Jerrold Nadler

Mr. NADLER

Mr. NADLER. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, I wish to thank the gentleman from Alaska (Mr. Young); the ranking member, the gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Oberstar); and the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. LaTourette), the subcommittee chairman; and the ranking member, the gentlewoman from the District of Columbia (Ms. Norton), for their bipartisan support and expeditious handling of this bill on behalf of our former colleague, Ted Weiss. Ted Weiss was my predecessor in this House. Ted Weiss first ran for Congress in 1966. I was a freshman in Columbia College, and I worked on that campaign. He ran on an anti-Vietnam War platform, and he was not successful. But whereas the previous candidate had lost to the incumbent by 2,500 votes, Ted Weiss lost by 61 votes. Two years later in 1976, Ted Weiss was elected to be Congress where we owe him a great debt of thanks for his dedication for increased funding for AIDS research. In fact, Ted Weiss was the sponsor of the very first funds for AIDS research in this House. He was a staunch supporter for the human rights movement, and he worked to ensure dignity and equality for Vietnam veterans. He was a great supporter of the rights and aid to Vietnam veterans. These were a few of the causes of which Ted was a tireless advocate and worker. He was born in Hungary, as was mentioned. He escaped with his family on the last ship out of Hungary before World War II. He settled in New Jersey. He graduated from South Amboy High School in 1946. After his service in the Army, he attended Syracuse University, earning both undergraduate and law degrees. In 1953 Ted entered public service as an assistant district attorney in New York City. He served as assistant D.A. for a number of years. As a matter of interest, he roomed with a friend of his while he was assistant district attorney. The friend went on to become the minority leader of the State Senate in later years. In 1961 Ted was elected to the New York City Council, being the first reformed Democratic member of the city council and served on the city council until his election to Congress in 1976. The Almanac of American Politics for many years when it talked about Ted's election to Congress mentioned that he had become so recognized as a tribune of the people that in an open, solidly Democratic seat he was unopposed for an open Democratic seat in the primary. He declared his candidacy and no one else ran. During his tenure in Congress, he was a staunch supporter of civil liberties. His legislative record was built around the service of the Government Operations Committee where he chaired the Subcommittee on Human Resources and Intergovernmental Relations. He was instrumental in establishing procedures for the timely planned conversion of surplus military bases to peacetime uses. He was the recipient of numerous awards and honors, including the NAACP's National Legislative Award. It is most fitting and proper that we honor Ted Weiss by designating the Federal building at 290 Broadway as the Ted Weiss Federal Building. It is in what was Congressman Weiss's district. It would be a fitting tribute to his memory and to the great service he rendered to the State of New York and to the United States. Mr. Speaker, I urge support for H.R. 145. I do hope this time the Senate will not be totally tied up in bureaucracy and we will manage to pass this bill in time. I know of no opposition to the bill. I again thank the other people who have helped with this, including the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. LaTourette). Mr. Speaker, I urge the passage of this bill unanimously. Mr. Speaker, I have no further requests for time, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. NADLER

Mr. NADLER. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to praise the extraordinary efforts of NYU Downtown Hospital and its Chinese Community Partnership for Health program, for all of their work in health education, outreach and case management throughout lower Manhattan. I salute them on the occasion of the fourth annual Hong Kong Television Broadcast Limited Benefit Variety Show, which raises funds for this worthy cause. Lower Manhattan is a diverse community that welcomes thousands of new immigrants every year, especially to the dynamic neighborhood of Chinatown. NYU Downtown Hospital is the only health care facility in the area and works to guarantee that these immigrants have access to quality health care. The hospital has numerous successful outreach programs including the Chinese Community Partnership for Health (CCPH) program. The CCPH works to promote health care to all the residents of New York's Chinese community, including the tens of thousands of new residents each year. For ten years, the CCPH has served more than 80,000 garment and restaurant workers, elderly Chinese residents and school children in the Hospital's service area. The centerpiece of the Partnership program is its health screening activities conducted by specially trained outreach teams that include bilingual nurses with both Eastern and Western healthcare concepts and practices. CCPH helps these immigrants overcome language and cultural barriers which prevent them for receiving the medical assistance they need and deserve. To help raise funds for this worthy cause, CCPH and NYU Downtown Hospital will host a three-day extravaganza featuring a celebrity gala dinner and culminating in the Benefit Variety Show. Produced by the Hong Kong Television Broadcasts Limited (TVB), the Benefit Variety Show is an annual event in its fourth year that will be held in New York on March 22nd. The festivities are broadcast worldwide, which helps to display New York's tremendous diversity. Mr. Speaker, in closing, I ask my colleagues to join me in recognizing the many individuals who work tirelessly to make this event an annual success, including Sir Run Run Shaw, Executive Chairman of TVB, George C.K. Liu, Chairman of the Physician Committee, and Hong Kong Superstars Jerry Lamb, Sonija Kwok, Edwin Siu, Joey Yung, Steven Ma, Moses Chan, Ming-Fai Koi, and Christopher Wong. I would also like to recognize the Chinese Consolidated Benevolent Association, who are the grand benefactors of this event and do so much throughout Chinatown to serve and protect the interests of the Chinese community in New York City. I appreciate all the good work that CCPH does to promote quality health care and I wish them great success with this year's variety show.

