Jerrold Nadler

Mr. NADLER

Mr. NADLER. Mr. Chairman, I ask unanimous consent to strike the requisite number of words.

Mr. NADLER. As Yogi Berra said, Mr. Chairman, it feels like deja vu all over again. This time I rise to offer an amendment to keep valuable taxpayer dollars from being wasted on an outrageous boondoggle in my district in New York. The issue is simple: The Miller Highway, which is 13 blocks long, the entire thing, 13 blocks, half a mile, was almost completely rebuilt only 5 years ago at a cost to the taxpayers of almost $90 million. It has a life expectancy expectancy of 35 to 40 years before major rehabilitation work may be necessary. Now Donald Trump wants us to spend $300 to $350 million to tear it down, a brand new highway, and bury it, bury it so it will not block the views of the Hudson River from some of the apartments in his new Riverside South luxury housing development. For $350 million of the taxpayers' money, Donald Trump will get higher prices for his condos. To add flame to the fire, nobody even pretends there is any transportation purpose for this project whatsoever. Indeed, the proposal is to replace a straight segment of highway with a curved segment, never a good idea from a transportation perspective. Nobody in the area affected in the community wants this project. It is opposed by every local elected official, the State senator, the State assembly member, the New York City council member, the Manhattan borough president, and the two local community planning boards. In past years this project has been opposed consistently by the Porkbusters Coalition, the Council for Citizens Against Government Waste, the National Taxpayers Union, the Taxpayers for Common Sense, not to mention the administration. Much is said in this Chamber about stopping waste and put an end to taxpayers' subsidies for millionaires and billionaires. Today we have an opportunity to buttress these statements with actions. To make it even worse, this is a project that is not going to happen. What we are doing is wasting money on planning an engineering studies for a project that will not happen. In the letter that was quoted on the floor last year from the mayor of the city of New York, he says as follows, dated March 26, last year: ``While the administration is fully committed to the Miller Highway relocation,'' they think it is a good project, unlike me, ``it is critical that the funds for the project not redirect or act as an offset for Federal or State funds for other Transportation and Infrastructure projects in New York City. The city has numerous pressing highway and transportation needs that have Federal financial support, and the administration would not be able to support a relocation proposal that reduced the Federal commitments to these other projects.'' In other words, they are only going to do this project if the House decides that we are going to take $300 million over and above what New York normally gets for transportation and give it specifically for this project. That is obviously not going to happen. They are not willing to, the city government is not willing to take $300 million from the normal city Federal aid for transportation, take it away from other projects for this. So what we are left with is a project that is not going to happen because no one is going to put the money into it, but we will waste 6 million a year, $5 million a year on environmental and planning studies and engineering studies for a project that will never happen. My amendment is simply saying, do not waste that $6 million, $10 million on planning study for a project that should not happen and that will not happen.

Mr. NADLER

Mr. NADLER. Mr. Speaker, I rise to honor the memory of Rabbi Sender Deutsch, a'h, who served, for the past four decades, as the editor and publisher of the influential Yiddish Language newspaper Der Yid, and as Vice President of the Satmar community. Reb Sender Deutsch, as he was affectionately known, was a survivor of the Holocaust and was the right hand of the previous Grand Rebbe of Satmar, Rabbi Joel Teitelbaum, z'tl, and the present Grand Rebbe, Rabbi Moses Teitelbaum, Shlita. Reb Sender, who was 76, and who passed away on September 2, 1998, was laid to rest in the community of Kiryas Yoel, in Monroe, N.Y. He is survived by his wife, three sons, three daughters, grandchildren and great grandchildren. He will be remembered as a compassionate man, a great scholar, and an orator of exceptional skill. As the Editor of Der Yid, Reb Sender was often considered the voice of the Satmar community, and an influential voice in the Chassidic community at large. He was the main speaker at almost all functions organized by the Satmar community worldwide, and on many occasions he traveled the world as an emissary of the Grand Rebbe and the community. He was the author of a three volume history in Yiddish of the Second World War and the tragic fate of world Jewry during that period. He also served as the vice president of the Satmar Jewish school system, United Talmudical Academy and Beth Rachel School with an enrollment of over 18,000 students, the largest Jewish school system in the United States and worldwide. Mr. Speaker, my neighbors in Brooklyn join with the many thousands of people around the world whose lives were touched and benefitted by the life and work of Reb Sender Deutsch, in honoring his memory and his life of extraordinary accomplishment and dedication to learning. It is an example which I believe all Americans will find inspiring and beneficial.

