Eleanor Norton

Ms. NORTON

Ms. NORTON. Madam Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Ms. NORTON. Madam Speaker, I want to end this debate by finally letting genuine constitutional scholars speak to this bill. To guarantee the Framers' promise to the citizens of Maryland and Virginia, who contributed their land to form this Capital City, the very first Congress enforced the District clause of the Constitution by law, guaranteeing the status quo during the 10- year transition period, and they said, by law thereafter, as memorialized in the Constitution itself. The Framers had left Congress fully armed with ``exclusive jurisdiction in all cases whatsoever,'' which former Court of Appeals Judge Kenneth Starr, who testified in favor of the bill, said, left Congress with power ``majestic in scope.'' Professor Viet Dinh, President Bush's former Attorney General for Legal Policy, his point man on the Constitution in the Ashcroft Justice Department, testified in two separate committees that the bill is constitutional. He said that since the birth of the Republic, the courts and the Congress itself have treated the District as a State in treaties and in statutes and in applying the Constitution to the city. Members who reject the views even of conservative scholars and of the Supreme Court and the Federal courts supporting their views should be confident to send this bill to a conservative Supreme Court. Members are elected officials who can neither run nor hide behind their personal and inexpert views on the Constitution. Another branch will be held fully accountable for that weighty decision. Our decision, in just a few minutes, is just as weighty, today when the world sees us at war, we say, to spread democracy and wants to know whether we practice democracy or merely preach it. Our decision comes down to whether this House wants to be remembered for granting the vote or denying it, and whether this place will be the people's House or the House for some of the people.

Ms. NORTON. Madam Speaker, has the gentleman yielded back his time?

Ms. NORTON

Ms. NORTON. Madam Speaker, today, I introduce the District of Columbia Hatch Act Reform Act of 2007 to eliminate discriminatory treatment of the District of Columbia which still falls under the federal Hatch Act, as it did before the Congress made the District an independent jurisdiction that today enacts its own local laws. This bill would retain federal Hatch Act authority concerning prohibited partisan and political activity that applies to every state upon receipt of federal funds or functions, and importantly, would require the District to enact its own local version of the Hatch Act barring similar local violations, to become effective. This bill, of course, would automatically be held over for congressional review as required by the Home Rule Act. In any case, local Hatch Act violations in the District are rare, but the District needs its own Hatch Act to fully account and be responsible for local violations, with which only a local, objective body would be most familiar. This bill will leave in place the federal Hatch Act restrictions that apply to other jurisdictions on the use of official authority, specifically as it relates to elections; the solicitation, acceptance, or receiving of political campaign contributions; the prohibitions on running for public office in partisan elections; and the use of on-duty time and resources to engage in partisan campaign activity where federal funds or responsibilities are involved. My bill would remove only the federal Hatch Act jurisdiction that applies solely to the District of Columbia and would require the District to have its own local Hatch Act, like every other jurisdiction, instead of requiring the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) and its Special Counsel to devote staff time and other resources on investigation, fact-finding and judgment of unfamiliar local matters. Indeed, the OPM has asked for the federal guidance my bill offers. In recent cases, OPM cited an ANC commissioner (Advisory Neighborhood Commissioner) for violations of the Hatch Act when he ran for higher office, even though ANC commissioners are ``elected officials'' under local laws. The application of the Hatch Act to ANC commissioners has been selectively enforced by OPM. For example, recently OPM filed cases charging Hatch Act violations against an ANC commissioner running for the D.C. Council but did not file when several members of the current City Council ran for the Council from positions as ANC commissioners. The present law results in possible violation of the federal Hatch Act while leaving OPM with local responsibility that does not implicate its federal jurisdiction. The House recognized that the present federal Hatch Act jurisdiction over the District was inappropriate and obsolete by removing this federal responsibility several years ago, but the Senate failed to act. The District should bear this local responsibility. My bill will eliminate the double indignity of placing a local burden on the federal government and depriving the District of a responsibility, which only local jurisdictions familiar with local laws can be expected to handle responsibly. The Hatch Reform Act is the third in the ``Free and Equal D.C.'' series of bills that I have introduced to eliminate anti-Home Rule or redundant bills that deprive the city of equal treatment and recognition as an independent self-governing jurisdiction.