Mr. NADLER

Mr. NADLER. Mr. Speaker, one thing that has not been remarked upon is that the cap of $250,000 for pain and suffering, whether a baby is killed, a person is paralyzed for life, an old person is killed, regardless, aside from economic damages, they can only get $250,000. But that cap is not inflated. When that was first written in 1975 in California, $250,000 was worth what today is worth $1.6 million. The $250,000 now is worth what was then worth less than $39,000. If there is no inflater put into this bill, and the Republicans in committee voted against it, except a couple of them, and they would not let me bring it onto the floor, then what we are really saying is people should get no recovery at all for pain and suffering and lifelong anguish and death and dismemberment. None. Only for lost wages, if they are workers, or for medical bills. Because eventually that is what this $250,000 will be worth, next to nothing. Finally, on frivolous lawsuits. On contingency fees you cannot bring frivolous lawsuits, which is why this bill does not mention it and why talking about it is so dishonest.

Mr. NADLER

Mr. NADLER. Madam Speaker, I rise today to discuss a silent, yet deadly, epidemic facing the country: domestic violence. Every 9 seconds a woman is battered in the United States. In 2001, 80,000 women and children in New York State alone requested help from domestic violence programs, and these were only the documented cases. Many more cases go unmentioned as women, fearing to come forward, leave the assaults unreported. The most common form of domestic abuse is physical; but many men abuse their wives and partners emotionally, sexually, and economically; and women are not the only victims. Between 3.3 and 10 million children annually witness the abuse that occurs between their parents, and so the domestic violence cycle is passed on from generation to generation. For many years domestic violence has been viewed as a woman's problem, but that is not the case. Domestic violence is a woman's problem, a man's problem, the community's problem. The time is long overdue for men to take a stand and say that domestic violence is unacceptable. We must have full funding for the Violence Against Women Act to protect women who are victims. The President has said so, but his 2004 budget proposes a $19 million cut in funding for domestic violence. We demand full funding for the Violence Against Women Act. We commend the groups who work so tirelessly to extend this message.

