Jerrold Nadler

Mr. NADLER of New York

Mr. NADLER of New York. I thank the gentleman. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. NADLER of New York. I yield to the gentleman.

Mr. NADLER of New York. I yield myself the balance of my time. Mr. Chairman, in closing I want to thank Chairman Mollohan for accepting the amendment, I want to thank the gentleman from Virginia for not opposing it, and I want to encourage all Members to support this important increase in funding so we can reduce the DNA testing backlog, we can put guilty people behind bars, we can free innocent people, we can prevent future rapes and sexual assaults, and make our country safer. I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. NADLER of New York. Mr. Chairman, I have an amendment at the desk made in order under the rule and preprinted in the Congressional Record on June 15.

Mr. NADLER of New York. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 3 minutes. Mr. Chairman, I rise in support of my amendment, which I offer with Representatives Mike Michaud and Carolyn Maloney. The amendment increases by $5 million the funding for the Debbie Smith DNA Backlog Grant Program and offsets that by a corresponding decrease in general operating expenses in the Office of Justice. Unlike eyewitness testimony and other circumstantial evidence, DNA evidence provides scientific accuracy and assurance. It has resulted in the conviction of countless perpetrators of violent crimes and has freed hundreds of innocent people. It is incredible that we can identify the guilty and exclude the innocent with certainty with just a little biological evidence and a scientific test. The problem, of course, is that you actually have to collect that biological evidence, do that test, and record that information. If you do not, the power of DNA evidence is unrealized. Unfortunately, there is a backlog in the hundreds of thousands in the analysis of DNA evidence. This backlog includes untested samples from convicted offenders and from crime scenes, including rape kits. When such a powerful tool as DNA evidence is unused, we must act. For years I have worked to reduce the DNA backlog and helped pass legislation to do just that. The Debbie Smith DNA Backlog Grant Program provides grants to States to collect DNA samples from offenders and crime scenes, including rape kits, to analyze those samples and to expand DNA laboratory capacity. That money is making a difference, and we must ensure that it continues to be available. Congress provided $151 million to the Debbie Smith DNA Backlog Grant Program for fiscal year 2009 and reauthorized the program at this level through fiscal year 2014. Unfortunately, this bill cuts this by $5 million for the coming fiscal year to $146 million, and my amendment would restore it to 151. While I understand the budgetary constraints faced by the Appropriations Committee, this program must not be reduced when these grants mean protecting the lives of millions of innocent Americans and reducing the number of sexual assaults and rapes. I want to thank my amendment cosponsors, Representatives Michaud and Maloney, for their help. I urge all Members to support the amendment.

Mr. NADLER of New York

Mr. NADLER of New York. Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of House Resolution 529 and to condemn in the strongest possible terms the shooting yesterday at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington. Mr. Speaker, a just society has no place for acts of violence, and such acts deserve our strong condemnation. It is a terrible tragedy any time innocent people are terrorized or murdered, and we must always speak out against such senseless conduct. Yet the shooting at the Holocaust Memorial Museum was uniquely horrific, and deserving of special repudiation, for it threatened an entire group of people. It was the entire Jewish community which was the target of the deranged shooter, Mr. James Wenneker von Brunn. This hateful man has long held vicious anti-Semitic and white supremacist views, and tragically yesterday he acted on this demented outlook. It is all the more disgusting that Mr. von Brunn carried out his evil act at the Holocaust Memorial Museum. It is there that we honor the millions of Jews and other victims of the Nazi Holocaust. It is there that we educate thousands of people each day about this genocide, with the goal that it never be forgotten and never happen again. Committing an act of anti-Semitic violence at such a hallowed place is gross beyond words. Mr. Speaker, House Resolution 529 rightfully condemns the vicious shooting that took place yesterday at the Holocaust Memorial Museum. It also urges the American people to join us in condemning this horrific event, offers the condolences of the House of Representatives to the family of Officer Stephen Tyrone Johns, and reaffirms our commitment to further the mission of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. I urge all Members to support it. Mr. Speaker, let me close by thanking Representative Ron Klein for sponsoring this resolution and repeating my emphatic denunciation of the horrific shooting. I also want to take this opportunity to offer both my personal condolences to the family of Officer Johns and my appreciation for his heroic actions and those of the other museum employees.

Mr. NADLER of New York

Mr. NADLER of New York. Madam Speaker, I rise today in recognition of Career Gear. In June of 2009, Career Gear is celebrating its 10th Anniversary by hosting its Capital PerSuit Awards Dinner in New York, NY. Career Gear, a grassroots 501(c)(3) non-profit organization, was founded in New York City in 1998 to promote the gainful employment and self-sufficiency of disadvantaged men who are actively seeking employment. The organization began with the goal of providing appropriate business clothing for those seeking jobs and has grown to provide services and resources that help clients retain employment and advance in the workplace. Once employed, a client is encouraged to participate in an alumni program that is designed to provide peer support and networking opportunities to others in need. This program affects other non- employment issues like budgeting and financial management, emotional coping skills, as well as family and child support. All of these matters impact an individual's ability to remain employed. Over the past 10 years, Career Gear has provided clients with assistance in starting a new chapter of their lives. The success over the past decade is evident by the fact that through the good work of Career Gear, 18,000 men have reentered the workforce with a renewed sense of confidence and have become self-sufficient members of their communities. It is for this attitude of empowerment that I rise today and commend Career Gear.