Mr. NADLER

Mr. NADLER. Mr. Chairman, every time an outrage such as that at Columbine where children are killed occurs, we hear from the NRA that guns do not kill people, people kill people. But the truth is, of course, that guns do not kill people. People with guns kill people. The United States has the loosest gun laws of any industrialized country. That is why we have the following statistics. When you look at other industrialized countries, France, 36 people killed with handguns; in Great Britain, 213; in Germany 200; in the United States 9,390. Three years ago, 5 years ago we passed a Brady law, finally after much effort. That law has kept 400,000 guns out of the hands of felons and mentally incompetent people, people who should not have had guns. Now we are trying to have some modest proposals to close some loopholes. Unfortunately, the rule did not make in order a proposal to ban gun kits from being sent out, gun kits that made a gun that killed a constituent of mine, Ari Halberstam, for the crime of being in the wrong place at the wrong time and identifiably Jewish. They did not make in order the one-gun-a-month amendment so that gunrunners could not go to Florida, buy 100 guns, come back and sell them on the black market in New York. But they did make in order the McCarthy amendment. They did make in order the Conyers-Campbell substitute. We should pass these amendments, we should reject the Dingell amendment which actually put more loopholes into the law, so that we can be honest with the American people when we go home and tell them we have done something to give them a little more assurance that their children will not be the next victims of this country's fatal obsession with guns. Mr. Chairman, when are we going to get serious about limiting access to guns? When are we going to stand up to the NRA and pass legislation to save lives? Listen to Jesse Bateman, a junior high school student from Louisiana, who wrote, ``Five of my friends and I were hanging out at another one of our friend's house. All of a sudden two people who we thought were our friends walked in with guns. They demanded that we give them . . . drugs and money, and when we told them that we didn't have any, they started shooting. Two of my friends died and another one was paralyzed from the waist down. One of the ones that died was my best friend, he got shot in the head and died instantly.'' People with guns kill our children every day, and we ought to do everything we can to limit access to these deadly weapons. The gun safety amendments that we will soon consider are extremely modest measures. It is the least we can do. The NRA-written Dingell amendment is a sham that actually weakens our existing law. Had it been in effect for the last six months, 17,000 people who were denied access to guns would have gotten them. It guts the Brady law by reducing the amount of time that police have to investigate the background checks of individuals with questionable arrest records from 3 business days to 24 hours. What is the rush to get guns into felon's hands? We can't wait three days before allowing individuals with suspect records to obtain deadly weapons? This is outrageous.

Mr. NADLER

Mr. NADLER. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Waters).

Mr. NADLER. Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to the Hyde amendment, which is a well-intended but flawed proposal that does violence to the First Amendment. Mr. Chairman, I rise to oppose the Hyde amendment. While we must take action to address violence in our schools and to save children's lives, some in Congress seem to feel that it should be more difficult to see a picture of a gun, than to go out and buy one. This amendment is overly broad and unconstitutionally vague. It would take obscenity, which is removed from First Amendment protections, and expand its definition beyond the limits established by the Supreme Court. In the process, it would create a federally imposed ban on the sale of certain material. It would challenge retailers to decide whether or not a particular work has redeeming value. This amendment would be incredibly difficult to implement, lead to confusion for both the creators and distributors of artistic works, and could inadvertently chill free speech for adults as well as children. There is far too much violence in the media today, but we must not compromise the First Amendment in our efforts to protect our children. Parents already have the right to deny their children access to violent movies, music, magazines, and video games that they do not find appropriate for their children. If we stop buying this violent material, people will stop selling it. Many leaders in the arts and entertainment community care deeply about the proliferation of violent material and are taking steps to address this problem. The media can and should also play a role in promoting nonviolent activities, youth problem solving, and ways to avoid gun violence. We can address excessive violence in the media without trampling on our First Amendment rights. I will leave you with one final note. We ought not to make the entertainment community the scape goat for the massacre at Columbine High School. Surely, this bill will not effectively address school violence unless it also addresses youth access to guns. Popular films and music lyrics are not the root cause of violence in our society and guns are far more deadly than any CD or video tape could ever be. As one Columbine senior pointed out, if the media was at fault, then every one of the 1,850 students at Columbine would all be killers because they all watch the same movies and share in other types of entertainment. In fact, if films caused violence then one would expect crime rates to rise in every country which imports American movies. However, Japan, which is a heavy importer of American films, has one of the lowest crime rates in the world. I urge my colleagues to reject the Hyde amendment.