Ms. NORTON

Ms. NORTON. Madam Speaker, the bipartisan bill we introduce today is a culmination of four years of during which Democrats and Republicans have worked together to accomplish a common goal for Utah and the District of Columbia. This effort has been worth every minute, as we are poised to clear the high hurdle to equal citizenship in the People's House--the House of Representatives. Representative Tom Davis (R-VA) and I have worked together on many tough bills and have gotten a fair number passed. Still, the bill we introduce today has surely been the toughest, has required the most work for us both, and has taken the most time. I am most grateful to Representative Davis who found the balance that makes this bill possible, modeled most recently on Alaska and Hawaii, both admitted to the Union in 1959 after Congress assured itself that their entry would benefit both parties. Tom Davis did not stop with his good idea but has worked relentlessly to reach this milestone. Speaker Nancy Pelosi has long fought for the rights of D.C. residents. It was she who personally insisted that this legislation go forward without delay as a bill of historic importance. Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, my regional friend for years, has been an especially outspoken champion of this bill. Throughout this process Chairman Henry Waxman (D-CA) has been a central figure, making every possible effort to ensure we would reach this day. From the very beginning, Chairman John Conyers (D-MI) as a founding member of the Congressional Black Caucus and a member of the Judiciary Committee has fought for our full rights throughout his years in Congress, pressing all along until as chair he will now preside over the committee that will send this bill to the floor. Governor Jon Huntsman Jr. and the entire Utah delegation have been steadfast and determined throughout. Tom and I have understood that the essential metric required bringing both parties with us, not only bipartisanship in the usual sense but equivalence, that is no partisan gain and no partisan disadvantage. We have gone through many variations, beginning with Tom's original proposal, where the D.C. House seat would have included some Maryland residents. Tom then accepted our notion that a D.C. stand-alone seat would be best and less controversial all around, and the talks and proposals proceeded. We since have tried several scenarios for moving the bill. I continued to keep my bill, the No Taxation Without Representation Act for the full representation that will never abandon until a bill agreeable to all could be fashioned. The District of Columbia has waited 200 years to gain the equal citizenship rights they deserve and seek. The framers were clear that American citizens are entitled to equal representation in the House. Our status as second in the United States in federal income taxes that support our government argues indisputably for equivalent rights. However, in this time of war with residents serving in Iraq and Afghanistan, our bill for congressional voting rights for D.C. residents must and I believe will not be denied. Finally, I hope I can be forgiven a personal moment. Throughout this process, I have never referred to the District's vote as my vote or what the vote would mean to me personally because it will not belong to me. I have never mentioned the special reason I personally wanted to be the first to cast that vote because this bill is for D.C. residents now and in the future, not for me. However, my 16 years in Congress has been defined by the search for some way to get full representation for the city where my family has lived since before the Civil War. That search has included the two-day debate followed by a vote on statehood more than 10 years ago, and the vote I won in the Committee of the Whole. The struggle has been driven by its own terms, by the here and now. Yet, I cannot deny the personal side of this quest, epitomized by my family of native Washingtonians, my father Coleman Holmes, my grandfather, Richard Holmes, who entered the D.C. Fire Department in 1902 and whose picture hangs in my office, a gift from the D.C. Fire Department, but especially my great-grandfather, Richard Holmes, a slave who walked off a Virginia plantation in the 1850s, made it to Washington, and settled our family here. By definition, subliminal motivation is unknown and unfelt. However, when Tom and I knew that we had reached the best agreement we could, I thought openly of my family. I thought especially of the man I never knew. I thought of Richard Holmes, a slave in the District until Lincoln freed the slaves here nine months before the Emancipation Proclamation. I thought of my great grandfather who came here in a furtive search for freedom itself, not the vote on the House floor. I thought of what a man who lived as a slave in the District, and others like him would think if his great- granddaughter becomes the first to cast the first full vote for the District of Columbia on the House floor. I hope to have the special honor of casting the vote I have sought for 16 years. I want to cast that vote for the residents of this city whom I have had the great privilege of representing and who have fought and have waited for so long. Yes, and I want to cast that vote in memory of my great- grandfather, Richard Holmes.

