson trial is being viewed and used as a news hook to talk about race in this country is a sign of just how far off the point the media truly is. If we are going to have an honest conversation about this, we have to ask ourselves the question, why do African-Americans and white Americans see the justice system so differently? Let us look at some of the historical chronology, and then we will come back to O.J. In 1705, a Massachusetts law provided that any African-American or mulatto who struck a white person be severely whipped, at the discretion of the justices before whom the offender was convicted. In 1708, a Connecticut law imposed a penalty riot exceeding lashes for any African-American who disturbed the peace or attempted to strike a white person. In 1718, a Rhode Island law was enacted that said to the States if a slave is found in a free black's home, both should be whipped. In 1730, a Connecticut law provided for penalty of 40 lashes for any black, native American, or mulatto who attempted to defame a white person. Of particular importance to O.J., and I have not heard this in any of the analysis, in 1816 a Louisiana State law prohibited slaves from testifying against whites and free blacks except in cases where free blacks were allegedly involved in slave uprisings. In 1827, from my State, the State of Illinois, a law decreed that blacks and native Americans and mulattos were incompetent to testify in court against whites. In 1831, here is a real case study, Ohio said that African-Americans were prohibited from serving on juries as a matter of law. In 1848, Ohio's black laws were then reversed, giving blacks legal standing in the courts. In 1849, Ohio lifted its ban on testimony by blacks in courts. In 1855, black Bostonians protested the absence of black jurors and called for equal judicial rights. In 1860, two blacks in Worcester, MA, were named jurors, the first black jurors in Massachusetts's history. In 1862, California African-Americans were granted the right to testify in cases for the first time where white men were defendants. In 1865, the first interracial jury in the United States indicted Jefferson Davis for treason. The case was set for trial in 1868. In 1880, in Stauder versus West Virginia, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the exclusion of blacks from the jury was unconstitutional. And the way around the Stauder case, many prosecutors have now used preemptory strikes to accomplish what the Constitution has already eliminated as unconstitutional. In 1919, in State versus Young, the West Virginia Supreme Court ruled that a black man sentenced to life in prison was denied equal protection under the law because his jury had no black members. The State subsequently admitted black jury members. In 1926, Violette N. Anderson was the first black woman attorney to present a case before the U.S. Supreme Court. In 1930, President Hoover nominated Judge John J. Parker of North Carolina, a known Klansman, to the U.S. Supreme Court. The NAACP led a successful campaign against Mr. Parker's confirmation. In 1947, be patient with me, I am coming up to 1997, Rosa Lee Ingram, a Georgia tenant farmer, and two of her husbands were convicted and sentenced to death for the murder of a white man whom Ingram alleged assaulted her. The case spurred a national defense and an amnesty program that resulted in her pardon in 1959. On the mind of every African-American still living today, 1955, Emmett Till, a 14-year-old black youth, was murdered in Mississippi by white men. The murder was so brutal and the child's body was beaten so badly that at first he could only be identified by the ring that he was wearing. The reason for his murder: A Chicago native, on a dare from his friends, on a dare from his friends, whistled at a white woman. The two white men arrested for the crime were acquitted by an all-white jury. The particularly graphic picture of Emmett Till's body appeared in Jet magazine and is freshly etched in the minds of every African- American. In 1959, Mack Charles Parker was lynched in Poplarville, MS. A grand jury received evidence in the case but refused to acknowledge that a lynching had even occurred. In 1961, on an integrated bus in Alabama, there were routinely arrests in Mississippi, and, as they routinely arrested people in Mississippi, a Federal judge had to issue an injunction against the police to get them to protect the Freedom Riders. Later, evidence surfaces that local police in Birmingham and Montgomery were involved in the violence and that an FBI employee participated in the Ku Klux Klan's strategy sessions. The FBI did nothing to stop the violence it knew was planned. These are accounts that my grandmother, who is still living, and my great-grandmother, God rest her soul, she is still living and in a coma, often used to tell us about. She used to tell us in 1963 about Medgar Evers, the civil rights activist and field secretary for the NAACP. He was shot in the back. The rifle bore the fingerprints of Byron de la Beckwith, a vocal member of a local white supremacist group. Despite overwhelming evidence against Mr. Beckwith, including an earlier statement that he wanted to kill Mr. Evers, Beckwith was set free after two trials with all-white juries. In 1989, evidence surfaced suggesting that juries had been tampered with. Beckwith was not convicted for the murder until over 26 years after he had committed the crime. Just 2 years ago this case was resolved, and there is presently a movie at the theater starring Whoopi Goldberg to illustrate how recent and current the history is that many African-Americans have with juries. The FBI files referred to Dr. King as the most dangerous Negro leader in the Nation from the standpoint of communism, the Negro, and the national security. The FBI began high surveillance of this civil rights leader and those close to him in an attempt to expose, disrupt, discredit, and otherwise neutralize them. Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy authorized the FBI to tap Dr. King's phones. An FBI letter referring to Dr. King and other civil rights leaders that it would ``be unrealistic to limit ourselves, as we have been doing, to legalistic proofs or definitely conclusive evidence that would stand up in the court or before congressional committees.'' In an attempt to replace King with a manageable black leader, the FBI, under the direction of J. Edgar Hoover, began an extended character assault against Dr. King, labeling him a Communist sympathizer and an adulterer. The O.J. Simpson verdicts themselves are really, Mr. Speaker, not that complicated. Assuming the rules of the judicial system in Los Angeles and Santa Monica were fair and followed, and only the appellate process will determine that, we must accept both verdicts if we are to live in a nation of laws and not men and women. Personal views are just that, personal views, to which everyone is entitled. They are irrelevant, however, with respect to being in a nation of laws. The principle should not be difficult to accept. All of us want to live and work in a nation of laws, in a society where equal protection of the laws is respected and accepted. This really, Mr. Speaker, should be all there is to O.J. Simpson. Guilty, not guilty, and guilty. That is over with and done with. But how do we get from O.J. Simpson's verdicts to race relations and to race entertainment? I would suggest, Mr. Speaker, we arrive at this conclusion by dealing with symbols over substance and talk over action. President Clinton stood on the steps of the Capitol, looking west toward the Lincoln Memorial, the spot where Dr. King gave his famous 1963 speech. When he gave his Inaugural speech and paid tribute to Dr. King's dream, President Clinton spoke to the poetic symbolism of Dr. King's dream but not to its economic substance. Dr. King stood on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, looking east toward the Capitol and the Congress, and he spoke to them about our Nation's budget priorities, about economic justice as the path to racial justice as the substance of his speech. He talked about a promissory note, about a check that had bounced, that had been returned, that had been marked ``Insufficient funds.'' But Dr. King refused to believe that the bank of justice was bankrupt, and he said that there would neither be rest nor tranquility in America until the promissory note was made good. Today, the White House and both Democrats and Republicans discussed that same promissory note, that same bounced check, and that same bank of justice, using different terms. Now the false bankruptcy is called a balanced budget or balanced budget amendment. Assessing the state of the Union depends on one's vantage point. You see one thing if you are on the top looking down. It was a great speech for those of us who were on the top looking down. You see quite another thing if you are a worker or you are poor or you are economically insecure and you are looking up. If you are well educated, if you are employed full time at basically a job of your choosing, if you are making a decent salary, if you and your family have good health and an insurance plan, if you are living in a relatively safe and affordable house, then the state of the Union is pretty much what President Clinton said it was in his State of the Union Address. Then we, as a nation, have a decent shot clearly, at that level, at making racial progress. But you may be 1 of the 15 to 20 million Americans who are unemployed, underemployed, working part time when you want to be working full time, have never had a job, gave up looking for a job so that you are not even counted among the unemployed, or with corporate or government downsizing you are worried that you may be soon in one of these categories. In that economic climate, does anyone think that the American people can really hear and really understand a conversation about race and racial reconciliation? If you are 1 of the 40 million Americans without health insurance, another 40 million with inadequate health insurance, a worker who is being asked to pay more for less medical care, is anyone who is ill- insured or has no insurance, is anyone really convinced that racial reconciliation is high atop that individual's priorities and agenda? If you are not living in safe, sanitary, and affordable housing, then you have a personal housing crisis. But much of the country lives that way, so America has a housing crisis. In the late sixties, a White House Conference on Housing called for 26 million housing starts over the next 10 years, with 6 million federally subsidized. That translates into 2,600,000 each year, 600,000 federally subsidized housing over 10 years. The Nation has never approximated that goal, and currently we are over 1.5 million new housing starts. And the population has grown, so the crisis is worse today than it was three decades ago. Thus, we now need more housing than ever, for America is ill-housed. How can we expect people to be sensitive about race and about racial reconciliation when there is a housing crisis? Our education system is in crisis. Not all of our children are being educated for work and life in the 21st century. Certainly, one can say that the President made a huge effort in his State of the Union Address to improve our educational system and make it more accessible to more people through the various initiatives he spelled out in his speech in the form of tax breaks, tuition grants, and scholarships. For that, he is to be commended. While the effort was there, and I agreed with that, for quality of education is an entitlement of every American, one cannot be as sure about the effectiveness of these programs for the students who have the greatest need, those who are the least well off. While many will benefit from the President's plan, it appears that most of the money will go to students who plan to attend college anyway. It is a kind of ``Democrats for the leisure class'' approach of giving tax relief to the middle class in the guise of education reform; a tinkering, top-down, talented, and technocratic approach to solving a very real problem. In my district, I have cities that do not have tax bases at all, not one job in the town, not enough money, Mr. Speaker, to raise revenue to pay their firemen, to pay their police