Eleanor Norton

Ms. NORTON

Ms. NORTON. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding time to me. I would like to thank those who have contributed to the bill. I thank the chairman of the full committee, the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Young) for his great patience and efforts every single year to get my bill through here. He has been extraordinary in understanding that this is a city we are working with. I thank our ranking member, the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey), who not only does his appropriation work to a fare-thee-well, but never forgets to have respect for self-government and the right of D.C. residents to vote. I want to especially thank this year's chairman, the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Knollenberg), for the wonderfully cooperative and collegial spirit he has given to our work; his strong interest in the city; the way he has immersed himself in the issues of the city and in the facts and programs of the city. I am particularly grateful to the ranking member, the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Fattah), who is a member known for his mastery of complex urban issues, especially finances and schools. We felt particularly lucky to have the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Fattah) as the ranking member, inasmuch as he led his own city, Philadelphia, through precisely the kind of recovery we have had to go through. He was an architect of the control board there in the reconstruction of his own city, Philadelphia. He has an instinctive and encyclopedic understanding of cities in general, and of the District in particular. We feel very lucky to have him here. Before I proceed, if I could have Members' indulgence for my remarks on this budget, I feel compelled to put on the Record what we are going through, and to indicate the great pain this House has put my city through this year and puts us through every year. For those here for the first time, I always warn them they may feel like they are going through an out-of-body experience. Many have come out of State legislature and now somebody is telling them to look at the budget of what amounts to a State, somebody else's budget; to ask them to vote on a local budget. It is beneath them, it really is. I am going to ask Members to vote for it and try to understand that that is what the Congress makes us do. But I want to tell this House that it is almost Christmas, and the District of Columbia has not been able to spend a single cent of its budget because this House has just gotten around to spending its money. I wonder how many would be left standing if their State, and this is the functional equivalent of a State, could not spend any of its money for 3 months into the budget year? I ask Members to put themselves, for a change, into the position of the city I represent. With all of the plaudits I want to offer today, I want to take the time, because I have a remedy for this and it is important for me to put this on the Record. It happens year after year. This is just the worst of it, because it is Christmas. On October 1 we should have had a budget, and it should have been before then. We passed the budget in June. I have a way to correct this, Mr. Chairman. It is a budget autonomy bill that would still let this House put all their attachments on it, do all the things to the District that they will not let anybody do to their districts; but at least they would say, when the District passes its budget, as much of it as they pass, that they can now go ahead and spend their own money. These people cannot even forecast. They make mistakes all the time because their budget has to be done 18 months ahead of everybody else's budget. D.C. is terribly handicapped this year because there has been a war, and so other cities, our neighboring cities, Maryland and Virginia, are now in the process of taking the surplus; and we have a bigger surplus than Maryland or Virginia, and using it to shore up the deficits that have been created by the recession, problems that have come up unexpectedly because of September 11. Do Members know what happened to the surplus of the District of Columbia? It falls to the bottom line because the District of Columbia is treated like a Federal agency. We let it fall to the bottom of the line of a Federal agency because it goes back into the Federal Treasury. There is no reason not to let people who have been prudent in using their own money, saving their money, use their money in time of emergency. That is the demeaning position in which Members put the city that I happen to represent. Members must free us from this problem. Let us take care of ourselves by using our own money. Mr. Speaker, I have a bill for budget autonomy which still lets Members put their own bills in and change the budget of the District of Columbia, but it would let us spend our own money when our own budget is passed. I have a budget autonomy bill, and I am going to beg this House to next year pass that bill. I want to say to the gentlewoman from Maryland (Mrs. Morella), the Republican co-chair of my committee, how much I appreciate the principal things she has done in cosponsoring that bill with me. Mr. Speaker, to move on to the budget itself, this is such a significant budget for the District of Columbia. It is the first budget on its own without a control board. Yet, in very many ways, it is the most successful in many years. Less contentious. We have had disputes here and there. We have all found ways to settle them like ladies and gentlemen. I want to focus on just three issues, among the dozens in this bill: First is the way in which the committee has allowed the budget numbers put forward by the District of Columbia to be the budget for the District of Columbia. I want to thank this Congress for the funds for a new Family Court Division, and I want to have a brief discussion on breakthroughs in and unacceptable home rule losses. First, let me thank the committee for making sure that the District's own budget numbers became the budget numbers in this bill. The Congress has no expertise to deal with the budget priorities in anybody else's bill. There were some concerns at first about how the District and the mayor had agreed to certain kinds of attachments to the budget. When all was said and done, people finally understood: It is not for us to say. If the Mayor and the City Council have agreed, let the Mayor and the City Council do their own budget, as long as it is balanced. Second, let me go to the family court. There is $24 million in extra money in this bill for the first revision of D.C.'s Family Court Division in 30 years. I am the coauthor of the authorizing bill, with the gentleman from Texas (Mr. DeLay). I want to thank him for working with me on the bill. He and I had many disputes, but we simply worked them out. But I think he deserves great praise today, because that additional $24 million would not be in this bill if the gentleman from Texas (Mr. DeLay) had not gotten the extra money to put in this bill. I want to thank him both for his coauthorship of the bill and for working to get the money in the bill. That, of course, is important, because we have read about the great problems we have with foster care; typical of foster care problems around the country, but we know about them in the District of Columbia. The District, of course, appreciates the $16 million for emergency preparedness in this bill. That is an important start. But for all the help those funds bring, I do want to remind this House that you have understood that you should give extra money to the Capitol Police because they are first responders of a kind. But I want to remind the Congress that you really have only one first responder. You have only one fire department and you have one big city police department. That is the District of Columbia. We have very little money in the House bill. The District is vastly underprepared for any emergency in the District of Columbia that involves the Federal presence. But I want to remind you that your first responder for this House, for this Capitol, for the White House, and for the entire Federal presence is the District of Columbia first responders. And while I appreciate the start we have with the $16 million, this is money that is urgently needed if you are serious about emergency preparedness. Finally, Mr. Speaker, I must speak about an important breakthrough and unacceptable attachments on this bill. This is a huge breakthrough in this bill with the commonsense decision of 41 Republicans to join Democrats in allowing the District to use its own funds for implementing its own domestic partnership bill. I want to thank my friends on both sides of the aisle for this expression of bipartisanship. The limited and moderated legislation allows partners to sign on to the city's health plan of the partner, at the full expense of the partner, with no public expense. It is especially important to mention it this year because it is compassionate and necessary at a time when there are there are already 40 million people without health insurance, many being added as I speak, of course, because there are such a large number of people with AIDS and with infections climbing every day. Having praised the House for that wonderful breakthrough, let me speak about two unacceptable losses. I appreciate that we have eliminated some of the busy work for police on the needle exchange private program in the District. But barring the city from spending its own money to keep AIDS from being transmitted throughout the community, especially where it is growing most, among women and children, is the functional equivalent of a death sentence, and this House ought to understand it. It adds to the incursion into our business the notion of a life-and-death issue, and it shows that the House is refusing to value the human life involved, even though every reputable scientific authority has advised and 115 localities have indeed allowed these programs. I just put the House on notice, I will simply not give up until we are allowed to use our own money to save the lives of our own residents the way other Americans are. Finally, we have done something in this bill that we should be especially ashamed of. We have said, look, D.C., you can spend your own money on lobbying anything you want to lobby on. You want to lobby on some more money for this or some more money for that, go ahead. But you do not spend one red dime to lobby for your own rights. Not a dime to lobby for statehood and not a dime to lobby for voting rights. My friend, this Congress has just failed, at least this House has, the test of credibility of all that rhetoric of the past few months on the fight for freedom; and a way of life central to our way of life, surely central to our freedom, is full voting representation in the Congress for all taxpaying Americans and full democracy and equal treatment as that of other States. Be on notice of that one, too. We will not rest until the ban on spending our own money raised from our own taxpayers to pursue our own rights is lifted. With that I want to thank both the chairman and the ranking member for their long and great patience until we finally arrived here to the best bill in many years.

