Eleanor Norton

Ms. NORTON

Ms. NORTON. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. I will in a moment yield to the gentleman from Mississippi for him to respond. I just wanted to explain myself because frankly I am embarrassed by the fact that the gentleman had to call our officials. Needless to say, everyone has gone out of their way to assure the gentleman from Mississippi and to thank him frankly for bringing the matter to our attention. I just want to read one part of the letter on behalf of the Mayor from the city administrator, the top person under the Mayor. ``We were seeking to curb abuses, not create difficulties for disabled visitors to our city. We are especially proud to be an important tourist destination receiving 20 million visitors annually. We also take pride in our policies regarding equal treatment for disabled people. I would very much appreciate your courtesy in giving me the opportunity to work with Public Works and the Environment Committee Chair Carol Schwartz and our City Council to correct the flaws you have found in this statute.'' Ms. Schwartz, who is the committee chair, by the way the only Republican on the City Council, wrote, and she said that, ``this was always our intent, but I also recognize that there may have been some unintended consequences.'' She has spoken directly to the gentleman from Mississippi, and I am grateful that she herself spoke with him. Again, could I invite all Members, when you see something like this, maybe we can get it done, maybe we cannot, but if you would follow the example of the gentleman from Mississippi and go directly to the source, but by the way, always tell me so I can hammer them, too; then we will try to correct such matters, to keep them from taking up the time of the House.

Ms. NORTON. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for doing so. I rise to claim my time in opposition, but I do not intend to oppose because I believe when we are finished with this colloquy that the amendment will be withdrawn because of assurances from me and from the responsible officials in the District of Columbia. If I may, I want to thank the gentleman for the way in which he handled this matter. First, I want everyone to know that the gentleman did not come to the floor first. The gentleman called the District of Columbia, and I want to apologize to the gentleman that the staff who handled this did not tell me that a Member of Congress had done them the courtesy of calling about a matter so that I might have become a part of this beforehand because the gentleman did exactly the right thing. The gentleman from Mississippi went to the source of the problem to see if he was really reading correctly that disabled people who came here, for example in a wheelchair, might have to go to the DMV in order to take advantage of the same free parking that someone in a wheelchair here would have. The staff involved simply told him the reason for the policy. The reason for the policy is sometimes rather flagrant abuses by residents and nonresidents. Usually, the nonresidents live a whole lot closer to us, I say to the gentleman, than his own constituent from Mississippi, and as a result, this matter was not resolved, and the Member did what one might expect. This was the chance then that he had to do it. It came to my attention only last night. At that point, I thought I ought to go upstairs and talk to not the staff who apparently had been involved but to the Mayor, the chair of the City Council and the chair of the committee that has jurisdiction. The Mayor was getting on a plane. I did not have time to talk to him in depth, but he said something to the effect, you know, Eleanor, this is the mecca of equal opportunity; I cannot imagine how we can have unequal treatment of that kind. I told him about the DMV, and he is famous for jokes about the DMV.

Ms. NORTON. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman, again, for the way in which he has handled this matter, and may I say as well that I thank him for bringing it to our attention. This is a tourist destination and is frankly embarrassing that this matter was not taken care of beforehand.

Ms. NORTON. I have time.

Ms. NORTON

Ms. NORTON. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding me time. I associate myself with the remarks of the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Chairman Shuster). I would not come to the Floor particularly to make a case here, and the maker of this amendment knows full well that I am on his subcommittee and have strongly supported this effort and all of his efforts on drug reduction. But the fact is this fund, the Federal Building Fund, has become a habit, and when we get to the point where we have a $1 billion hit on one fund, we have an unsustainable hit, and here comes $25 million more. The Members may be unaware that the courts, which have strong homeland security issues, came to our subcommittee and asked to be excused from putting any money into the Federal Building Fund. The administration strongly opposed that because it would collapse the Federal Building Fund. I just want to draw to the attention of Members that this $1 billion hit collapses the Federal Building Fund, and it is not just about making sure that Federal workers are comfortable. It is about, for example, an amendment that the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Shuster) and I were going to put in and now are not going to put in, although he is going to offer it I think and perhaps later withdraw it, to transfer some funds from the GSA administration to glass refraction because we cannot begin to make all of the Federal buildings secure throughout the United States, but we can at least keep glass, should there be some kind of bombing like Oklahoma City, from, in fact, falling in on people with sharp metal and all the rest of it. So I just ask that Members stop here, and we have got to find some money for the Souder amendment. I think we should find it, and I think we should find it in conference. I think we should defeat this amendment now.

Ms. NORTON. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding me this time, and I want to strongly support his amendment. You see that this is a committee that is not adverse to reducing funding. We were not simply going to reduce it; we were going to put this funding where it was most needed, in the glass refraction program. On the other hand, what led us to this moment was, of course, GSA's failures for the subcommittee, and those failures apparently have gotten the attention, at least the amendment of the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Shuster) has gotten the attention of GSA. I share his frustration. GSA has not come forward with the information we wanted about its own housing. It wanted to move. We wanted to understand why it wanted to move out of owned space. Only cursory responses. We learned the courts want to waive any contribution to the building fund not initially through GSA. It was an outrage, and we learned it very late. And, of course, the prospectuses did not come before us, and the administrator himself was out of town when the hearing was to be held. For that reason, I agreed entirely with the chairman that they needed to understand the professionalism that the subcommittee requires. They apparently now understand it. We want, frankly, to preserve as much of the Federal building fund now as is left, since it looks like we have virtually bankrupted it. So I would defer to the chairman as to what disposition he now wants to make of his original amendment.

Ms. NORTON

Ms. NORTON. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding me this time. I want to thank the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Olver), ranking member, and the gentleman from Michigan (Chairman Knollenberg) for their work on a bill that happens to include the District of Columbia in this new consolidated appropriation. The chairman and the ranking member are making their debut, and I want to congratulate them on being in on time on one of the most complicated bills because it has many unrelated issues, and yet they have worked very collegially together. I want to speak only briefly to three items. The least important part of the bill for every Member but me is the District of Columbia section. I appreciate the gentleman from California (Chairman Lewis) and the gentleman from Michigan (Chairman Knollenberg), who was once Chair, both of whom worked with the Subcommittee on the District of Columbia and the gentleman from Michigan (Chairman Knollenberg) as a recent past Chair, for the way they have worked with the Committee on Rules to give us a rule that will just let this bill pass through as the least important part of what they are doing here today. I particularly respect the self-government respect they have shown to our city. The Mayor and the police chief were here yesterday. There will be a point of order regarding a matter on gun safety, and I think that that should simply take care of it. On CDBG I was very pleased to hear the gentleman from Michigan (Chairman Knollenberg) say he was trying to do what he can, because it must be hard to find a Member in this body who is not with us on this program, which has been so productive for large and small cities alone. All we see around us in the new economic development in the District of Columbia has been aided by the CDBG. Amtrak is before us. It is perhaps the most controversial part of this bill. I am supporting the amendment to add funds and have myself, out of one of our authorizing bills, contributed funds out of one of our appropriations. That is just how important it is to me. But not just important to me, of course. Union Station is the second busiest behind New York. But what is important to Members of this House is the 500 stations and the 46 States that would essentially be left with the present level of funding with no Amtrak. I ask Members to remember that no country in the world is able to run a railroad privately. This claptrap about the private sector and the States, I draw to their attention the only reason we have Amtrak at all is that in 1970 the private sector came and literally dumped it on the Congress, saying, We cannot run this; we lose too much money. Railroads are first and foremost the responsibility of great nations. This is our responsibility. We cannot just hand it back to them. They cannot do it. If we cannot do it with a profit, why in the world do we think that the States, which are running to us screaming about Medicaid and other unfunded mandates, can do it? I thank the gentlemen for all their work on this bill.