Ms. NORTON

Ms. NORTON. Madam Speaker, at the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform hearing on March 5, 2007 at Walter Reed Army Hospital, I asked the top brass who testified whether designating Walter Reed for closing in the midst of a war had contributed to any instability of personnel at the Walter Reed Hospital Garrison. Each of them responded unequivocally that the Base Realignment and Closure (BRAC) closing for Walter Reed had had a destabilizing effect on the hospital. Army Vice Chief of Staff General Richard Cody testified, ``You're trying to get the best people to come here to work, and they know in three years that this place will close down and they're not sure whether they will be afforded the opportunity to move to the new Walter Reed National Military Center . . . that causes some issues.'' This and other testimony, as well as recent Washington Post revelations, have contributed directly to my introduction today of the ``Preserve Walter Reed Army Medical Center Act of 2007.'' Several senior leaders of the relevant committees have since agreed that Walter Reed should be taken off the BRAC list and should remain open. There have been no complaints about the hospital's world-class treatment or the hospital itself, which was built only in 1977, but the hearing laid bare a broken military health care outpatient system and bureaucracy in need of both long term and short term remedies. The epicenter of this system is its ``crown jewel,'' Walter Reed Hospital, whose physical and administrative outpatient care have rapidly become a potent symbol of a national breakdown that will require systemic remedies for military and veteran hospitals across the country. However, because the problems are both deep and wide, we must find immediate solutions at each facility while the military outpatient systems are freed from knotted bureaucratic tangles. A first step to take to stop the proverbial bleeding of staff and talent is to reverse the madness of closing the nation's best and most vital military hospital in the middle of a shooting war and the war on terrorism. This bill to reverse the closing of the Walter Reed base will help stabilize personnel who, as the generals testified, scatter once they believe a base will close. At a time when Walter Reed is receiving large numbers of injured soldiers and a military surge may mean many more, closing the Nation's premier military hospital should be unthinkable. Moreover, leaving Walter Reed on the BRAC list has become increasingly untenable because closing the hospital carries with it a promise and an intention to build a new hospital by 2011. In the foreseeable future, no one expects the administration or Congress to come forward with the required $2 billion to construct the proposed new Walter Reed in Bethesda, Maryland, and much more for moving costs and new equipment, given a huge and mounting deficit, and certainly not in the middle of a war, when funds must be committed to soldiers, their families, veterans and the war itself. Nevertheless, a repeal bill is necessary because, if Walter Reed continues to be listed for closing, Congress will continue to send a signal to personnel to make their career decisions accordingly. As is already occurring, Walter Reed will find it increasingly difficult to retain and hire personnel, including vital civilian clinical and medical personnel, particularly the very best; who the Nation expects will work at Walter Reed to attend to the most seriously injured military men and women. Further, Walter Reed is an essential and integral component of the Emergency Preparedness Plan for the Nation's Capital. The hospital is located just 5\1/2\ miles from the White House, 6\1/2\ miles from the Capitol and 6 miles from the Washington Convention Center. Its location in the city is strategically important. If moved to Bethesda, traffic and distance would place Walter Reed outside of the homeland security system here that has been developed specifically to take account of the location of the top-tier Federal presence, officials and employees. Because of the location here Walter Reed is essential to treat mass casualties in the case of a terrorist attack. The hospital is part of the Emergency Preparedness Plan for the District, a system for treatment of acute illness or trauma of people requiring hospitalization from a chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear or explosive incident. The specialized needs are above the District's hospital capacity. Thus, the District needs Walter Reed's available resources in order to comply with this Department of Homeland Security mandate. I fully recognize that reversing a BRAC decision is and should be rare. However, particularly after what we have learned about unmet needs for injured members of the military returning home from Iraq and Afghanistan, this step is minimally necessary to stabilize operations at the Nation's most important hospital base for caring for our most seriously injured members of the military. Far from establishing a precedent, no other military facility stands on the same footing or has so central a mission. The question should not be can we take Walter Reed off the closing list but, why was this hospital scheduled to close in the first place, as our soldiers were engaged in a shooting war with no end in sight? Another question should be do we truly intend to spend billions of dollars on bricks and mortar for a new hospital instead of on our soldiers and their facilities? Walter Reed, like other military hospitals, will not be what it should be immediately. However, we can immediately demonstrate that Congress means business by moving to stabilize the Nation's premier military medical hospital and then getting on with the rest of the job.