officers. In this particular context, high school students are in school districts where there are no resources on a regular basis, a consistent basis, to pay teachers what they deserve. Can we really move systematically toward solving our race problem when we cannot provide a quality education for all of America's children? On the watch of a current Democrat President and a Republican Congress, the United States has become the most economically unequal industrialized democracy in the world in terms of wealth and income. While taxes have probably never been totally fair for the average American, tax unfairness was dramatically escalated under the Reagan tax program of 1981. Thus, we do not need a more benevolent and less extreme tax plan than Ronald Reagan's, we need a reversal of that plan. We do not need tax cuts for the middle class as much as we need fair taxes for everybody. Inherent in fair taxes for all is a reduction in taxes for the middle class, the working class, and the poor. How does one get racial justice in America in the context of economic injustice? The reality is you cannot. The more likely outcome and one which we are currently witnessing is the dynamic scapegoating of people of color and the poor in a mean spirit. The logical result of this current economic climate is the passage of proposition 187, immigrant bashing in California and other xenophobic measures. The current racial climate engenders scapegoating by blaming the lack of jobs on affirmative action for women and people of color. In this current climate it is the politically weakest and most vulnerable among us who are being economically assaulted in the name of welfare reform. The reality is, Mr. Speaker, there can only be anecdotal racial reconciliation under the present circumstances of economic inequality and insecurity. Thus, to talk about race and racial reconciliation without acting to bring about a full employment peacetime economy, without universal and comprehensive health care system, without adequate, safe and affordable housing for every American, without quality education for every American child, without economic fairness in wealth and income, is talk that can only lead to more hostility, frustration and racial animosity. To deal with the American people on the matter of race in such a manner is to play games with them. It is engaging in race entertainment. Frustration at the inability to make racial progress will lead to increased racial tensions, witnessed daily on television or experienced every day by average black, white, red, yellow, brown people. Or in the extreme, it can even lead to a racial explosion, as we witnessed in the aftermath of the Rodney King trial. The other alternative, Mr. Speaker, is to think that you are contributing to racial progress merely by talking about it privately. I am reminded about former Senator Bill Bradley's poignant statement, ``When is the last time you sat down with a person of another race and had a frank discussion about race?'' Yes, dialog undoubtedly helps break down barriers and contributes to understanding, but enhanced personal interactions, without economic progress, will never achieve the goal of racial reconciliation. One might wonder why I appear to be downplaying the importance of educating the American people about race through public dialog. My point is that merely talking about or reporting on race relations through the media, especially television, is subject to the same limitations as in the case of individual dialog. Ted Koppel and Nightline have done some wonderful and important shows on race, but unless in the long term it is reported in the context of a comprehensive economic approach, it will not markedly improve race relations in America. In fact, in an unintended way, it may even add to the frustrations and to the tensions by reflecting a lack of progress on the racial front. The problem is that we cannot make real progress on the race question in economic isolation. The race problem must be solved in the context of providing employment, health care, housing, education, and a fair share of wealth and income to all of America's people. If we attempt to deal with the race question outside of the economic context, we are engaging in entertainment, because we cannot make systematic progress in race relations under these conditions. What often happens is that television ends up, since the networks must be concerned with ratings, not educating people about race but using race to entertain them instead, and unfortunately this is often done in the most sensational manner. That is why I say that the O.J. Simpson trials have basically been about race entertainment, not about racial education or racial reconciliation. What could be more sensational and off the point than substantively dealing with the state of current race relations in America than the O.J. Simpson trials? Star black male athlete alleged to have murdered his beautiful blonde white wife. There is more racial understanding and racial reconciliation possible in 1 year, Mr. Speaker, of full employment than there is in three decades of talking about race on television, no matter how well- intentioned, how well done or how well researched. Sensationalizing race in the current economic climate can only increase tension, add to frustration, increase cynicism, and eventually contribute to drug use and scapegoating, where people implode and turn on each other rather than to each other. Racial justice is not the same as economic justice. There would still be racism in a full employment economy. But systematic and steady racial progress can only be achieved in the context of a full employment economy, and it would only be achieved to the degree that we as a nation make progress on economic issues. Thus, Mr. Speaker, that is why I always say the Federal Reserve Board and the Federal Reserve System must become part of the racial justice dialog. Every time unemployment dips below 5 percent, Chairman Greenspan uses employment growth to say that the economy is overheating and as a rationale to raise interest rates, slow the economy and raise unemployment. I oppose the Democratic welfare reform bill. I oppose the Republican welfare reform bill. I thought it was horrible when the President of the United States said that he was going to support the welfare reform bill and 98 Democrats voted for it and 98 Democrats voted against it. But let us assume, since it is a matter of law now, and it is a horrible bill that still needs correction by this body, let us assume for a moment that we are going to move people genuinely from welfare to work. Who is on welfare? People who are unemployed or people who are underemployed? Let us assume that they are part of the 5 percent, the very bottom of our Nation's economy, those with whom the social safety net of this country was designed to protect. Two years and you are off, we say in the bill. But let us say for the very first time because the Dow Jones industrial average is now above the 6,000 mark, that the economy is now beginning to reach the unemployed and the underemployed for the very first time. Let us say that the opportunities that the President talks about in his State of the Union Address, 10 million new jobs, now at 11 million new jobs, let us say that those jobs are finally beginning to reach the unemployed and the underemployed for the first time. As soon as unemployment in our Nation dips beneath 5 percent, the Federal Reserve and its chairman has a press conference, and the very first thing they say is, ``The economy is overheating, we've got to slow the economy down, we've got to jack up interest rates, we've got to slow the economy down,'' and, therefore, this institution, along with the Federal Reserve, creates a permanent class of poverty in our Nation without any more government assistance. Shame on us, Mr. Speaker. Shame on Democrats and Republicans who do not recognize and will not acknowledge that the Federal Reserve Board has a unique and an integral role to play in racial reconciliation, because jobs that have never been and have been eliminated from a generation of people are not reaching them. Even definitions must become part of the racial justice dialog. That is why we need Presidential leadership. The politically motivated movement to redefine the Consumer Price Index, lowering the Consumer Price Index in order to reduce the budget deficit, will have a negative effect on the lives of real Americans, but disproportionately on the lives of people of color. It will impact race relations. It is not a conversation for just Wall Street or a bunch of economists. This is serious business. Similarly, Mr. Speaker, even the way we define full employment affects race relations. ``Oh, Jesse,'' Members on the other side walk up to me all the time, Democrats walk up to me all the time, shake my hand, ``Hey, Jesse, I marched with your dad''; ``Hey, Jesse, been there with you''; ``You're so right, friend,'' but constantly vote against everything I am for. It does not make sense, Mr. Speaker. It sure feels good, but we are not making any progress. In 1971, when Richard Nixon was President, unemployment had risen to just over 5 percent. At that time, our Nation defined 3 percent as full employment. He thought, Mr. Nixon, that 5 percent might cost him the election in 1972, so what did he do in August of 1971? He took an action traditionally attributed to Democratic officials and imposed wage-and-price controls. He jawboned the Federal Reserve to lower interest rates, and it worked. By November of 1972, the economy was booming, employment had dramatically risen, and he was overwhelmingly reelected. They accused George McGovern of losing the election because he was too liberal. The fact of the matter is Richard Nixon won reelection because he was the liberal. He challenged the Federal Reserve, and he moved unemployment back to a number that was more acceptable by the American people. In 1997, however, we are no longer at 3 percent. We are at 5 percent. And every time finally the underemployed get an opportunity, they jawbone the economy and start moving the economy in an opposite direction. We must challenge, Mr. Speaker, the media, political, labor, and other leaders to transform the national discussion and debate from mere racial justice for minorities to greater racial justice for minorities in the context of greater economic justice for all Americans. Dr. King's dream was poetic and it was symbolic. Dr. King's substance was a nonviolent, activist, economic strategy to combat racism and bring about racial reconciliation. That is why he moved from just talking about racial justice to talking about racial reconciliation in the context of an economic justice movement. In 1968 when he was killed, he was not fighting for civil rights. That bill was passed in 1964, and he was not sleeping for 4 years. What was he doing in 1968? He was leading a poor people's campaign that paralleled the national Presidential campaign because he wanted the Nation's priorities to reflect raising boats that were stuck at the bottom. In a nation with the economic ability and the technological capability of providing every American with a decent life, it is an outrage and it is a scandal that there should be such social misery in our country. What do we say to the American poor and to the victims of racism and sexism and classism in America? Do we tell them, Mr. Speaker, that you are better off than the Russian poor? You are better off than the Bosnian poor? You are better off than the Asian poor, the African poor, the Latin poor? This, Mr. Speaker, has got to be close to cruel and insensitive and immoral. No, we must tell them that such injustice is intolerable. That no American should be institutionally and systematically maimed in body and in spirit when our country has the means of doing better. The standard is not a comparison of how much worse things could be, but how much better things should be if we had only the political leadership and the development of the political will to change. We are a nation, Mr. Speaker, of enormous national wealth that is tragically suffering from an anemia of national will to do what we know is just. It is time to end race entertainment, and it is time to start down the sure path of economic and racial justice.

