Eleanor Norton

Ms. NORTON

Ms. NORTON. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, I will defer to the gentleman from Philadelphia to offer the remarks on this former member, but I do want to note that I served with Mr. Borski, and he was a Member who was particularly admired in the Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure where he was a leader and enjoyed the admiration of Members on both sides of the aisle in this body. Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to my the gentleman from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (Mr. Fattah).

Ms. NORTON

Ms. NORTON. Mr. Speaker, I have no further requests for time, and I yield back the balance of my time. Mr. SHAYS. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time. The SPEAKER pro tempore. The question is on the motion offered by the gentleman from Connecticut (Mr. Shays) that the House suspend the rules and pass the Senate bill, S. 1399.

Ms. NORTON. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. I rise in support of S. 1399, a bill that would name a U.S. postal facility after W.J. Scherle. S. 1399 was introduced by Senator Tom Harkin of Iowa on July 14, 2003, and passed unanimously by the Senate on July 17, 2003. S. 1399 would name the Glenwood, Iowa, Post Office after W.J. Scherle, a former Member of Congress. Congressman Scherle was first elected to represent Iowa's Seventh Congressional District in 1967. After redistricting, Representative Scherle represented the Fifth Congressional District until 1974. During his tenure in Congress, Representative Scherle served on the Committees on Education and Labor and Appropriations. Prior to serving in the Congress, Bill Scherle served in the Navy and Coast Guard during World War II, and then later in the Navy Reserve. He served as chairman of the Mills County Republican Party, and then went on to serve in the Iowa legislature for 6 years. According to Senator Harkin, the sponsor of this measure, Representative Scherle will particularly be remembered for leading the effort in Congress to release the crew of the U.S.S. Pueblo, which had been seized by North Korea in 1968. Mr. Speaker, I urge the swift adoption of this bill.

Ms. NORTON

Ms. NORTON. Mr. Speaker, I have no further requests for time, and I yield back the balance of my time. Mr. SHAYS. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time. The SPEAKER pro tempore. The question is on the motion offered by the gentleman from Connecticut (Mr. Shays) that the House suspend the rules and agree to the concurrent resolution, H. Con. Res. 230.

Ms. NORTON. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, the All-American City Award, a 53-year-old program of the National Civic League recognizing civic excellence, annually honors 10 communities that best exemplify the spirit of grass-root citizen involvement and cross-sector collaboration on problem solving. Since the program began in 1949, more than 4,000 communities have competed and nearly 5,000 communities have been named All-American cities. The recipients of this area's awards, which range from Anchorage, Alaska, to Elgin, Illinois, to Hampton, Virginia, symbolize the backbone of our Nation, the ability of citizens, government, business, and the nonprofit sector to come together and effectively address their local issues and produce tangible results. The first recipients of the awards were often those that demonstrated local government reform and efficiency, as well as improvements in the city's infrastructure, including housing, public works, and education. More recently, the focus has shifted to broader community initiatives, such as economic development, health and social service projects and efforts to improve race relations. I commend all 10 recipients of this year's All-American City Award for working tirelessly to make this country a better place to work and live.

Ms. NORTON

Ms. NORTON. Mr. Speaker, I want to join my good friend, the gentleman from Connecticut (Mr. Shays), in speaking strongly for this measure introduced by the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Davis). As we have discussed prescription drugs for our seniors on the House floor, some of the main points of discussion have been issues like affordability, accessibility, and who is being served. Just as the bill that was passed last Congress and this Congress, there will be individuals who cannot afford their prescriptions or some who will not have access to them. Fortunately, I know that there are community health centers available throughout the Nation to help those in need or who become displaced by health care legislation. Community health centers have been the safety net within the health care system, caring for one out of every five low-income babies born in America; one out of every eight uninsured individuals; one out of every nine Medicaid beneficiaries; one out of every nine persons of color; one out of every 10 rural Americans; almost 750,000 homeless; and nearly 850,000 farm workers. Community health centers are established in almost every corner of our Nation representing every aspect of every congressional district, whether it be assisting the working poor and the inner city or in the rural farm land, migrant workers, or even those who have insurance but do not have access to any other health care facilities. By establishing a week to raise awareness of community health centers, we will also be highlighting each year the great accomplishments of these nonprofit, community-owned and -operated health providers. With recent numbers indicating that the Nation's uninsured population is even higher than we once thought, a startling 60 million, if our Nation will not realize the need for universal health care, we need to at least realize the importance and the need to better fund our community health centers. In addition, health centers provide approximately 60,000 jobs to the residents in the communities of the centers. Mr. Speaker, community health centers are the safety net that is committed to serving all individuals with the mission that everyone deserves quality health care service regardless of where one resides. Even if the person can pay or has insurance, these centers are available. They are vital in ensuring that America's forgotten are being kept healthy. Mr. Speaker, I have no further speakers, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Ms. NORTON

Ms. NORTON. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. I want to thank my good friend, the gentleman from Connecticut (Mr. Shays), for the work he has done on this bipartisan bill. It is an important and good bill that encourages the kinds of problem-solving and labor management relations that I am sure the whole House would want to embrace. H.R. 2249 was introduced on May 22, 2003, by the gentleman from New York (Mr. McHugh) and the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Davis). This measure would amend chapter 10 of title 39, U.S.C., to include postmasters and postmasters; organizations in the process for the development and planning of pay policies and benefits. H.R. 2249 is cosponsored by the entire Committee on Government Reform Special Panel on Postal Reform and Oversight. On June 17, the Senate Government Affairs Committee unanimously approved S. 678, the Postmasters Equity Act of 2003, and on June 19, the House Committee on Government Reform reported H.R. 2249 out of committee on a voice vote. During the 96th Congress, President Carter signed into law legislation creating a fact-finding process for resolving disputes over pay and benefits and to make recommendations to the postal service. It did not provide for arbitration of the disputes and the recommendations were not binding on the Postmaster General. However, the law only applied to postal supervisors, not postmasters. H.R. 2249 would extend to the postmasters the option of a fact- finding panel to make nonbinding recommendations to the postal service. Currently, when pay and benefit discussions between the postal service and postmasters fail, postmasters have no recourse and have to accept what is offered by the postal service. Passage of H.R. 2249 would bring consistency in the manner by which two categories of postal managers negotiate with the postal service over pay and benefits. Mr. Speaker, I urge swift adoption of this bill. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Ms. NORTON