Ms. NORTON

Ms. NORTON. Mr. Speaker, today I am introducing the Fair Land Transfer Compensation Act, a bill for fee simple transfer of certain federal lands to the District of Columbia to provide partial in-kind compensation for the federally imposed structural balance documented in a 2003 GAO report to be ``between $470 million and up to more than $1.1 billion.'' My bill would transfer 65.73 acres of land in Southeast Washington, D.C. known as Reservation 13 and the parcel known as Poplar Point, also in Southeast. The bill introduced today would assist in providing the compensation that would be authorized by H.R. 1586, the Fair Federal Compensation Act (FFCA) introduced by the bipartisan House regional delegation and me in April. The FFCA would authorize an annual federal contribution of $800 million (to increase annually with the consumer price index) to partially compensate the city and relieve a dangerous structural imbalance. The extensively documented GAO report confirming exclusive federal responsibility for the District's structural imbalance and the bipartisan sponsorship of the FFCA demonstrate the need for federal action. However, neither the administration nor the Congress has responded, despite the District's continuing apprehension and repeated introduction of the FFCA. Today's bill providing valuable land to partially compensate the District would mark the first significant federal response to the FFCA. The District of Columbia has had administrative control of Reservation 13, a GSA property, for 150 years and has used the parcel for the D.C. General Hospital, the District of Columbia jail, and other public facilities. Poplar Point is a strip of land owned by the National Park Service but has never been developed for use as a park. The transfer authorized in this bill has several advantages for the District and for the federal government: an immediate benefit in partial payment that the District has long sought from the federal government to compensate the city for the structural imbalance; satisfaction, through the transfer of valuable federal land, of some of the responsibility the GAO reports that the federal government bears for the District's structural imbalance; the highest and best use for underused land that the District desires for mixed uses that are unavailable if the District continues to have administrative control but not ownership; a continuing revenue stream in the nature of an annual contribution from investments the District will be able to attract following transfer of the land; and compliance with the Federal Property Act (FPA) requirement that the federal government receive value for the transfer. The bill requires an appraisal and estimates of the financial benefit to the District that are necessary to determine the extent to which the bill would reduce the federal government's responsibility for the structural deficit. The federal government has never used the parcels in my bill, and has no intention of doing so. At the same time, the District is unable to get value from this strategically located land in the city. Achieving maximum use of available sites located in the nation's capital, where the federal government owns and occupies the most valuable land, is essential to maintaining the financial stability of the District of Columbia. This bill would compensate the District for some of the costs responsible of the structural imbalance which include the federal removal from the tax rolls of more than 40 percent of District's land for federal and other purposes; services provided by the District to 200,000 federal employees, notwithstanding a ban on taxation of commuters, most of whom are federal employees; and the District's responsibility for several state costs, although the city is not a state and lacks the broad tax base of a state. The costs to the District to cover this structural deficit are unsustainable. Among the most serious are the city's debt service, the highest in the country; its taxes, among the highest; and deferral of major capital improvements for vital facilities such as schools and for roads, a major factor inhibiting economic and population stability and growth. The existence, source and danger of the structural deficit imposed by federal mandates have been fully acknowledged and are no longer debatable. In addition to the definitive GAO report and the findings of the District's Chief Financial Officer, the details are reported in two other studies (McKinsey, March 2002, requested by the Federal City Council consisting of regional business representatives; and Brookings, October 2002, led by Alice Rivlin, former director of the CBO and of the OMB). According to the GAO, the only available options to eliminate the federally imposed deficit are ``to expand the District's tax base or to provide additional financial support.'' The bill I introduce today will ``expand the District's tax base,'' creating a continuing revenue stream because ownership will allow the District to get the highest and best use of valuable land through its own development initiative. I ask that the House begin the process of compensating the District for the federal deficit carried by the city by enacting the Fair Land Transfer Compensation Act.

Ms. NORTON

Ms. NORTON. Mr. Speaker, today, I introduce the first comprehensive clean-up plan for the Anacostia River. It has been called the ``forgotten river,'' ``a neighborhood river,'' ``the dirtiest river in America'' and an especially appropriate name would be the congressional river. The current original cosponsors include Representatives Jim Moran, Tom Davis, Chris Van Hollen, Robert Brady, Ed Markey, Albert Wynn, and Raul Grijalva and I expect additional regional members who signed on when I originally introduced the bill during the last Congress to do so again. The Anacostia River flows within 2,000 yards of the Capitol Dome. For years the Anacostia River and region have been associated with blight and despair. Like many cities across America in the past few years that have developed their waterfronts, the District of Columbia government has decided to end the underutilization of the riverfront by creating the Anacostia Waterfront Initiative, dedicated to developing the Anacostia waterfront. However before development and hope can be brought to this area of the city, the river must be cleaned up. If the river is cleaned, it could be a very important economic development asset for the entire region. With a cleaned up river, visions of restaurants, parks, office buildings and pedestrian walkways will become a reality. The bill introduced today would amend the Federal Water Pollution Control Act to establish a program within the federal Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) known as the ``Anacostia Watershed Restoration Initiative.'' This initiative would create an ``Anacostia Watershed Council,'' composed of the EPA Administrator, the Secretary of the Army, the Secretary of the Interior, the Mayor of the District of Columbia, the Governor of Maryland, the Governor of Virginia and the County Executives of Montgomery and Prince George's County. The primary responsibility of the council would be to develop an action plan for the restoration, protection, and enhancement of the environmental integrity and social and economic benefits of the Anacostia watershed. Several federal agencies, such as the Departments of Interior, Agriculture, Transportation, the EPA, and Army Corps of Engineers would be involved in the development and implementation of the action plan. This bill also calls for $3 million for each of 10 years to be authorized for use by the EPA, and $1 million for each of 10 years would be authorized for the other agencies. The strong Federal involvement in the bill reflects not only the location of the river, but also that Federal facilities represent the major source of its pollution. This vital piece of legislation also would amend the Water Resources Development Act (WRDA) to authorize $150 million to repair and upgrade the District's inadequate combined sewer overflow system, a critical part of cleaning up the river. The District's combined sewer system was designed and constructed by the Army Corps of Engineers 160 years ago. The sewer system services Federal downtown DC, including the Capitol complex. As such, the Federal Government is directly responsible for the sewage and pollution that drains into the Anacostia River on a daily basis. I had secured a $35 million authorization in last Congress's WRDA bill in 2003, but the Senate never acted. This year I have requested $150 million, even though this amount is not enough to help the District address the combined sewer overflow problem. However, this authorization will be a major step toward correcting a serious problem. This bill also will be the first step in bringing real hope to a region often referred to as ``east of the river''. With this bill, this once neglected region of our Nation's capital will become a thriving gathering place for tourists and residents of this region. 60 Minutes recently captured the story of the young people who are cleaning up the Anacostia River in a moving segment entitled ``Endangered Species.'' These young members of the Earth Conservation Corps (ECC) are working not only to clean up the river but to ``empower our endangered youth to reclaim the Anacostia River, their communities, and their lives.'' With the Anacostia River as their classroom, the ECC has been able to achieve positive strides, both environmentally and socially. There is more we can do to support and expand their efforts and help Anacostia to become the jewel of the District of Columbia.