Ms. NORTON

Ms. NORTON. Madam Speaker, I rise in strong support of H.R. 2305, the Criminal Justice Coordinating Council Restructuring Act of 2001, a bill to strengthen the District of Columbia Criminal Justice Coordinating Council by ensuring federal participation and funds. I want to thank the Chair of the D.C. Subcommittee, Representative Connie Morella, for working closely with me to develop this measure. In 1998, the District of Columbia Financial Authority (control board) created the D.C. Criminal Justice Coordinating Council (CJCC). The goal of the CJCC was to coordinate criminal justice activities between the various federal and D.C. agencies that have responsibility for different aspects of the criminal justice system in D.C. This coordination is essential because following the passage of the District of Columbia Revitalization and Self Government Improvement Act (Revitalization Act) in 1997, most of the District's criminal justice entities are either federal agencies, or D.C. agencies funded by the federal government. In the Revitalization Act, the District exchanged its traditional static federal payment for the federal funding of several functions normally funded by states. These functions included such criminal justice matters as prisons, offender supervision, public defender service, and courts. Currently, there are 13 agencies with responsibilities for some aspect of D.C.'s criminal justice system. These agencies can be broken down into three categories: (1) D.C. agencies that are D.C. funded: the Metropolitan Police Department, Office of the Corporation Counsel, Department of Corrections, and Office of the Chief Medical Examiner; (2) federal agencies that are federally funded: the Office of the U.S. Attorney, the Bureau of Prisons, the U.S. Marshals Service, the U.S. Parole Commission, Court Services and Offender Supervision Agency, D.C. Pretrial Services Agency; and (3) D.C. agencies that are federally funded: the Superior Court, the Public Defender Service and the Office of the Corrections Trustee. All of these agencies are members of the CJCC in addition to the Mayor's Office and the Council of the District of Columbia. The goal of the CJCC is to provide a forum to identify and resolve coordination issues that arise in the D.C. criminal justice system and to help implement criminal justice reforms. The Fiscal Year 2000 District of Columbia Appropriations Act mandated that the General Accounting Office (GAO) perform a study to examine the effectiveness of coordination among the various entities charged with the operation of the District's criminal justice system. GAO released its report, entitled D.C. Criminal Justice System: Better Coordination Needed Among Participating Agencies in March 2001. On May 11, 2001, the D.C. Subcommittee held an oversight hearing to examine the coordination of criminal justice activities in the District of Columbia and the GAO report. GAO found that the CJCC is the ``primary venue in which D.C. criminal justice agencies can identify and address interagency coordination issues.'' The CJCC has worked on many such issues, including positive identification of arrestees, halfway house operations, and drug treatment of defendants. GAO praised the CJCC for its work on coordination projects where all participants stood to gain, such as data sharing and technology issues among agencies. However, GAO found that the CJCC was less successful on projects where one agency stood to gain at the expense of another, because the CJCC operates by the consent of the members and does not contain an enforcement mechanism. GAO cited numerous projects where poor coordination led to inefficient operations and poor program performance. One example discussed at length in GAO report is case processing. In the District of Columbia, as many as six agencies are responsible for processing a case before a court appearance on a felony charge can occur. Unlike many jurisdictions, the U.S. Attorney's office requires officers to meet with prosecutors personally before they determine whether to charge an arrestee with a felony or misdemeanor. GAO found that during 1999, the equivalent of 23 full time officers were devoted to these appearances, reducing the number of officers on patrol. GAO cautioned that although the CJCC had been funded by the D.C. control board, the board did not include funding for the CJCC in the District's Fiscal Year 2001 budget. The last remaining staff person, working almost exclusively on technology issues, was funded by a grant. GAO recommended that ``Congress . . . consider funding CJCC--with its own director and staff--to help coordinate the D.C. criminal justice system, and to require CJCC to report annually to Congress, the Attorney General, and the D.C. Mayor.'' In addition, GAO found that as of November 2000, the