Ms. NORTON. Mr. Speaker, I rise to honor the D.C. Redwings Youth Program for its extraordinary contributions to this Community as well as to inner city children. In only five short years, the D.C. Redwings have produced many of the Nation's top young athletes in the realm of track and field while preparing these youths for a more successful, rewarding life. Although this program is primarily a sports-based organization, it also encourages youths to focus on education, community service and cultural awareness. Off the track, members are required to attend study hall and participate in various community outreach projects. The Redwings Program uses track and field as well as cross-country running as a vehicle to teach discipline, goal-setting and teamwork for youths, many of whom would be considered ``at risk.'' Furthermore, the team incorporates book clubs, SAT preparation courses and academic enrichment classes in order to develop well-rounded students and encourage further education. Since its founding, D.C. Redwings Youth Program has produced many junior Olympians, nationally ranked athletes, and All-American runners while fostering an invaluable sense of success and accomplishment in all aspects of their lives. An impressive thirty-eight athletes qualified and competed in the AAU Track and Field Junior Olympics this year alone. The team's success has generated numerous national titles and has turned this relatively small team into one with great promise. The talented athletes repeatedly surpass the expectations of both supporters and competitors. This season has yielded less than ideal circumstances due to both weather and security, but these conditions clearly illustrate the team's commitment and determination for the sport. After study hall, these youngsters would train in freezing temperatures, pouring rain and a foot of snow. Even during weeks of police-supervised practice and the hunt for D.C.'s serial sniper, when all other athletic and extracurricular activities were discontinued, the Redwings carried on with practice as usual. All throughout this ordeal, the team persistently demonstrated their passion, and their commitment set them apart from the rest. Mr. Speaker, the D.C. Redwing Youth Program has quickly established itself as one of the most respectable organizations for inner city children. Their track and field team as well as their cross country team command national respect for their talent and enthusiasm. Moreover, the Redwings remain the only independent youth track team in D.C., and we should be proud to have them represent our city. The organization's head coach and founder, Mr. Desmond L. Dunham, deserves our deepest thanks for his dedication to these athletes' future. It is my honor to recognize the Redwings for their unrelenting commitment in improving so many lives.

Ms. NORTON

Ms. NORTON. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me this time. And I must thank the gentleman for his continuous hard work on this issue. He and I came to the floor several years ago when slavery in Sudan had never been mentioned on this floor and did a 1-hour Special Order. We were the first to raise the consciousness of this House, and it is very gratifying to see that that consciousness remains raised. I know the gentleman has gone to Sudan and as a member of the Committee on International Relations continues to press this matter forward, and we need the whole House and we need the whole country to do so. President Bush has just been to Africa and declared that slavery is a crime, and of course he meant slavery involving African Americans; but I am sure he meant it worldwide as well, and I thank the President not only for that trip but for his own initiatives on Sudan, still a largely unknown, a little recognized issue in our country. We have a nation, 70 percent are Sunni Muslims, 25 percent are Animists; Christians, 5 percent. We have come to the floor again and again with resolutions similar to this, and this resolution is very mild. It just asks the United Nations to consider reinstating sanctions. The United States has also instituted sanctions under President Clinton; and it calls upon others, our allies, to express the same concern essentially that we have expressed: the African Union, which should be taking leadership here, the European Union. We need allies on this matter, and we need them desperately. Because, if the truth be told, almost no progress has been made. That is the sad truth that we must face. There is still widespread institutionalized slavery, according to the most recent report on Sudan. There is still massive dislocation and wholesale discrimination against the nonMuslim population. The administration has made efforts, as we had Foreign Minister Ismail come to this country for consultations with the State Department, a delegation to come with consultations. I am not sure what comes out of these consultations, however, nor am I sure what we use as guideposts to determine whether progress is being made. And we understand the role Sudan plays as a possible center of terrorism. Terrorism has been strongly associated with Sudan, so we have extra reason to press forward. Comprehensive sanctions, however, were put forward in 1997 as early as the Clinton administration, but they were our comprehensive sanctions. We are one country. There is a lot of oil in this country, and others continue to ignore slavery in Sudan. We have a humanitarian crisis. We need what the resolution calls for. We need more as well. We need to increase assistance using religious and other nongovernmental organizations to distribute food and assistance on a nondiscriminatory basis. We need the United States to take the initiative in the United Nations so that sanctions go beyond a few nations like our own and so that we put a goalpost out here so that we can judge Sudan by whether there is an end to the bombings of civilians that keeps food from getting to them and into slavery and into the war itself. Mr. Speaker, I ask that the Congress continue to keep this matter in its sights until we see some progress at last.

Ms. NORTON

Ms. NORTON. Mr. Speaker, I submit the following for the Record: Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC) today introduced the Model Alternative Publicly Accountable Schools Act of 2003 to allow the District to use its unique experience in establishing an unusual number and variety of successful publicly accountable alternatives to its traditional public schools in an effort to encourage other school districts to do the same and to provide additional funding to allow the city to continue these efforts, which are now threatened by cuts and a shortage of funds. Norton said that nationally, the Congress has been unwilling to fund private school vouchers and has had very limited success in getting school districts to establish public alternatives such as charter schools. (For example, Virginia has eight charters and Maryland has one, while the District has 42). Locally, she said that H.R. 2556--the D.C. Parental Choice Incentive Act of 2003--would authorize private school vouchers but without her bill there would be no bill authorizing funds for the city's transformation and charter schools that would treat these parents and children equally, as even voucher advocates say is necessary. In addition, Norton said, in a year when both D.C. and the federal government have cut school funding, her bill providing funds for publicly accountable schools would free up scarce D.C. funds for use in traditional public schools. The D.C. Public Schools last week cut 422 positions to help meet a $40.4 million shortfall, including $6.5 million in funds for textbooks. However, the voucher bill will result in a minimum loss of $25,114,000 if 2,000 students exit the public schools altogether next year because D.C. and federal law require that schools be funded on a per pupil basis. The Norton bill would authorize a total of $15 million for the first of five years of funding. In the FY 04 budget, $12 million would fund and expand transformation schools based on a congressional finding that the District has significantly improved the performance of its poorest and lowest performing children in transformation schools. She said that the improvements in test scores and parental involvement were directly related to extra services provided only to transformation school children and parents. These improvements for they city's low-income children cannot be expected to continue if these services are withdrawn, as cuts now are forcing, she said. A total of $3 million in FY '04 would fund public charter schools in recognition of heightened demand, long waiting lists, and unavailability of funds for facilities to meet a demand the city has shown it cannot meet. Norton said that a particularly large number of schools had applied for charter school status for the coming school year and that the $3 million was important to expand the direct loan fund to assure that start-up charter schools would have the necessary head start to lease facilities in D.C.'s costly rental market. In the remaining four years of the Norton bill, allocation of funds between charter and transformation schools would be done by the City Council after hearings based on the demonstrated needs and gaps in both. The Congresswoman said that sporadic and ad hoc funding for charter schools from Congress demonstrate the necessity for a specific authorization. Last year, the House did not fund charter schools at all, but working with the Senate, Norton got $17 million for charters to help ease facilities pressures. ``This was done without slogans about funding multiple sectors,'' she said, ``and funds may come on an episodic basis again. However, no one should mistake any funds we may get without an authorization this year or in the future, for the authorized amount for vouchers that is designed to guarantee an annual appropriation. Only a comparable authorization can do for charter schools and transformation schools what H.R. 2556 does in authorizing a specific amount for private school vouchers.'' Norton said that the voucher intervention by federal authorities ``has been a distraction from the expressed desires and needs of the majority of the city's parents and children and has done a disservice to the District's leadership role in carrying out two congressional statutes''--the charter school provision of the Improving America's Schools Act of 1994, which Funded charter schools nationally, and Section 1115 of the No Child Left Behind Act, which encourages schools such as D.C.'s transformation schools. Norton is also one of the authors of the District of Columbia School Reform Act of 1995. written on a home rule basis with D.C. officials and residents. Norton said that her bill is also necessary because the President's visit last week shows that his administration intends no extra funds for charter schools, because he spoke only of funds that are available to all charter schools nationally, despite demand here that far outstrips the available funds and despite D.C.'s record of establishing charter schools in particularly significant numbers, as Congress intended. She said without explicit authorization, charter and transformation schools would be left to the mercy of appropriation committees, which are free to fund whatever programs they desire while vouchers would be authorized for finds on an annual basis.