Mr. NADLER. Mr. Chairman, let me start by commending the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Goodling) for his consistency. It is not always that we see such consistency in this House, and I must say that I agree with him. Now it strikes me that it is very difficult politically to vote against any bill or amendment that says in the name of the war on drugs let us have zero tolerance, let us expel someone from school, let us keep our children safe. But the fact of the matter is that one can easily imagine situations where that might not be the most intelligent thing to do. If someone has a 13 or 14-year-old kid who has some marijuana in school, he should be punished. But a year's expulsion? Maybe, depending on the circumstances. Has it happened before? Has he had other delinquencies? Is this the first offense? What is the story? This amendment makes no distinctions. This amendment says never mind the wisdom or the familiarity of the local school board or local school authorities with the situation. Throw this kid out on the street for a year, let him spend this time in the company of drug dealers and crooks, but in any event not in school because Congress says so. We always hear, especially from that side of the aisle, about local control. This is quintessentially the time, the situation for local control, and what this amendment says is if a local school board of the City of New York or the City of San Francisco wants Federal money, it had better expel that kid for a year. Maybe it should, maybe it should not, we should not. We should not tell them.

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

Mr. NADLER. Is the gentleman aware that under this amendment we may have, depending on any local ordinance, and we do not know what every local ordinance is in the country, a felonious amount that may be a very tiny amount and that may not have been enacted by that local community with the idea that possession of that small amount would result in the automatic expulsion of a student for a year?

Mr. NADLER. Yes, I do, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. NADLER. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Chairman, there are three things wrong with this amendment. First, it is substantively wrong and it is obnoxious to the spirit and the letter of the first amendment of the religious freedom provision of the Constitution. The Congress of the United States finds that the saying of a prayer or the placing of a memorial which includes religious symbols and motifs on the campus of a public school to honor the memory of someone who was slain does not violate the first amendment. Well, the first problem is, it may very well violate the first amendment. The courts have held that organized prayer in a school or at a commencement or in a service at a school does violate the first amendment, and certainly the placing of a religious symbol which may offend some people, some future students, maybe even some current students or some future teachers. Imagine if there were a Muslim symbol that may be offensive to Christians or a Jewish symbol or Christian symbol offensive to others or some minority religion. Of course the minority religion would not get its symbol placed there because the local school board would not do that. That is the point. We do not discriminate and we do not make minority religions feel tolerated. They are equally American as anyone else, minority or majority, and that is why the Constitution prohibits an establishment of religion, and the courts have held that precisely what the sponsor of this amendment wants is an establishment of religion, and Congress saying it is not so does not make it not so. That is the first problem with this amendment. The second problem with this amendment is that the Congress cannot declare what the Constitution means and what violates the Constitution and what it does not. We have accepted since 1803 the case of Marbury v. Madison; everybody learns it the first week in constitutional law in law school or college. It is that the Supreme Court interprets the Constitution and says what the Constitution means and it is not the province of Congress. We determine what the law is. We write the law, but we do not find whether the law violates the Constitution. We should endeavor in making laws to try to not make laws that contravene the Constitution, but it is the job of the courts, not our job, to determine what does violate the Constitution. And thank God we have a judiciary to protect the individual rights of Americans. That is why we have a Bill of Rights. The judiciary interprets the Bill of Rights and protects the individual rights of even unpopular people, and it is not the business of this Congress to declare that something does or does not violate the Constitution and try to tell the Supreme Court you are wrong. The third problem is with the attorneys fees provision of this bill. This amendment says that any lawsuit claiming that this type of a memorial or memorial service violates the Constitution, each party shall pay its own attorneys fees and costs, notwithstanding any other provision of law, and the Attorney General is authorized to provide legal assistance to the school district. So because the author of this amendment wants this type of service, wants this type of religious prayer or memorial, if someone thinks it is unconstitutional, if someone thinks his or her or someone in that community thinks his or her religious community has been violated and he goes to court to sue the school district, the Attorney General is authorized to support the school district, the Attorney General thinks it is unconstitutional, he is not authorized by the terms of this amendment to oppose the school district to represent the plaintiff or to come in on the side of the plaintiff, and not withstanding any other provision of law, each party should pay its own attorneys fees. So even if the plaintiff, thinking that his, believing that his or her religious liberty and religious rights under the Constitution were violated, goes to court, the court agrees, it goes up on appeal, the appeals court agrees and the Constitution is upheld, he cannot get his attorneys fees. This is trying to say religious minorities have no rights and certainly not the rights to prevail in court and have the losing party pay their attorneys fees. Only the popular side can get its attorneys fees paid. It is a violation of fundamental American fairness and, I submit, unconstitutional and unworthy of this Congress. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. NADLER. Mr. Chairman, I yield 30 seconds to the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Scott), the distinguished ranking minority member of the subcommittee.