Ms. NORTON

Ms. NORTON. Mr. Speaker, I rise to pay tribute to the 30th Annual Capital Pride Festival, a celebration of the National Capital Area's Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender, GLBT communities, their families and friends. The Capital Pride Festival has grown from a small block party in 1975 to the current week long celebration. This year Capital Pride culminates with the Pride Parade on June 12th and a street fair on Pennsylvania Avenue in the shadow of the Capitol. I have marched in the Pride parades since coming to Congress to emphasize the universality of human rights and the importance of enacting federal legislation to secure those rights for the GLBT community. Each year the Parade stops for a moment of silence to remember those who have died in the preceding year. That quiet will be particularly poignant as will remember local two women, who, in confronting injustice, were never silent: Wanda Alston and my frequent marching and running companion, Sister Maria, O.W., the Blue Nun. This year's theme of ``Honor Our Past, Fight for Our Future'' holds special meaning for the citizens of the District of Columbia and its GLBT community in particular. Eleven years ago the District of Columbia lost the first vote it ever won on the floor of the House of Representatives, the delegate vote in the Committee of the Whole. The Republicans retracted the District's vote when they assumed control of the House. Our city of nearly 600,000 residents, who pay more taxes per capita than 49 of the 50 states, remains the only jurisdiction in the United States subject to Taxation Without Representation. Our Nation's Capital is entitled to that vote on the House floor now and to our birthright as American Citizens of full voting representation in Congress. The joy of the Capital Pride Festival contrasts with the unhappy lot of GLBT soldiers who volunteer to protect our country with their lives, but must serve in silence and without the open support of their chosen families and communities, neither asking nor telling. The Armed Forces' homophobic policies, especially as they apply them to their own speakers of critical languages cannot continue to compromise our national security. Congress must pass The Military Readiness Enhancement Act of 2005 this session.

Ms. NORTON

Ms. NORTON. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding me this time. The Thompson substitute is necessary. It fills great holes in our major bill. There is not one dollar in this bill for the transportation that America uses to go to work: rail, light rail, buses, subways, ferries. Yet even after Madrid, we are not dealing with the al Qaeda favorite. One-third of all the attacks has been on public transportation. Cargo within four blocks of the Capitol. Explosives. One car, 14 miles. If one attack occurred, 100,000 people dead in a half-hour. How can we reauthorize or authorize the first homeland security bill without having any section in that bill on rail security? I do not think we can. The American people deserve better. The Thompson substitute is clearly superior.

Ms. NORTON

Ms. NORTON. Mr. Speaker, I ask permission to claim the time of the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Pallone).

Ms. NORTON

Ms. NORTON. Mr. Speaker, the Congressional Black Caucus has been in the forefront of the fight to preserve the filibuster, a much-used, indeed used more against African Americans than any others. We do not want to see and will not stand to see the rules changed when it could now be used to protect us from judges who would overturn our rights. We have supported the idea of a compromise, if one could be found; but I come to the floor this evening to say that we are horrified to hear of a possible compromise involving two judges that would be most unacceptable to the 43 members of the Congressional Black Caucus who unanimously oppose elimination of the filibuster and unanimously oppose these two judges: Attorney General William Pryor, who would be nominated to the 11th Circuit; and Janice Rogers Brown, who would be nominated to the D.C. Court of Appeals. Briefly, Attorney General Pryor in this year when we are starting the reauthorization of the 1965 Voting Rights Act would simply be totally unacceptable to us and we think to most Americans. This is a man who sought to repeal the critical section of the Voting Rights Act, who has indicated that some rights now protected by the Constitution should be regarded as social disputes and essentially has indicated that some of these rights now protected by the Constitution should indeed be left to the States. This is a man who belongs perhaps on the Supreme Court in the 19th century, not today. We are particularly insulted that President Bush would resubmit the name of Janice Rogers Brown. Has he done so because she is African American and somehow he believes that for that reason people will go easy on her and not look at what in fact she has stood for? We regard her nomination as nothing short of insulting. When she was first nominated to the California Supreme Court, the signal from the California Association of Black Lawyers who opposed her nomination was that her appointment could be detrimental, as they put it, to black America with nothing short of, as they put it, far reaching circumstances for generations to come. How right they proved to be. When she was renominated to the California Supreme Court, 20 of the 23 members of the California bar found her to be not qualified because of the way she inserted her personal opinions, her personal views, into her judicial opinions. Janice Rogers Brown and the rule of law are strangers. She has no regard for precedent. How else to explain a ruling of hers where she found that racially derogatory on-the-job speech was unconstitutional even though the Supreme Court long ago found that such speech is not protected by title VII of the Civil Rights Act. Why did she find herself in dissent reaching this conclusion? I recite the cases because you hear that these judges are extreme. We mean to make you understand, hopefully, what we mean by extreme. Proposition 209 passed, an anti-affirmative action proposition, passed in California. The judge who was on her side of the case, the Chief Justice, Ronald George, also appointed by Governor Pete Wilson, said when he read her concurrence, remember, concurrence with him, that the concurrence raised ``a serious distortion of history,'' indicating that it would be widely and correctly viewed as presenting an unfair and inaccurate caricature of affirmative action programs. When a judge on your side appointed by the same Governor as you characterizes your agreement with him in this way, is he not telling the Senate something it must listen to? Here is a woman who found that black women in a case involving a prosecution where the prosecution may have used racial preemptory challenges found that black women are not a cognizable group. Again, she has often found herself in dissent even from her own Republican colleagues. We do not need this woman on the District of Columbia Court of Appeals where she would bring her views that ``the New Deal was the triumph of our own socialist revolution'' to Washington.

Ms. NORTON

Ms. NORTON. Mr. Speaker, I very much thank the gentlewoman from New York for yielding me this time. I must say I am grateful for small favors. This is, after all, the first authorization bill, almost 4 years after 9/11. But for that, the credit is due to the gentleman from California (Chairman Cox) and the gentleman from Mississippi (Mr. Thompson), ranking member, for working collaboratively and, in doing so, establishing the jurisdiction of our committee and their jurisdiction over the Department. These are not small matters. I am grateful as well that an amendment of mine on rail safety is in the bill. It is so basic that it does tell us a lot about my disappointment that this bill simply does not address rail safety even though that is where the people are. I do have report language in the bill, and the gentleman from California (Chairman Cox) worked hard to make sure that he got as much in the bill as he could. However, he was under powerful constraints. We were noticed that no amendment that, in fact, called for authorization of a single dollar extra would be allowed in the bill. We have just heard about the problem four blocks from the Capitol with hazardous substances going by and the embarrassment that I think the Congress should feel that there has been no administrative action to do anything about it, and so there was a lawsuit actually won at the first level because of the danger posed when Congress does not act and local jurisdictions stepped forward. We do have to get to work, and if Members do not believe me, remember last Wednesday in the rush from the Capitol. It was not a comedy of errors. Indeed, it was not very funny because these were not mistakes. What we had were huge questions opened up. Not everything was done that should have been done, but we do know what should have been done in the first place. Do we know why the plane came so close, why the President was not informed, why the District of Columbia was not informed even though there was a sergeant sitting right there in the Department of Homeland Security? Above all, why were we not in the basement of the Capitol rather than out on the streets when there was such a small plane involved and we were probably in greater danger on evacuation. Lots of work. Let us begin to do it today.