Ms. NORTON

Ms. NORTON. Mr. Speaker, today, I am introducing the Nuclear Disarmament and Economic Conversion Act of 2003 (NDECA). NDECA will require the United States to disable and dismantle its nuclear weapons when all other nations possessing nuclear weapons enact laws to do the same. NDECA further provides that when our nuclear weapons are dismantled, the resources used to support nuclear weapons programs would be diverted to our growing human and infrastructure needs, such as housing, health care, Social Security and the environment. I have introduced this bill every year following a ballot initiative in the District in 1993. In addition to the economic cost of nuclear weapons, the weapons have increased as a destabilizing force in world affairs. North Korea, at least in part in response to stepped up aggressive talk and policies from the U.S., is expanding its nuclear capabilities. Following the Iraq War, Iran appears to be pursuing greater nuclear capability and resisting inspections. India and Pakistan have moved back from the precipice of several years ago but each remains poised with nuclear weapons. The United States and the world community urgently need to redouble their efforts to obtain commitments to push back the new surge for nuclear proliferation. Our country would be able to better dissuade other nations who aspire to become nuclear powers if we ourselves were willing to take even greater initiative in dismantling our own nuclear weapons program. It is noteworthy that the Senate in March ratified the Moscow Treaty, which provides that by 2012 both the U.S. and Russia will reduce their long-range warheads two-thirds from approximately 6,000 warheads each to 2,200. With 40 million people still without health care, Social Security without the benefits for the huge baby boomer generation, an economy teetering from the loss of 3 million jobs and millions more Americans pushed back out in poverty during the last three years, the time has come to begin the transfer of nuclear weapons funds to urgent domestic needs. In the 56-year period between 1940 to 1996, nuclear weapons spending exceeded the combined total Federal spending for education, training, employment, and social services; agriculture; natural resources and the environment; general science, space and technology; community and regional development (including disaster relief); law enforcement; and energy production and regulation.