Mr. JACKSON of Illinois

Mr. JACKSON of Illinois. I thank the gentlewoman for yielding me this time, in light of the reality that this special order will shortly be coming to an end and with the knowledge that before this month will have concluded, I will have had three special orders through which I will specifically address issues of concern to black history. While there are those of us who would suggest that the civil rights movement, and it was a crucible in our history, our history in this Nation dating from 1619, and every facet of American life during these special orders will be explored. The first of these special orders, Mr. Speaker, will be this coming Thursday, and it will be an indepth look at our criminal justice system and the role which African-Americans have played. I have entitled this particular special order O.J. and Race Entertainment. But I want to take just a minute or so, and a minute is about all that I will need, to pay homage to a particular Member of Congress who finds himself sitting in the House Chamber on this occasion. I was born, as a matter of African-American history, on March 11, 1965. On March 7, 1965, in our history it is known as bloody Sunday. It is the Sunday that the gentleman from Georgia [Mr. Lewis], Martin Luther King, Jr., and Jesse Jackson and many others in our history walked across the Edmond Pettis Bridge for the right to vote. Because of the struggle that they engaged in in 1965, I now stand here as the 91st African-American to ever have the privilege of serving in the U.S. Congress. The gentlewoman from California [Ms. Millender-McDonald] has the privilege of being the 92d, and the gentleman from Maryland [Mr. Cummings], the 93d. Because of a struggle that our foreparents engaged in, it made it possible for us to serve in the U.S. House of Representatives to represent disenfranchised and locked-out groups, whether they are African-American or whether they are white or Asian-American or Anglo- American. So, while we will reflect upon the contribution of those who have come before us to make it possible for us to serve, each and every one of us as African-Americans in this institution. Mr. Speaker, as women in this institution, as Asian-Americans and Latino-Americans in this institution, we owe a tremendous debt of gratitude to the gentleman from Georgia [Mr. Lewis] and others who made it possible for us to serve. And so these are some of the contexts that we will place over the course of this month as we look at our history and as we look at the racial debate in our country, as we move from O.J. Simpson to race entertainment and what race entertainment has really done and taken us off of the course of civil rights and fairness for all Americans. I am particularly honored on this occasion to thank Congressman Lewis for making it possible for me to serve in the U.S. House of Representatives.