Mr. NADLER

Mr. NADLER. Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to this dangerous and ill considered legislation. Rather than protecting the sanctity of human life, this legislation will needlessly sentence untold generations of innocent human beings to premature death and lifetimes of suffering. There is no disagreement that it is immoral to use cloning to create human beings and that that ought to be prohibited. The evidence from research involving cloned animals is that such efforts can result in severe deformities, premature aging and death. It is wrong to willfully inflict this kind of suffering on people and it should not be permitted. If this bill prohibited only that kind of activity, we would have no disagreement and no debate. It is precisely because we abhor the suffering that would result from using cloning techniques for human reproduction that it is also clearly immoral to criminalize using so-called therapeutic cloning, which scientists call somatic cell nuclear transfer, for medical research and medical treatment. The fruits of this research promise cures for Parkinson's disease, chronic heart disease, rheumatoid arthritis, spinal cord injuries, Alzheimer's disease, Huntington's disease, brain damage, lupus, combined immunodeficiency, Tay-Sachs, and sickle cell disease, to name just a few. We will hear that we must make criminal the creation of human life in order to destroy that human life to produce stem cells. But that assumes that a one-celled organism or a several-celled embryo is a human being. If it is, then therapeutic cloning is immoral. If a several-celled embryo is not a human being, then therapeutic cloning is not only not immoral but is profoundly moral, as it will be used to save and prolong human lives. So what is this bill really about? It would write into our criminal law a particular religious view that holds that a few cells in a petri dish are moral equivalents to a fully developed human being or in fact a human being, and that no benefit to those suffering and dying from terrible diseases would justify such research, would justify the destruction of a several-celled embryo. People are certainly entitled to their religious beliefs, but they are not entitled to inflict suffering on the sick and death on the ill and enforce the imposition of their religious beliefs on others using $1 million fines and 10-year prison sentences. In fact, there are many other religious perspectives that disagree with the religious perspective that is the only justification for this bill. As the Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations and the Rabbinical Council of America put it in a letter to President Bush: ``The potential to save and heal human lives is an integral part of valuing human life from the traditional Jewish perspective. Moreover, our rabbinic authorities inform us that an isolated fertilized egg does not enjoy the full status of personhood and its attendant protections. Thus, if embryonic stem cell research can help us preserve and heal humans with greater success and does not require or encourage the destruction of life in the process, it ought to be pursued.'' This opinion comes from a religious community that does not favor legalized abortion, which should put to rest the view that this is a debate about abortion. It is not. It is rather a debate about whether anyone should be allowed to use our criminal laws to impose their particular religious view on the vast majority of Americans who may not share that moral or religious outlook. Muslim groups, Mormons, some mainline Protestant denominations including the United Church of Christ and the Presbyterian Church (USA) support stem cell research. It is wrong to cause so much suffering in the name of protecting the sanctity of human life. It is especially wrong to use the criminal code to impose that narrowly held view on the innocent and the vulnerable. It is said that therapeutic cloning has nothing to do with the therapeutic use of stem cells, but it may very well be that only embryonic stem cells produced by therapeutic cloning can overcome the body's immune defenses in order to be able to cure a disease; and the same people who oppose therapeutic cloning oppose the use of embryonic stem cells for the same reason: their religious view that the several-celled embryo from which the embryonic stem cells are derived is a human being. They are entitled to their belief. They are not entitled to impose that religious belief on the entire country at the cost of who-knows-how-many lives. It is said that allowing therapeutic cloning will inevitably lead to reproductive cloning, but research and medical practice can be regulated and can be policed. We have heard today that this is a moral question. Yes, in part. It is immoral to prohibit medical research and treatment that can save lives. It is immoral to make it criminal, as this bill would do, to import a cancer vaccine from a foreign country if that vaccine was produced through therapeutic cloning in a foreign country. And it is immorally arrogant, immorally arrogant to think that only one religious view is valid or moral and that one has the right to use political power to impose that religious view on the rest of the American people who may hold different religious views. That is what this bill would do. That is why this is an immoral bill unless amended to apply only to reproductive cloning.

Mr. NADLER. Mr. Chairman, if one is quoting from Moses, one might note that in the same five books of Moses that contain the Ten Commandments there is a passage that says if a man smites a woman and she die, he shall surely die, and if he smites her and her fetus dies, she shall pay monetary compensation, showing at least the Biblical view that a fetus at some stage of development is not a person and not subject to being murdered. The heart of this debate is whether you are creating a human being when you are creating an embryo.