Ms. NORTON

Ms. NORTON. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for his remarks, and I know that the women of his district very much appreciate the kind of attention he is paying to their accomplishments, in particular, and I know that his predecessor would have taken great joy in his remarks. Nobody could be more deserving of his remarks than Eva Clayton, and I thank him for taking the time to come to this floor during this special order when we are, in fact, looking closely at women's issues and women's rights. First, in recognition of a former trailblazer and Representative Martha Griffiths. Martha Griffiths served in this House at a time when very few women darkened the doors of the House of Representatives, and she died April 22 at 91. Issues that we take for granted today were put on the map by Martha Griffiths so that as we celebrate her life and think of her passing, it seemed to me altogether fitting that we remember that much that women are grateful for today began with and owe to the extraordinary work of Representative Martha Griffiths of the State of Michigan, for it was Martha Griffiths who led the fight to add sex to Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, and of course, for me, that one gets to be personal since it became my great honor during the Carter years to chair the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. The notion that in the beginning sex was not even included as a form of discrimination can perhaps give us some appreciation for what it meant to have one good woman in the House of Representatives, along with a few others, and many men who supported her. Of course, the 1964 Civil Rights Act that Martha Griffiths championed had a great deal more than Title VII in it. We remember Title VII because it is Title VII that bars discrimination in employment, and that has brought so many women equality in search for work and in the workplace, but the Civil Rights Act of 1964 barred discrimination based on sex also in public education, and I will have something to say about that in a moment because it relates to Title IX in public accommodations, in federally-assisted programs, and every day and every minute, women benefit from all of these sections of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 which is remembered principally because it was African Americans marching in the streets to finally get enforcement of the 14th amendment that led the way to the 1964 Civil Rights Act, but race was not the only status protected in the 1964 Act. Religion, national origin also have been, in our country, subjects of great discrimination, and they also are protected in the 1964 Civil Rights Act. I say protected but it is important to understand that everybody's protected. We cannot discriminate against a white man because he is a white man, and we cannot discriminate against a black woman because she is a black woman. These particular groups had, in fact, borne the brunt of discrimination but the Civil Rights Act of 1964 protects each and every American. We owe the work that got us there to Martha Griffiths. Martha Griffiths also championed the Equal Pay Act and was one of the principal leaders that gave us the great Equal Pay Act that simply means if a man and a woman are sitting in the same workplace, you cannot pay one less than the other because of their gender. But perhaps Martha Griffiths is remembered most for having single-handedly revived the Equal Rights Amendment, which was only three States short of becoming an amendment to the Constitution of the United States. A word on who this great woman was. She was the daughter of a mailman, born in Michigan, attended its public schools, and went to the University of Michigan Law School and graduated in 1940. You can imagine a woman graduating from law school in 1940. The very fact that she went to law school says something about her determination and her character, because we are talking about a time when women in law school were as scarce as hens teeth. Undaunted, she practiced law with a very famous governor, G. Mennen Williams, ``Soapy'' Williams, a Governor of Michigan, along with her husband. She served in the Michigan House of Representatives from 1948 to 1952. She was elected as a judge. And she served 10 terms right here in the House of Representatives. She was the first woman ever to serve on the Committee on Ways and Means. She left the House to become Lieutenant Governor of the State of Michigan. Here is a woman whose distinguished career just by virtue of the titles she has held would win her places in the history books, but Martha Griffiths was not looking for a place there because of titles. I do want to tell the story of the addition of sex to title 7 of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. Representative Smith, Congressman from the Deep South, introduced it with such levity that he brought the House down. In introducing the notion of adding sex to the 1964 Civil Rights Act, he said he had received a letter from a woman who complained that the 1960 census had reported, now here I am quoting him, ``2,661,000 extra females and asking that he introduce legislation to remedy the shortage of men for women to marry.'' Well, I mean, apparently, this House lit up so that they had to call for order, the laughter reverberated such throughout the House. And what did Mr. Smith say? And I quote him again: ``I read the letter just to illustrate that women have some real grievances.'' That is the atmosphere in which Representative Martha Griffiths had to somehow rally herself to respond. She rose in this House and pointed out that the laughter of the men of the House, or at least some of them, at the introduction of the amendment only underscored women's second class citizenship. A woman who thought well on her feet. Every woman in the House, except one, supported the amendment. And, by the way, that was in defiance of the party discipline. The Democrats at that time did not favor, not until final passage, the addition of sex because women were protected by protective legislation in factories so they could take some time out to sit down and to have rest periods, to have breaks, for example, that men did not have. And they did not want to give that up, most of them under union contracts that had been won. But, hey, you cannot want equality and then want breaks. And, ultimately, the breaks went and the equality has come more and more ever since. The passage in the House of title 7 of the 1964 Civil Rights Act came after the passage of the Equal Pay Act. I must say that the early 1960s were a very good time for women, and it was Congresswoman Griffiths who led the fight in this House for passage of the Equal Pay Act. We are now at the 40th anniversary of the Equal Pay Act; and it seems to me we ought to celebrate how far we have come, since you could with impunity sit in the same factory, in the same office, in the same law firm and have nothing to say if a man was paid more than you, as a woman, was paid. However, the gentlewoman from Connecticut (Ms. DeLauro) and a number of other women and men in the House have introduced a very modest bill that would update the Equal Pay Act. It is called the Paycheck Fairness Act, and I hope every Member will go on the Paycheck Fairness Act, particularly during this 40th year of the passage of the act. There are some updates that need to happen. For example, sex, but not national origin or race, are included in the Equal Pay Act. Fortunately, title 7 does allow a person to pursue unequal pay under title 7, if not the Equal Pay Act. A person can be punished by firing for telling what her salary is. That kind of sanction needs to be barred. These are quite modest additions, and I would hope that this year the House would regard them as such and would pass the Paycheck Fairness Act. I had a more extensive bill, called the Fair Pay Act, Senator Tom Harkin has introduced it in the Senate, that would update title 7 of the 1964 Civil Rights Act so that jobs with the same skill, effort and responsibility, but not comparable, could be the subject of a title 7 claim if one could show that men and women were paid differently. Now, the reason for this is perfectly apparent. If you are a probation officer and your wife is a social worker, guess who gets paid more? The probation officer. The point here is that we ought to look to see not whether it is the same job, but whether the content, the basic content of those jobs is equal; and that is what my bill would do. It would bring the Equal Pay Act into the 21st century. The pay problems of most women today really do not come from sitting next to somebody who is a male who earns more than you do. It comes from sex segregation in jobs that women do. Two-thirds of white women and three-quarters of black women work in just three areas: clerical, sales, and factory jobs. And many of those jobs are molded to gender rather than to the job to be performed. My bill would say you have to look at the job to see if it is comparable to the job of a male. And if it is, in skill, effort, and responsibility, then it has to be paid comparably. Without this kind of change, we are seeing the great so-called women's professions abandoned: teaching, nursing. Where are they going? They have gone where the pay is. And the pay is not in those jobs, because very often a teacher or nurse will find a man who has nowhere near the same skills making more money. So what happens then, of course, is people leave the profession. And we are in very deep trouble when those professions are abandoned. We had to pass a special bill last year to try to encourage more women to go into nursing. Look at what has happened to the teaching profession. Even people who go into teaching often leave the profession. The same happens to nursing. Why do men not come into teaching and nursing? Because, of course, the pay is not what they expect. The way to do this is to look closely at these jobs to make sure that inequality is not occurring or say good-bye to men or women who will enter these jobs. By the way, what I am talking about is not as radical at it may seem. Twenty States have adjusted wages for women, raising the pay for teachers, nurses, clerical workers, librarians, and other female- dominated jobs that paid less simply by doing their own studies of the skill, effort and responsibility. If State governments can do this, I cannot be talking about something that is far out. What is far out is imagining an America where social work, teaching, and nursing are systematically abandoned. And that is what is happening today almost entirely because of pay. The pay problem is structural. It is chronic. Look at what women have done. Women were told, look, go to school, get as much education as men, and that will take care of it. Well, girls are nothing but good little girls, and I will be darned if they did not go out and do just that. Women now earn 55 percent of college degrees. Men get something like 45 percent. They achieve 65 percent of the 3.5 GPAs. Now, I do not relish this kind of inequality. I think the reason, very frankly, are the boys are out playing sports and girls are hitting the books. I do not like that a lot, but it certainly has not shown up in the paycheck. Doing so well in school, getting all of this advanced