Ms. NORTON

Ms. NORTON. Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to be an original cosponsor of the comprehensive Voting Opportunity and Technology Enhancement Rights Act of 2005 (H.R. 533), introduced by Judiciary Committee Ranking Member John Conyers. Rep. Conyers' new bill amends and improves the Help America Vote Act of 2002 (HAVA), enacted after the chaos of the 2000 presidential election. Congressman Conyers has done the Nation an important service by systematically reviewing HAVA (including conducting his own hearings here and elsewhere in the country) against the actual experience of the 2004 elections. The three amendments to HAVA that I introduce today similarly arose out of my own experience during the 2004 elections here in the District of Columbia and campaigning in other parts of the country during the 2004 presidential elections. The first, Section 303A, is an amendment that responds to long lines throughout the country, which may have deterred significant numbers of voters. This amendment to HAVA would require states to permit counties or other subdivisions upon request to begin voting prior to the scheduled date of an election. During the recent election, some subdivisions had voting machines that were modern and plentiful, while other jurisdictions in the same state were burdened with scarce and out-of-date machines, resulting in long lines. In the pivotal state of Ohio, which determined the outcome of the close 2004 presidential election, the controversy was deepened by reports that lines were particularly long in counties where there were large minority populations compared with largely white counties. One reason for the difference is that in many states, voting machines are purchased by counties or other subdivisions. Differences in income levels, tax bases and other issues often result in large disparities within the same state in the availability of machines. Small changes in the day voting begins can help eliminate these disparities and the lines that can discourage the exercise of the right to vote, without the often significant capital investment in new equipment. Section 2 of my bill adds a section to HAVA that responds to calls to my office concerning absentee ballots which inadvertently did not include postage, or had insufficient postage. This section requires officials to accept such absentee ballots. Postage mistakes may be made depending on the number of issues on the ballot and the resulting size and weight of the envelope containing the ballot. The cost to authorities, if any, is de minimis. There should be no doubt that such ballots should be counted. Section 3 amends HAVA to eliminate the confusion when first-time or infrequent voters or others go to incorrect voting sites or when the usual voting site has been changed. To encourage voting, voters registered anywhere in the state could cast a provisional ballot and have it counted and verified. However, voters would be told the correct polling site to allow the option of going to the correct site and thereby avoiding any doubt that their ballots would be counted. The 2000 presidential election was a calamity of such historic proportions that it cast doubt on the validity of the election of the President of the United States and led to the enactment of HAVA. The continuing problems in the 2004 elections were serious, unacceptable, and controversial. Although that election also was close, it did not have the razor thin margin of 2000 that delayed certification and settlement of the final result through a Supreme Court decision. However, the 2004 elections were another close call that yielded bitter controversy. Congress must be willing to learn from our continuing experience to make improvements in protecting the right to vote as they are needed. My bill simply uses the experience from my own district and elsewhere to contribute to this effort.

Ms. NORTON

Ms. NORTON. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Michigan for yielding me time, and I thank him and I thank the gentleman from Nevada for bringing this resolution in support of charter schools to the floor. Mr. Speaker, charter schools are one of the most innovative developments in the history of public education in our country, and they came from the bottom up. They have not developed out of State governments or the like. They have come from searches within jurisdictions for all alternative public schools, and this is what they are. In the District of Columbia, we think of the charter schools as an alternative public school system because there are so many of them. We have 43 charter schools in this one city alone, and that is the largest number of charter schools per capita in the United States. Why are there so many charter schools? We feel strongly in the District of Columbia that public money must go to public schools, and it is understood that here and throughout the United States public schools which have to take every child are often overcrowded and underfunded, have had a very tough time making up for what particularly the most disadvantaged children do not bring to school. As a result, public schools in many jurisdictions show low scores for children in those schools. What is a parent to do? What parents increasingly do is look for a public alternative to their public schools. They want better schools, but the public is very clear that it wants public money for public schools. If we have any doubt about that, remember that even this House has never voted a voucher bill for, nor has the Senate, anywhere except for the District of Columbia where you can undemocratically do anything you want to do, but for everybody else they have listened to what people say and that is, yeah, we will punish you if one dime goes to anything but a publicly accountable public school. Looking for a way to deal with the fact that, yes, many public schools do not show the progress they should, it seems to me we have to look to the paradigm that the public itself has created, and those are charter schools. There is no better place to begin than in the District of Columbia where people have simply voted with their feet. When they did not like their school, they have gone to a nearby charter school. They have advantages. They are not the advantage discussed in this resolution, where it says, whereas charter schools improve students' achievement. That is very controversial. I do not know whether they do or not. All I know is that there are studies that say that they do and studies that say they do not. I want to say to my goods friends on the other side who are with me in support of charter schools, our case does not rest on that. If my colleagues understood how difficult it was to deal with education in the inner city, they would understand that the fact that they come so close ought to be enough; that parents want them as an alternative; that they are small; that they are flexible; that they are in their neighborhoods; that sometimes they are specialized. That is enough. We have got a long way to go before we find the elixir for bringing particularly disadvantaged children to where they should be; but if we just look at what some of these schools in the District of Columbia, like just by some of their names, District of Columbia Bilingual School, that is totally a bilingual charter school. The SEED school, this is the first public live-in school in the District of Columbia. These children do not go home during the week. They do not go home at night. So they have money from us per capita from the school budget, and they raise other money; and these children actually live in a public charter school like a boarding school. There is the Marriott Hospitality Public Charter High School, where children, besides learning the general high school curriculum, also prepare themselves to go into the hospitality field, which is the most important industry in this region. Here is another one, the Washington Mathematics, Science and Technology School. And these are some of the reasons that parents have, in fact, sometimes chosen alternative schools here in the District of Columbia: the public school test scores are better. They are better and systematically better, but my colleagues do not see me here saying public schools are better because their scores are better. The fact is that each kind of school has broad benefits that parents have chosen and both kinds of schools are accountable to parents and to the public for the dollars spent. I do believe that they stimulate competition, unlike private schools which do not stimulate any competition at all. Private schools in the District of Columbia, which can take whatever children they want to or not, are no competition for the District of Columbia; but if there is a charter school in one's neighborhood, the principal will look to see what that charter school is doing. The superintendent today has announced a plan because there are a few charter schools that are very good and they must take every child, but there are a few charter schools that are very good about actually pairing those charter schools with some charter schools in their neighborhood which are not doing as well. With No Child Left Behind we have a problem we are seeing all over the country. You have got to find yourself a better school. Well, guess what. Those schools are all full so there is no place to transfer now. Everybody ought to wish for charter schools because there is a publicly accountable school with a public dollar that perhaps one can transfer to. They are opening fast, but not fast enough for us here. There is no real substitute in any civilized society for a public school system; but particularly when parents are not satisfied with their public schools, it does seem to me that charter schools offer the alternative and the only alternative we ought to fund. The District received the first Federal funds, first funds from this Congress for charter schools. That was when Speaker Gingrich was here. He knew that he profoundly opposed school vouchers. He worked with me on charter school funding for the District of Columbia. That paved the way for charter school funding which is now available to every State in the Union. We had mothers who went to schools with private school vouchers. The vouchers that this Congress mandated be paid for in the District of Columbia were fully paid for by private funds, but we said you do not have to pay for them. You have been raising money every year; we will pay for them. So we simply transferred public funds for the private funds which have been sending these same children to school. Well, the mothers came to me who had been going to school on the private funds, and I said you are my folks and I understand why you are looking for alternative schools. Tell me more. I wanted them to know why I opposed vouchers from public funds for private schools; and I was amazed at how many of them said, Congresswoman, we wanted to go to a charter school, but they were all full. So, look, we wanted a better school, and that is why they chose and were pleased to get these vouchers. Well, of course, I argued since charter schools are what the people of District of Columbia want, if you have got any extra money, Congress, please give it to us for charter schools. We said, oh, no, you are the District of Columbia; we can experiment on you. We can do anything undemocratically to do what we want to do, and we will do some undemocratic things to you that our people would punish us for doing if we did it to them. So now our folks are still hungry for even more charter schools, and we have got people going to private schools as well. I am going to put in the Record what our charter schools have done because each year we have a climbing up. This is how people vote. They vote with their feet. This is what a market system is about. Ask people what they want. This is what democracy is. Ask people what they want, and they will choose what they want. Do not impose on them what you want. In our city, since most of our Catholic schools which would be the alternative schools in the Northwest and most of our most deprived children are in the Southeast, the first year of the vouchers, we had most of the children in middle class and better schools, thank you very much. Then there was an outcry, which I can see, whether they can do any better this time. I can tell my colleagues it is very much harder to do better if you are from a very disadvantaged neighborhood in far Southeast and there is a Catholic school over here in this part of town and you have got a voucher to go there. That is not going to work in the District. What will work in the District is what the people in the District have embraced, and that is, if there is to be an alternative, let it be a publicly accountable school. The District of Columbia, unlike many jurisdictions, has absolutely eliminated charter schools that were not doing what they were supposed to do. So we know what to do when they work. We know what to do when they do not work. I am pleased to see the spread of charter schools. I believe that every district has to decide for itself. In this region, for example, in Maryland and Virginia, where Republicans have the majority of the Congress, they cannot even get charter schools, and yet there are hundreds of thousands of poor Hispanic and black children who might decide that was a good alternative for them, not to mention the children elsewhere in those States, but they cannot even get charter schools, which are publicly accountable charter schools to be embraced in their districts. That is how much people in their districts want every public dollar to go to the public school system. When I argued that on this floor, they said, who do you think you are, somebody voted by the people or the District of Columbia? Well, we were not, but we are going to tell you what to do with your schools. Well, we have led the way on what to do if your schools do not work. Designed, publicly accountable schools, which parents agree should be the alternative that they want. This is still America. This is still a democracy. Nothing is felt more deeply than who decides how a person's child will be educated. It was wrong for this Congress to decide for us rather than to decide on the alternative you now come to the floor to embrace. Mr. Speaker, I very much thank the gentleman for yielding me this time.