Mr. NADLER of New York

Mr. NADLER of New York. Mr. Chairman, I rise in support of my amendment, which expresses the sense of Congress that we should continue working with the states of the former Soviet Union to see that immigrants from those states now in the United States are paid their government pensions that they earned while working in the former Soviet Union. The United States has bilateral agreements with many of the nations to address cross-country government pension coverage. While these agreements can structure and coordinate such pension coverage in different ways, the important point is that under most circumstances government pensions are treated with reciprocity. In other words, with respect to countries with which we have arrangements, those countries pay the pensions that they earned while working in those countries to citizens of the United States who now live here. And by the same token, we pay Social Security to Americans who are now citizens of a foreign country if they earned the Social Security while working here. We do not have such arrangements with any of the states of the former Soviet Union--with Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, and so forth. This is critically important because millions of people had no choice but to flee the repressive former Soviet Union in the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s. Several hundred thousand of these people now live in the United States and were forced to renounce their citizenship and their rights of citizenship in the Soviet Union in order to be allowed to leave. Thousands of these people live here, and in spite of having worked 30 or 40 years and earning pension rights in the states of the former Soviet Union, they do not receive pensions from any of the successor states. So this amendment simply is a sense of the Congress urging the State Department to continue trying to negotiate such arrangements with the states of the former Soviet Union so that the former citizens of those countries who now are citizens of the United States and live here can receive the pensions they earned while living in Russia. This should be a no-brainer. It simply urges the State Department to continue efforts to negotiate such arrangements with those states, as we have with many other states. I urge its adoption. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. NADLER of New York. Mr. Chairman, I now yield 1 minute to the distinguished chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee, Mr. Berman.

Mr. NADLER of New York. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself the remaining time. I simply want to thank the distinguished chairman of the committee, Mr. Berman, and the ranking member, Ms. Ros-Lehtinen, for supporting this amendment. I know of no opposition. I urge everyone to vote for it. It is the fair and right thing to do, so I hope everyone will vote for it. Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. NADLER of New York. Mr. Chairman, I have an amendment at the desk made in order by the rule.

Mr. NADLER of New York

Mr. NADLER of New York. Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and agree to the resolution (H. Res. 515) condemning the murder of Army Private William Long and the wounding of Army Private Quinton Ezeagwula, who were shot outside the Army Navy Career Center in Little Rock, Arkansas on June 1, 2009, as amended.

Mr. NADLER of New York

Mr. NADLER of New York. Mr. Speaker, I now yield 1 minute to the distinguished gentleman from New York (Mr. Tonko).

Mr. NADLER of New York. Mr. Speaker, I now yield 2 minutes to the distinguished gentlelady from New York (Mrs. Maloney). (Mrs. MALONEY asked and was given permission to revise and extend her remarks.)

Mr. NADLER of New York. Mr. Speaker, I now yield 1 minute to the distinguished gentlelady from New York (Ms. Slaughter).

Mr. NADLER of New York. I yield an additional 30 seconds to the gentlewoman.

Mr. NADLER of New York. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. NADLER of New York. Mr. Speaker, parliamentary inquiry.

Mr. NADLER of New York. Does that mean the gentleman has declined his right to a closing?

Mr. NADLER of New York. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time. Mr. Speaker, this resolution condemns the murder of Dr. Tiller. It condemns the murder of people who are murdered in church and places of worship. It condemns the practice, and it has become a practice, of seeking to change the laws of this country, of seeking to intimidate women from availing themselves of their rights, of their constitutional right to an abortion, of intimidating doctors from availing themselves of their constitutional right to perform medical procedures that are legal and that they believe are moral by threats of murder and mayhem. I was glad to hear Mr. Smith say that the pro-life movement is nonviolent, and I'm sure that most of it is. But, unfortunately, it is clear that there are some people, a small minority, who believe themselves part of the pro-life movement who are not nonviolent. And these people have engaged in such conduct and have murdered several providers of abortion simply for doing what they believe to be the right thing, what I believe to be the right thing, and, more importantly, what the law allows them to do, and to intimidate other people from doing this. This resolution, which I trust every Member of this House will vote for, says that we do not believe in trying to change the law by violence. We do not believe in domestic terrorism, defining ``terrorism'' as an attempt to change the law through murder and violence and mayhem. We believe in constitutional processes. And if every single one of us does not believe in that, then we have no moral superiority over the terrorists that we condemn around the world. So I trust everyone will vote for this resolution to express our horror of what was done in this instance, to express our belief that social change, if necessary, will be brought about by peaceful democratic debate and by votes, not by bullets, and that this country stands for the evolution of law by debate and by consideration and by democratic means. I urge everyone to vote for this resolution.

Mr. NADLER of New York. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. NADLER of New York. Mr. Speaker, I now yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the distinguished gentlelady from Texas (Ms. Jackson-Lee).

Mr. NADLER of New York. I now yield 2 minutes to the distinguished gentlelady from Colorado (Ms. DeGette).

Mr. NADLER of New York. Mr. Speaker, how much time do I have left?

Mr. NADLER of New York

Mr. NADLER of New York. Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and agree to the resolution (H. Res. 515) condemning the murder of Army Private William Long and the wounding of Army Private Quinton Ezeagwula, who were shot outside the Army Navy Career Center in Little Rock, Arkansas, on June 1, 2009.