training simply has not paid off. That is why you hear women talking about equal pay. It still has not been achieved even under the Equal Pay Act. An example in the private sector that was recently brought to my attention is one of a brand name famous retail outlet in our country, Wal-Mart, where women there make an average of $1.16 per hour less than men. We still need equal pay. We need to update the Equal Pay Act. We need to face the fact that when you have had this kind of inequality for the millennia, since human time, it takes enforcement of the law and it takes updating of the law. This has become one of the great issues of the American family. The interesting thing about polling, is if you poll Americans, what are your top issues, equal pay keeps coming up near the top. You say how come if we are polling men and women, equal pay keeps landing up there in the stratosphere? I think I know why. In two- parent homes, almost always now, even in families that have very young children, both people go out to work. The male member of the household and the female member of the household are not unlikely to have been together in college, for example, or in high school. Suppose they went to the same junior college and graduated, both having done reasonably well. They hit the workplace and he instantly made more money than she does. And she is a drag on the family income. How come? They both went to college; they did well, yet she does not earn anywhere near as much money as he does. That is why it has become a family issue. That is why equal pay keeps registering when we give the American people a list of 10 issues and ask them to write the ones that mean something to them. Equal pay keeps hitting much higher, very high often within the first three of that family's sight. We better listen to them. In this Special Order, where we are focusing on women, I do not want to leave the impression that women are looking only to so-called women's issues. I have just said that equal pay has become a major family issue in our country, as both parents go out to work, as the number of female heads of households grows astronomically. I want to look for a moment at the tax cut and what it does for women or does not do for women. I think we need to lay this out as people decide what does this do for us. We hear about things like the tax cut in such gross terms that even if you are a tax lawyer, it is difficult to figure out what it means. For women, reduction of taxes on dividends, we are told that will help seniors because they are investments, reduce the dividends, greater return for them. Let me see, less than one-quarter of older Americans live in a family that receives any dividend income. Now, who knows what that dividend income is. But less than a quarter receive any dividend income. That is of all older Americans. Only one-fifth of older women live in a family that receives any dividend income, and that is 20 percent. If we are looking at women of color who receive stock dividends, we are looking at 6 percent of black and Hispanic elderly living in families that receive dividend income. So much for women and the tax cut. When we look at where at least some of the funds in the tax cut might have gone to benefit women, we probably should start with the uninsured, because uninsured women are far more likely to postpone everything. They postpone the care they need today, they skip all of the services like mammograms, they only go to doctors when they have advanced disease. Latina and African American women are 2 to 3 times more likely to be uninsured than white women, but if we had used the tax cut package, we could have insured 33 million of uninsured Americans with incomes below 300 percent of the Federal poverty level. Most of those people are women, often women with children. If we look at the tax cut in terms of Social Security, and that is often the way the tax cut is positioned, think about women. It is women who have not been in the workforce who go in late so they do not have the pensions and the savings and the investments. They rely more on Social Security, far more than men do. Over 80 percent of unmarried elderly African American and Hispanic women get half their income from Social Security. So if you took the 75-year cost of the tax cut, we could erase the entire 75 year shortfall in Social Security three times over and secure Social Security for the baby boom generation and future generations. We are going to be judged where our values were, and I always thought they were with Social Security, and I do not believe that is true anymore, at least with many in this House. Another important issue with women has been domestic violence. I remember how we fought in this House and achieved a very important bipartisan consensus on domestic violence. We have a million and a half women assaulted by some partner each year. They have to go to shelters. They need residential shelters, services for their children, but we are able to handle only 1 of 5 women who needs somebody to take them in from an abusive partner. With just $6 billion or 15 percent of the tax cut, we would have had shelter and transitional services for these women and their children. I do not know how Members can continue to talk about women and children and then wipe away all of the funds that they need to do what it is that we are talking about. The Congressional Black Caucus today just had a very informative internal hearing on Head Start. I was very pleased to participate in that hearing because of the witnesses that came forward, one of them from a center in the District of Columbia where children emerge, and it is a bilingual center, the Beaumont Center, where children emerge literally bilingual. I asked the question and was assured that these children speaking only Spanish or Vietnamese or some other language emerge at kindergarten able to speak English, and that is what concerns me most, because that is when the brain is most pliable and people can earn language most easily. At that age, a child can learn more than one language, so these children do emerge bilingual. Head Start, I cannot say enough about it, but we are very concerned that it will be block granted and disposed of, because we know what happens to block grants: States steal from the block grants, often for people far better off than the block granted people. For the amount of tax cut, we could get to where everyone wants to get in providing Head Start for every eligible child. Women continue to be the major guardians of our children, so when, in fact, we make the kinds of decisions we have been making on Head Start, we are taking money right out of the hands of children and not just their mothers. I want to move on to title 9. Sometimes we forget since we talk about title 9 often in terms of sports, sometimes we forget title 9 covers all of education, and what it has wrought in approaching education equality is nothing short of historic. In the year that the bill was signed, that was 1972, women earned only 7 percent of all law degrees. By that time I was out of law school. I graduated in 1964, and women were still earning only 7 percent. That is called tokenism. That is not representation in the profession. I have to tell if somebody went to law school and took the bar, it is not a profession that one would expect women not to enter. That was in 1972, 7 percent. Fast forward to 1997, no longer 7 percent, 44 percent, approaching half. Before I came to Congress, I was a full-time tenured professor of law at Georgetown University Law Center. I joke, although it is not entirely a joke, that I continue to teach one course there a year. The House does allow a Member to teach but not to do virtually anything else outside of the House. I joke that I continue to teach because one thing I want to do is keep my tenure because it was harder to get tenure than it was to get elected, and there is a lot of truth in that. But the fact is that I look at my classes, and I teach one course every year, and I am astounded. Not only are the classes often evenly divided, sometimes there are more women than men. In my wildest imagination, that is not what I foresaw for my profession, not when I was in law school. Let us look at medical school. There were always a greater proportion of women in medical school, not a lot, because if we look at 1977, and that is 5 years after title 9, only 9 percent of all medical degrees were awarded to women. By 1997, 41 percent of the people graduating from medical school were women. This is the pattern in higher education for women. Looking at Ph.D.s, 1997, a quarter of the Ph.D.s went to women. Today 41 percent of Ph.D.s go to women. Where we hear about title 9 most today, where we do not see this kind of progress, although we see considerable progress, is in athletics; and that has become somehow controversial. There are 32,000 women athletes playing intercollegiately in 1972, and 150,000 today. I would have never thought about intercollegiate athletics, not only because I am unathletic, but because it was not a girl thing to do. It is very important that athletics are open to women, not only for its own sake, but also because of what it means for how women can view where they can go in the world in other pursuits as well. There were virtually no athletic scholarships for women in 1972, and today there are 10,000 scholarships for women athletes. There has been a lot of progress there. One would think that where there was this kind of progress, we would leave it alone. There is a lot of stuff to study in this House and in this country, but the fact is we just finished a very controversial, polarizing study, commission on title 9. I could think of a thousand commissions to set up where we see negative progress. The last thing I would spend any time on is title 9; but why, because some wrestlers said they were losing out to women who were in fact given title 9 funds. Give us a break. Thanks to women who protested this commission's work, not a lot has happened, but the commission's bias was astounding. Normally these commissions give the appearance of being open. There was one hearing, and not all sides were heard. There was no indication of continued discrimination against women in sports, no talk about how, for example, men's football and basketball really eat up the money from wrestling. It is somehow the fact that a few more women are playing intercollegiate ball that takes from the men. Mr. Speaker, I want Members to know what happened on June 13. A district court threw out a lawsuit by a coalition of wrestlers who argued that title 9 requires quotas of female athletes that have resulted in discrimination against men. The judge said nonsense. He said that the wrestlers failed to show that title IX caused their teams to be dropped. Let us look for the causal effect here. If they do not have a wrestling team now, what is the reason? And this judge found, hey, you cannot even show that if title IX had not been there at all, they would not have dropped the wrestling team. Why in the world do we not ask schools, is it really necessary to pump such large amounts of money into basketball and football? I will grant you that there is reason to put a lot of money there, but if you have got some wealth to share, do not take it from the wrestlers who