Ms. NORTON

Ms. NORTON. Mr. Speaker, Saturday, April 23rd, marks the culmination of Youth Pride Month in Washington, DC with our Ninth Annual Youth Pride Day. Youth Pride Day occurs every April in Washington, DC. It is the annual celebration for gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) young people, which has brought over 15,000 youth together since its start in 1997. The celebration has grown from just 900 participants in 1997 to over 2,500 young people last year. Youth Pride Day has evolved from a single day into a series of events which now make April Youth Pride Month. These events include a prom, poetry readings, a film screening, an awards reception, and, on Saturday, the First Annual DC Youth Pride College Fair, the nation's largest LGBT college fair as well as Youth Pride Day itself. The Youth Pride Alliance sponsors Youth Pride Day. The Alliance was founded in 1996, and its mission is to celebrate the dignity and courage of all young people as they discover their identities as gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, or straight. The Alliance challenges society to stop hate, violence, fear, isolation, and denial as it reminds us that LGBT youth in our nation's Armed Forces, do so under the policy of ``Don't Ask, Don't Tell.'' While they have sworn to defend the United States with their lives, they must suffer the hate, fear, isolation, and denial this demonstrably untenable policy engenders. We, who live in our nation's capital, feel a special affinity to any group that has been denied the full rights and privileges of United States citizenship most Americans consider their birthrights. I remind the House that Washingtonians, who pay the second highest taxes in America, do so without full voting representation. I ask this House to join with me in welcoming all those attending Youth Pride Day.

Ms. NORTON

Ms. NORTON. Mr. Speaker, I come to the House for a joyful moment. On the front page of the Washington Post today is a very large picture of children of the District of Columbia and one of their teachers, who was entertained yesterday by President Bush at the White House to celebrate the fact that he has been named Teacher of the Year, the oldest and most prestigious award for teachers in our country. This is a young man who teaches at Sousa Junior High School in Washington, D.C. Jason Kamras is his name. He is a math teacher who graduated from Princeton University. What does he think to do with his life? Come to the District of Columbia to teach disadvantaged children in our elementary and middle schools. He began teaching in 1996. He took 2 years out because he thought he ought to go and get an education degree, and he went and got a master's degree in education, but came right back to the District of Columbia to teach math at Sousa. Typical of the way this young man approached his job is the student he first met when he was in middle school at Sousa. His name was Wendell Jefferson. He said, Wendell, you keep trying; you will do well. Wendell Jefferson went on to high school. When he got to high school, no longer under the care of Mr. Kamras, Mr. Kamras tutored him in math. Wendell Jefferson is now studying electrical engineering at Morehouse College. This story is perhaps emblematic of the way this young man approaches teaching. He lobbied his principal for double the time for students in math, with two teachers for each student. He redesigned the curriculum using technologies so as to adjust the curriculum to all learning styles. He took to heart this notion that every child can learn, those words which have become such a cliche, a cliche because we all know them to be true, but we do not know always how to unlock what makes them true. In his first year, using his new curriculum, these children went from 80 percent below basic to 40 percent below basic. Something happened to almost 40 percent of them when they got a teacher who homed in on their individual needs. Now, we are talking about a school where all but 40 of about 380 students qualify for the reduced price lunch. It tells us something of the poverty level of the students. Actually, the District of Columbia public schools look a lot like every big public school, except the Members of Congress see this one up close. We are very pleased to have a new superintendent, Mr. Janey, who is in the process of restructuring our public schools, but of course, the most basic restructuring of schools has to do, first, with the children in those schools, how the schools are restructured so that they are child-oriented and how are they restructured so as to understand the most important adult in each child's life during the school day is the teacher. Somehow or the other this young man, fresh out of college, understood that. He works from 7:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m. according to his principal. My mother was a schoolteacher, so I want to say that those long hours are fairly typical of how teachers operate. They do not do it at school. They are working that hard because of the hours they put in at home in preparing to teach. But for Mr. Kamras, teaching in a big city school system was much more difficult than it was for my mother when she taught when I was a child because of the concentration of poverty in big cities today. This city was a much larger city, 200,000 people more than it has today, and it was far more mixed economically. Then, of course, people began to move to larger quarters in the suburbs leaving concentrations of poverty here. We have lots of middle-class people in the District, I am pleased to say, but we have large concentrations of poverty, and this is reflected in the scores. The fact that Jason Kamras was able not only to reach the children, but to reach the measurement, which I think is the right measurement; there is no way to get around the fact that test scores are the only way to know for sure that children are progressing. I wish there were a better way. I wish there were a more objective way, but that is it. This teacher has somehow made these test scores go up. Mr. Speaker, I do want to quote something that he said, because it tells something of his world view. He said, ``My intense desire to see my school excel comes not only from an unwavering belief that all students deserve an excellent education, but also the unique role Sousa played in the civil rights movement.'' This young man's world view gives him a sense that justice in the classroom must be done because he believes in justice in our country for African Americans, and he has brought it to bear right here in the public schools of the District of Columbia. I know you would want to, Mr. Speaker, congratulate him; I know this House would want to congratulate him. We take great pride in his achievement today, and we thank the President of the United States for honoring him. Mr. Speaker, I include for the Record the article I referred to earlier in my remarks: [From the Washington Post] A D.C. Teacher's Day in the Rose Garden Math Innovator Is First From City to Be Declared Best in Nation (By Manny Fernandez and V. Dion Haynes) The sixth-graders were hunched over their desks behind the metal-screened windows of the middle school--still digesting the difference between similes and metaphors--as the limousine carrying their school's best teacher pulled up to the northwest gate of the White House yesterday. Welcomed at the gate, Jason Kamras made his way up the driveway flanked with red tulips and walked into a limelight that falls sparingly on the weathered urban school where he has taught math for close to a decade. ``My children simply want the opportunity to pursue their dreams,'' Kamras said as he stood in the Rose Garden beside the president and first lady. The ceremony recognized Kamras, 31, as the National Teacher of the Year. He is the first winner from a D.C. public school in the contest's 53-year history. ``He's usually at work at 7 a.m., and he rarely leaves before 7 p.m.,'' President Bush said as bright sunshine streamed down on those who gathered for the event. Kamras receives great joy, Bush told them, ``when a student proclaims, `Mr. Kamras, I get it.' '' Kamras smiled. At that moment--six miles and a world away--students in Room 120 at John Philip Sousa Middle School had their rulers out, drawing rectangles, some of them quiet and studious, others loud and distracted. Sousa sits at the edge of a park east of the Anacostia River, on the poorer side of Washington's dividing line between the haves and the have-nots. With its tall chimney, the 50-year-old, red-brick building looks more like a factory than a school. The white flag pole has no flag, and a sign near the entrance declares that firearms are banned within 500 feet. Two women were shot to death down the street several years ago, and the metal detector that students walk through each morning has turned up several knives. All but 40 of the roughly 380 students qualify for a free or reduced-price lunch, a commonly used indicator of poverty. A year ago, 46 percent of the students scored ``below basic'' on reading tests, and 73 percent scored below basic in math. Kamras said he doesn't dwell on the negative. His focus is on the faces in his classroom. ``They inspire me every day with their intelligence, creativity and humor,'' he said in the Rose Garden yesterday. Teachers ``can and do make a dramatic difference in their lives every day.'' He was fresh out of Princeton almost nine years ago, and the middle school was showing signs of age, when he first laid eyes on it. Sousa's principal, William Lipscomb, had fetched him from the Minnesota Avenue Metro station in Northeast, and the two men immediately found common ground. ``We both are from New York and we instantly bonded on that,'' Kamras said. Two sixth-grade teachers, Carol Taylor and Elaine Stewart, supplied Kamras with construction paper for his classroom and a bit of an introduction to the school. ``Some of the things they raised were the lack of resources. They talked about the socioeconomic challenges that some students at Sousa face,'' Kamras recalled in an interview this week. ``Some students here have encountered violence personally.'' But from the start, he said, he was determined to ``never use the negative factors as predictors of ability or potential.'' During his first year of teaching, Kamras said, he sought to get to ``know the students as individuals, taking the time to learn who they are, what they care about, what their needs are as learners.'' Kamras made bridging the inequities in staffing and other resources between urban and suburban schools a priority. He got creative. He brought a cookie with colorful frosting to class to illustrate circumference, diameter and radius. He took his students to outings at the Lincoln and Jefferson memorials and made time after school to encourage their hobbies. He encouraged his students to take photographs of community life, and their prints were put on display in city offices at Judiciary Square and other places in the city. And he played chess with student Wendall Jefferson once a week. ``He would routinely defeat me, and I was trying my hardest,'' Kamras said. During those games he learned about the student and his family, and he sought to inspire him to ``focus in class and tap into the fullness of his potential.'' ``I think I was learning as a first year teacher how to engage students and bring their natural love . . . for their hobbies into the classroom,'' Kamras recalled. ``I wanted to use that as a catalyst.'' Jefferson graduated from Sousa in 1999 as valedictorian, and Kamras regularly tutored him in math and science when he went on to high school. Now Jefferson is studying electrical engineering at Morehouse College in Atlanta. He is the first in his family to go to college. ``He said, `Wendall, you have great potential,' '' recalled Jefferson, 20, who attended the Rose Garden ceremony yesterday. ``I said, `I'm destined to do great things.' He said, `Always keep that dream.' '' Kamras began ``early bird'' advanced math classes before the regular school day began, working to prepare students for the standardized test known as the Stanford 9. He also came up with an idea that doubled the amount of math instruction by providing two teachers--teaching separate classes--for every student. The program was started for seventh-graders and then expanded to other grades. ``Our Stanford 9 scores went from approximately 80 percent below basic to 40 percent below basic in one year,'' he said. Though the program continues in other grades, it was discontinued for seventh-graders because there weren't enough qualified teachers. Kamras said he steadfastly refused to let ``negative factors shape my perspective.'' At the White House, Kamras, who with his boyish looks could have been mistaken for a student all dressed up, heard Bush say, ``Your students are fortunate to have you in their lives.'' He shook hands with Bush and--holding his teaching award, a glass apple on a plaque--posed for photos with the president and first lady Laura Bush. Next year, he plans to travel the country to promote innovative teaching techniques. He's taking today and tomorrow off. But he plans on being back in the classroom, as usual, first thing Monday morning.