Ms. NORTON

Ms. NORTON. The base, yes.

Ms. NORTON. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding, and let me thank him for his leadership on what I think has been a very informative special hour about our veterans. Just to pick up on what my two colleagues have said, the chairman stresses that we are talking about veterans as well as military matters. The best example at the hearings was the decision that the poor soldier has to make about whether to take his veterans benefits or his DOD benefits and how difficult that decision is, and how some of them are just driven crazy about how you arrive at that decision, since the amounts can be very different, the kind of decision where you need somebody holding your hand all the time. My colleague talked about poor judgment from the beginning when we went to the invasion and now when we see soldiers coming back home. I indicated earlier that a colossal example of poor judgment was closing the premier military hospital in the middle of a war. If I could just quote in closing from Vice Chair Cody, who testified before us at the Oversight and Reform Committee hearing: ``You are trying to get the best people to come here to work, and they know in 3 years that this place will close down and they are not sure whether they will be afforded the opportunity to move to the new Walter Reed National Military Center. That causes some issues.'' Well, as I have said, we are not going to give $3 billion for bricks and mortar in the middle of a war anyway, so that is why I am introducing a bill tomorrow just to send the signal that we are not going to close this hospital.

Ms. NORTON. I appreciate the gentleman's yielding. And I also appreciate hearing the Wounded Soldiers Act. That looks like the thinking on that even predates some of what has been revealed here. You will notice that the President has appointed a commission. It is a bipartisan commission. It has two chairs that I think everybody would respect, Donna Shalala and former leader Dole. We often have tried to get commissions, and I would applaud the appointment of a commission largely because a commission, as I understand its charge, will look throughout the country and not focus simply on the crown jewel and will look at the bureaucracy and not simply at the peeling walls. But I want to stress again, these soldiers need relief now, people. If you go into Walter Reed and say, ``Don't you worry, this bureaucracy, we are going to fix,'' I can tell you if you are going to fix a bureaucracy where the computers don't talk to one another, you are going to be fixing that for years to come. We have got to be able to say, it seems to me, before we go on April 2 to spring break, this we have done. I anticipate you will see some of it in the Defense supplemental. Some of it will be money. Some of it will be language. I say that without even knowing, but I know how concerned the Congress is. And I really want to bring the ultimate analogy here, and that is to say, remember Vietnam and the Vietnam veteran. How many Vietnam veterans are homeless today, feel the terrible neglect of that war? They were draftees, but the price they have paid. And, of course, these are volunteers, which, by the way, in a real sense means we really owe them because they have stepped forward on their own. But increasingly the Vietnam analogy is used, and that analogy has some validity. The part of it that we must see does not obtain is the part that relates to how the Vietnam veterans were treated. That must be the end of that. We must show with this war that there will never be a Vietnam when it comes to treatment of the wounded and treatment of veterans. And that day begins now. And we don't have a lot of time. This is March. We have a few weeks before we go out. I think we can do it. We may not pass the supplemental before then, but it does seem to me that we are going to come forward when I hear all of the concern with short-term solutions so that the soldiers at Fort Irwin, at Fort Knox, at Walter Reed and in your respective districts can know that help is not only on the way, it is coming, it is galloping their way.