Mr. NADLER

Mr. NADLER. Madam Speaker, I rise in support of this resolution, and I would like to thank the leadership of both sides for bringing it to the floor today. As a sponsor of the resolution and as the Member of Congress representing the Broadway community, I appreciate the bipartisan support this resolution has received. Madam Speaker, this resolution is in honor of a beloved member of the American theater community who passed away in his sleep this past January 20. Throughout his long and extraordinary career, Al Hirschfeld's drawings conveyed to millions of people the excitement and glamour of live theater. Al Hirschfeld was born on June 21, 1903, in St. Louis, Missouri, and moved to New York City with his family at the age of 12. He discovered his artistic talents early on; and by age 18, he had already been hired as art director for Selznick Pictures, drawing the posters for such important movies as the Marx Brothers' ``A Night at the Opera.'' It was a night at the theater, however, that was the turning point in his life. In 1926 Hirschfeld attended a Broadway show with press agent Richard Maney, who was impressed by the sketch Hirschfeld had doodled on his program. Maney convinced him to submit the sketch to the New York Herald Tribune, which printed it on its front page. Periodic drawing assignments from the Herald Tribune lead to an invitation from the New York Times to contribute a drawing for its drama pages. Thus began one of the most fruitful partnerships in history as Al Hirschfeld's drawings became a critical element of the New York Times's drama coverage for the next 75 years. Hirschfeld drew nearly every important figure in the American theater and popular culture from Charlie Chaplin to Jerry Seinfeld. His drawings were caricatures. They captured the essence of a performer in just a few lines. They were never mean-spirited and never meant to hurt a subject. In fact, it was a mark of respect and an honor to be captured in a Hirschfeld. Many a performer reticent to give an interview to the New York Times could be convinced when a Hirschfeld drawing was promised if he would give the interview. No tribute to Al Hirschfeld could be complete without mention of his daughter, Nina, whose name has appeared in nearly every Hirshfeld drawing since her birth in 1945. It became a popular activity for regular readers of the Times to locate the one or many Ninas hidden throughout in his drawings. In this Hirschfeld, for example, you will observe that the Nina is throughout the tie and that next to his signature the number 23 is put in, which is the number of times Nina's name is in the caricature. Throughout his life, Hirschfeld gained wide recognition for his work which appeared in numerous books and museums, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Museum of Modern Art, the Whitney Museum, and the St. Louis Art Museum. He also earned countless honors such as receiving two special Tony awards for excellence in the theater and for being named a living New York City landmark. Shortly before his passing he learned that he had been elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters and was to have been presented with the National Medal of Arts by President Bush at the White House later this year. And as an ultimate tribute from the theater community to which he contributed so much, on June 21st of this year, which would have been his 100th birthday, he will have a theater named after him. But while all of this recognition is well deserved, Al Hirschfeld was most at home at his drawing board, sitting on the barber's chair he liked to use. He was still working until the day he died, drawing a picture of his good friends, the Marx Brothers. We will never forget Al Hirschfeld. His work will endure for many, many generations. But there is a big hole in the Sunday Times these days with no Hirschfeld drawings to liven up the drama pages and no Ninas to search for. Madam Speaker, I urge my colleagues to vote for this resolution. I hope we pass it unanimously.

Mr. NADLER

Mr. NADLER. Mr. Speaker, it is my very great personal pleasure to rise today to honor New York City's Congregation Beth Simchat Torah and its rabbi, Sharon Kleinbaum. CBST, as it is known to thousands of friends throughout the city and around the world, is the world's largest lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender congregation, and on February 9, 2003, we will celebrate the start of CBST's 30th year of service to the community. In 1973, ten people gathered in the basement of the Church of Holy Apostles in response to a small classified ad placed in the Village Voice. At the time, none of the national Jewish organizations supported gay rights. No synagogues officially welcomed gay members. The fact that we are able to join together, thirty years later, to celebrate and commemorate CBST is a testament to the strength of what those first congregants established--a place where it is possible to be both ``openly gay and proudly Jewish,'' as Rabbi Kleinbaum says, a community in which all journeys are respected. This celebration is also evidence of the special place CBST occupies in the hearts of New Yorkers of all denominations and all sexualities, as a welcoming and loving place to celebrate one's faith. Every year, for the High Holidays services, CBST moves its services to the Jacob Javits Convention Center in order to accommodate the 3,000 or more people who are a part of the extended CBST family. In 2001, just two weeks after September 11th, CBST's services for Kol Nidre, the Jewish Day of Atonement, drew 6,000 people. I don't think I could adequately describe the important place CBST has had in the lives of so many of my fellow New Yorkers, but the numbers certainly begin to tell the story. I am proud to represent Congregation Beth Simchat Torah in Congress. There have been many heroes in the history of CBST. This year, we will thank the congregation's rabbi, Sharon Kleinbaum, for ten years of visionary leadership. In the course of ten eventful years, it has been her love of the CBST community that has made CBST an ever-growing force for positive social change. CBST, like the larger gay community of New York City, has lost too many members to AIDS, and through the years, Rabbi Kleinbaum has helped many CBST members through their own sickness, and the loss of friends and loved ones. She is the leader of a new generation of young Jewish leaders, deeply committed to the Jewish tradition but innovative and progressive in her view of its celebration, and passionate in her belief in the power of faith in people's lives. Rabbi Kleinbaum occupies a truly treasured place in the gay community, the Jewish community, and in the hearts of thousands of New Yorkers, and I am also proud to call her my friend.