Mr. JACKSON of Illinois

Mr. JACKSON of Illinois. Mr. Speaker, today we come today to celebrate the outstanding work of the distinguished gentleman from Louisiana, the Honorable Cleo Fields. I am honored to be joined on this occasion by several Members of Congress who will be participating in this special order. I certainly want to take this opportunity to thank Congressman Owens from New York for his outstanding leadership on a myriad of issues. I also want to thank him for allowing us the privilege, as this 104th Congress comes to an end, to acknowledge the service of Congressman Cleo Fields. On this occasion I am joined by the distinguished gentleman from North Carolina, the honorable Congressman Mel Watt. Before I yield time to Mr. Watt, I certainly want to say a few words about Congressman Fields. We are living in a time when African-Americans, particularly young African-American men in our Nation, are being criticized and chastised for a whole host of things, from drug sale and drug use in our communities to violent crimes. Often time legislators on both the Democrat and Republican side, quite frankly, have used young African- American males as the justification for the building of more prisons and not funding schools adequately. We are living at a time when the Sentencing Commission suggests that one out of every three black men in our Nation between the ages of 20 and 29 are involved in the criminal justice system, on probation, on parole, or in jail. Even in my district, as I work with young people, I am astounded and amazed to see so many young people who have ankle identification systems that are now tagged to their legs because they are part of a probation system because of overcrowding in the prisons. Yet, in the midst of all of the negative impressions that the media gives us about young African-American men, when I was not a member of this body, I had the privilege of speaking at high schools and colleges all across this country, and just no individual in the Nation, there are only 435 Members of Congress, just no individual in the Nation stood as a greater and a more outstanding example of what we could become than the distinguished gentleman from Louisiana, the Honorable Cleo Fields. He was first the youngest state legislator in the history of Louisiana and the youngest legislator in the 103d Congress. He founded and sustained the Innovative Congressional Classroom, where high school students in the 4th District of Louisiana are involved in debating issues and developing appreciation of the political process. He is the founder and chairman of the House Education Caucus, which has over 60 members. He was the chairman of the Congressional Black Caucus Task Force on Church Burnings and Redistricting. He has helped every Member of this body to recognize the importance of these issues and how they affect every one of us. I know all too well, long before I became a Member of this institution, that the role that Congressman Cleo Fields was playing in talking about the desegregation of this Congress, making it possible for more minorities to serve here, was all too an important role, when one considers that after the Plessy versus Ferguson decision of 1896, during that first reconstruction period, there were 22 African- Americans elected to Congress. As a result of that decision in 1896, by 1901 there were zero African-Americans in this institution, and it was almost 60 years later that Brown versus the Board of Education was passed and the principles of equal protection under the law was established, which really laid the foundation for this institution to pass and President Johnson to sign into law the Voting Rights Act of 1965. As a result of that effort, there are now 39 African-American members in this institution. Representative Fields was a college student when he ran for the State Senate. After having served in the State Senate with great distinction, he managed to develop and gain a seat on the Redistricting Committee in the State Senate in Louisiana. In a State almost 30-plus percent African-American, Congressman Cleo Fields was then in a position to effectuate and actualize the Voting Rights Act of 1965 with the 1990 census. Subsequently, he created a second congressional district for African-Americans in the State of Louisiana. The goal was not to create reverse discrimination for voters in Louisiana, but it was to provide the kind of adequate and much-needed representation that 30 percent of the people of the State of Louisiana had heretofore been denied. Congressman Bill Jefferson was the first African-American from the State of Louisiana elected since reconstruction, and the second African-American was the distinguished gentleman from Louisiana, Congressman Cleo Fields. I was a student at North Carolina A&T State University when I first met Cleo Fields. He was involved in the Jessie Jackson for President campaign. I remember all too well when Congressman Fields and I came to Washington, and one night we were driving past this very noble and very distinguished institution, and Representative Fields looked out of the car window that night, and he said, ``Jessie Jackson, Jr., one day you and I could very well have the opportunity to serve in that institution.'' I kind of laughed and kind of cajoled Congressman Fields, because I certainly knew he was on the track to serving in this institution. I had no idea that I would ever have the privilege and the honor of serving in this institution with Congressman Fields. When I announced my candidacy a year and a half or so ago, I so looked forward to serving in this institution with Congressman Cleo Fields, because he alone has stood as an outstanding example for young African-Americans across this country. With all of the negative burden that had been heaped upon them as a generation, you alone stood as a bright and shining example of what we could all become, if we simply stopped complaining about what we did not have, if we just used what we did have. So I am a member of Congress today because of the outstanding example that Congressman Fields has set, and because of the commitment that he has to public service. I am just honored and privileged to have had, albeit for a brief moment, this opportunity to serve with you. With that, I would like to yield time to the distinguished gentleman from North Carolina, the Honorable Mel Watt.

Mr. JACKSON of Illinois. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days within which to revise and extend their remarks on this special order.

Mr. JACKSON of Illinois

Mr. JACKSON of Illinois. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to congratulate the National Credit Union Administration, the Credit Union National Association, the CUNA Mutual Group, the National Association of Federal Credit Unions, and the National Federation of Community Development Credit Unions for holding their very successful Serving the Underserved conference in Chicago from August 9 through 11, 1996. Credit unions have throughout their history made great strides in providing financial services to those previously locked-out--to members of low-income communities and communities of color, a reality highlighted by conference speakers including our former colleague and conference keynote speaker, the esteemed NAACP president Kweisi Mfume. It is with great appreciation for America's credit unions that today I introduce for the Record President Bill Clinton's statement of greetings and commendation to the credit union community for their evidenced commitment to serving distressed communities. The White House, Washington, August 6, 1996. Warm greetings to everyone gathered in Chicago for the ``Serving the Underserved'' credit union conference. The continued prosperity of our nation depends on our ability to foster economic opportunity for all of our people. Credit unions have continually distinguished themselves by working tirelessly to provide fair loans, sound fiscal advice, and high-quality consumer service to hardworking individuals and families. Your dedication has helped to make the American Dream more accessible to our people, strengthening the potential for innovation, growth, and prosperity for our entire nation. I commend you for your ongoing efforts to reach out to traditionally disadvantaged groups in our society. As you gather to explore ways to fill the unmet financial needs of isolated rural and distressed inner-city areas, I am confident that your continued commitment to high-quality service will help to create a brighter future for us all. Best wishes for a productive and enjoyable conference. Bill Clinton.