Mr. NADLER. Mr. Chairman, this amendment has a very clear and pernicious purpose. Put simply, if one agrees with the sponsor of this amendment on the role government should play in religion and the government violates their rights, they get their day in court and if one wins the government that violated their rights can be ordered to pay their attorney's fees, but if someone disagrees with the sponsor's views and the government violates their rights and they win their case, that is to say a court finds that their constitutional rights are violated, then the court may not under any circumstances order the local authorities to pay attorney's fees. It does not matter how extreme the violation of one's rights. It does not matter how much it costs to protect one's rights in court. It does not matter how much the local authorities drag their feet or drag down the case to make it more costly or burdensome for someone. None of that matters. A person has to pay the costs and pay a dear price if one disagrees with the sponsor of this amendment. There is only one effect this amendment will have, and that is to silence dissent against the local majority. Perhaps some people like that idea. Perhaps it is politically popular to stick it to religious minorities, but that is not what this country is supposed to be about. Perhaps the proponents of this amendment should go back to school and do a little homework on the First Amendment. Both of the religion clauses of the First Amendment were put there to protect religious freedom. The establishment clause, as unpopular as it is in some circles, protects all of our rights to religious liberty to those who would commandeer the power of the State to promote mere particular religious views. Where those views are the views of the majority, that may be politically popular but it is not a stand in defense of religious liberty. Remember, we are not talking here, despite what the sponsor of the amendment said, about frivolous lawsuits. We are talking about victorious lawsuits, lawsuits which persuaded the courts that they were right, that the plaintiff's constitutional rights were violated by the local government. The judge said, they were right and now this amendment says, but one cannot get their attorney's fees anyway; only the people who agree with the sponsor or with the local majority can get their attorney's fees. This is not right. It is an attempt to bias the courts, to bias the courts financially against people who would sue on the basis of the establishment clause, and frankly the courts ought to be neutral. They ought to interpret the Constitution, and if someone's rights are violated and they win that fact in court, if the law provides for attorney's fees, then they ought to get it. We should not bias the case one way or the other, as this amendment would try to do, to stifle dissent and to stifle minority religious views. Again, this amendment is obnoxious to the First Amendment and ought to be defeated.

Mr. NADLER. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentlewoman from Texas (Ms. Jackson-Lee).

Mr. NADLER. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Edwards).