Ms. NORTON

Ms. NORTON. Mr. Speaker, today I am pleased to join my House colleague Rosa DeLauro and Senator Hillary Clinton as original cosponsors of the Paycheck Fairness Act and Senator Tom Harkin as an original cosponsor of the Fair Pay Act. The Equal Pay Act has been a highly successful civil rights statute, but it is creaky with age and to be useful, it must be amended to meet the changed economy in which it must now to do its work. The Fair Pay Act also amends the EPA but it picks up where the EPA leaves off. Huge changes in the economy and the workplace have occurred since the EPA was passed, and most important is the emergence of a highly educated workforce of women with even 75 percent of women with small children working for pay. However, women are vastly underused because of employer steering and because of deeply rooted wage stereotypes that result in pay according to gender and not according to the skills, efforts, responsibilities and working conditions necessary to do the job. We introduce the Fair Pay Act because the pay problems of most women today stem mainly from this sex segregation in the jobs that women and men do. Two-thirds of white women, and three quarters of African American women work in just three areas: sales and clerical, service and factory jobs. Only a combination of more aggressive strategies can break through the ancient societal habits present throughout human time the world over as well as the employer steering of women into women's jobs that is as old as paid employment itself. The FPA recognizes that if men and women are doing comparable work, they should be paid a comparable wage. If a woman is an emergency services operator, a female-dominated profession, for example, she should be paid no less than a fire dispatcher, a male-dominated profession, simply because each of these jobs has been dominated by one sex. If a woman is a social worker, a traditionally female occupation, she should earn no less than a probation officer, a traditionally male job, simply because of the gender associated with each of these jobs. The FPA, like the EPA, will not tamper with the market system. As with the EPA, the burden will be on the plaintiff to prove discrimination. She must show that the reason for the disparity is sex or race discrimination, not legitimate market factors. Corrections to achieve comparable pay for men and women are not radical or unprecedented. State employees in almost half the state governments, in red and blue states, have already demonstrated that you can eliminate the part of the pay gap that is due to discrimination. Twenty states have adjusted wages for women, state employees, raising pay for teachers, nurses, clerical workers, librarians, and other female dominated-jobs that paid less than men with comparable jobs. Minnesota, for example, implemented a pay equity plan when they found that similarly skilled female jobs paid 20% less than male jobs. There often will be some portion of the gap that is traceable to market conditions, but twenty states have shown that you can tackle the discrimination gap without interfering with the free market system. The states generally have closed the discrimination gap over a period of four or five years at a one-time cost no more than 3 to 4 percent of payroll. In addition, routinely, many women workers achieve pay equity through collective bargaining. And countless employers on their own see women shifting out of vital female dominated occupations, and the resulting effects of the shortage of workers, see the unfairness to women, and are raising women's wages with pay equity adjustments. Unequal pay has been built into the way women have been treated since Adam and Eve. To dislodge such deep seated and pervasive treatment, we must go to the source, the female occupations where pay now identifies with gender and always has. The Paycheck Fairness Act is important simply to meet our obligation to keep existing legislation current. It simply updates the 42-year old Equal Pay Act. Recently, I thought we were seeing progress when the census reported that black college educated women actually earned more than white college-educated women, although the overall the wage gap for black women, at 65 percent, remains considerably larger than the gap for white women. No explanation was offered for the progress for black women but other data and information suggest that even when women seem to catch up it may not be what we had in mind. I suspect that African American women are represented disproportionately among the 50% of all multiple job holders who are women. I am certain that this progress for African American women also tells a tragic story. The decline in marriageable black men, eaten alive by ghetto life, also means that many college educated black women are likely to be single with no need for even the short time-out for children white women often take that affects their wages. The best case for a strong and updated EPA occurred here in the Congress in 2003, when the women custodians in the House and Senate won an EPA case after showing that women workers were paid a dollar less for doing the same and similar work as men. Had they not been represented by their union they would have had an almost impossible task using the rules for bringing and sustaining an EPA class action. The FPA simply modernizes the EPA the first of the great civil rights statutes of the 1960s to bring it in line with later passed civil rights statutes. Because I enforced the EPA as chair of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, I know all too well the several ways that this historic legislation needs a 21st century make-over. We file these two bills today to say start with the Fair Pay Act or start with the Paycheck Fairness Act. Start where you like, but Congress should be ashamed to let another year go by while working families lose more than 200 billion annually--more than $4,000 per family--because even considering education, age, hours worked and location, women are paid less than they are worth. Let's start this year to make pay worthy of the American women we have asked to go to work.