Mr. JACKSON of Illinois

Mr. JACKSON of Illinois. Mr. Speaker, I certainly want to take this opportunity to thank Tom Bevill and Glen Browder, as well, for their years of service to this institution, and while I have not had the privilege of knowing and working with them at the level that I wish I could have, their reputations in this institution as genuine public servants certainly precedes them and I am just honored to have the privilege to be from the State of Illinois, to follow in their tradition of public service. The roles that they have represented in this institution are not without great distinction and without the kind of merit that truly needs to be bestowed upon public servants in this institution.

Mr. JACKSON of Illinois. Mr. Speaker, with that I yield to the distinguished ranking member, the gentleman from Ohio [Mr. Stokes].

Mr. JACKSON of Illinois. I thank you, Mr. Stokes. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the distinguished ranking member of the Committee on Appropriations, Mr. Obey.

Mr. JACKSON of Illinois

Mr. JACKSON of Illinois. Today, Mr. Speaker, I am joined by the distinguished gentleman from Louisiana [Mr. Fields] to talk about an issue of critical importance during this electoral season, the issue of affirmative action, and with that, Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask the gentleman to engage with me in colloquy for the remainder and the balance of our time.

Mr. JACKSON of Illinois. Mr. Speaker, with that I yield to the distinguished ranking member, the gentleman from Ohio [Mr. Stokes].

Mr. JACKSON of Illinois. Contrary to popular opinion, the concept of affirmative action has a very long and protracted history in the United States. The longer, more pervasive form has been exclusive affirmative action which established and perpetuated the dominance of white male Anglo-Saxon landowners. For a brief period following the Civil War and then not again until the Civil Rights era of this century, a positive inclusive affirmative action was enacted into law in an effort to end the institutionalized racism and sexism in our society. The highest law of the land, the U.S. Constitution, codified State- sanctioned preferential treatment for white male landowners, guaranteeing the slave trade, the return of fugitive slaves and the counting of African descendants as three-fifths human. African descendants were prohibited from learning to read, from marrying or giving their children names. Women were not allowed to vote. Native Americans, the original inhabitants of the land, were decimated as a people, and survivors were stripped of political and human rights. Tenant farmers and other nonlandowners lacked political rights. While white male landowners reaped the tremendous group benefits of the Homestead Act and the land reclamation laws which provided them with oil and soil-rich land they earned purely by luck of birth, those who had worked the land, mostly Mexican-Americans and Asian-Americans and immigrants, were prevented from owning land by anti-alien laws which were on the books until the 1950's. Asian men were imported to work on the railroad in the West while Asian women were employed in menial positions and Asians were often not allowed to marry. The judicial branch also enforced exclusive affirmative action. In the 1857 Dred Scott ruling, the Supreme Court made the strongest possible statement of white males' preferred treatment and status, that a black man had no rights that a white was bound to respect. It was not until the Emancipation Proclamation that the concept of inclusive affirmative action originated with the Civil War amendments to the Constitution. The first major Reconstruction legislation was enacted specifically for the benefit of African Americans as a group. The Freedman's Bureau Act of 1865 allowed for provisions, clothing, and for land and for lease of land and sale to descendants of slaves. It also set up schools to educate freed slaves who had previously been denied access to education. This healing period, however, was short-lived. In 1873, just 8 years later, the Supreme Court narrowly redefined the 14th amendment, giving States broad authority to reestablish second- class citizenship for former slaves. The Tilden-Hayes Compromise of 1877 cut short the potential reconstruction by eliminating the promise of ``40 acres and a mule,'' taking land away from freed slaves, redistributing plantations to original Confederate owners, pulling out Federal troops who were sent in to protect the freed slaves and allow the Ku Klux Klan to reign by terror and oppression. Then, in 1896, the Supreme Court in Plessy versus Ferguson codified American apartheid with its mandate of separate but equal, legally sanctioning the segregation of the races. Jim Crow laws strictly segregated African Americans in every facet of life from public transportation and accommodations to schools. The disparities were beyond severe with white schools spending more than 10 times the amount of money per pupil than black schools.

Mr. JACKSON of Illinois. I thank you, Mr. Stokes. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the distinguished ranking member of the Committee on Appropriations, Mr. Obey.

Mr. JACKSON of Illinois. Mr. Speaker, I certainly want to take this opportunity to thank Tom Bevill and Glen Browder, as well, for their years of service to this institution, and while I have not had the privilege of knowing and working with them at the level that I wish I could have, their reputations in this institution as genuine public servants certainly precedes them and I am just honored to have the privilege to be from the State of Illinois, to follow in their tradition of public service. The roles that they have represented in this institution are not without great distinction and without the kind of merit that truly needs to be bestowed upon public servants in this institution. affirmative action

Mr. JACKSON of Illinois. Divisive forces claim Asian-Americans no longer affirmative action protections against current discrimination. Yet, whites with high school degrees make up almost 11 percent more than Asian-Pacific-Americans with college degrees. As a group, whites make almost 26-percent more than Asian-Pacific-Americans. Asians remain vastly underrepresented in many occupations. Furthermore, many groups within the Asian community, the Vietnamese, the Laotians, and Filipinos, are characterized by high rates of illiteracy and poor job skills. Asian-Americans are rarely seen in tenured faculty or administrative positions in academia, comprising only 4 percent of all full-time professors. It is manipulative to claim that Asian-Americans are the model minority in an effort to eliminate race-conscious inclusion policies. A 1990 Urban Institute study stands as empirical proof of the pervasive nature of discrimination in the workplace. Comparing African- Americans and white job applicants with identical credentials, the study found unequal treatment was entrenched and widespread. In nearly a quarter of these cases, whites advanced further through the hiring process than blacks. A similar study with Latinos found whites received 33-percent more of the interviews and 52-percent more job offers than equally qualified Latinos. Even when African-Americans and Latinos are hired, they are promoted and paid less. In 1992, Manufacturers Hanover Trust rejected 18 percent of loan applications from high-income whites, yet rejected twice as many, 43 and 45 percent, from high-income African-Americans and Latinos. In 1994, the Chevy Chase Federal Savings Bank agreed to an $11 million settlement of a lawsuit for redlining in mortgage lending, refusing to serve neighborhoods predominantly comprised of people of color. Last summer the Chicago Federal Reserve Bank reported that African- Americans are twice as likely to be denied home loans, and Latino applicants one and one-half times more likely to be rejected as equally qualified whites. Less than 2 weeks ago, on September 5, 1996, the Long Beach Mortgage Company paid a $3 million settlement to African-American, Latino, female, and elderly borrowers who were victims of unlawful pricing practices. The settlement resulted from allegations of race, gender, and age discrimination, in violation of the Equal Credit Opportunity Act and the Fair Housing Act.