Ms. NORTON. I appreciate that the gentleman has yielded, and the contrast he is drawing between the bureaucracy and the in-hospital care. Because when you see conditions like this, here are some more direct communications. Now, to be fair, I want to stress, and the difference between the Washington Post and these communications is we have not verified these. We don't want to say in any way that we doubt them, but we do want to say what the difference is. Nevertheless, people have felt they had to tell us what they felt and what they knew. And here you see, again, another part of the country, the other end of the country, Fort Irwin in California. ``The room was swarming with fruit flies, trash overflowing and a syringe on the table.'' Please remember, all that we are hearing about physical conditions is emblematic of an invisible bureaucracy that is much worse. Or Fort Knox, again, in Kentucky. ``The living conditions were the worst I had ever seen for soldiers, paint peeling, mold, windows that didn't work. I went to the hospital chaplain to get them to issue blankets and linens. There were no nurses.'' Again, this one, however, these are from the Washington Post. But these they haven't verified, but they haven't gone out there. I do want to say that when you talk to the soldiers, as I did, and here I will quote one of them. He said, ``Congresswoman, these people need help.'' They did not even criticize the workers in the bureaucracy. Their sense was that they were overwhelmed. We are talking about an invisible bureaucracy, a bureaucracy, for example, that when you have lost an arm and a leg, maybe both of them, will keep you waiting months before you can find out whether you are going out on disability or whether you are going back in some form or fashion to the Army. And the gentleman has talked about lost paperwork, computers that don't talk to one another. The life of one soldier can be on 27 different computers. The computers don't talk to one another. Therefore, nobody can talk to the soldier. I have suggested that we have to go with this in long-term, short- term as well as long-term ways. One short-term way would be every soldier needs his own advocate, so that, while we are fixing it, you never feel you are lost. There is somebody you can always go to. I would be glad to yield to the gentleman.

Ms. NORTON. Would the gentleman yield on that point, to reinforce that point? At the hearing earlier this week, the generals testified that this was not for want of funds. The fact is that we have given and will give more. If you come here and you look at our Defense budget, I don't think you will see that the Congress has been stingy in coming forward with the funds to do what is necessary, at least to keep these kind of shameful conditions from taking place. And the fact that you see top flight medical care at Walter Reed itself says that, when the doctors are in charge, when the nurses are in charge, things are fine. The leadership that you speak of, the leadership to deploy the funds correctly, the leadership to make sure that our soldiers have a seamless recovery so that, when they are in aftercare, they know they are recovering because they are treated in exactly the same way they were treated in the hospital. Yes, you are right, I say to my good friend and colleague who knows firsthand that whatever the doctor is able to do for you in the hospital can virtually evaporate if the kind of care that is necessary is not given after release from the hospital. I would be glad to yield to the gentleman.

Ms. NORTON. If the gentleman will yield. The Army, of course, said what it was going to do was to rebuild this massive new hospital in Bethesda. The problem with that is that it is going to take $3 billion. The gentleman and I, who serve in this House, know good and well that this House is not going to put $3 billion into bricks and mortar at a time when we have come to the floor to talk about neglect of soldiers and veterans. So why leave it on the base closing list? Maybe it was a pipe dream that somebody had as long as they were doing BRAC last year. Now has come the time to revisit that decision, and I am very pleased to say to the gentleman that I have noted, reported in the press that Members in a position to turn around that decision, our good friend who is chair of the Defense Appropriation Committee, Mr. Murtha; his ranking member, Mr. Young; Mr. Waxman, chair of Government Reform, where these hearings were held; his ranking member, Mr. Davis; had all said, had all said in a bipartisan matter, it is not the time to close Walter Reed. So here we are coming together at least with something to do now to stop the bleeding. Then, there are a number of other things we have to do, but that it seems to me is the minimum we can do. And there is a developing consensus; we hear the same things in the Senate today at their hearings: At least let's put, as we say in the law, an injunction on closing this hospital.