Ms. NORTON

Ms. NORTON. Mr. Speaker, I have the distinct honor and pleasure of representing America's oldest, continuously operational gay and lesbian rights organization: the Gay and Lesbian Activists Alliance of Washington, D.C. (GLAA). GLAA is a Washington, DC institution in the vanguard of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgendered civil rights movement. For 34-years, GLAA has remained a tenacious, persistent, and most importantly, respected, advocate for lesbians and gays. Since 1971, GLAA has fought to improve District government services to the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgendered (LGBT) communities, especially for those services provided by the Metropolitan Police Department, the Fire and Emergency Medical Services Department, the Department of Health and the Office of Human Rights. In every election year GLAA educates District voters by rating candidates for Mayor, Council, and Board of Education. GLAA outspokenly advocates safe and affirming schools for gay and lesbian youth. GLAA vigorously lobbies this body to defend gay families from undemocratic and discriminatory amendments to the District's budget. On April 20, GLAA will hold its 34th Anniversary Reception honoring the recipients of its Distinguished Service Awards for 2005: recently retired Whitman-Walker Clinic executive director Cornelius Baker; the fundraising charity Brother, Help Thyself Inc.; D.C. Council Chairman Linda Cropp; Washington Post columnist Colbert I. King; and lesbian cultural trailblazer Jane Troxell. GLAA's 34-year fight to secure all the birthrights enjoyed by Americans for the LGBT residents of Washington, D.C. is more poignant as United States citizens living in our nation's capital, who have served honorably in every American war, including the present war in Iraq, are taxed without representation. GLAA's open and forthright advocacy reminds us that LGBT soldiers, who have sworn to protect our country with their lives, must serve in silence, without the open support of their chosen families and communities, neither asking nor telling.

Ms. NORTON

Ms. NORTON. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to recognize the National Association of Black and White Men Together (NABWMT), a gay, multiracial, multicultural organization committed to fostering supportive environments wherein racial and cultural barriers can be overcome and the goal of human equality realized, on the occasion of its 25th Anniversary which it will celebrate this Friday evening, April 15th, with a reception in the Rayburn House Office Building Foyer. NABWMT began in September, 1980 with an advertisement its founder, the late Michael G. Smith, placed in The Advocate. From this small advertisement NABWMT has grown into a national 501(c)(3) organization with headquarters in Pittsburgh, PA and local chapters in the major cities of the United States, including Washington, DC. The national and the local chapter engage in educational, political, cultural and social activities as a means of dealing with racism, sexism, homophobia, HIV -AIDS discrimination, and other inequities. Among the more prominent of these activities are the Discrimination Response System, a model program which, I am proud to note, the DC Chapter created, and the widely presented Multi-Racial, Multi-Cultural Workshop. In the 1980's, local chapters initiated AIDS education and prevention programs that, in 1988, resulted in a million dollar grant from the Centers for Disease Control, which made the NABWMT the first openly gay organization to receive federal funds to conduct a nation-wide HIV education program. From this grant NABWMT created the National Task Force on AIDS Prevention. In 1992 the National Task Force became a separate entity which conducted trainings and workshops for every active chapter in NABWMT. The Task Force created HIV/AIDS educational models that community-based organizations, health departments, and activists used throughout the United States and in countries from New Zealand to South Africa. I ask the House to join me in congratulating the National Association of Black and White Men Together on its silver anniversary.

Ms. NORTON

Ms. NORTON. Mr. Speaker, today, Senate Government Affairs Chair Susan Collins, Ranking Member Senator Joe Lieberman, Senator George Voinovich, Senator Daniel Akaka, Senator Mary Landrieu, House Government Reform Committee Chair Tom Davis, Ranking Member Henry Waxman and I introduce H.R. 1629, the District of Columbia Budget Autonomy Act of 2005, which passed the Senate in the last Congress, but did not pass the House. It marked the most significant change in self- government since the Home Rule Act was passed in 1973. Instead, Congress continues to essentially use the same oversight process it has used since the District was created as a functioning city more than 200 years ago. The partial budget autonomy in this bill would be a major step to improve the efficiency of the congressional appropriations process and a historic step toward full self-government for the District of Columbia. Our bill starts as a compromise that is less than what the District and every local jurisdiction is entitled to in the management of its local funds. As important as this bill is, it is not the self-contained and more efficient procedure used by every state and locality in our country. The District's budget would still come to the Congress, but it would be discharged after 30 calendar days. This step would take the city a great distance toward functional budget autonomy and away from a congressional process that adds large dollar costs to running the city, and incalculable waste and inefficiency directly traceable to the congressional appropriations process. Our bill would significantly streamline and untangle the process. It also would eliminate the most inefficient and demeaning impediment to the local control every other jurisdiction enjoys, in requiring that the budget of the local jurisdiction be enacted by the District and the Congress as Congress enacts the budgets of federal agencies, such as the Interior Department and the Labor Department. For most of my service in Congress, the enactment requirement has usually kept the District from having a local annual budget with which to operate and manage the city for months at a time. The requirement of our bill that the D.C. budget become operative after 30 calendar days would have large effects on everything from the District's bond rating to its ability to more efficiently manage every function of the D.C. government. The irony is that the Congress almost never changes the District's locally raised core budget in any case. Even at its most intrusive, Congress has realized that when it comes to the complexities of budget decisions for city agencies, Congress is in foreign territory. This is only one of the reasons that I think members of the House and Senate have been open to the change we propose. I appreciate the support this approach already has received in the Senate. For years Congress saw the D.C. budget wreck the larger appropriation process for the country. Too often the District appropriation, by far the smallest of all of the appropriations, has been the largest impediment to the entire appropriation process and a major cause of delay. I am especially grateful for the way that Chairman Bill Young worked with me to remove obstacles and often to rescue the D.C. budget altogether. I expect that my good friend, Jerry Lewis, our new appropriations chair who has often been helpful to me and the city, will want to see the District come smoothly through the process as well. Speaker Dennis Hastert and former Speaker Newt Gingrich both have become involved as a last resort, when only they could rescue the locally raised budget from lengthy delays. I very much appreciate that they have always responded when I have asked for their help. However, the local balanced budget of a great city should not need extraordinary action by House speakers or full appropriation chairs. Despite a national economy that has left states and local jurisdictions on their knees, in recent years the District has balanced its budget without raising taxes and without using its cash reserve funds. Because the Mayor and the City Council have been cautious and conservative in their management of city finances and operations, the District has avoided the budget problems that plague many jurisdictions today. After more than 200 years of unchanged procedures here in the Congress, the city's record today and the bill we are considering today should be the beginning of improvement of congressional processes in aid of greater efficiency for the D.C. government. Even full city autonomy over its local budget would not deprive the Congress of the right to make changes by legislation. Congressional enactment of the Home Rule Act after a century of struggle was a major breakthrough. However, Congress has made no major step toward self-government since 1973. Surely the place to begin is with the city's own budget. Today must mark a long awaited step toward equal citizenship and equal treatment by the Congress. At the very least, the District is owed a Congressional response in kind to the very substantial improvements the city has made in its finances and operations for six years. The way to begin is by matching the District's greater efficiency in managing its finances and operations with the same in our own processes. The way to begin is with budget autonomy.