CJCC and other agencies reported ``93 initiatives for improving the operation of the [D.C. criminal justice] system.'' Although GAO stipulated that many of these coordination projects are ongoing and therefore cannot yet be fully evaluated, it found that of the 93 current projects there were 62 instances where participating agencies did not agree on the initiative's goals (11 instances), status (10 instances), starting date (1 instance), participating agencies (22 instances), or results to date (18 instances). Several of the CJCC members disputed these findings, explaining that GAO did not examine closely enough the actual work performed on these projects and merely relied on summaries provided by the participants that may have appeared inconsistent. However, GAO found that ``this lack of agreement underscores a lack of coordination among the participating agencies that could reduce the effectiveness of these initiatives.'' GAO therefore recommended that Congress require all D.C. criminal justices agencies to report multi-agency activities to the CJCC, which would serve as a ``clearinghouse'' for these initiatives. Although members of the CJCC agree that coordination among the various agencies that have responsibility for the District's criminal justice system needs to be improved, several members disagreed with GAO's recommendation for a congressionally created and funded entity to oversee coordination and reform initiatives. For example, Deputy Mayor Margaret Nedelkoff Kellems, formerly the Executive Director of the CJCC, wrote in response to the GAO report, ``It has been my experience [however] that to the extent that reforms have taken root in the District through the CJCC, it has been not only because of coordination resources, but equally because the member agencies have felt ownership over the body. As reporting to the new entity you describe becomes a requirement, criminal justice agencies might perceive it to be threatening and respond on a perfunctory basis. Nevertheless, I concur in your basic premise that there must be a coordinating organization and it must have dedicated resources.'' Similarly, Superior Court Chief Judge Rufus King wrote, ``it is important that any successor [to the CJCC] not become a ``superagency'' which dictates to the different criminal justice agencies what the agenda should be or how problems which involve more than one agency should be approached . . . The most important thing to preserve in any newly constituted council is that it remain a council of independent agencies who are able to recognize their responsibilities to different funding authorities.'' Finally, former U.S. Attorney Wilma Lewis offered the following criticism of GAO's recommendation: ``I have some concern about your proposal that Congress `consider requiring that all D.C. criminal justice initiatives that could potentially involve more than one agency be coordinated through the new independent entity' . . . I question whether such review is necessary for all initiatives that could potentially involve more than one agency. Given the interrelatedness of agencies in our system, it is difficult to think of any initiative--no matter how limited in scope or application--that would not fit that definition and require review by that entity. As such, I am concerned that such a requirement would be counterproductive, as it would hamstring each agency's ability to implement policies and practices within its appropriate sphere of activity.'' The Criminal Justice Coordinating Council Restructuring Act meets these concerns of District actors while at the same time ensuring that supremacy clause and federalism notions are respected. Specifically, the bill recognizes the Criminal Justice Coordinating Council (CJCC) as the appropriate entity set up by District legislation (the Criminal Justice Coordinating Council for the District of Columbia Establishment Act of 2001) to coordinate criminal justice activities in the District. In addition, the bill requires that federal agencies with a role in criminal justice matters in the District, including Court Services and Offender Supervision (CSOSA), Pretrial Services Agency, Office of the U.S. Attorney, the Bureau of Prisons, and the United States Parole Commission, serve on the CJCC, to participate in its activities and take such action as may be necessary to fulfill their duties on the CJCC. However, no District official can compel a federal official to take any action. The bill also authorizes federal funds to carry out the duties of the CJCC. This measure will strengthen and enhance the CJCC as a vital coordination entity for the District's multi-jurisdictional criminal justice system. I once again thank Chairwoman Morella for her leadership in bringing this important legislation to the floor. I urge its passage.