Ms. NORTON. I thank the gentleman for those observations, indeed. Your notion that they have got to change and they have got to change now is where we ought to be focused. You spoke about the heart- wrenching testimony, by the way, testimonies under oath. Just like the brass was under oath, so was the wife. She left her home, gave up her job to come be with her husband, has been there for months, lost in the Never Never Land of, is he going to go out on disability? Will he be returned to his company? The man had been in the National Guard for 16 years, for goodness sake. If you are not going to tell him one way or the other what he is going to do, you're disrupting his life, you're disrupting his entire family's life, and time after time, that was the story we heard. I want the gentleman to know, we had all the brass before us as well. You have never seen so much brass, the Secretary of the Army. We had the former commander at Walter Reed, Kevin Kiley, who has been now kicked upstairs. He is the U.S. Army surgeon general. It actually was on his watch that most of these problems emerged. We had the major general, George Weightman, who was recently fired. He had only been there 6 months, so he was the fall guy it looks like. We had the Vice Chief of Staff of the Army. They all came. And, by the way, when they heard the testimony you just spoke of, they harbored their apologies to the families sitting in back of them. That's the least they could have done. I do want you to know, I say to my good friend, that when it came time for me to ask questions, I focused on something I happened to know well, that Walter Reed in the middle of a war was put on the base realignment closing list. Think about this: Walter Reed is on the list of military installations to be closed in the middle of the war on terrorism and the Iraq war. We tried to keep that from happening. Something very important has happened as a result of the testimony. I asked the generals, on second thought, don't you think it would have been best to postpone any notion that Walter Reed would be closed, because that sends a signal to staff, clinical staff, staff of all kinds, that if you value your careers, this is not the place to come? And yet this is where you need the best personnel in the world. And to the man, each said, that should be rethought. And I want to say this evening to my good colleague and friend that I will be introducing tomorrow a quite unusual bill to repeal the decision to close Walter Reed in order to stabilize staff there, as a first step to say to Walter Reed: We hear you. At least we are not going to send the message to your best personnel, leave this place as soon as you can.

Ms. NORTON. I do want to make that distinction. Walter Reed Hospital, the Washington Post, I believe, did not find conditions to be substandard and drew the contrast between the hospital and building 18. I don't think the hospital has been the source of the problem. But they have put these soldiers in aftercare kind of apartments, in facilities like building 18. Unnamed, by the way. It could have been named after somebody. They said they are going to name it, give it some honorific name.

Ms. NORTON. This is the outpatient housing, normally. Unless that says it's a hospital.

Ms. NORTON. I would be pleased to yield to the gentleman.