Mr. JACKSON of Illinois. I thank the gentleman, who has represented the people of the Fourth Congressional District of Louisiana with great distinction. I am really going to miss the gentleman from Louisiana, Mr. Cleo Fields, in the 105th Congress. He has opted not to return to this institution, in light of serious redistricting that is being challenged, that is not inconsistent with some of the history that we have discussed on this occasion. I want to deal with some more myths concerning affirmative action. The distinguished gentleman from Louisiana spoke of just one myth, but there are others out there. Some have suggested that affirmative action means quotas. Affirmative action has never been about quotas. It has always been about providing women and people of color with full educational and workplace opportunities. Quotas are illegal and they should be illegal. What affirmative action programs do is provide a measurement of their own effectiveness. School admission officers and employers must only prove that they have made a good faith effort to achieve the flexible goals that they have set. If employers persist in illegal discrimination, then a court can impose a rigid quota to bring them up to the level of a nondiscriminating employer. Quotas are only imposed as a last resort and they are imposed only by the courts, not schools or employers or by the government. Is it a myth that affirmative action is preferential treatment for the unqualified over the qualified? Now, this is one of the biggest myths of affirmative action. Affirmative action does not demean merit. In school admissions, race and gender are considered along with many other factors. Where two equally qualified applicants have applied for a job, then and only then can race or gender be considered. This is the only one, and I emphasize, very limited situation where preference arises. Affirmative action is a conservative legal remedy. If affirmative action policies truly granted group preferences, African-Americans would have long ago received the proverbial 40 acres and a mule, native Americans would be governing vast areas of the country, and women would be at the helm of half of the country's major corporations, maybe even President of the United States and Speaker of this institution. Affirmative action is indeed a conservative form of redress when one takes into account that true reparation for past discriminations entail. Practically, poor management on the part of an employer may have led to the hiring or promotion of an unqualified person. These abuses must be corrected and punished. We do not need to throw the baby out, however, with the bath water. These violations do not indict the overall effective mechanisms for achieving equal access for all. What just amazes me about affirmative action, oftentimes when we look at the NCAA and we look at professional basketball, we see Michael Jordan and Toni Kukoc on the Chicago Bulls playing together, we see equal opportunity and we see fairness. As the football season begins, we see African-Americans and we see Anglo-Americans enjoying equal opportunity and playing because of their merit and their ability to play professional or college athletics. But what do we not see as Americans? We do not see in the NCAA the vast recruitment mechanism that goes into finding qualified basketball players. The booster clubs all across our country send in newspaper articles to coaches and they say, listen, here is a qualified person who can shoot, here is a qualified person who can dribble, here is a qualified center, someone who can rebound and grab the ball and pass the ball. We find qualified people based on merit until we get to the area of coaching, and then we have a problem when we suddenly cannot find coaches all across our country who may be female or who may be African- Americans. Suddenly when we are no longer on the football field, in the NCAA and colleges across our country, suddenly when we are no longer playing basketball where blacks and whites play together, and we start looking at the classroom, at these major universities, suddenly the same aggressive recruitment that went into looking for qualified basketball players and football players did not go into looking for qualified people who can write, people who can think, people who can administrate and run these institutions. Here is another myth. It is a myth that affirmative action amounts to reverse discrimination against white males. Reverse discrimination is not only unlawful, it is also very rare. Of the 91,000 cases before the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, less than 2 percent are reverse discrimination cases. A Rutgers University study commissioned by the Department of Labor found that reverse discrimination is not a significant problem in employment, and a high proportion of claims brought by white men are without merit. Many of the claims were brought about by disappointed job applicants who are found by the courts to be less qualified for the job than the successful applicant. White men are 33 percent of the population and 48 percent of the college-educated work force, but they hold 90 percent of the top jobs in the news media, are over 90 percent of the officers of American corporations. They are 88 percent of the directors, they are 86 percent of the partners in major law firms. They are 85 percent of tenured professors. They are 88 percent of the management level training jobs in advertising, in marketing and public relations. They are 90 percent of the House of Representatives, 90 percent of the U.S. Senate, 100 percent of all Presidents. I fail to see why some of them could be so angry. Affirmative action has not caused jobs to go from white to black to brown. It is also a myth that programs for the economically disadvantaged can substitute for race and gender-conscious programs. This nonsolution cynically rejects the notion that plain old-fashioned racism and sexism are alive and well. I do not need to repeat the data above to drive in the point that such proposals would not rectify the realities of the glass ceiling. Women are sexually harassed no matter their income. Women and people of color are still denied promotion, job opportunities or access to credit and equal opportunities in education based upon their race or their gender, not their income. Is it a myth that affirmative action has not benefited the Nation as a whole? Everyone has benefited from fair employment practices. Everyone has benefited from the Voting Rights Act of 1965 which desegregated this Congress. It has allowed 39 African-Americans who represent majority-minority districts to come to this floor of this Congress and represent the disenfranchised, the locked out, points of view different than traditional Anglo-American points of view. It was the desegregation of these laws and the desegregation of these institutions that were the goal of the civil rights movement of the 1960's. Since the standard of living started falling in 1973, fathers and husbands have benefited from two-wage-earner households. Pre- affirmative action, Mississippi State troopers were also adjusted under affirmative action laws. It is really a myth to assume that affirmative action has only helped African-Americans. It has ushered in a broad- based body of equal employment opportunity laws. For example, there was a time in Mississippi where in order to be a State trooper you had to be 6 feet tall. Now, as a result of equal employment opportunity laws, as a result of affirmative action, you can be a 5 foot 8 white male applying for that job. You can be 5 foot 4, 5 foot 2. You do not have to be 6 feet tall to be a State trooper in Mississippi any longer. That law did not just help African-Americans. It made it possible for short white males in Mississippi to become State troopers. Now with the elimination of such irrelevant job classifications, even African-Americans and women can also serve as State troopers in Mississippi. Diversity in professional schools has been good for America. With the inclusion of women in medicine, strides have been made in breast cancer research and other areas of women's health. Recruitment and training of women police officers, of judges and prosecutors have led to treatment of domestic violence for the crime that it is. The enrollment of people of color in higher education has increased from practically zero percent to 20 percent over the last 20 years. But we still have a long way to go. Public services have benefited from the increase of African- Americans, of Latinos and Asians and native American personnel who more genuinely reflect the diversity and the needs of the communities that they serve. A diversified corporate America has become more competitive in this increasingly globalized economy. They have opened up new markets in the African-American community, in the Latino community, by advertising with not only African-Americans but also with female advertisers. Upgrading the educational and employment skills of a majority of the Nation has been good for the country. To turn back the clock on equal opportunity for the sake of political gain is not only immoral as public policy but it is also misguided. It is counterproductive, and it does not bode well for the future of our Nation. To that end, today we began discussions in the House Committee on Small Business. In that particular committee, we are talking about the 8(a) program which was a program that has really been used to serve as an incubator for businesses, particularly businesses that affect minorities. But it is not limited to minorities. If white women can demonstrate that they qualify as a disadvantaged business, they can apply through the 8(a) program. White males can also apply through the 8(a) program. But there has been a history of Federal contracts that have historically denied African-Americans, women and those who have been historically disadvantaged the opportunity to participate. There is a movement afoot in this body to eliminate the 8(a) program. I am asking Democrats and Republicans on both sides of the aisle, particularly in this church-burning climate, to thwart that movement. We need not engage during this electoral season in race-based politics, and that is what challenging the 8(a) program really is. One of the myths about the 8(a) program is that it is no longer necessary. Programs like 8(a) have not outlived their usefulness because discriminatory treatment of certain groups of Americans is really not a thing of the past. The burning of churches with predominantly African-American congregations is just one tragic example of this discrimination that persists. I have only been a Member of this institution for 10 months. Usually I do not wear this little pin right here which I do not particularly care that much for but it is a little identification that lets everyone around Capitol Hill know that you are a Congressman. Not long ago I was speaking to a group of African- American interns here in the U.S. Congress and I told them, when you walk down the halls of the U.S. Congress without this pin on, no one