Eleanor Norton

Ms. NORTON

Ms. NORTON. Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume, and I thank my friend from Nevada for sitting in for our good friend, the chair of the committee, Mr. Davis, who has worked so closely with me on the 2005 District of Columbia Omnibus Authorization Act on a home rule basis. I thank Chairman Davis also for getting this important bill to the floor before we adjourn this month and for his leadership on the bill. The D.C. Omnibus Authorization Act is a welcome committee innovation designed to achieve greater efficiency in considering District of Columbia matters, most of which are of little importance or concern to Congress but must come here only because they, or similar issues, appear in the D.C. City Charter and cannot become D.C. law until sanctioned by congressional action. It is very wasteful, but that is the way it operates. All of the provisions in this bill have been passed or approved by the District of Columbia. Of the many provisions in the act, three are particularly important: One, a provision allowing greater budget flexibility for the City to carry out necessary business; two, a section permitting the District to spend more of its reserve funds; and, three, strengthening the Chief Financial Officer. First, the bill alters a semiannual requirement that the District come to Congress to become part of the Federal supplemental before the City may spend taxing revenue that is collected from District of Columbia taxpayers after the annual appropriation bill has been enacted. I am grateful that the appropriators, Chairmen Lewis and Cochran, and District of Columbia chairs and ranking members Knollenberg, Olver, Brownback and Landrieu have agreed with the authorizers that this change is beneficial both to the Congress and to the District. Although funds inevitably come in to any local jurisdiction or any State all year as taxes are paid by residents and businesses, D.C. cannot spend these funds for vital services, even though similar expenditures have been approved by Congress in the prior appropriation bill. This limitation applies to any unauthorized amount, even bonds the City must issue. We saw the perils of this requirement when there was a fear that the District's bonds for the baseball stadium would be held up. The press, seeing the D.C. baseball stadium in the 2005 war supplemental, repeatedly and gleefully reported that Congress, not D.C., was building a baseball stadium and had put this provision in a vital bill intended to fund defense. This provision also removes the possibility of such unintended effect. Of great importance to the greater flexibility of both governments, this section moves the District of Columbia toward the long-time goal of budget autonomy over its own taxpayer-raised funds because it allows the District to spend up to 6 percent of its own money between appropriation bills without coming back to Congress midyear during the supplemental process I have just described. Under existing law and constitutional interpretation, congressional jurisdiction to change any D.C. matter remains, as always, under this provision, and under this provision Congress loses nothing while the District of Columbia gains much that is necessary to run a big city. Second, because of its prudence, the District now has emergency reserve and contingency funds that would be the envy of most jurisdictions, and Congress has reinforced these savings with unique requirements not found anywhere else in this country. In the meantime, residents watch the neglect of basic services while the District grows an ever-larger reserve fund that cannot be tapped for any reason. There is special outrage that many of our children attend dilapidated public schools, some as old as I am and that I remember well when I was in school here as a child. This provision authorizes the District to borrow up to 50 percent of the fund balance from the emergency and contingency reserve funds through the end of 2007 provided that the fund is reimbursed within 9 months of the borrowing or by the end of the fiscal year in which the money is borrowed. Third, although the city's financial officer is a city, and not a Federal, official and is appointed by the Mayor, the provision for this office is in the charter. Therefore, even the pending D.C. Council action to strengthen the CFO needs congressional sanction, even though the provision makes an already strong official even more independent by giving him a term of 5 years with dismissal only for cause by the Mayor subject to the approval of the council by resolution approved by at least two-thirds of its members. The bill also confirms the CFO's personnel and procurement authority under D.C. law and confirms that the collective bargaining rights of CFO employees are preserved. Finally, an important provision bears mentioning because it helps preserve the justice system in case of emergency. This provision allows the District courts to conduct business outside of the district in case of an emergency. I appreciate that the House has moved this important bill forward so it may obtain early passage in the Senate where its provisions have strong support. Madam Speaker, I strongly urge my colleagues to support this bill.