Ms. NORTON

Ms. NORTON. I thank the gentleman for yielding me this time and for his generous words, and I rise in strong support of the Obey amendment in its entirety. Do my colleagues know what had to be done to get in the Obey amendment? There had to be a showing that these funds, to be spent in 2002, would be spent under a strict definition of emergency preparedness. September 11 woke Congress up to who its own first responder is. It is the emergency personnel of the District of Columbia. Sure, they are responders for 600,000 residents who live here, but they are also responders for hundreds of thousands of Federal employees, for the Congress, for the Supreme Court, for the entire Federal presence. There are two cities here joined at the hip, and both are dependent on police, fire and emergency help from the District of Columbia, for which those personnel are dangerously underprepared. There is virtually no equipment equal to responding to September 11 or bioterror attacks. To make matters worse, the District is just coming out of the worst financial crisis in its history, where much of its first responder equipment for the hometown was taken down. Because so much was at stake, the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey) placed equipment and training for first responder to terrorist attacks here for the District of Columbia. It is folly to delay this funding, my colleagues. Look at the kinds of things that are being funded. Personal protective equipment and chemical and biological detection equipment for D.C.'s police and fire personnel. Why? Because we cannot expect personnel to go into terror and bioterror sites unprotected. Would we not be reluctant? Antidote kits for nerve agents. First response land line communications. Those who say come back next time ought to understand that this is the kind of equipment that we are talking about, equipment that would be needed tomorrow, Health Department onsite response for this place and for the entire District of Columbia. The bill going through here for emergency preparedness has already included the District of Columbia. It is time we put the District of Columbia in our appropriations so that we can fight whatever is necessary.

Ms. NORTON

Ms. NORTON. Madam Speaker, I want to welcome my colleagues back after the Thanksgiving recession. While they were gone, Christmas almost got canceled; but this morning, there is a reversal of the Secret Service decision to close the National Christmas Tree lighting to the public, I believe because the White House intervened. I very much appreciate it, if that is what happened. With a little more thought, the White House could reverse the decision to deny access to the beautiful Christmas tree decorations in the White House itself. For example, if people were to leave their Social Security numbers ahead of time, as visitors do now, we could give at least some access. The House needs to follow suit and begin tours of the Capitol again. This, too, is not rocket science. It is particularly inappropriate for the people's House to continue to deny access. Let us resume the Christmas spirit that has always been a part of the Nation's Capitol, and especially of the people's House. Let the people into this House and into this Capitol.N O T I C E Effective January 1, 2002, the subscription price of the Congressional Record will be $422 per year or $211 for six months. Individual issues may be purchased for $5.00 per copy. The cost for the microfiche edition will remain $141 per year with single copies remaining $1.50 per issue. This price increase is necessary based upon the cost of printing and distribution. Michael F. DiMario, Public Printer

Ms. NORTON

Ms. NORTON. Madam Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman for yielding me this time; and I especially thank my good friends and colleagues, especially the women of the House and the Senate, who have taken the leadership on this important bill. There have been lots of wonderful and sincere words on women's rights in the new Afghanistan. What is important about this bill is that it gives these words some teeth. And teeth will be needed. Anyone who looks at the unique oppression that women and children have suffered in Afghanistan will understand that they will not automatically be free when Afghanistan is liberated. We should remind everybody concerned that the United States of America made victory in Afghanistan possible. We have an obligation, we ourselves, to help make that victory apply to women and children as well; and that is well beyond the indispensable restoration of freedom and equality. After all, let us be real. Afghanistan is now one of the poorest societies in the world. People are hijacking trucks just to get enough to eat. Women and children do not act that way. To the victors always belong the spoils. And in a society that has been especially brutal to women, we have every reason to believe that will continue to be the case. The first to be denied in Afghanistan have been women and children. It is despicable how everything from food to health care have been denied women and children, who got what little there was left over, not what there was to be had. What this bill essentially does is to target assistance for women and children. Otherwise, there is no reason to believe that automatically a society which has featured, above all, male macho will revert to equality for women and children. There has to be some march forward, some encouragement of equal opportunity. Men in Afghanistan, let us face it, are going to see the victory as theirs, not the victory of the United States of America, not the victory of the United Nations, and certainly not the victory of women and children. Afghanistan must rebuild its own society on the basis of freedom and equality. However, we do have a right, I think we have earned the right to insist that these important goals apply not only to all the indigenous groups but to all the women and children in all the indigenous groups. We have an obligation to help reverse Taliban rule that has assured that women and children would be last. This is the way to help rebuild family life in Afghanistan.