Mr. NADLER. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Chairman, the memory of the victims' religious beliefs can certainly be commemorated and eulogized without offending the Constitution. The prayer can be said at a memorial on school property after school hours if attendance is voluntary but not if attendance is compulsory. The legal fees clause of this amendment is clearly aimed at biasing the legal systems against people with a different view of the First Amendment than that held by the sponsor of this amendment. For these reasons, especially the last one, this amendment offends the Constitution, offends the Bill of Rights, offends religious liberty and ought to be defeated. Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. NADLER. Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. NADLER. Mr. Chairman, I would simply like to observe that all of the preceding discussion of the preceding speaker and much of the discussion of the preceding speakers on the other side is irrelevant to this amendment. This amendment, unlike the amendment of the gentleman from Colorado (Mr. Tancredo), does not deal with what happened in Columbine, does not deal with memorial services. It is even more brazen. All it says is that someone who complains in court that his constitutional rights were violated on the establishment of religion clause dealing with school prayer, if he wins that suit, cannot have his legal fees paid for. So all it says on one side of the issue, one can have one's legal fees paid for; on the other, one cannot. It is simply biasing the courts, and, therefore, it is against the Constitution.

Mr. NADLER. Mr. Chairman, this amendment again attempts to say that the Congress finds what is constitutional and what is not. It finds to be constitutional what the courts of the land, which have the power and the duty under our system of finding what is constitutional, this says what they have found to be unconstitutional is constitutional. It is usurpation of the power of the courts, number one. Number two, it says the courts, constituted and ordained and established by the Congress, shall exercise the judicial power in a manner consistent with the foregoing declarations. God forbid, the courts should exercise the judicial power in accordance with the courts' understanding of the Constitution, first of all; and, second of all, with the laws, not with opinions expressed and findings of Congress. Third, public buildings shall have the Ten Commandments. The Ten Commandments say a number of things. I think most people who talk about them do not really know what they say. It says, ``I am the Lord, thy God, who has brought thee forth from Egypt. Thou shalt have no other Gods before me, for I, the Lord thy God, am a jealous God, visiting the sins of the fathers on the children even unto the third and fourth generations.'' Do most religious groups in this country really believe that God visits the sins of the fathers on the children to the third and fourth generations? I think not. ``Thou shalt not work on Saturday.'' Most Christian denominations have changed it to Sunday. Do we want to say they are wrong, with the power of the State behind them, the Christian groups are wrong, they ought to be changed back to Saturday? That is what the Ten Commandments seems to say. I am not expressing a view on religion, but the States should not take a position on that by putting that in the courtroom or the schools. Let me ask a different question: Whose Ten Commandments? Which version? The Catholic version? The Protestant version, or the Jewish version? They are different, you know. The Hebrew words are the same, but the translations are very different, reflecting different religious traditions and different religious beliefs. Are our public buildings to be Catholic because the local Catholic majority votes that the Catholic version found in the Douay Bible should be in the public buildings? Or perhaps they should be Protestant because the local majority decides that the Saint James version of the Ten Commandments, which is very different from the Catholic version. Or maybe the Jews have a majority in the local district, and they decide the Messianic version should be in the public buildings. It was precisely to avoid divisive questions like this that the first amendment commands no establishment of religion; and that is what this ignorant amendment would overturn. I urge its defeat.

Mr. NADLER. Mr. Chairman, I ask unanimous consent, in view of the importance of this subject, that the time for debate be extended by 1 hour.

Mr. NADLER. Mr. Chairman, I am sorry that the gentleman did not yield to my question before because I am not sure what this language means. If it means only that a church or a synagogue can get money to run a hot lunch program or to run a housing project, so long as it does it in a non-sectarian and non-religious basis and does not mix religion into it, then that is the current law and we do not need it and we should vote against it because it is unnecessary if that is all it means. But if it means, as I suspect it means, that if the Federal Government runs a hot lunch program that the first whatever church of east Oshkosh can apply for a grant and can get that grant and can say to people who want to eat the hot lunch, the condition of their getting the hot lunch is that they listen to their religious sermon, if it means, as I suspect it does, that the Congress believes that faith- based methodology, a belief in God, a belief in particular religious doctrines, helps cure drug addicts and, therefore, we want the churches to do this, then that is a per se violation of the separation of church and State, it is an obvious violation of the First Amendment of the establishment of religion, and it leads to exactly what the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Edwards) was talking about a few minutes ago. The most contentious thing we do here is decide what percentage of transit funds or highway funds New York gets as opposed to Pennsylvania or Indiana. We have our fights here about that. Can my colleagues imagine if we have the annual appropriations fight because the Committee on Appropriations thinks the Methodists ought to get 6.2 percent and the Baptists 7.8 percent, but of course the Baptists think they ought to get more and the Methodists think they ought to get more and the Baptists less? It is the most divisive thing I can imagine in this country and it is exactly why the Founding Fathers said no establishment of religion. We do not want to get into those religious wars that have driven Europe apart and have driven Asia apart, and this is the road that that amendment leads us down.