Ms. NORTON

Ms. NORTON. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, I presume this is either All Saints Day or the Christmas season because we are certainly honoring two saints, and I do not think there will be a single ``nay'' vote on this bill. I am pleased to endorse these bills to name buildings respectively after Mother Teresa and Rosa Parks. As if a bio was needed for Mother Teresa, the record probably should reveal some of the background of Mother Teresa who began life as an ordinary human being like the rest of us. She just went on to sainthood even before she died. She was born in Macedonia in August of 1910. At the age of 18, she left home to join the Sisters of Loreto, an Irish community of nuns conducting missionary work in India. In 1931, after training in Dublin, Sister Teresa arrived in India, where from 1931 to 1948 she taught at St. Mary's High School in Calcutta. In 1948, Sister Teresa received permission to leave the high school to minister to the poorest of the poor in the slums of Calcutta. In the ensuing half century, she created a legacy of human charity and good works that have become the standard for all to emulate. In 1959, she received permission to start her own order known as the Missionaries of Charity whose primary task is to look after those left with no one prepared to look after them. The Society of Missionaries has spread all over the world, including the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. The society provides help to the world's needy in a number of countries and houses alcoholics, the homeless and AIDS sufferers. Mother Teresa's work is acclaimed throughout the world. Her awards and distinctions are countless. In 1979, she was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in recognition of her work to bring help to suffering humanity. She is one of only nine women to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. Respect for individual dignity and each person's innate value are at the core of her beliefs and provide the basis for her charitable work. Her order receives the dying, the destitute, abandoned lepers and the poor. Her work and her personal philosophy is grounded in her Christian faith. It is certainly proper and appropriate that the building located on the campus for the Centers for Disease Control at 1600 Clifton Road, Atlanta, Georgia, be named in Mother Teresa's honor. Also, at the same location, a building dedicated to Rosa Parks will be identified as the Rosa Parks Emergency Operations Center. We honor Rosa Parks for her courage and conviction. By now, Mr. Speaker, we all know the story of that December evening in 1955, 50 years ago, when a 42-year-old black woman riding a bus in Montgomery, Alabama, refused to give up her seat to a white passenger on demand. Montgomery segregation laws were complex and deeply humiliating, but Rosa Parks' personal and quiet strength and sense of justice changed not only the laws of Montgomery she challenged, but also the laws of the United States of America. For her boldness, she was arrested and found guilty of disorderly conduct. These actions led to the famous Montgomery bus boycott that lasted over a year and ultimately to a Supreme Court decision that banned segregation in city public transit systems, led also to the great civil rights laws enacted in the 1960s and led also to the civil rights movement itself which followed her lead and took up the struggle with an army of black and white nonviolent activists working in imitation of Rosa Parks. It is impossible to overstate the impact of her actions in defiance of segregation. Her story has become part of the American story and of the story of Congress itself where she became the first woman to lie in State in the Rotunda in November. I am honored to support this bill that acknowledges the contributions of two exceptional women. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Ms. NORTON. Mr. Speaker, the gentleman made that clear. I appreciate that the gentleman made that clear. I was trying to think, as my colleague spoke, about whether or not we have named things after Members of the House while they were still here. I had a young man, kid from D.C., some people brought him in today, along with a whole group of students, and I showed him pictures, I explained pictures on my wall that when I came to Congress, instead of putting some fake Picassos, I put pictures of old Washington. I went to the Library of Congress and to the D.C. Historical Society. And this child interrupted me, he is a high school student. He said, why do you not have a big picture of yourself there? It simply provided an opportunity for me to let him know that he ought to wonder about a Member of Congress who had a big picture of herself in her office. I do not know who she ought to have, and I did not suggest to him who she ought to have. But in this season, when we have the opportunity, and I was called, literally, only a couple of hours ago to say would I manage a bill that would name buildings at the Centers for Disease Control against these two women, I said, well, here is one that I know this is only love and praise and I really think we should rest on that, whatever is the predicament that the gentleman discussed. And I do not mean to cast any aspersion upon what he said because he is talking about matters that are of some concern, insertions into the bill and so forth. But that is not the spirit in which I came forward on this side to offer this bill, and I do not think it is the gentleman's spirit, and I do not think it is the spirit of the House today. And Merry Christmas everybody. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Ms. NORTON. I will be happy to yield to the gentleman from Iowa.

Ms. NORTON. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. I understand the gentleman's point. But I do not understand this bill to be a retort or a response to Senate action. I understand it to be an affirmative act on the part of the bipartisan House of Representatives. The only reason I raise it is because we are not a party to whatever is the discussion that has gone on on that. I do understand the concern, and I listened to it. But I would not want anything to take away from the way I opened my remarks about All Saints Day and the Christmas season because I think the gentleman perhaps did not mean it. And if I may so, by inserting that, and I am not questioning it, I have no personal knowledge of it, it leaves, I think, an unfortunate impression that I do not think the gentleman means to leave. Perhaps it should have been inserted into the Record if the gentleman thought so.

Ms. NORTON. Mr. Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Davis) and a cosponsor of the bill.

Ms. NORTON

Ms. NORTON. Mr. Speaker, I am particularly fortunate to have in my district one of the country's best public broadcasting stations, and Members of the House share in that good fortune while they are in Washington. If Members have had the pleasure of tuning in to WAMU 88.5 FM on Saturday nights you will understand why I rise today to congratulate WAMU and Host Rob Bamberger on the occasion of the 25th Anniversary of Hot Jazz Saturday Night, Washington's only regularly scheduled show devoted to vintage jazz and one of the longest running locally produced shows on WAMU. Rob Bamberger's commitment to vintage jazz began in 1963 at an elementary school book fair in Shaker Heights, Ohio. Waiting until the mad rush was over; an admittedly shy kid with glasses approached the record table to see if anything was left. While the table had been picked pretty clean, Rob spied a two-LP set with a trombone and a top hat on the cover, set against an elegant red curtain. It was a two- record set of broadcast recordings by Tommy Dorsey and his orchestra. It cost Rob a dime, a fateful investment because all he had to hear was the ``Hawaiian War Chant'' and he was hooked. That two-LP set became the cornerstone for a life-long love and scholarly interest in American music of the 1920's, 30's and 40's, and the start of a record collection that has been the mother lode for the music featured on Hot Jazz Saturday Night. WAMU listeners get a weekly glimpse into Rob Bamberger's record collection every Saturday night from 7 to 10 p.m. Rob often focuses on an artist or theme, illuminating the story behind the music and the artists from his own intimate and extensive store of knowledge, and the most recent scholarship. It becomes a lesson in American history and culture, but never stuffy or professorial. Rob's succinct and informative commentaries are laced with dry humor that endears him to his weekly fans. Rob Bamberger's Hot Jazz Saturday Night represents programming that listeners can't get anywhere else. Listeners who danced to some of the musicians and groups featured on the show enthuse about hearing artists and songs they have not heard in decades. Other listeners once had the impression that jazz is a remote unapproachable music enjoyed only by denizens of smoke- filled bars. Rob disagrees and says there are no prerequisites to enjoying jazz or Hot Jazz Saturday Night. His commitment to introducing this treasured American art form to new listeners is boundless. You can neither be too old or too young to discover and revel in the music of Benny Goodman, Louis Armstrong, Glen Miller, Ella Fitzgerald, Billie Holiday and countless others who are enduring images of a bygone era evoked every Saturday night on WAMU. I join jazz supporters in the Nation's Capital in paying tribute to WAMU and Rob Bamberger on the occasion of the 25th Anniversary of Hot Jazz Saturday Night.