then blame it on the women. Take a little bit from basketball and football. I do not think either of those sports, given the rah-rah spirit they have and the alumni they draw, are going to suffer from it. The commission was certainly a very bad idea. There was a minority report by two commissioners who refused to sign the commission's report because of its detrimental possible effects on women. Then Secretary Paige said, fine, we have a unanimous report now. I mean, wait a minute. This is America. We do not do things that way. We acknowledge that there are differences, the majority rules; but we do not say, okay, we have a unanimous report and those people who did not sign simply are not counted at all. Scandalously, some of the recommendations here hark back to the old days of discrimination. For example, the notion of the use of an interest survey to determine the level of interest women and men have in various sports. What? That builds discrimination on top of discrimination. The reason that girls like me did not have an interest in sports is we were literally taught that a smart girl did not do sports. Now of course that you do not have an interest in sports is why you should not have sports. That is like in the days before title VII saying, let us ask the clients in this law firm whether they would in fact continue to do business with us if we had a black lawyer as a partner. That is exactly what that is like. Or a retail outlet saying, let us not hire this Hispanic person because we do not think people would like to be served by a Hispanic person in this store. I thought we called that discrimination. We do not ask people whether or not they should be given equal treatment in the provision of athletics based on whether they are interested or not. We say, look, if you are not interested, you do not have to do it; but we are not to condition your ability to participate in athletics on a survey as to how many of your gender are interested. That simply compounds the discrimination we are trying to escape. Profit from our own exclusion. Since title VII, the opportunities for both men and women have increased, but the number of opportunities for women athletes, and, remember, there are more women than men in college, the number of opportunities for women athletes has yet to reach what it was for men before 1972. We need a commission all right. We need a commission to help us get to equal opportunity in athletics quicker than we have done. We need to pat ourselves on the back for how far we have gone and then move further. I want to say a word about choice. When President Clinton was in the White House, I remember press conferences where women came forward to make the American people understand the notion of late-term abortions. Women came forward and spoke, gave testimony, some of the most moving testimony I have heard, about how their lives or their fertility had been saved by a late-term abortion. We are going to have next week, or I am certain before recess we will have another spectacle. President Bush is going to invite anti-choice zealots into the White House to sign a bill taking away a woman's right to end a pregnancy not in the last weeks of pregnancy, but from 13 weeks on. That is how that bill reads. That is how a, almost exactly worded bill or worded in almost the same way was read by the Supreme Court. I am hoping that the Supreme Court will save us. Based on my own reading of the prior opinions of the Court, I believe they will; but it is a human tragedy that we have not been able to reach a compromise and that we now have a bill that would disallow the ending of pregnancies in the very last month or so. The third trimester is already covered by Roe v. Wade, but because the procedure described in the bill is also used in the second trimester, I am certain it is unconstitutional, although nobody can presage what the Court will do. But I do know this, that no one is thinking about the health exception that Roe v. Wade has in it. That is the kind of response to women's reproductive needs we are seeing in this administration. Tragically, we see that we are trying to carry these notions abroad where they are not wanted and where people have their own set of values. Why in the world were we at a U.N. population conference objecting to the very phrase ``reproductive rights''? What? Wanting it stricken. Why did we object to the words ``reproductive health services''? Representatives of the administration, of the State Department among U.S. delegates? Do reproductive rights necessarily mean abortion? Not the last time I heard. It is a very broad phrase. But the whole notion of trying to rewrite not only the English language here but rewrite the language for the world does seem to me to go beyond our writ and our right. There are some women in here who are trying to restore the funds that we have now cut off from the United Nations population fund, funds that, of course, were meant only for birth control and contraception; and we have ourselves indicated that those funds will not be available to organizations which do not forswear using other funds for abortion. What this will result in in maternal deaths and the deaths of children will be on us. Finally, let me say a word about poor women. We passed a TANF bill here. It has not been passed in the Senate yet. I can only hope that it will be thoroughly revised. Every State and the District of Columbia allows some of the time that a woman on TANF, some of the time for work to be spent in some form of postsecondary education. This is seen as an allowable work-related activity. In this House, however, no State would be allowed this flexibility so that a woman, for example, could work part-time and go to college part-time. Why not? Do you want women to get off of TANF and be on minimum-wage jobs for the rest of their natural lives? We want to make sure she is going to school, that she is pursuing a degree or some form of higher education. But why is that not exactly what we should be encouraging? It is almost impossible for poor women under the TANF bill we passed to have enough time available beyond weekly work-related requirements to do anything else, because we have increased the work-hour requirements to 40 per week and then limited what counts as work. What we were trying to do, I thought, was to make people less poor, not simply get them off TANF. The final straw here was what we did just last week, in essentially killing the child care credit for poor women, poor families. Those are families that earn between $10,000 and $26,000 a year, including military families. By adding on the cost of child care for so many higher-income families, essentially we stabbed the bill in the back, knowing full well that the Senate required that the poor families be paid for and that if you add families of over $200,000, for example, I would love to see it, I would love to have universal child care, we do not have it, but knowing that if you added them, that would kill the bill, that is what this House did. By the way, the House did not try to hide it. I will not call the House dishonest on this one. Member after Member was clear, said it to the press, said it on the floor, these people do not pay Federal income taxes; therefore, they should get no tax relief. The last time I heard, they were paying a greater share of their income in payroll taxes than most of us pay in income taxes. For the life of me, I do not understand why a child care credit, because that is all this is, it is a child care credit, it is for the child, would not be precisely what we want these families to have. I give my friend Tom DeLay, and he is a friend, he and I wrote a bill together for family court in the District of Columbia, Tom never does hide where he stands. He said, ``It ain't going to happen. There are a lot of things more important than that.'' That is a quote. You know what, he was right. It is not going to happen. The child tax credit is probably dead, killed in this House after the Senate tried to revive it. Mr. Speaker, what I have tried to do in memory of Representative Martha Griffiths was simply to call the roll on some of the women's rights issues of special currency today. See, that is where Martha Griffiths would be. She would not be talking about the great feats of yesterday. She would be moving on. I wanted us to remember where these rights came from and that they came in a House where there were but a shallow number of women and a few good men, enough to pass the bill, indeed, without whom no bill could have been passed, who were determined that equality would apply to their wives, to their daughters, to their aunts, and to their mothers. It is important that we know where this came from because it did not come from a House where, what do we have today, 63 women and a lot of men, Democrat and Republican, who respect and vote for women's rights and vote on women's issues as one might expect any civilized, advanced Nation to do. We have got a lot of that today. But in order to place the true value on where we have come in 40 years, it did seem to me one way to do this was to recognize the life of Representative Martha Griffiths, who had to stay on this floor and remind people that their laughter at the addition or the proposal to add sex to title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act simply underlined the second class status of women when women are not first class citizens yet, but nobody can doubt that they are on their way to being exactly that. There are some ways in which we do not have consensus. I have named some of them. I have named more of them on which we do. There is one in which I hope we will gather consensus soon. H. Con. Res. 130, the Equal Access in Membership Resolution is pending in the House, and its operative words say, and I cite this because this ought to be an easy one, and yet it is one that is not done, it says no Member of Congress, justice or judge of the United States or political appointee in the executive branch of the Government, should belong to a club that discriminates on the bases that have been named, and my colleagues know what they are, gender, race, et cetera. Come on, everybody. It even respects the right of free association because it does not say no Member must belong. It says no Member should belong. Can we not get at least that passed in the House? And, remember, we are talking about a Member of Congress, a justice or a judge of the United States or political appointee of the United States of America, that if on is one of those, one is to forego belonging to a club that does not allow Jews and blacks and women in, Hispanics in. Is that too much to ask this late in the day? Hey, look, one can. All this resolution says is the House says one should not. It is because one gives the appearance of not being a fair person. I hope that we will pass this resolution, this one we might have expected to pass during the height of the civil rights movement. We are all officials. It seems to me we want to give the appearance of fairness, and one way to do it is in the way we live our lives. I hope that if I have done nothing else, I have pointed out not only our progress but our problems that we have both and that together we have come a very long way, and together we can get the rest of the way.