Ms. NORTON

Ms. NORTON. Mr. Speaker, I come to the floor this afternoon not only to wish a happy holiday to my colleagues, but to ask them this Thanksgiving to carry a message home. I ask my colleagues to ask their constituents to visit them and visit their Nation's capital. This is one way to send a visible, powerful message to the terrorists. Let them see Americans streaming into their capital to show they simply cannot be terrorized. The city has been hurt by September 11 because September 11 continues for us. It simply has not stopped. First came September 11. But then came the shutdown of National Airport, the only airport in the United States to be shut down, and it was shut down for 3 entire weeks. Try to think of your hometown without an airport. Then came fear of flying and then fear of anthrax. Nothing has happened in our city and in our country since September 11. The only people to be struck by anthrax are those who worked in the back room of Brentwood. Even those who opened the envelope in the Hart Building have not gotten the disease. Surely people coming to the city have nothing to fear. The closedown of the airport and the anthrax scare were a one- two punch right at the gut of the Nation's capital. Mr. Speaker, I am not asking for funds for the Nation's capital. I am asking for Members' constituents to visit the capital of the United States. I spoke to a student group on the Mall last Saturday, and I am speaking to a group of teachers and principals this Saturday from around the country. No student should graduate from high school without coming to the Nation's capital, and yet there have been cancellation after cancellation of student tours. The capital needs your help. In the D.C. Subcommittee we learned that double-digit unemployment may be predicted here, 10,000 small businesses hanging on, half of our hotel and restaurant workers out of work. This is heartbreaking because the Nation's capital was doing so well coming out of a control board period. But now we are on the front line of the homeland war. Of course, we need a targeted stimulus for the Nation's capital like New York got, but we are not asking for that this afternoon. We are asking you to help us let the free market do it. Bring the tourists back. Remind your constituents that your capital is open for business and you want to see them in your offices, you want to see them and begin to have the same kind of dialogue with them that you had before September 11. Tell them to visit, not to cancel. Tell them there are bargains here now, bargains there will not be here a year from now. Of course, tours are not available in the Capitol and I very much regret that. But we are coming up to the point where tours once again will be available. In any case, they can come and sit in the gallery, they can come to your office and they can come and walk around the Capitol on their own. This is not the time for Americans to turn their back on their own capital. A war in our homeland is the time precisely to come to the capital. As a little girl growing up during World War II, this capital was crowded with people from all over the United States, people in the service, civilians. It was a bustle of activity. It needs to be a bustle of activity today not only because the capital needs the capital that people would bring in the form of funds, but it needs the bustle of activity in order to help the country return to normalcy. Members going home to their constituents can lead the way. If they hear from you, the leader in your district, that it is safe to come to Washington, you can help wipe away fear of anthrax, and especially fear of flying now that we have passed the airline security bill so proudly here this afternoon. When you come back, bring some of your constituents with you to the Nation's capital. Happy Thanksgiving.