Mr. NADLER

Mr. NADLER. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to commemorate the opening of an exhibit honoring Mary Baker Eddy at Pace University in downtown New York City. Today, Pace University will host a reception honoring ``This is Woman's Hour . . .,'' a nationally acclaimed exhibit that has traveled around the country educating Americans about the extraordinary life of Mary Baker Eddy, one of the 19th century's greatest women pioneers. I am pleased to welcome this exhibit to my Congressional district. Mary Baker Eddy may not be as widely known as Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton, but she was well known to them. As an author, religious leader, and health reformer, Mary Baker Eddy was one of the first American women to live the life envisioned by the leaders who gathered at Seneca Falls in 1848 for the First Woman's Rights Convention. Commenting on Eddy's success as a spiritual leader, Susan B. Anthony said, ``for nineteen hundred years . . . man has been much occupied establishing faiths and formulating creeds for woman to follow . . . . When woman does write her creed, it will be one of right actions, not of theological theories.'' Eddy's major work, published in 1875, was honored over a hundred years later by the Women's National Book Association as ``one of 75 books by women whose words have changed the world.'' In 1908, at the age of 87, Eddy founded The Christian Science Monitor, which is known today around the world for its commitment to excellence and journalistic integrity. Mary Baker Eddy has been honored by the National Women's Hall of Fame and the National Foundation for Women Legislators, and the exhibit now open at Pace University has received the praise of leaders in every city and state it has visited. It is now my pleasure to welcome this exhibit to Manhattan. It is fitting that this exhibit opens just a few blocks away from where the World Trade Center once stood; as we come together to envision the kind of future we hope to create, in our city, our country, and around the world, it is wise to remember Mary Baker Eddy's words: ``The right of woman to fill the highest measure of enlightened understanding and the highest places in government is inalienable . . . This is woman's hour.''

Mr. NADLER

Mr. NADLER. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to pay tribute to Noam Shudofsky on the occasion of his retirement as Administrator of Ramaz Day School, one of the finest religious schools in New York City. Mr. Shudofsky, a native New Yorker, was born and raised in my hometown, Brooklyn, where he attended the Yeshiva of Flatbush. He has since enjoyed a long and exemplary career as an educator in New York. It is my pleasure to honor him today. In his role as Administrator of Ramaz, Mr. Shudofsky has helped to maintain the vision of its founder, Rabbi Joseph Lookstein. He came to Ramaz in 1962, and has served as Administrator for 40 years. As Administrator, Mr. Shudofsky has managed the day to day operations of the school, and is responsible for the operational fund raising. His career at Ramaz has helped to make it the world-renowned institution that it is today. In addition to his role as an educator, Mr. Shudofsky was a leader in the movement to free Soviet Jews from Communist oppression and permit their emigration to Israel, and was one of the first people to travel to the Soviet Union during that period. He has three children, and multiple grandchildren. For his commitment to Jewish education, to his community and his city, and to the freedom of the Jewish people, it is my privilege to congratulate Mr. Shudofsky on this special occasion.

Mr. NADLER

Mr. NADLER. The motion is to consider this bill?

Mr. NADLER. Mr. Speaker, I have a parliamentary inquiry before I start my 30 minutes.

Mr. NADLER. Mr. Speaker, we have just been handed a 472-page bill labeled H.R. 5745. My inquiry is, is this brand new bill what is now before the House that none of us have had a chance to read?

Mr. NADLER. My next parliamentary inquiry is, is this brand new 472- page bill that no one has had a chance to read, including me, that we just saw for the first time about 5 minutes ago identical to anything we have ever seen before, or is this a brand new bill that we are going to debate sight unseen?