Ms. NORTON

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

Ms. NORTON. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. I thank the gentleman for bringing forward this bill; and I rise in strong support of S. 1285, a bill to designate the Federal building located at 333 Mt. Elliott Street in Detroit, Michigan, as the ``Rosa Parks Federal Building.'' This bill also contains a provision to name the annex to the E. Barrett Prettyman courthouse here in the District of Columbia in honor of Federal District Court Judge William B. Bryant. Both are legendary African Americans, and the agreement that Federal buildings should be named in their honor is both wide and deep. I thank my good friend and colleague from Michigan (Ms. Kilpatrick) for her diligent leadership on the Rosa Parks Federal building designation. I also want to thank my good friend of longstanding, the senior Senator from Virginia, Senator John Warner, for tirelessly working with me for more than 3 years to achieve this honor for Judge Bryant. I am deeply grateful as well to Senate Judiciary Committee ranking member Patrick Leahy, who also was particularly conscientious in pressing for this honor for Judge Bryant. I spoke last Wednesday, Mr. Speaker, concerning the events that led Rosa Parks to challenge the daily humiliation of Montgomery, Alabama's black residents who were required to pay their bus fare to the driver, then get off and reenter through the rear door, and then relinquish their seats and move to the back of the bus upon the demand of any white passenger. Since then, Congress has broken with precedent and voted to allow Rosa Parks to lie in honor in the Capitol Rotunda, and she did so just a few days ago, the first woman and only the second African American who has been accorded this honor. In so doing, the United States of America recognized the unique and extraordinary contribution of Rosa Parks to her country. Her simple act of civil disobedience in refusing to relinquish her seat on demand from a white man on a segregated bus was the functional equivalent of a nonviolent shot heard around the world. Fifty years later, time may blur the enormous personal risk Rosa Parks took on in America in 1955. During our country's tragic racial history, black men had been lynched for less. Grievances like those of African Americans after 400 years of slavery and humiliating discrimination had been resolved by violent revolution throughout human history. Our country is enormously in Rosa Parks' debt because the revolution that led to the end of government and legally sanctioned discrimination began with a nonviolent revolutionary act, setting an example that endured. So brave was her act in the South in 1955 that even those of us who were young, in school, and had nothing to lose did not engage in the first sit-ins until 5 years later. The act of one woman finally led to the mass civil rights movement, the missing ingredient in the civil rights struggle. This movement was Rosa Parks' special gift to her people and to those who joined them, especially the residents of the District of Columbia, who still feed from her inspiration to achieve equality with other Americans, including equal voting rights in the Congress of the United States. In an era of peacock leaders who strut their stuff, her selfless example is an especially important guide. In great humility, Rosa Parks' gift was not the message that ``I am doing this to free you.'' Her message was far more direct: ``Free yourself.'' It is with gratitude that we bring this bill forward today in that spirit. The honor for Judge William Bryant has an unusual origin indeed. The Chief Judge of the United States District Court for the District of Columbia, Judge Hogan, for himself and all the members of the trial court, visited my office to request that the annex under construction for the E. Barrett Prettyman Federal building be named for a senior U.S. judge, Judge William B. Bryant. Judge Bryant was unaware of the desires and actions of his colleagues, who unanimously agreed to request that the annex be named for the judge. It is rare that Congress names a courthouse or an annex for a judge who has served in that court and even more rare for a judge who is still sitting. All who have been involved in this effort recognize and agree that giving an honor to a sitting judge has been granted in the past but only rarely and should be reserved only for the most extraordinary of judges. Judge William Bryant is such a judge. I am particularly grateful to this House which early understood the unique importance of Judge Bryant's contributions and unhesitatingly passed this bill last session. Judge Bryant's colleagues who know his work and his temperament best have found a particularly appropriate way for the court, the bar, our city, and our country to celebrate the life and accomplishments of a truly great judge. I know Judge Bryant personally. I know his reputation in this city and in the law, and I know that the request to name the annex for Judge Bryant reflects deep respect for his unusually distinguished life at the bar. Judge Bryant began his career in private practice in the segregated Washington of the 1940s and 1950s when African American lawyers were barred from membership in the District of Columbia Bar Association and even from using the bar law library. He established his legal reputation as a partner of the legendary African American law firm, Houston, Bryant & Gardner, and taught at Howard University Law School. His reputation as an extraordinary trial lawyer led to his appointment as the first African American Assistant United States Attorney for the District of Columbia. He later rose to become the first African American to serve as chief judge of the United States District Court, whose members now ask that the annex be named for Judge Bryant. For his representation of criminal defendants in private practice, Judge Bryant was admired as one of the city's best and most respected trial lawyers. Among his many notable cases is the landmark Mallory v. United States, a 1957 Supreme Court decision where the Court ruled that an arrested person must be promptly brought before a judicial officer. Judge Bryant was born in Wetumpka, Alabama, but grew up in this city and graduated from D.C. public schools, Howard University, and Howard Law School where he was first in his class. After graduation, Judge Bryant served as chief research assistant to Dr. Ralph Bunche when Bunche worked with Gunnar Myrdal, the famous Swedish economist, in his studies of African American racial issues. Judge Bryant served in the United States Army during World War II and was honorably discharged as a lieutenant colonel in 1947. The judge, who is 94, took senior status in 1982. Chief Judge Thomas Hogan wrote that Judge Bryant ``lost his beloved wife, Astaire, and now lives alone with this court and the law as the center of his life.'' This unusual request from all the judges of the court gives this designation great credibility. I am grateful to the judges of our U.S. District Court here for the thoughtful proposal that honors a Washingtonian and a lawyer of historic proportions. I very much appreciate the many efforts of my friends in the Senate, especially Senators Warner and Leahy, in helping me to get this bill through both Houses. I especially appreciate the leadership of this House who went to extraordinary lengths to make sure that this bill would be accomplished. The residents of this city and the court that Judge Bryant has served so well, and members of the bar here, join me in gratitude for this tribute. We are all especially pleased to see two notable African Americans celebrated together in this House today in this special way.