Ms. NORTON

Ms. NORTON. Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman for his words and for his initiative on this resolution. It is the kind of initiative he has consistently shown since he has been a Member of Congress, and I appreciate the hard work of the gentleman from New York (Mr. McHugh). I bring both Members the appreciation of the residents of the District of Columbia, in particular. I have just come from the official Postal Service memorial for two brave and dedicated postal workers who died while getting anthrax at our own Brentwood Post Office. The postmaster was there, the homeland security Secretary was there, All Souls Unitarian Church was full of postal workers, and Members of Congress spoke. But Madam Speaker, the most touching words, the most profound statements, came from two men who knew the two postal workers, Joseph Curseen and Thomas Morris. They told us they were strong Christian men and dedicated postal workers. I read from the resolution before us today that the postal workers had done an outstanding job of delivering mail during this time of national emergency because I knew that the postal workers, there were so many of them there, would appreciate knowing Congress recognized their service during this time, and especially after two of their number had been among the first to fall in the homeland war. But I believe, Madam Speaker, that they especially appreciated section 2 of this resolution, which says, in so many words, that Congress will work with the Postal Service to assure the safety and well-being of our postal workers. Let me say how much I appreciate the efforts being taken already. The Postal Service has found an alternative site to Brentwood. We need to speed, and we are already about finding ways to assure the safety of postal workers and to protect people who receive mail. As Members might imagine, there is particular anxiety in this city about that. Whatever it takes, we simply must do. I want to bring to the Members' attention an experience I had. I was on my race walk on Capitol Hill, where I live, on Saturday; and I saw a postal worker beside his postal truck. I did what I am sure everybody does: I stopped to shake his hand and to say thank you. He said he was pleased that I took the time to do that; but he stopped to say to me, Congresswoman, we still do not have a labor contract. Madam Speaker, the National Association of Letter Carriers, the National Association of Rural Letter Carriers, and the American Postal Workers are working now without a contract. I have to tell the Members today, as we sat there with an overload of postal workers, they are not happy campers. They are frustrated workers. I know this resolution is much appreciated and certainly much deserved. The victims compensation amendment, which the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Gephardt), our leader, introduced, and I am an original cosponsor, making it so victims of anthrax may also benefit from the Victims Compensation Fund, that is all very important. It is the kind of thoughtfulness this Congress has shown throughout this crisis since September 11. But Madam Speaker, all the memorials in the world, all the resolutions, and even this very important one, and even the funds, as well placed as they are, cannot do what a finished contract would do for these workers. The Postal Service is in a lot of trouble itself, so I understand why there are tough negotiations. Even given that, the Postal Service would go far in encouraging postal workers today, who still work at some risk, and we still cannot entirely guarantee their safety and security, we would go far if we would implement this resolution, because we may need to do so with funds, with a way to help them sign their contract before Christmas. That would be one way to do something for these hundreds of thousands of workers. If I may say so, perhaps it would be the most important way to do something for them.

Ms. NORTON

Ms. NORTON. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding time to me. Mr. Speaker, unacceptable is what this bill is; but I rise to support the motion to instruct and am pleased to see that we can get bipartisanship on something on this motion to instruct. Mr. Speaker, we do need quick resolution of this matter; but we have dug ourselves a hole, because if we look at the way the Congress has voted overwhelmingly, the Congress has voted against the House bill. If we put the Senate together with the House Democrats, how are we going to get some kind of compromise? My hat is off to those who try, but we must do so. We must do so in no small part because this industry is failing because people will not get in planes. Why should they? People want one system. The reason they want Federal employees is they think they will get one system. This industry is failing at a time when it was already in trouble and when the latest unemployment figures tell us that the whole Nation is in trouble. We knew the unemployment figures would be bad. They are much worse than we thought they would be. Getting people into these planes, giving them the confidence to get into these planes is indeed just the kind of stimulus we need. We need it before Thanksgiving. What has happened to the District of Columbia is going to happen to your town as well. When people will not get in planes, then tourism goes down. Virtually every place, large and small, in the country today is a tourist destination. If my colleagues have a rock in their district then it is a tourist destination, but nobody is coming there. Our tourism industry is flat, broken down, gone, because of fear of flying. What will it take to get people in the air? What will it take to get them to the pre-September 11 notion that they can fly wherever they want to? We have got to get to the notion that we have a bill that means they are safe. We have got to fix this bill with Federal employees. We have got to let this bill fly, but it must fly right.