Ms. NORTON. I thank you, Representative Green. I particularly thank you for opening up this special hour in a way that offers perspective, historical perspective about why the treatment of our solders and veterans mean so much to us. What you have done is to take us through the highlights of their history, which is our history, so that I think we come to grips with why the urgency that has been revealed at Walter Reed and now increasingly at other veterans hospitals and military hospitals must be addressed right away. Mr. Green, to my left there is a rendition of remarks among hundreds of thousands now sent to the Washington Post and to Members of Congress once the Walter Reed revelations came forward in the Washington Post. And what is important about the remarks to my left is the way that they summarize the systemic nature of this problem. Yes, we are focusing on Walter Reed. It happens to be in my district. Would that we could fix the problems that have come to light by dealing with this one great hospital; and this is far and away the greatest military hospital in the United States, most would say in the country. It is where we send our most injured soldiers. If you have been very seriously injured, you go to Walter Reed. It is considered the crown jewel of military hospitals. Why, then, are we hearing from Fort Campbell, Kentucky? In a moment I want to know about your district, Mr. Green, but why are we hearing from Fort Campbell, Kentucky, words that also put us to shame? And the words are right there for you to say. We are quoting the words that have come forward, this time to the Washington Post. There were yellow signs on the door stating, ``Our barracks had asbestos.'' How would you feel if you came home from Iraq or Afghanistan to find that kind of sign on the barracks to which you had been committed after leaving the hospital? Mr. Green made a point about in-hospital care. So far as we have been able to tell, at least in the military hospitals, a standard. You will have to speak to the veterans hospitals. But nobody doubts that there is no better place for our soldiers to be, particularly if you are seriously wounded, than Walter Reed Hospital. But you get out of Walter Reed and you find the functional equivalent of what we learned about Fort Campbell, Kentucky. There may not be a sign on the door, but the signs were everywhere to see. They were there in the now notorious building 18 where the whole roof now has to be changed, the mold and the rats and the roaches. What those are signs are, are of neglect of these soldiers once they left the hospital. But in a real sense, I think my good colleagues and brother will agree with me that it is when you get out of the hospital that you may be most depressed. You may have lost an arm or a leg or an eye, or you have lost part of your mental capacity. Now you have to come to grips with the real world. It is in those barracks, barracks like those described at Fort Campbell that soldiers have lost their way because we have lost ours. Or let's take Fort Irwin in California. Here I am quoting again the Washington Post, March 5 of this year: ``Most of us,'' writes this soldier, ``have had to sign waivers where we understand that the housing we were in failed to meet government standards.'' My colleague will, I think, agree with me that our soldiers expected to be in substandard tents in Iraq and Afghanistan but not in the United States of America after being wounded and being sent back home. Even though we had hearings in the Government Reform Committee 2 years ago speaking to the outpatient care and were assured by some of the same brass that appeared before us at the Walter Reed Hospital hearing just a couple of days ago, we find, courtesy of the Washington Post no less, not a hearing, but a real expose that things are as bad or worse than we expected.

Ms. NORTON

Ms. NORTON. Does the gentleman have any further speakers?

Ms. NORTON. Madam Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (H.R. 584) to designate the headquarters building of the Department of Education in Washington, DC, as the Lyndon Baines Johnson Federal Building, as amended.

Ms. NORTON. Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days within which to revise and extend their remarks and to include extraneous material on H.R. 584.