Ms. NORTON

Ms. NORTON. Madam Speaker, Sadly, I have had to commemorate the lives of two important black women who died earlier: C. Delores Tucker, Rosa Parks. However, this morning I rise to celebrate the life of one of America's great lawyers, Constance Baker Motley, the first black woman on the Federal bench. That, however, is surely not her greatest public service. What greater service to one's country than to have been an architect of the legal strategy that brought equality under law to the United States. She argued 10 cases before the Supreme Court. Perhaps the most notorious was the James Meredith case that integrated the University of Mississippi. She made 22 trips into Mississippi for that case alone; then, the University of Alabama; also the University of Georgia, where she helped Charlane Hunter-Gault integrate that university. Charlane Hunter-Gault said that Ms. Motley ``talked about the South in those days as if it were a war zone and she was fighting in a revolution. No one . . . was going to distract her from carrying her task to a successful conclusion.'' Indeed, in the 1960s, the South was a war zone not only for activists, but for their lawyers. In a car with Medgar Evers, Mr. Evers told her to put away her legal pad and not to look back. He, of course, was later assassinated. She was so outstanding that every office wanted Mrs. Motley to be their first. She was the first woman to serve in the New York Senate, the first to serve as Manhattan borough president. She was the first woman, and for me perhaps the most important of her firsts, to argue a case before the United States Supreme Court, because she inspired a whole generation of young lawyers. It should astonish us that the first African-American woman was appointed to the bench only in 1966, only 40 years ago. It should remind us that the integration of the courts of our country is and remains part and parcel of establishing equality under the law.

Ms. NORTON

Ms. NORTON. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentlewoman from Texas (Ms. Jackson-Lee). (Ms. JACKSON-LEE of Texas asked and was given permission to revise and extend her remarks.)

Ms. NORTON. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the gentleman from California (Mr. Rohrabacher) for the graciousness of his remarks. I want to thank the gentlewoman from Michigan (Ms. Kilpatrick) for her great diligence in making sure that this bill would be introduced and come forward now. I want to say in closing that we are accustomed to revolutions being made by armies. We must appreciate what it meant for the opening shot, as it were, of the civil rights movement to have come from a gentlewoman who simply sat in her seat. After 400 years of slavery and discrimination, it might have been a bomb. It was instead an act which set the pattern of nonviolent resistance for the entire civil rights movement. Please understand that Rosa Parks acted at great personal risk to herself. We may forget what life was like in the 1950s. We all know this, that black men had been lynched for less, and yet she stood there not knowing what would happen after she was arrested. The remarks of the gentleman from California reminds us what she has done for our country, that essentially she has united our country with one message for all time, and that message does not know partisan lines. What she and the nonviolent revolution that she made that saved our country had done is to bring Republicans and Democrats to the same spot, to the understanding that equality under law is a basic American principle. We could celebrate that principle no better than by honoring the woman who set off the revolution with her gentle act, Rosa Parks. I thank my good friends from the other side for bringing this bill forward. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Ms. NORTON. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Ohio (Mrs. Jones).

Ms. NORTON. Mr. Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Oberstar), the ranking member who worked so hard on behalf of this bill. (Mr. OBERSTAR asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Ms. NORTON. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. Lantos).

Ms. NORTON. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentlewoman from Indiana (Ms. Carson).

Ms. NORTON. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. For this side I will be introducing the bill, and after I make an introductory statement, and the next time you go to our side, I want my colleagues to hear from the gentlewoman who is responsible for this bill, Ms. Kilpatrick, who has indicated she wants me to introduce it. I want to thank her for this bill to designate the Federal Building, which is located at 333 Mt. Elliott Street in Detroit, Michigan, as the Rosa Parks Federal Building, and I want to thank her for really her quite extraordinary diligence in making sure that this bill came to the floor. I want to say that this bill happens to come to the floor a few days after the death of Rosa Parks, but who is certainly not responsible for the tardiness of this bill reaching the floor is Ms. Kilpatrick. For months she has been talking to me as the ranking member of the subcommittee. For about the same length of time she has been talking with our ranking member Mr. Oberstar. I am sure nobody on our committee meant to hold this bill up, but the truth is that we very much desired for this bill to come to the floor before Rosa Parks died. We knew she was elderly. We are very grateful, however, to the majority for allowing this bill to come forward now in advance of the funeral so that Ms. Kilpatrick, who has carried this bill for so long, can go home to say the Congress has approved what I know Members on both sides would very much want to approve. We all know the story of that December evening in 1955 when a 42- year-old black woman riding a bus in Montgomery, Alabama, refused to give up her seat at the demand of a white male passenger. This simple gesture, it was indeed more than a gesture; it was an act, and an action that our country will never forget, led to the disintegration of institutionalized segregation in much of the South and ushered in a new era now known as the civil rights era of our country. Characteristically, Ms. Parks always played down her courageous act. Her strength of character and quiet, but determined sense of justice changed our country, however. Montgomery's segregation laws were very complex and deeply humiliating. For example, blacks were required to pay their fare to the driver and then get off the bus and reenter through the rear door. If the white section was full, blacks were required to give up their seats altogether, no matter what their age, and no matter what their infirmity, and move to the back of the bus. Rosa Parks was very familiar with these humiliations; however, she was a self-educated, early activist with her own local NAACP, her time at the Highland School in Tennessee, but never particularly intending at that moment to engage in an act of civil disobedience. She simply was ready when the moment of humiliation came. For her boldness, she was arrested and found guilty of disorderly conduct. This action led to the famous Montgomery bus boycott that lasted over a year and, ultimately, to the Supreme Court decision that banned segregation on the city's public transportation systems, and, Mr. Speaker, therefore, on all public transportation throughout the United States. It is impossible to overstate the impact of her act of gentle defiance. Rosa Parks' story has now become legendary in American history. I am honored to support this bill. It is a most fitting way to respect her life and to acknowledge her lifelong contributions to equality and justice for all Americans. Mr. Speaker, it is with great pleasure that I yield such time as she may consume to the gentlewoman from Michigan (Ms. Kilpatrick), the sponsor of this bill, who is responsible for its emergence on the floor today.