Mr. NADLER. Is this a new bill or is this a copy of something else?

Mr. NADLER. But my question is, is this the same as something else that we have seen before or is it new, since we have not had a chance to read it?

Mr. NADLER. Then I will ask the gentlemen, somebody over there, to yield and answer that question.

Mr. NADLER. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, we are told, and we have to take it on faith, that this 472-page amendment, although it says H.R. 5745, it is a new bill, is the same as the conference report minus the Schumer amendment, minus the judgeships, but otherwise it is supposedly identical. We have to take on faith that this brand new 472-page bill that we have never seen before is in fact the same as the conference report text minus the two differences we have been told about. We have to take it on faith because we have not been given any opportunity at all to read the bill. Not being satisfied with the humiliation of having one of their top priority bills defeated by their own Members earlier today, the Republican leadership now insults our intelligence by wasting our time at one o'clock in the morning with a bill they know the Senate will not even glance at. The conference report whose rule was defeated earlier today and which was just ruled out of order a few minutes ago was the result of months of painstaking negotiations with the other body. Now we are going to undo the results of all those negotiations in a few minutes and produce a brand new bill that we know the Senate will not even glance at. Mr. Speaker, even everyone, even the banks who have paid for this legislation with cold hard cash, know that this midnight stunt cannot result in a live bill. I find it hard to believe that even the Members putting on this little show can believe that it is intended even vaguely seriously. It does not really matter how Members vote on this bill tonight, because the bill is not going anywhere, although I am sure the vote totals will be hastily inserted into a press release that has already been drafted. I am not going to get into the merits of the bill. We debated the merits of the bill this afternoon, although I will note that the 28 new bankruptcy judges and the extensions of temporary judgeships that will otherwise expire that were contained in the conference report have been removed. Now, with the great increase in bankruptcy filings that supposedly motivated the bill in the first place, everyone concedes that we need those judicial positions in order to process all the bankruptcy proceedings, especially with all the new requirements that will be imposed by this bill, which will necessitate a lot of new judicial time, according to everyone. I find it interesting that with all the wailing and gnashing of teeth about the terrible impact on justice of the Senate's failure to confirm promptly the President's judicial nominees, we are suddenly eliminating 28 judges and many existing judges who will now be permitted to expire for no apparent reason. Why are the Republicans suddenly eliminating all these, everyone admits, needed judicial positions? Now, I understand the political necessity of paying obeisance and bowing down deeply to the religious right by eliminating the Schumer amendment, but why eliminate these judicial positions that are, everyone concedes, essential? It is no wonder that the voters are cynical about Congress, when the leadership here, the Republican leadership, insists on putting on circuses purely to entertain the lobbyists who have put up the money behind this bill. We know this bill will not pass the Senate. It will not go to the President. It is the legislative equivalent of a fraternity stunt. Has anyone, by the way, even read this brand new bill, these 457 new pages? I would ask anyone who has read this bill to raise their hand. I do not see any hands raised. I know the voters are bursting with pride as they watch this at 1 in the morning; but the fact is, this is a legislative stunt for no purpose except saying to the lobbyists, we passed it, even though we passed it in a form we know the Senate will not glance at and we are just wasting everyone's time. Mr. Speaker, I will not waste further time by getting into the merits of this bill. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. NADLER. Mr. Speaker, I yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Frank).

Mr. NADLER. Mr. Speaker, the total absurdity of the situation having been well explained by the gentleman from Massachusetts, I yield back the balance of our time.

Mr. NADLER. Mr. Speaker, I have a parliamentary inquiry.

Mr. NADLER. Mr. Speaker, before I yielded back the balance of my time, the gentleman from Pennsylvania had yielded back the balance of his time, had he not?