Mr. NADLER. Mr. Chairman, this amendment is an impossible amendment to know what it means or to enforce. It says, no funds should be used directly or indirectly to discriminate against, denigrate, or otherwise undermine the moral beliefs of juveniles who participate in these programs. Who knows what the religious or moral beliefs of the juveniles that participate in these programs are. When I went to school, I was taught the Declaration of Independence in school, that all men are created equal. I was taught that we should not discriminate on the basis of race, creed, color or sex, and that we should not denigrate other people because of their religious views. The Reverend Louis Farrakhan says that whites are devils and that Judaism is gutter religion. Suppose adherents of his religion are juveniles that participate in these programs. Are we to use funds that would undermine their beliefs by teaching that all men are created equal, that we should respect each other because his adherents are among those who participate in these programs? That is what this says. The fact is, it is impossible to know whose beliefs we are offending, because no one inquires, nor should we inquire, of the beliefs of juveniles who come into these programs. So this amendment is simply nonsense in what it says. I do not know, it may have a well-intended purpose, but the way it is written, it is impossible of enforcement, impossible of understanding, and perverse in its operation, and ought to be rejected.

Mr. NADLER

Mr. NADLER. Mr. Speaker, recently Brooklyn lost one of its most outstanding citizens, Sylvia Wurf. Sylvia worked for our former colleague, Representative Stephen J. Solarz, in his Coney Island District Office, in what is now the Eighth Congressional District. Sylvia Wurf was a remarkable public servant whose efforts on behalf of average citizens was legendary and an inspiration. Steve Solarz, who knew her for many years, memorialized Sylvia, and I commend his moving eulogy to my colleagues' attention. Sylvia Wurf: A Great Lady Sylvia Wurf was an extraordinary woman--brilliant, tenacious, caring--but also ornary, cantankerous, exasperating. She was a memorable person who, in a triumph of will and determination, not only fulfilled her potential as a human being, but made a difference in the lives of thousands of people who turned to her for assistance. She may well have been the best Congressional case worker in the history of the Republic. As I thought of Sylvia these last few days, I recalled the colloquy of Hotspur and Glendower in Shakespeare's Henry IV, when Hotspur says, ``I can summon spirits from the vast and murky deep'', and Glendower replies, ``Why so can I. So can any man, but will they come when you dost call them?'' In Sylvia's case, the answer was, ``yes''. She could summon spirits, and they did come when she called them. I used to say, ``If I were ever in some remote part of the world and were kidnapped and thrown into a dungeon of slime, and I were given the chance to make one phone call, it would be to Sylvia. Where others would throw up their hands in despair, she would get on the phone and go to work. Woe to the feckless bureaucrat whom Sylvia nagged until she got what she wanted. Pity the poor Ambassadors whom she awoke at 3:00 a.m. (their time) to assist someone with a visa problem. Weep for the Fortune 500 CEO, like the President of AT&T, whom she routed in his idyllic country home one summer Sunday to get an unlisted phone number. The flip side of the coin was that she could be impossible, even insulting, not just to government bureaucrats, but even with constituents. My favorite story about Sylvia was the one in which a constituent came up to see Sylvia, sat down at her desk, and said, ``I'm Mrs. Schwartz.'' Sylvia replied, ``I'm Mrs. Wurf.'' ``You're Mrs. Wurf'', the woman said, ``I'm so surprised. You sounded so much younger on the phone.'' Realizing immediately that she had made a mistake, Mrs. Schwartz said, ``Oh, what a stupid thing for me to say.'' ``Don't worry, Mrs. Schwartz'', said Sylvia. ``I deal with stupid people all day long. Why should you be any different?'' It was, I am told on occasions like this, in our old Kings Highway office where everyone sat in one large room, that someone on the staff would hold up a sign saying, ``Another Satisfied Customer''. Sylvia broke every rule in the book. There were innumerable occasions when I considered letting her go--but there were three reasons why I never did. First, because working in the office gave meaning and purpose to her existence. And I could never bring myself to deprive her of the opportunity it afforded her to live a successful and satisfying life. Second, and more importantly, because she was the Mark McGwire of Congressional case workers. If she struck out a lot--she also hit more home runs than anyone else. She was, in a very real sense, the most valuable case worker in the Congressional league. But third, and most importantly, because she was a genuine inspiration. I have always felt that nothing is more admirable than when an individual triumphs over adversity. And Sylvia, more so than anyone I ever knew personally, triumphed over adversity. I often used to think of how many other Sylvias there must be who never had the chance to do with their lives what Sylvia did with hers. And I never ceased to take pride from the incredulous reaction of so many of the people who asked for her assistance, but who never met her, when I told them she was legally blind. About 15 years ago, at the funeral of Congressman Phil Burton, shortly after he had re-drawn the map of the California Congressional districts which guaranteed a Democratic majority in the California Congressional delegation for a decade, then Mayor Diane Feinstein of San Francisco said, ``If Phil is where I think he is, he's already re-drawing the map of heaven.'' Well, if Sylvia is where I think she is, she is already doing case work on behalf of the Lord for those in the lower reaches who want to join her in the more deluxe atmosphere upstairs. And you know what. She's getting some of them in!