Ms. NORTON

Ms. NORTON. Well, I want to thank the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Meek) very much for taking out this hour and taking the leadership on this vital issue. Mr. Speaker, I was on my way to a markup. I got there and I thought I saw that there were a few minutes yet, and I said, I have to go down. Because I want my colleague to know that I heard from some of my friends on the other side get up and say words to the effect that our side did not want to see any budget resolution that had any cuts; and that, see, there go the Democrats again, they think you can just spend money. And comments like, even though they see the problem, they do not want any cuts to be made because they say that nobody will be for the budget resolution changes that are coming down now. So I said to myself, my goodness, what is coming down now? The American people need to know that it is a perversion of what is required, a perversion of what they even say it is, which is an attempt to do the cuts so that there will be money for the Katrina victims. I did not think I could let them get away with that when three or four of them got up with the same message. I think the first thing to understand, because we have the credibility to say it, is that the Democrats stand for a balanced budget, including making some cuts at this time given this emergency. We have the credibility to say it because we have proposed a budget that would put us in balance by the year 2012. We have done it. It is balanced. It is there for all to see on our Web site. This is the moment. It is a magic moment, and the American people should look for this moment. This is the moment when the Congress should reinstate PAYGO. That is the pay-as-you-go notion that in the 1990s brought us to surplus, the surplus that the Republican White House inherited of almost $250 billion, a surplus as far as the eye could see, and in the snap of a finger it was gone. We have pressed this Congress ever since the last administration left office to keep PAYGO. They have, in fact, said the only thing we are going to use PAYGO for are for spending other than tax cuts. So, we have had a perversion of PAYGO. We can do as many tax cuts, and they have been overwhelmingly for the most advantaged and wealthy people in our society, and you do not have to pay for those. But if in fact you are trying to help the poorest people in this society, such as those who were exposed for the world to see from the Katrina hurricane, then you better pay for those. I do not think you could find any substantial number of the American people who would say, I am right there with you, and so we say, let us go with PAYGO right now. You will find that there will be Americans, those who are most concerned with the deficit, those who are most concerned with helping the poor saying, yes, now is the moment and we are for it. Instead, what we see is amazing and brazen in how the resolution that appears to be coming down would operate. Since tax cuts cannot be touched, we have been told that, still, over and over again, the spending cuts are, in effect, going to take from services of the kind that the Katrina victims need. Do understand that. If you are a Katrina victim, even if you are middle class now, you need Medicaid when you did not need it before, you will need food stamps when you did not need them before. I saw a woman on television who said, and this is a woman in her fifties, who said the very notion of food stamps and my family asking for them is so laughable that I did not even know how to do it. She had to have her daughter, who had also never been on food stamps, help her to find out how you apply for food stamps. So we are talking about of course the poor, the poor to our shame that we all saw but who somehow we had not seen before, but now we are also talking about hundreds of thousands of the new poor, or the temporarily poor, and those are the victims of Katrina who simply will not be able to get from one day to the next unless they have access to the services that have only been available to the poor, like Medicaid and like food stamps. If that is not enough under the topic of perversion, here is another one. This is supposed to be about cutting the deficit. We still leave the deficit at more than $100 billion. We do not make any real inroads into the deficit, so what are we doing? Do we really think the American people are fooled? I do not think so. I think as technical as this stuff can get, they are beginning to understand it. We see it in the polls. I must say to the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Meek), I was here with his mother before him; and in my 15 years in Congress, I have never seen such a gap in the generic poll between Democrats and Republicans. That tells me our message of who believes in balance and who believes in making cuts but doing them in the right way is getting across. I say to the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Meek), the Republicans started with $35 billion in entitlement spending, no tax-cut spending. That was cruel, but that is where they were, and that is what we had to take with all of our protestations. They said, no, that is not enough. After Hurricane Katrina, they said we need more. We need $50 billion. They say to the American people with a straight face, we need to do this for the Hurricane Katrina victims. These are the very victims who are now having their Medicaid and food stamps cut. As if there are no offsets on tax cuts, we are looking to the spending cuts paying for tax cuts and new tax cuts, as much as $70 billion in tax cuts. We have been in the Congress long enough with Republicans in charge to know they believe in the reverse Robin Hood notion, take from the poor and give to the rich, but after Hurricane Katrina, how shameful, on the backs of poor give more in tax cuts. The gentleman from New York (Mr. Serrano) was clear when he says he knows where the rich would be. He said he cannot think of the rich in New York who would say this is the way to do it after Hurricane Katrina. We know and we want everybody to know we know where the money is, and it is in mandatory spending. We know there have to be cuts in the entitlement spending, and there have to be cuts where they hurt most, in Medicaid and Medicare. We hate that. But if there is a balanced budget resolution, we are prepared to eat that pain along with the rest of the country. What we are not prepared to do, what we are not prepared to do, after $35 billion in cuts that have already been on the backs of the poor, to break their backs by, in fact, more cuts to them. The House has already cut low-income energy assistance, 8 percent. There was an 8 percent cut below last year's level. Middle-class people in our country are pulling their hair out trying to figure out how to heat their homes this winter, and we are going to cut even further the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program for the poor. We could shout it from the hilltops because I do not think there are any Americans anywhere that would sanction that. Every single winter we have left it at level funding; and to cut it this year when we know what has happened to energy, we know what has happened to oil and to gas, and everybody has informed everybody what they have to get ready for. They are telling middle-class people now is the time to shore up your houses, put in storm windows, and do the extras that will save you in your heating bills. Tell that to the poor people. They do not own the premises. They are the renters of this country. They are having a hard time finding enough money to pay the rent. They cannot fix the premises; and if they did, because they are so poor, they could not buy the storm windows. This is so cruel that you will not find Americans in any number who will sanction this if we tell it. Mr. Speaker, we are going to tell it. We are going to tell it in the rich and the poor neighbors. We do not have the same access to the media the other side has, but just wait until we finish telling America about how you are taking money for Hurricane Katrina victims supposedly, from other poor people to supposedly pay for them when the money will in fact go to pay for tax cuts for wealthy Americans. Let me give one more example that I think will get to the heart of the problem, and that is the possibility of a 2 percent across-the- board cut that will cut special education funding below the 2005 level, further reducing special education. There is not a Member here who does not hear his school board, his local officials screaming about special education drinking up the lion's share of the education dollar. As it is now, we are down to covering only about 17.5 percent of special education. That is 17.5 percent out of the storied 40 percent we pledged the States we would cover when we passed the IDEA bill. Mr. Speaker, who has the nerve to say to States, take from the traditional children if you have to, because the IDEA bill says you have to give to your special education children. So this time I say to my friend, we are not taking from the poor to the rich, we are taking from our traditional children and giving to our most needy children, and that is a trade-off nobody in America wants us to make. Mr. Speaker, I say to my friend before I return to my markup, the gentleman has done us a service. I do not know how many Americans are watching, but I do say whatever happens here, we do not have the majority. The gentleman from Florida took this hour so we could make it clear that the other side of the aisle cannot come on the floor and say whatever they want to say, even if what they say are patent untruths, without understanding that lie for lie, you will find us talking to the American people to try to set the record straight. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for his leadership.