Ms. NORTON. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days within which to revise and extend their remarks on the subject of my special order.

Ms. NORTON. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman will remain at the lectern, I am pleased to yield to the gentleman.

Ms. NORTON

Ms. NORTON. Mr. Speaker, I move that the House do now adjourn.

Ms. NORTON

Ms. NORTON. Mr. Speaker, today I am encouraged to introduce the Nationwide Gun Buyback Act of 2003, NGBA, by the actions of the District of Columbia residents on Father's Day last Sunday. Citizens who had lost relatives and representatives of 20 advocacy and victim- support groups gathered at Freedom Plaza, a stone's throw from the White House, to declare their own moratorium on murder for the Father's Day weekend. Not only did their moratorium have important symbolic value; in fact there was only one murder last weekend. Of primary importance was the fact that the moratorium was symbolic and entirely citizen initiated. Residents themselves must take responsibility for crime and not regard criminal activity as a matter for the police alone. I am pleased that the D.C. Council and the Mayor responded with a resolution supporting the moratorium, but the event got its importance from its origin with residents. The moratorium was initiated by Kenneth E. Burnes whose son was murdered in his U Street store and became one of 233 residents killed in 2001. This year's homicide rate is 9 percent ahead of last year's rate. Almost all of the killings here and elsewhere are committed by handguns. The bill, however, does not conflict with Member's positions on the controversial issue of gun control. The bill would simply allow people who desire to get guns out of their homes to do so without incurring criminal penalties for possession. Families, and especially mothers, have feared guns in their homes, but often do not know how to get rid of them. In most jurisdictions, a grandmother petrified that there is a gun in the house for example, or her grandson, who may possess the illegal weapons cannot turn it in without subjecting herself or her grandson to prosecution. This is reason enough for gun buyback efforts. Like tax amnesty, gun amnesty puts a premium on the ultimate goal. When the goal is taxes, the government puts a premium on getting the amount owned. When the goal is guns, the premium is on getting deadly weapons off the streets and out of people's homes. This bill is entirely voluntary and does not compel anyone to give up a handgun, even one that is illegally held. This bill would provide Federal funds to local jurisdictions to engage in gun buyback programs like the successful programs conducted by the District of Columbia a few years ago. Under the bill, funds would be distributed through the Department of Housing and Urban Development, HUD. After evaluation of proposals, added weight would be given to jurisdictions with the greatest incidence of gun violence. The NGBA would require that a jurisdiction certify that it is capable of destroying the guns within 30 days, that it can conduct the program safely, and that an amnesty appropriate for the jurisdiction will be offered. Not only individuals, but groups such as gangs could take advantage of the buyback provisions to encourage street gangs to disarm themselves. This bill is necessary because, despite the extraordinary demonstrated success of the gun buyback program in the District, local jurisdictions have no readily available funds for similar programs. The District was forced to find money on an ad hoc basis and ran out of funds despite residents who still desired to turn in guns. Initially, the District conducted a pilot program using funds from HUD. Confronted with long lines of residents, the Police Department then took the program citywide, using drug asset forfeiture funds. Even so, after using $290,000, the city ran out of funds, but not of guns, that could have been collected. The guns were a ``good buy'' but hard-pressed jurisdictions, especially big cities, should not have to rob Peter to pay Paul when it comes to public safety. The Federal Government can play a unique and noncontroversial role in reducing gun violence by providing the small amount authorized by my bill, $50 million, to encourage buyback efforts where a local jurisdiction believes they can be helpful. The Nation's Capital has successfully demonstrated a faster and easier way to put guns under the control of law enforcement where criminals cannot use them and children and adults cannot misuse them. Gun buyback efforts are not new, but the recent, dramatic impact of the District's program has special bi-partisan and natural appeal today because the program is voluntary and requires no change in local or Federal gun laws. A gun buyback bill is certainly no substitute for gun safety legislation, but my bill is based on demonstrated and successful experience in a number of cities that have achieved voluntary compliance by citizens with local laws. The extraordinary success of the buyback programs in the District and around the country has shown that these programs should now be readily available to jurisdictions that desire to use them. In a market economy, efforts to buy back guns have special appeal. We may disagree on the various approaches as to gun violence, but Democrats and Republicans alike can agree to this sensible approach. I urge my colleagues to support this vital legislation.

Ms. NORTON

Ms. NORTON. Mr. Speaker, I want to simply say that perhaps the greatest monument to Medgar Wiley Evers would be to see the gentleman from Mississippi (Mr. Thompson) on this floor. The notion in 1963 that there could be an African American in the Congress of the United States from the State of Mississippi was very far removed from where we were. We were literally trying to get a cup of coffee and trying to teach people how to respond to the people at the voter registration place just to get the right to vote. The gentleman from California (Mr. Thompson) is the first African American to be elected from the State since Reconstruction. In his own right, he is an historic figure and one that people who love freedom around the country are proud of, precisely because of the reputation of Mississippi. That is Mississippi before. The gentleman from California (Mr. Thompson) represents Mississippi after. This is a State where a third of the voters are African Americans, more voters are African Americans than in any other State, and one might expect that there would be more than one African American in Congress, and yet when the gentleman pressed through to become the first in the 20th century, it was a real landmark. Therefore, it seems to me it is appropriate that he would have made it back from the cemetery where Medgar Wiley Evers' life was commemorated to have this moment on the floor, which is perhaps the moment, the moment when the gentleman from Mississippi rushed in to make sure he could speak on the floor of the House of Representatives. If Medgar Wiley Evers lived for any moment, it is for this moment.