Ms. NORTON

Ms. NORTON. Mr. Speaker, the entire bipartisan regional House delegation of the national capital region introduces today the Fair Federal Compensation Act of 2005 to address the District of Columbia's structural imbalance. The original co-sponsors are: Government Reform Committee Chair Tom Davis, Appropriations Subcommittee Chair Frank Wolf, Democratic Whip Steny Hoyer, Former Congressional Black Caucus Chair Elijah Cummings and Representatives Jim Moran, Chris Van Hollen, and Albert Wynn. Montgomery County Executive Doug Duncan has authorized me to say that he suports this bill as well. D.C. residents and businesses are proud of eight straight years of balanced budgets that pay for the operations of our government. Yet, residents and Congress probably know little about the city's structural imbalance, which according to the GAO, is entirely from federal sources. However, D.C. taxpayers and Congress are paying for this imbalance in millions of dollars in taxes and interest. Residents and businesses pay to cover a structural imbalance caused by federal mandates and requirements with higher local taxes and the highest debt load in the nation. Our bill will help the Congress and city residents understand what the structural imbalance is and how it affects taxpayers and the D.C. government. The goal of the bipartisan bill we introduce today is to prevent another fiscal crisis for our city and to relieve some of the unsustainable load on the D.C. government and on residents and businesses. The structural imbalance is the difference between the cost of D.C. government services and operations and the add-on cost to local taxpayers that otherwise would be carried by the federal government or commuters. According to the GAO, (confirming two other major studies; McKinsey, March 2002 and Brookings, October 2002) the resulting imbalance is exclusively federal and has three sources: federal use of the city's most valuable land; the city's continuing responsibility for many costly state functions; and the commuter tax ban, despite services the District must provide to 200,000 federal employees. The GAO concluded that the only options to relieve the structural imbalance are: to ``change Federal procedures and expand the District's tax base or provide additional financial support and a greater role by the Federal government to help the District maintain fiscal balance.'' The Fair Federal Compensation Act of 2005 we introduce today responds specifically to these GAO findings. Our bill offsets part, though not all, of the annual structural imbalance--found by the GAO to be between $470 million and up to more than $1.1 billion--by providing for an annual federal contribution of $800 million. Unlike the old federal payment, which remained constant and therefore lost much of its value through inflation, the federal contribution would increase annually. The federal contribution funds would go to a dedicated D.C. infrastructure support fund. The District does not have an operating deficit or imbalance and these federal funds could not be used for operating expenses. The bill provides specific uses only for the non-operating and urgent capital needs that are delayed each year in favor of keeping the D.C. government operating. The federal contribution would be available only for stated infrastructure purposes, such as roads and school construction and repairs, and for reducing the District's debt--the highest in the country. High debt and the interest that results, of course, produce excessive taxes. The bill also would improve the District's investment bond rating and thus reduce our present high interest payments, all charged to taxpayers. In 1995 Congress carne to grips with the reality that this city's responsibilities assume it is a state, although it lacks a broad state tax base and that the District could no longer be expected to shoulder the full set of state costs. Congress relieved the District of the costs of some but not all state functions and left the unique federal structural impediments described in the GAO report. Nevertheless, the District has made remarkable progress, maintaining balanced budgets and surpluses every year despite adverse national economic conditions and improving city services. The CFO has ominously warned, however, that looking to the out years, the structural imbalance endangers the city's financial future and cannot continue to be carried by the District alone. It would be tragic for Congress to allow the progress that has been made to be retracted because of dangerous and escalating uncompensated federal burdens. The Fair Federal Compensation Act of 2005 would allow the District to avoid great risks, to continue to build fiscal strength, and to relieve D.C. taxpayers ofthis federal structural financial burden.

Ms. NORTON

Ms. NORTON. Mr. Speaker, today, I reintroduce the United States Commission on an Open Society and Security Act, expressing an idea I began working on when the first signs of the closing of parts of our open society appeared after the Oklahoma City bombing tragedy, well before 9/11. This bill has grown more urgent as increasing varieties of security throughout the country have proliferated without any thought about their effect on common freedoms and ordinary access. The bill I introduce today would begin a systematic investigation that takes full account of the importance of maintaining our democratic traditions while responding adequately to the real and substantial threats terrorism poses. To be useful in accomplishing its difficult mission, the commission would be composed not only of military and security experts, but for the first time, they would be at the same table with experts from such fields as business, architecture, technology, law, city planning, art, engineering, philosophy, history, sociology, and psychology. To date, questions of security most often have been left almost exclusively to security and military experts. They are indispensable participants, but these experts cannot alone resolve all the new and unprecedented issues raised by terrorism in an open society. In order to strike the balance required by our democratic traditions, a cross cutting group needs to be working together at the same table. For years now before our eyes, parts of our open society have gradually been closed down because of terrorism and fear of terrorism-- whether checkpoints at the Capital even when there are no alerts or applications of technology without regard to their effects on privacy. However, particularly following the unprecedented terrorist attack on our country, Americans have a right to expect additional and increased security adequate to protect citizens against this new frightening threat. People expect government to be committed and smart enough to undertake this awesome new responsibility without depriving them of their personal liberty. These years in our history will long be remembered by the rise of terrorism in the world and in this country. As a result, American society faces new and unprecedented challenges. We must provide ever-higher levels of security for our people and public spaces while maintaining a free and open democratic society. As yet, our country has no systematic process or strategy for meeting these challenges. When we have been faced with unprecedented and perplexing issues in the past, we have had the good sense to investigate them deeply and to move to resolve them. Examples include the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States (also known as the 9/11 Commission), the Commission on the Intelligence Capabilities of the United States Regarding Weapons of Mass Destruction (also known as the Silberman Robb Commission) and the Kerner Commission following riotous uprisings that swept American cities in the 1960's and 1970's. The important difference in the Commission proposed by this bill is that it seeks to act before a crisis in basic freedoms gradually takes hold and becomes entrenched. Because global terrorism is likely to be long lasting, we can not afford to allow the proliferation of security that most often requires no advance civilian oversight or analysis of alternatives and repercussions on freedom and commerce. With only existing tools and thinking, we have been left to muddle through, using blunt 19th century approaches, such as crude blockades and other denials of access, or risking the right to privacy using applications of the latest technology with little attention to privacy. The threat of terrorism to our democratic society is too serious to be left to ad hoc problem-solving. Such approaches are often as inadequate as they are menacing. We can do better, but only if we recognize and then come to grips with the complexities associated with maintaining a society of free and open access in a world characterized by unprecedented terrorism. The place to begin is with a high-level presidential commission of wise men and women expert in a broad spectrum of disciplines who can help chart the new course that will be required to protect both our people and our precious democratic institutions and traditions.

Ms. NORTON

Ms. NORTON. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me time. Mr. Speaker, it is hard to know how to approach this case. Should you approach it as a mother or a member of the family on the opposite side, should you approach it as a member of the House of Representatives, should you try to approach it as a lawyer? One thing is clear: choosing up sides, where you or I stand on our particular values, clearly will not do. That is why matters of this kind involving families have for more than 200 years been committed to State courts, because we are all over the place, State By State, person by person, on this issue. We are hopelessly divided. Countless Americans have already made decisions like this, over and over again. Countless more have a different view. There are some who, if they had to choose, would side with the husband as the next of kin, because he believes he knows what his wife desired based on what she said to him and believes he would betray her trust if he simply walked away. Who can fail to be sympathetic with him? Who can fail to be sympathetic with the parents, who almost instinctively have adopted the role of parent? When the mother said today, ``Save my little girl,'' she is not even any more for her a grown woman, the wife of somebody. She is her little girl, and always will be; and I understand that. There are 50 different States, 51 including the District of Columbia, with wholly different approaches to the same matter. How shall we choose? Which is best in a Federal Republic? To give it to the Congress? To then instruct the Federal courts to violate every rule we have had for 215 years? I hardly think so. Until today, there was no doubt how finality should be reached in a case like this. My only hope is that somehow this will finally be settled without a three-part constitutional crisis of the kind we are creating here, the crisis at the heart of federalism and the Federal Republic for which we stand, the bedrock of who we are, the State- Federal system, where State issues with State courts are final and our issues are final, except in very narrow circumstances given the limited vision of the Federal Government, of the Founders, or the crisis of separation of powers, which we were barely circuiting here, or the crisis of the constitutional right of privacy. Choose your crisis. The victims here are real people, however, caught in a dispute of Shakespearean dimensions. The other side thinks that is right, it is life and death. That is what makes it different. But my friends, never before in countless cases in Federal and State courts in 215 years, life and death has not made a difference in my own lifetime and in the history of my country as I have read it. I wish that the fact that life and death were at issue had meant that we could go into Federal court every time we disagreed.