Ms. NORTON. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman.

Ms. NORTON

Ms. NORTON. Mr. Speaker, today Chairman Tom Davis and I introduce a bill that will correct a long overdue oversight affecting the non- judicial employees of the D.C. Courts, the Court Services and Offender Supervision Agency (CSOSA), and the D.C. Public Defender Service (PDS). Under the 1997 National Capital Revitalization and Self-Government Improvement Act of 1997, the federal government took over the operation of the District of Columbia Courts and related services making the non- judicial employees of the D.C. Courts and the employees of CSOSA federal employees. In 1998, employees of PDS were similarly transferred as part of the District of Columbia Courts and Justice Technical Collections Act. As federal employees, these Court, CSOSA and PDS employees were brought under the federal retirement program (FERS). However, for the employees transferred in 1997 and in 1998, ``creditable service'' for the purposes of determining when they would be eligible to retire and the amount of annuity they would be entitled to under FERS only began from the date of the transfer. That is, the 1997 and 1998 laws made no provision for treating their year of service as Court and related services employees prior to these laws as creditable service for retirement. Accordingly, the bill we introduced today will amend these laws to require that the time served by these employees before 1997 will count towards their overall federal retirement eligibility as ``creditable service''. So for example, if an employee is 60 years old today and has worked 20 years (i.e. since 1985) for the D.C. Courts under our bill he would be eligible for federal retirement today (whereas without our bill he would have to work another twelve years). I should also note that to avoid the problem of ``double dipping,'' since the employees are still entitled to their D.C. retirement benefits (based upon their work status up until 1997), our bill does not count the pre-1997 years spent as D.C. government employees towards the amount of federal retirement annuity an employee is eligible to receive. However, it is only fair and just that the Court and related services employees who started their jobs with the expectation that would be able to retire without penalty after 20 years of service or more should be allowed to do so. Our bill today does just that, it restores their ``lost time.''