Ms. NORTON. I very much thank the gentleman for yielding me this time, and I thank the chairman for bringing this bill forward; and, of course, I thank my good colleague, the gentleman from Mississippi (Mr. Thompson), for introducing this bill. While this bill has national significance for our country, it has personal significance for me. Of course Medgar Evers is remembered for the sacrifice of his life for human rights in this country. I was an impressionable young law student who had been asked to come to the delta, not to Jackson, but to the delta to help prepare for what became the 1964 freedom summer by doing a pilot for the voter registration schools that we would do ultimately for people on the farms who wanted to learn how to register and vote, a very hard thing to do in Mississippi at the time. When I came, of course I came not to the delta first but to Jackson and was told to go to the office of the NAACP. I wanted very much to meet Medgar Evers, because it had been national publicity that the sit- ins had only that summer begun in Mississippi. We were through with the sit-ins in the rest of the country. We were on to the next stage of the civil rights movement. But I will tell you, Mississippi was another kettle of fish; and they had been beaten brutally for sitting in. In the summer of 1963, I wanted to see this brave man. What Medgar Evers tried to do was to kidnap me from the delta. I was a law student at a time when there were very few African American law students, and he wanted me to work in the NAACP office. But I had promised Bob Moses in Greenwood, Mississippi, that I would come there. So instead, he took me all around Jackson to various places so that I could meet people in the Jackson movement. He took me to his home to meet his extraordinary wife, Myrlie Evers, now Williams; and we met the children, the very little children. And then Medgar Evers took me to the bus station, put me on the bus for Greenwood, Mississippi, and the people got me off the bus in Greenwood, Mississippi, and took me to a farmer's house. And there I was on the morning of June 12. The sharecropper and his wife had gone off to pick string beans, but they had told me the night before how to take a bath in a tin tub. I said, all right, that's something I have never done before, city girl that I am. And I shall never forget. This is one of the searing moments of my life, when the very young people from the Greenwood Student Nonviolent Coordinating office came and said, ``Eleanor, aren't you the student that came in last night? Medgar Evers has been shot and killed.'' Medgar Evers was shot and killed as he left, obviously, that night going back to his own home having put me on the bus. Well, when you're sitting in a tin tub your first day in the delta and you learn that one of the great heroes of the civil rights movement, who you just left 8 hours before, has been murdered, you have a memory that will last for a lifetime of a man who our country will remember for a lifetime. Everybody was gone. People were off raising money. It turned out that I was the senior person. I became the senior person in the SNCC office because other young people were off in the north raising money, and it fell to me to call everybody together to go to the church to do what we always did when one of those terrible things happened in our country. I want to say that as a young lawyer, young law student, I had to remind myself that I was going to law school because I had faith in the justice system of our country. It took 40 years, but, in fact, the killer of Medgar Evers was brought to justice. Myrlie Evers, all that time made it her business to press for justice and, in fact, got justice. She went on to become the Chair of the NAACP itself, carrying on the work of Medgar Evers. I shall never forget this gentle man and how he described the brutality that he had faced, as if that is what you should expect and we have to keep going in until it gets done. And the interesting thing is it had gotten done, at least that part of it had gotten done, everywhere but in Mississippi. Mississippi was then a closed part of the country. It was what we meant by terrorism. The murders of Cheney, Goodman, and Schwerner would occur thereafter; and there are untold murders that will never see the justice that Medgar Evers has since seen, for Myrlie Evers-Williams, for the Evers children who were left without a father, a man who had served in World War II, in Normandy; that the day would come when the House of Representatives would in fact recognize what he did for our country should restore, should restore the faith of those who sometimes lose faith in our justice system. Justice was done in Mississippi, we will do justice throughout our country, and I thank the gentleman once again for yielding me this time.

Ms. NORTON. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?

Ms. NORTON

Ms. NORTON. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding me this time, and I thank the gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Oberstar), the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Mica), and the chairman of the full committee for the bipartisan way in which they have put together a very good bill. Mr. Chairman, I ask Members to imagine their own district if general aviation or charters had been closed down since 9-11. Whether Members are from a small or large area, there would have been a demonstrable effect on the economy, and, indeed, on your way of life. And the last place one would expect that to happen is in the Nation's capital; but that is what has happened at Reagan National Airport, even though this area is a huge economic engine for the country because of the high-tech and other employers located here. And, of course, this is where the Nation's capital is located. I want to thank the gentleman from Alaska (Mr. Young) and the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Mica) for having supported the reopening of general aviation at Reagan National after listening to all of the security concerns, including secured briefings. General aviation is up and operating everywhere else in the United States. Yes, at Dulles from whence the Pentagon plane came, at New York where the Twin Towers were struck, and at BWI. Why is it not up here, especially when the Reagan contractors have said they will submit to any plan imposed by the Transportation and Safety Agency? None has been forthcoming. Mr. Chairman, there is a plan. We know there is a plan, and we know that the TSA was about to offer a plan more than a year ago; but no plan has been published. I had an amendment that said publish a plan and let us speak on it. No one would compel them to put a plan in operation. General aviation is not closed. It must be kept open for the convenience of the government. Therefore, there are two employees there for the convenience of Federal and State and local takeoffs and landings. The lesson from 9-11 is that security takes place on the ground or else it does not take place at all. We have some fail-safes for planes. But general aviation or charters, it would be easy enough to impose absolute measures: special screening, limited takeoffs and landings. I could go on and on. We cannot allow 9-11 to shut down any part of the national economy. They have already done so here. It is a notch in their belts; let us take that notch away.

Ms. NORTON. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. I particularly appreciate the support of the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Wolf). He is the transportation expert in this region, and he is, I think, the acknowledged transportation expert in this House. Mr. Chairman, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Oberstar). (Mr. OBERSTAR asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Ms. NORTON. Mr. Chairman, I offer amendment No. 2.

Ms. NORTON. Mr. Chairman, I yield the balance of my time to the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Davis).

Ms. NORTON. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Moran).

Ms. NORTON. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Chairman, I think I have an amendment, and this is the way to start off, that I think the entire House can support. The entire region supports this amendment on a bipartisan basis. I think Members are going to be hearing from the gentlemen from Virginia, Mr. Wolf and Mr. Davis, who had wanted to speak to it. It is noncontroversial because I think Members do not want to put any airport authority at a disadvantage. Section 49-108 requires only the Metropolitan Washington Airport Authority to come back to Congress before receiving airport improvement funds and facility fees. These are always guaranteed, once appropriated. Many know that Dulles has a $2.4 billion construction project underway now as we go in and out. This provision to come back to Congress in September of 2004 puts at risk the funds to continue with that operation. The airport authority has an excellent bond rating and saves millions of dollars because of its bond rating, but the bond markets could read the unique treatment of this region negatively to mean that there is a risk of interruption of construction in progress. In fact, there has been before, although not for this reason. For other reasons there has been such a risk. The reason that risk would be seen is because Congress forces this airport authority in this region to return and have authorized what other airports get as a guaranteed matter. All agree that the Washington airport authority has done an outstanding job of operating and improving our airports. There will be multiple opportunities for Congress to have oversight over the Metropolitan Washington Airport Authority because we own the land, and therefore, at will, Congress can call back the airport authority. We are in this FAA reauthorization bill, and we will be here, therefore, every few years. This is a win-win. By voting for my amendment Congress gets its oversight, and there is no interruption of work in progress at Dulles because of doubts planted by section 49-108 about congressional intention to release funds guaranteed to other jurisdictions. I ask that my amendment be passed. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.