ever mistakes you for being a Member of Congress. But every time I see an elderly white gentleman with a briefcase or with gray hair in this institution, I have to assume first that they are a Member of Congress, and then second, I assume that maybe they are a lobbyist or maybe they are the head of some corporation coming to meet with some significant Member of Congress in this institution. But never, as a young African-American in this institution, am I ever mistaken for being a Congressman except for by my colleagues who know me. Toward that end, I got up one morning a few months ago, at 7:30 in the morning I came to work determined to serve my country and the people of the Second Congressional District that day, and stayed here until 11:00 that night. After I got off work, the same time most Members of Congress got off work, I decided to go to my office and check for my schedule tomorrow to find out what time I had to come back to the institution. Once I got ready to go, my assistant asked me if she could give me a ride home, and I said ``No, that's quite all right, I will just go outside and catch a taxi.'' Well, I went outside to catch a taxi. The first taxi passed me by at 11:30. I waited for a couple of minutes and another taxi passed me by. I could have just gone and asked someone from the Capitol Police to give me a ride home, but I just decided to wait as a young Member of Congress to find out how many taxis were going to pass me by in the District of Columbia. That night more than 17 taxis passed Congressman Jesse Jackson, Jr., by. They did not see a Member of Congress first, they saw a young African-American first. So why is it that the 8(a) program is so necessary? Because there are Federal agencies out there that engage in almost any kind of business, from selling widgets to selling bolts to selling airplanes, to selling F-22's, we sell everything to the Defense Department. The Defense Department must buy everything. There are hundreds of Federal agencies that make purchasing decisions in our Nation. The only issue really before us when we consider eliminating a program like the 8(a) program is whether or not those Federal agencies are going to drive right past qualified Latinos, qualified women, qualified African-Americans, or whether or not we are going to slow the Government down long enough to help people who have been historically locked out. Discrimination is not gone. If it is gone, it is only underground. Discrimination is insidious because it affects the individuals with whom one associates, the businesses one patronizes, the perception of who gets a job and when they get a job. I was talking to another group of businessmen not along ago. They were very proud to hear from a young African-American, a Member of Congress, and so we began talking about affirmative action. Some of them began questioning whether or not affirmative action was necessary. And so I asked them, I said, ``How many of you do business with the Federal Government?'' A significant number of them raised their hand. I asked them how many of them did business with local municipal governments. A significant number of them raised their hands. I then turned around and asked them, ``How many of you have an African- American that is a lawyer with your firm or with your business and general counsel?'' Very few hands went up. How many of you have women that head up your accounting department or your finance department? Or how many of you put money in banks that are owned or operated by women or by African-Americans or by Latinos? How many of us spread the wealth out from the benefits that we have received from these local municipalities and the Federal Government? Very few hands went up. So what are we suggesting? We are suggesting that these businesses and that these individuals continue to drive by at 11:30 at night, no matter who serves their country, they just drive right by in search of their friend who went to school with them. They drive right by in search of someone who went to Harvard or someone who went to Yale or someone who went to North Carolina A&T State University. How do we break up the good old boy network? One way to do it is to have programs on the books like the 8(a) program that make it possible for minorities to participate. It does not mean they do not compete. Of course they compete within the 8(a) program. But a lot of these businesses that have been in this incubator for 9 years and then subsequently leave the 8(a) program, they end up facing the same kind of discrimination that the 8(a) program sheltered them from and, therefore, beyond the 8(a) program many of these businesses, quite frankly, cannot survive. It is a myth. The 1994 Federal Acquisition Streamlining Act, FASA, addresses all concerns of those seeking to assist the socially and the economically disadvantaged. FASA will expire in 2000, and it has not been implemented because all affirmative action programs have been attacked since the 1995 Adarand versus Pena Supreme Court decision. Fact: While FASA regulations have not even been promulgated to avoid Adarand roadblocks, 8(a) has survived strict administration reviews because of its focus on business development. Another myth: Many businesses see 8(a) as an end in itself. SBA rarely or never graduated businesses out of the 8(a) program. Fact: Businesses participate in the 8(a) program for a maximum of 9 years and must withstand annual reassessments of their eligibility every year. This is a 4-year developmental stage, and then there is a 5-year transitional stage for these businesses that are being groomed to do business with the Federal Government. In 1987, Alfred Ortiz, for example, went into business for himself and found Source Diversified Inc. in Laguna Hills, CA. His company customizes computer hardware. Now Source Diversified has $21 million in sales and employs 15 workers. Alfred is just one successful graduate of the 8(a) program who attributes the strong and rapid growth of his business to the program. Myth: If you teach a man to fish, he can feed himself for a lifetime. Well, I really like this one. Here are the facts. 8(a) participants do not have any fish handed to them. These minority-owned businesses competed with each other for those procurements which have been set aside. The 8(a) program teaches businesses to fish. It teaches businesses to fish. This is not about a handout, this is about a helping hand. It teaches businesses to fish. When minority-owned businesses start out looking for contracts in the private sector, their proven ability to win a Government 8(a) contract is actually their diploma, or their doctorate in fishing, and in that way they can come back and approach the Federal Government or they can approach the private sector after having developed a proven track record under the shelter of the Government's protection, because racism, discrimination, and sexism exist outside of that shelter which does not allow those businesses the opportunity to foster, to grow and to develop. Myth: The 8(a) program does not foster the free enterprise system. Nothing could be further from the truth. Here are the facts. The free enterprise system flourishes when there is full participation, and without the 8(a) program there would not be as much participation for minority-owned businesses. Supporting a development of minority-owned businesses through the 8(a) program puts market forces and the free enterprise system to work for all Americans because those minority-owned businesses eventually buy supplies and services from other businesses. Moreover, last year 8(a) participating firms paid more than $100 million in Federal taxes. Myth: The 8(a) program does not encourage opportunity for everyone to compete. Nothing could be further from the truth. Here are the facts. The 8(a) program is precisely the ray of hope which encourages all Americans, regardless of ethnicity, gender, or economic condition. Those opponents of 8(a) who accuse it of excluding certain Americans from procurement opportunities are guilty of scapegoating. The answer is not to turn one group of Americans against the other. Rather than dismantle 8(a), we need to improve and augment educational and training opportunities for all Americans so that no one in this country can complain about being overlooked. The 8(a) program exists to provide opportunities for everyone to compete, opportunities many have not had and would not have without this program. Here are three quick myths: 8(a) wastes money through reliance on sole source contracting. This is not true; 8(a) is riddled with fraud and abuse even after 3 congressional attempts to reform it. That is not true; and 8(a) has failed to help fledgling minority businesses and is primarily a rich-get-richer program for Beltway bandits. That is not altogether true. Here are the facts. Total 8(a) contracts in 1994 represented only 3.2 percent of all Federal contracts. We are talking about only 3.2 percent of all Federal contracts. And in this institution we have a budget of $1.7 trillion every year and we are talking about 3.2 percent of Federal contracts. That does not include the entire $1.7 trillion. It is even smaller than that, 3.2 percent of Federal contracts. Just 3.2 percent. The total 8(a) program received less than half of the actual contract dollars than were awarded to either of the top two defense contractors. The total program received less than half. Reforms to further bring 8(a) into compliance with the strict Adarand standard are included in proposed regulatory changes that have been published in the Federal Register. The Department of Justice believes that these changes will, one, allow agencies to use race conscious tools to assist disadvantaged businesses, enable agencies to assess what level of minority procurement would be probable in the absence of discrimination, require agencies to implement measures that do not rely on race to broaden opportunities for small minority firms, tighten certification and eligibility requirements. Mr. Speaker, I hope today that with our brief colloquy between the gentleman from Louisiana and myself on the issue of affirmative action, 8(a) programs, and the need to offset years of historical discrimination against African-Americans, minorities, women, and people of color in this country will not go unheeded and unheard by the membership in this august and esteemed body. The challenges before us are great as a nation, and I am more convinced than ever if we can move beyond racial battle ground to economic common ground and on, as my father would say, to moral higher ground, we can make sense and make sense for all of America. Many Americans still long for the day when they can say, ``My country 'tis of thee, sweet land of liberty.'' That day has not yet arrived, and many African-Americans and disadvantaged businesses in our Nation need a helping hand. Not a handout, a helping hand. It would serve this institution well, it would serve all of us as Democrats and Republicans if we could move beyond the politics of divisiveness and expand programs that make sense for the most people.