Ms. NORTON

Ms. NORTON. Mr. Speaker, I am pleased that Government Reform Committee Chair Tom Davis (R-VA) and House Administration Committee Ranking Member Juanita Millender-McDonald (D-CA) are introducing a bill with me today to permit two statues honoring citizens of the District of Columbia in Statuary Hall of the Capitol, just as statues honoring citizens of States are placed in the historic hall. This legislation would allow the city to offer two statues to the Congress on behalf of DC residents. As I introduce this bill, as we have just honored the citizens of New Mexico, I ask the committee to remember that with the placement of their second statute, a bill I was pleased to support, I seek equal recognition for the citizens of the District of Columbia. The District of Columbia was born with the Nation itself. The city has more than two centuries of its very own rich and uniquely American history. It goes without saying that the almost 650,000 American citizens who live in the Nation's Capital deserve the honor of having two of its history makers represented in the halls of the Nation's Capital just as citizens who live in the 50 States have long enjoyed. Our bill would allow the Mayor and the City Council to devise the method for determining the identity of the honorees, who must be deceased. Mayor Anthony Williams has already agreed to find funds in the District's budget for these statues upon the passage of this legislation. Every time we allow the District to be excluded from its place among the 50 States, we undermine the Nation's efforts to spread full democracy around the world. While DC residents have not yet obtained the same political equality and voting rights as the citizens of the States, they have all the responsibilities of the States, including paying all Federal taxes and serving in all wars. Today, when our residents are serving in Iraq, the least we should do is to give this city its rightful and equal place in the Capitol. Among our residents now serving their country, the District lost 44-year-old Lt. Col. Paul W. Kimbrough, an African American engineer who was supporting Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan. I attended the funeral of 21-year-old Specialist Darryl Dent of the DC National Guard who was killed in Iraq. There are more than 100 soldiers still serving in Iraq from Specialist Dent's 547th Transportation Company. This bill offers District residents the opportunity to enjoy the same pride that all other citizens experience when they come to their Capital--the opportunity to view memorials that commemorate the efforts of deceased local residents who have made significant contributions to American history.

Ms. NORTON

Ms. NORTON. Mr. Speaker, I rise to ask the House to reauthorize the Ryan White CARE Act, and I rise with special gratitude to the gentlewoman from the Virgin Islands (Mrs. Christensen), a physician and the leader of the Congressional Black Caucus on health care issues, who has alerted us to a very important date, and that is September 30 of this year when the CARE Act requires reauthorization or it will lapse. We just came to the floor because of just such a deadline to reauthorize the Violence Against Women Act. I am asking the House to do the very same thing for the Ryan White CARE Act. Mr. Speaker, this is a bedeviling disease. In our country we initially saw it as a disease of segments of the population, and certainly in the beginning it was identified somehow as a gay disease. It took the infection of a young white man, a teenager, indeed, to wake America up to what this disease really means and how universal the disease is. We face the same issue, however, as the disease has moved so largely into the black and Latino communities. When a disease moves in that direction, it becomes too easy for a country with our history to identify it with the specific group that is most identified with the disease. Let us not make that mistake again. It is true that of the cases of AIDS diagnosed in the most recent period, 49 percent were African Americans and 20 percent were Hispanics. Those are the most alarming statistics I have read in a long time, considering that together blacks and Hispanics are not 20 percent of the population. African Americans are 42 percent of all of the people in the United States living with AIDS, and we are talking about people who are about 12 percent of the population. Behind these figures are very complicated reasons, and my time does not allow me to go into it; but the fact that these figures exist is enough to call us to this floor to reauthorize the Ryan White Act before September 30. African Americans have AIDS at almost 10 times the rate of whites. As with all diseases that tend to move toward the most disadvantaged in society, this disease is showing up in hugely disproportionate numbers among the very same disadvantaged groups that we associate with such figures, and I am particularly concerned that women are about 27 percent of all new HIV infections. We can all remember when it was rare to find women of any color with HIV/AIDS. They represented only 8 percent of diagnosed AIDS patients in 1985. Now we see that jump from 8 percent to 27 percent. Fifty-one percent of new HIV cases are among children, that is to say, people who are from 13 to 19 years of age. That is just unacceptable, Mr. Speaker. The movement of this disease downward into the population is the darkest aspect of the disease. Seventy-one percent of the women with this disease were infected through heterosexual conduct. That means that they probably had no idea that their partner was infected. This may be the chief reason that African American women are infected at a rate 25 times the rate for white women. Mr. Speaker, this disease, once wrongly thought of as a gay disease, must not now wrongly be thought of as a disease of certain ethnic or racial minorities. One way to make sure that we stop the spread of this disease is to reauthorize the Ryan White Act now when it is so desperately needed. We do not want to let this session end with our country looking like one of the Third World countries that is now caught in the grips of this disease. It is a preventable disease. If the Ryan White Act is reauthorized, we know what to do to contain this disease among blacks and Hispanics, just as we were successful in containing it among gays. Let us do it. Remember September 30. That is our deadline.

Ms. NORTON

Ms. NORTON. Mr. Chairman, I appreciate the ranking member's work and his yielding me this time, and the work of the chairman. I much appreciate that the gentlemen have come forward, both of them, before the deadline on their portions of the bill. I am particularly appreciative of the dating violence, because since the last bill, we have infected young people down to the high school age, so the way in which we enlarge that section is very important. I do want everybody to know that all you could do was the sections falling under your jurisdictions. Before this is all done, we have to deal with the other sections of the bill, like the housing sections of the bill, for example. That, of course, is not with you; you are just trying to get the part that is with you so that the deadline would be reached. But my city is typical. Twenty to 40 women come to court every year, we have 48 emergency beds, a thousand women in motels. The major reason that these women say, no, I love him, that is why I am staying with him, is that they do not have anyplace to go. In fact, what you have is women facing homelessness or staying with an abuser. So before this process is all over, I hope we will bear in mind that the other sections of this bill that cannot be before us now are part and parcel of all we are trying to do here. I salute the Committee on the Judiciary, the chairman and the ranking member, for doing all they could at this point; and let us get to work on the rest of the bill.