Mr. NADLER

Mr. NADLER. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in opposition to this rule. For my colleagues on both sides of the aisle who have profound concerns about this bill, I hope that you will realize that the crucial vote will be on the rule, not the bill. Because the rule is where it will have real effect. There are many reasons to oppose this bill. This bill is opposed by almost all bankruptcy professionals, people who know anything about bankruptcy. It is opposed by organized labor, by almost every women's group, by children's advocates, by every consumer group, by civil rights organizations, and by most bankruptcy scholars. It is supported and is being pressed forward by a coalition of banks, credit card companies and other business interests who want to profit exorbitantly at the expense of families and small businesses at a time of crisis. It is shocking that at a time when the American people are rightly outraged at the illegal and unethical machinations of many in corporate America, at a time when thousands of Americans are losing their jobs, at a time when many businesses large and small are in bankruptcy trying to stay alive and reorganize and preserve jobs, it is shocking that we would even be considering this kind of a special interest bill that will enrich lenders at the expense of families, jobs and small businesses and will force many businesses into liquidation and job destruction instead of reorganization and survival. Whatever Members may have thought of this legislation in the past, I hope they will take a very careful look at the bill we have before us today and think about what has happened since this bill was first proposed 5 years ago and since it was really debated on the floor at great length and people may have made up their minds. We know that the lenders who have been demanding this bill, the big credit card companies and the big banks, are highly profitable. They are making big money off our constituents with high interest rates that have not come down with drops in bankruptcy or the prime rate. The prime rate is the lowest it has ever been. Have credit card interest rates come down? My colleague from the State of Virginia says that there is a hidden tax of $400 per family because of deadbeats who do not pay. That is nonsense. What he is really saying is that the credit card companies would lower their interest rates if this bill passed. The prime rate has gone down by 8 or 9 points. Have the credit card companies lowered their interest rates? Credit card companies will never lower their interest rates because it is an oligopolistic business and they gouge from the people what they can gouge. We know that many large banks have played a role in some of the more egregious financial scandals that have robbed workers and investors of their life's savings and their jobs. We know that this bill which serves their interests and their interests only will make it easier for these same large institutions to squeeze small debtors even more, to squeeze small businesses even more, to place outrageous and undue pressure on people to give up their right to a fresh start, and to make even larger profits at the expense of the most vulnerable. We know that the millionaires exemption, the unlimited homestead exemption in six States, will not be changed, will not be capped. The bill will only limit that outrageous loophole that allows one to put all of one's money into one's mansion, go bankrupt, and still have $10 million in the mansion, and this bill will limit that only if a wealthy debtor manages to get found guilty of a specific type of fraud or of a limited number of crimes or the most extreme torts resulting in serious physical injury or death. It does nothing, let me say that again, this bill does nothing about a multi-millionaire who wants to shield millions of dollars in assets from creditors in a mansion, whether those creditors are small businesses or other lenders or in some cases the taxpayers. But the small debtor, him we will get. What this bill will do is squeeze the more than 1\1/2\ million Americans who each year get in over their heads and need to reorder their finances, pay off as much of their debts as they can and then start over. These small debtors, the ones who do not have huge mansions in Texas or Florida, will be squeezed beyond the breaking point by the draconian provisions of this bill. Let me repeat that statistic. Last year there were a million and a half individual bankruptcies. The proponents of this bill will tell us that that is a sign that we need to change the system and allow the banks and the credit card companies to squeeze families even harder so fewer people will go into bankruptcy. But there is another way to look at this. These million and a half Americans every year who file for bankruptcy are not crooks. Ninety percent of the people who filed for bankruptcy did it either because they were laid off from their job, they got divorced, or they had a medical emergency. They are in bankruptcy because they lost jobs, because Congress failed to enact an adequate national health care insurance program, because Congress failed to provide a prescription drug benefit program, because people lost their retirement savings because they invested in Enron, because Congress allowed their unemployment insurance to run out, because Congress voted to ship their jobs overseas, or for a variety of other misfortunes. Yet our answer to them is not to give them a helping hand in crises but to make things even harder for them. Is that what we are going to offer them? Is that going to be our answer? That is unconscionable. The so-called means test in this bill would hold people to what the IRS says they would need to live on even if their actual expenses are higher. That test was so draconian that Congress told the IRS they should not use it on tax