Ms. NORTON. Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. I commend Congressman Gene Green of Texas for his steadfast advocacy to this bill. In the 109th Congress, he introduced H.R. 4252, a bill to designate the Department of Education headquarters building. Lyndon Baines Johnson, ``the teacher who became President,'' was one of the leading political figures of the 20th century, I think, on both sides of the aisle, it would be agreed. He served the country in ways too numerous to mention, including lieutenant commander in the U.S. Navy during World War II. A Member of both Houses of Congress, Vice President of the United States and, of course, the 36th President of the United States, we are all aware of President Johnson's humble beginnings in Stonewall, Texas. In 1927, he enrolled in Southwest Texas State Teachers College at San Marcos, Texas, now the Texas State University at San Marcos. He graduated with a bachelor of science degree in August 1930. After graduation, he taught at Pearsall High School in Pearsall, Texas, and taught public speaking at Sam Houston High School in Houston, Texas. In a special election in 1937, President Johnson won the U.S. House of Representatives seat representing the 10th Congressional District of Texas, defeating nine other candidates. In the next election he was elected to a full term in the 76th Congress and to each succeeding Congress until 1948. After the bombing of Pearl Harbor, on December 7, 1941, President Johnson became the first Member of Congress to volunteer for active duty in the Armed Forces, enlisting in the U.S. Navy, reporting for active duty on December 9, 1941. President Johnson received the Silver Star for gallantry from General Douglas MacArthur. In 1948, he campaigned for and was elected to the U.S. Senate. He was elected minority leader of the Senate in 1953 and majority leader in 1955, where he served until January 1961, when he resigned to become Vice President of the United States. Lyndon Johnson became the 36th President of the United States on November 22, 1963, after the tragic assassination of President John F. Kennedy. During his administration, education was one of the many areas where Johnson blazed new ground. He pursued numerous education initiatives and signed many landmark education bills into law. In 1963, President Johnson approved the Higher Education Facilities Act, which authorized a 5-year program of Federal grants and loans for construction for improvement of public and private higher education facilities in 1964. President Johnson signed the Library Services Act in order to make high-quality public libraries more accessible to both urban and rural residents. Later that year, President Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act, which, among its provisions, authorized the Federal authorities to sue for the segregation of schools and to withhold Federal funds from education institutions that practiced segregation, if I may say so. The bill also authorized title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, the equal employment part of the act it was my great privilege to enforce as Chair of the EEOC. In 1965, President Johnson signed the Elementary and Secondary Act. This was the first general aid-to-education program ever adopted, and it provided programs to help educate disadvantaged children in urban and rural areas. Later that year, he also signed the Higher Education Act, which was the first U.S. congressional approval for scholarships to undergraduate students. In 1965 as well, President Johnson launched Project Head Start as an 8-week summer program to help break the cycle of poverty by providing preschool children of low-income families with a comprehensive program to meet their emotional, social, health, nutritional, and psychological needs. In 1966, President Johnson signed the International Education Act, which promoted international studies at United States colleges and universities. In 1968, he signed the Elementary and Secondary Education Act amendments of 1967, establishing bilingual education programs for non- English speaking children and providing more funds for special education for handicapped education. Later that year, he also signed the Handicapped Children's Early Education Assistance Act, which authorized experimental programs for handicapped children of preschool age. After leaving office, President Johnson continued his involvement in education and taught students while he wrote his memoirs and pursued other academic endeavors. President Johnson died January 22, 1973. Lyndon Baines Johnson will be remembered not only as a great President and Member of the House and of the Senate, but also as a champion of education. Thus, the Department of Education, located at 400 Maryland Avenue, Southwest, Washington, D.C., most appropriately should bear the name of and be designated as the Lyndon Baines Johnson Department of Education Building. Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Ms. NORTON. Madam Speaker, I am pleased to recognize the gentleman from South Carolina for such time as he may consume.

Ms. NORTON. Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Texas, Mr. Green, the author of the bill, such time as he may require.

Ms. NORTON. Madam Speaker, may I ask how much time remains on both sides?

Ms. NORTON

Ms. NORTON. Madam Speaker, I thank my good friend from California for yielding to me and my good friend as well from Illinois for coming forward with this bill. To tell you the truth, I had often looked at bills which celebrate groups in two ways, because I noticed that only insurgent groups have such days named for them or groups most in need, and so they become days of celebration. I have warmed to them only because I have recognized why such groups have their own day, International Women's Day for example. It is because having such a day provides an opportunity for a call to action. I wish I could come to the floor to celebrate women internationally. It is hard for me to do that when I see the progress in the global economy and look at what has happened and is happening internationally to women who are still chattel in most places in the world, who essentially would qualify as an oppressed group, not as a group seeking equality. So I think we ought to use International Women's Day to speak out for women who cannot speak for themselves. What is to me perhaps most tragic is that the experience that most women in this country welcome is one that women across the world, particularly in developing countries, may dread, and that is the experience of pregnancy. Where pregnancy cannot be controlled by a woman, it is not the extraordinarily wonderful and welcome state that it is in our country. There will never be equality for women until women can control their own fertility. As long as women are subject to men, as long as they have no control over their own fertility, then you will see women with as much HIV and AIDS as men. Where saying ``no'' to a man isn't something you do as a woman, but something you can't do as a woman, you are not equal. So today I call attention to the world that our country has done very little to help women across the world control their fertility and understand what equality means. We would not have women marching for equality and toward equality today if each and every woman who chose was not able to control her fertility. May we help obtain the same for our good sisters around the world.