Ms. NORTON

Ms. NORTON. Mr. Speaker, I rise today, on the occasion of the First Annual Duke Ellington Jazz Festival, to pay tribute to one of our Nation's great jazz musicians, Dave Brubeck, for his contributions to American jazz music. On September 30, 2004, Congress passed H. Con. Res. 501 paying tribute to the festival's namesake, Duke Ellington, a DC native and a celebrated American musical genius. I am proud that from September 28 through October 3, 2005, the Nation's Capital will honor Ellington with the first annual Duke Ellington Jazz Festival in the District of Columbia. Special recognition for Dave Brubeck will be among the opening activities of the festival. We inaugurate our jazz festival in the city of Washington as New Orleans, the great city that gave birth to jazz, has been overwhelmed by flood and hurricane. We know that New Orleans will overcome and will rise to reclaim its people, its culture, and its precious jazz heritage and leadership. Dave Brubeck stands as one of jazz music's living legends, and he is equally distinguished as a composer and pianist. Mr. Brubeck began his musical studies at the College of the Pacific, earning his degree in 1942. Shortly thereafter he entered the United States Army, where he served honorably in General George Patton's 3rd Army during World War II. Near the end of the war Mr. Brubeck played in an Army band that he himself integrated, one of the first integrated units of any type in the entire military. After his military service, Dave Brubeck returned to school to study music, enrolling at Mills College in Oakland, CA. There he studied under the distinguished composer Darius Milhaud, and upon graduation, Mr. Brubeck formed the Dave Brubeck Octet. He later gained great notoriety after forming the Dave Brubeck Quartet. By 1954 Mr. Brubeck's popularity was such that his picture appeared on the cover of Time Magazine, and his recordings were being played throughout the world. His album ``Time Out'' and the hits ``Take Five'' and ``Blue Rondo a la Turk'' ``went gold,'' a rare feat for an instrumental jazz recording. Subsequent world tours by the Quartet, including several for the U.S. State Department, made Brubeck one of America's foremost goodwill ambassadors. He entertained world leaders at the Reagan-Gorbachev Summit in Moscow in 1988; he has performed before eight U.S. presidents, princes, kings, heads of state and Pope John Paul II. Always expanding jazz horizons, the Dave Brubeck Quartet performed, and in 1959 recorded, with Leonard Bernstein and the New York Philharmonic Orchestra. An early experimenter in combining jazz with symphony orchestras, Brubeck continues to appear as composer-performer in concerts of his choral and symphonic orchestral compositions. He celebrated his 80th birthday with the London Symphony Orchestra, performing an all-Brubeck program. Mr. Brubeck has received many honors, including a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, the Down Beat Hall of Fame, the Jazz Institute Hall of Fame at Rutgers University, the American Eagle Award from the National Music Council, the Gerard Manley Hopkins Award from Fairfield University, the Connecticut Arts Award, Helwig Distinguished Artist Award, and honorary doctorates from six American universities, one from the University of Duisburg in Germany and Nottingham University in England. Early this year he received the Benny Carter Award from the Association of Jazz Societies. The French Government has cited him for his contribution to the arts. In 1999, the National Endowment of the Arts honored Mr. Brubeck as an NEA Jazz Master. He has recently received the Smithson Medal and awards from the Music Educators National Conference, the National Music Teachers Association and Columbia University Teachers College. The State of California presented him with its first Golden State award. The University of the Pacific has honored him with the establishment of the Brubeck Institute that is dedicated to the promulgation of contemporary music of all styles, with an emphasis on jazz and improvisation. Duke Ellington himself was a great influence on Dave Brubeck, and Mr. Brubeck even performed onstage with the maestro at one point during his career. Among his many accomplishments, Dave Brubeck is credited with bringing an enthusiasm for jazz music to college campuses and an entire generation of young Americans. As a sign of his talents, Mr. Brubeck has been a performer at the White House two times, in 1964 and 1981. His passion for his music continues to this day, as he is still touring and releasing songs. For his many accomplishments, I join jazz supporters in the Nation's Capital and the Congress in paying tribute to David Brubeck on the occasion of the First Annual Duke Ellington Jazz Festival in the District of Columbia.

Ms. NORTON

Ms. NORTON. Madam Speaker, I congratulate the New Mexico delegation and urge the House to approve this resolution placing a second statue honoring a New Mexico citizen in Statuary Hall. I must take this opportunity as well to urge the House to do the same for the District of Columbia. Our citizens do not have even one statue. Surely, the time is overdue for the District to receive at least this small recognition of our citizenship for all to see. The District of Columbia was born with the Nation itself. The city has more than two centuries of its very own rich and uniquely American history. The District boasts distinguished figures in history from whom selections for statues could readily be made. It should go without saying that the almost 600,000 American citizens who live in the Nation's capital deserve the honor of having two of their history makers represented in the Capitol as citizens of New Mexico and all 50 States have long enjoyed. D.C. residents have not yet obtained the same full political equality and voting rights as States, but they have always had every one of the responsibilities of the States, including paying all Federal taxes and serving in all wars. Every time we allow the District to be excluded from its place among the 50 States, we undermine our own leadership role for democracy around the world. Authorizing two District statues has special importance for our residents because the statues would be seen by millions of visitors every year, reinforcing our proud citizenship and unity with other Americans, whose historical figures are commemorated. A bill for the District has failed to get the necessary word from the Speaker, which is necessary for hearings, despite my request and the written request from Leader Pelosi. Yet, this recognition for the District of Columbia, whose citizens are serving our country as I speak, in Iraq, Afghanistan, and throughout the world is no more controversial--nor should it be--than the New Mexico bill. New Mexico and its citizens deserve this honor and get it simply because they are American citizens. As we pass this resolution for New Mexico and its citizens today, I ask the House to remember that we are all equal in this country, and that it is time that our legislature and the halls where these statues will stand reflected that equality.