Mr. NADLER

Mr. NADLER. Mr. Chairman, this amendment is about recognizing the rights and dignity of our women in the armed services. It is really a very limited attempt to correct the policy that never should have been enacted in the first place. It simply allows women to obtain safe abortion services using their own money at U.S. military hospitals overseas. The current ban increases women's health risks and denies women their basic constitutional right to privacy. A woman must inform her superiors of her need for an abortion and wait until there is space available on a military flight back to the United States. The delay puts women's lives in jeopardy. The need to inform her superiors violates her privacy rights. Furthermore, women serving overseas depend on the base hospital for medical care in areas where local health care facilities are inadequate. The health of a servicewoman is threatened when she has to look outside of the base for a safe provider of the medical attention she needs. The current policy may even force a woman to seek an illegal or unsafe abortion when facing a crisis pregnancy. The ban discriminates against the women serving our country overseas. This amendment would ensure equal access to comprehensive reproductive health care for all U.S. servicewomen and dependents, regardless of where they are stationed, and therefore should be enacted.

Mr. NADLER

Mr. NADLER. Mr. Chairman, I rise today in strong opposition to this amendment. This amendment would ban FDA approval of RU-486 which has been found safe and effective for early, nonsurgical abortion and is awaiting final approval by the FDA. RU-486 would expand access to safe abortion for American women. Its consideration for approval should be dependent on the science, not dictated by antichoice ideologues. This debate is not about RU-486 or abortion. It is about the FDA's ability to test, research, and approve any drugs for a legal purpose based on sound scientific evidence. Reproductive health drugs should be subject to the FDA's strict science-based requirements that any drug must meet before approval can be granted, but they should not be singled out because they are reproductive health drugs. The FDA found mifepristone which has been available in Europe widely for nearly 20 years, safe and effective for early medical abortion 3 years ago. The approval was based on extensive clinical trials in this country and in France. They await information on manufacturing and labeling of the drug before final approval can be issued. This amendment could have dangerous implications for the development of drugs that are used for purposes other than terminating a pregnancy. Many drugs, including those for chemotherapy and antiulcer medication, have the side effect of inducing an abortion. That is why pregnant women are advised that taking such a medication could imperil their pregnancy. New developments in the treatment of these and other conditions, for cancer and for other conditions, would be prohibited under the broad scope of this amendment. New contraceptive development would also be targeted. Mr. Chairman, the right to abortion services should be safe and legal. The Supreme Court grants this right. What this amendment would do, even at the price of letting people who otherwise would not have to die from cancer, die from cancer because it would prevent the development, the approval of certain chemotherapies, what this would do is to deny the FDA the right to approve a drug simply because it would do what is legal and is a guaranteed right and that, Mr. Chairman, is wrong. That is why the amendment should be rejected.