cheats, but now we are going to let the big credit card companies do what we have told the IRS it cannot do. This bill would require the courts to assume that the income of a family in bankruptcy is what it received in the 6 months preceding the bankruptcy filing. So if someone got laid off, if they are 55 years old and got laid off from their $75,000-a-year middle management job at IBM and will never make $75,000 again, it does not matter. Their income must be assumed to be $75,000 even though they are now only making $25,000. It does not matter what the future holds. If someone once made $75,000, they will forever make $75,000 says the income test that in this bill, and the judge has no discretion about that. It ignores the facts in reality. Many people in this economic climate will be in bankruptcy precisely because they lost the jobs that used to pay them a good income. Even still, if a family in crisis is found to be able on the basis of this ridiculous means test to pay as little as $100 a month for the next 5 years, they will be denied chapter 7 relief. They will be branded by the law as abusers of the bankruptcy system. We will be told that this bill does not affect families with incomes below the median income. That is not true. Read the bill. It still allows landlords to evict people below the median income more easily. It still allows creditors to bring abusive and coercive motions against people below the median income more easily. It still exempts many creditors from the application of the bankruptcy rule that prohibits abusive and coercive motions even against people below the median income. It still makes it harder to save the family car in bankruptcy, and it will make it easier to force many small businesses into liquidation and thus cost jobs instead of allowing those businesses to reorganize and survive. If my colleagues think this will not hurt families at all income levels, I have a few bridges I want to sell them. I want to remind my colleagues that chapter 7 is no walk in the park. It requires a debtor to liquidate all his or her assets and repay as much of their debts as they can. A secured loan such as a home and a car must still be paid off or the debtor loses the property. Bankruptcy never relieves one of that obligation, and the bankruptcy stays in their credit report for years and impacts their ability to borrow money in the future and their ability to get a job or rent an apartment. Even a debtor witness called by supporters of this bill complained that she had these problems after she filed for chapter 7. And the bill rewrites chapter 13. Even though two-thirds of the people who voluntarily go into chapter 13 and had promised to repay a portion of their debts failed to do so. They cannot make the goals of the plan. This will throw millions of people into chapter 13 involuntarily, and because it will be written the way it is written, we will have many, many debtors who are judged too rich for chapter 7 but they cannot meet the requirements of the bill for chapter 13. They do not have enough money under the means test; so they are too poor for chapter 13. Too rich for chapter 7, too poor for chapter 13. They cannot get any relief. They cannot go bankrupt. That is absurd. The bill will make it harder for businesses to reorganize. Think about the large retail chains that are now in bankruptcy. Landlords will be able to shut down the reorganizations and have an absolute veto power over the planning process. Chains like K-Mart or the various cinema chains would have to close hundreds of stores and eliminate thousands of jobs instead of reorganizing. What this bill does not do is protect workers who lose their wages or their retirement savings or their jobs because of corporate malfeasance and bankruptcy. There have been a number of proposals by the distinguished gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Delahunt), the lead sponsor of this bill, the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Gekas), by the junior Senator from Missouri and the junior Senator from Iowa to do this, yet there is nothing in this bill to protect workers from corporate wrongdoing. And if they are victims of corporate wrongdoing, we are going to sock them in the teeth with this bill. They have to take a number behind the crooks and behind the banks and the law firms. This bill is part of the trifecta that we are giving businesses to make up for the accounting reform that was passed because of public outrage. We should not sacrifice our constituents to the special interests at a time when they are hurting worse than at any time in a decade. I urge a no vote on the rule. I urge a no vote on the conference report. And with a no vote on the rule we would have a chance of taking a fresh look in, I might remind my colleagues, a Republican House and Senate next January, a fresh look at this bill and see if we really want to say to the low income people and the middle income people in this country we are going to sock them in the teeth. I urge a no vote on this rule, and I thank the gentleman for yielding me this time.

Mr. NADLER

Mr. NADLER. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. NADLER. I thank the gentleman for yielding. Mr. Speaker, I want to join in the tribute to the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Gekas) tonight. The gentleman from Pennsylvania served for 4 years as chairman of the Subcommittee on Administrative and Commercial Law; I served for those 4 years as the ranking Democratic member. Though we often disagreed and obviously we disagreed on the bill we just passed, I must comment that the gentleman from Pennsylvania conducted the subcommittee with unfailing promptness and with unfailing courtesy and consideration despite, on some occasions, considerable provocation from me. I want to pay tribute to him on this occasion. We will miss him.