Mr. JACKSON of Illinois. Mr. Speaker, in 1978 a divided Supreme Court in University of California versus Bakke struck down a UC Davis admission program, which set aside 16 out of 100 slots for disadvantaged students, as an impermissible quota. The Bakke court did, however, affirm the use of race or ethnicity as a factor to be considered, along with many other factors. It is commonplace for schools to seek out students with special talents or skills or leadership ability or unique geographic origins, to consider whether they are veterans, or promising athletes, or children of alumni. Significantly, the court recognized a diverse student body as a compelling State interest. The vote by the UC regents, however, has circumvented the Supreme Court's recognition of the public schools' ability to enrich their educations and the educational environment. We now sit in fear of the long-term implications that this will have, not only in California, for California residents, but for the students of other States who have followed suit. Two decades of constitutional law have defined lawful affirmative action plans in employment, in contracting, and education, which include activities from recruiting and special outreach to goals, targets, and timetables, not quotas. The court requires that the following five guidelines are met when implementing an affirmative action plan: No. 1, race, national origin, or gender is one of several factors to be considered; No. 2, relevant and valid job or educational qualifications are not compromised; No. 3, numbers do not amount to numerical straitjackets or quotas and reflect the relevant pool of applicants; No. 4, timetables for achieving the goals are reasonable, and there is an appropriate review of the plan's continuing value; No. 5, the rights of nonbeneficiaries are respected. The court has held a plan is illegal if any of the following five situations occur: An unqualified person receives a benefit over a qualified one; Second, numeric goals are so strict to the degree of being inflexible; Third, the numeric goals do not reflect the available pool of qualified candidates, and thus easily become a quota; Fourth, the plan is of indeterminate length, causing it to outlast its objectives; and Fifth, innocent bystanders are impermissibly burdened. One year ago the Supreme Court dealt a blow to affirmative action policies. The court, in the Adarand versus Pena decision, made it more difficult to implement Federal affirmative action programs as it raised the level of review to the highest measure of scrutiny. Significantly, seven out of nine justices, excepting Scalia and Thomas, rejected the notion of color-blind justice. Prior to Adarand, the court would defer to Congress and to Congress' expertise in crafting programs to ensure that victims of past governmental or societal discrimination were able to benefit from the educational opportunities and business of the Federal contracts that their tax dollars actually went to support. Mr. Speaker, while strict scrutiny is certainly a higher threshold, the Department of Justice has studied affirmative action programs and is promulgating regulations to ensure that existing programs are narrowly tailored to meet their ``compelling government interest.'' Prior to the Adarand decision last year, the Supreme Court likewise declined to overrule a lower court decision which outlawed the University of Maryland's Banneker scholarships. This was a program which attracted high-achieving African-Americans to the university, leaving minority targeted scholarships severely jeopardized. Earlier this year, in the April Hopwood decision, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the use of racial diversity as a remedy for past discrimination is not enough of a compelling Government interest to justify an affirmative action program. Prior to Hopwood, the University of California dismantled its affirmative action programs, and several State universities are following suit. We are pleased to hear that the extremist Dole-Canady bill will not come to the floor for a vote due to the lack of support for the outright dismantling of this very effective mechanism for equal opportunity, and note that the same opposition applies to the so-called California civil rights initiative and other State efforts to undermine equal opportunity, whether in employment, in education, or in contracting.