Ms. NORTON

Ms. NORTON. Mr. Speaker, I rise to draw to the attention of the House the words of a distinguished American, Vernon Jordan. In this House, he is well known through the major roles that chart his extraordinary life: civil rights worker, civil rights leader, leading lawyer, international investment banker. Mr. Jordan's life will be understood through his own words in his autobiography entitled Vernon Can Read, just released and excerpted in the October 29th issue of Newsweek. However, Mr. Speaker, in light of what September 11 brought down on our country, what I want to submit for the Record today is a remarkable, recent speech by Mr. Jordan to the First Congregational United Church of Christ located in his hometown, Atlanta, Georgia. I can only imagine how the hometown congregation must have received these inspiring and thoughtful words from Vernon, whom they saw off to DePauw University as a boy and have seen him return as one of the nation's wise men. I have no doubt that Mr. Jordan is also so regarded by this House and ask that excerpts from his remarks be made a part of today's Record. First Congregational Church in Atlanta Thank you, for inviting me here today and for this opportunity to join you for your homecoming service. For what I am and what I have achieved, I owe that experience and to the people who guided me while I have run this race . . . through all of life's trials and tribulations, joys and triumphs. I had planned to talk about those people today . . . about my parents who steered me on a straight and narrow path . . . about my teachers at Walker Street, E.A. Ware and David T. Howard High Schools, the counselors at the Butler Street YMCA . . . and about the role of the black church, and its historic mission as a beacon of hope and opportunity for black people. But like all Americans, my thoughts this past fortnight have been elsewhere. My thoughts have been with those many thousands of innocent victims of horror . . . with their families and friends . . . and with our wounded nation. My thoughts have been about how we got to this perilous situation . . . what we must do to overcome it . . . and of the need to affirm our values--especially as those values come under attack from the forces of evil. The world has changed radically in the past decade. It is a world that has become more complex and more integrated than ever. The great worldwide division of the past half-century was the struggle between communism and freedom. Freedom won. The American model of freedom and free markets is now the world's model. But freedom's victory is being tested in a world of diverse cultural, social, and economic traditions. The giant leap forward of technology and free trade have left many behind. The pervasive march of modernity disrupts traditional cultures. Worldwide migrations sharpen culture clashes. The industrial world ages while the developing world's population growth strains its ability to feed or employ its people. The power of new multinational institutions--the European Union, the World Trade Organization, worldwide corporations, and mass media, among others--breed resentment and distrust. About the only constant is the craving for full participation in political decisions that affect people's lives and in the economic decisions that affect their livelihoods. That is why many people believe the rush for markets and profits leads to exploitation, unemployment and human suffering. Americans, who have benefitted from the triumph of markets, dismiss such feelings at our peril. For our vision of a fair, democratic capitalist society must include social justice and equitable division of the benefits of the free market. Absent that, there is a tendency toward a turning within, a rejection of the outside world and modern ways, a rush to a form of traditionalism that wallows in envy and hate--a traditionalism that is not only economically counterproductive, but reflects insularity and deep mistrust of all outsiders. Broadening the base of freedom and prosperity should be a cornerstone of America's policy. Not only because it might shrink the numbers of disaffected who can be recruited for terrorism. But because it is the right thing to do, the just thing, the moral thing. And it is also practical, for the more people who are productive and well-fed and housed, the higher everyone's living standards will be. The world over. But it is easy for many of us to be so fixed upon existing poverty and injustices that we confuse case and effect. They are not the causes of terrorism. A hatred of modernity and a love of evil are the causes of terrorism. And in this world, as we have so painfully seen, there is no hiding place from terrorism. It is good to remember that at a homecoming service whose theme is ``For the Glory of God and the Good of Humankind.'' For destroying innocent lives has nothing to do with the good of humankind and everything to do with pure, unadulterated evil. Our response to the evil of September Eleventh is very clear. By definition, those acts were acts of war. By the principles of international law, self-defense and common sense, we will strike back at the networks of terrorists who attacked us, the networks that support them and are committed to harm us, and the governments that give them shelter, arms and resources. War is a terrible thing. No one in his or her right mind wants it. But if it is forced upon us--as it has been--it must be pursued as Jeremiah says, with ``fury like fire, and burn that none can quench it, because of the evil of your doings.'' Even as we do so, we must be clear about what we are fighting for and why. For many Americans today, gripped by shock and trauma, simple revenge is enough. But great causes cannot be rooted in negativism. Nor can they be driven by raw emotions. We did not go into World War II solely to avenge Pearl Harbor or because the Nazis were bad. We went to war--and won that war to defend freedom and democracy from those who would replace it with tyranny and despotism. Yes, our democracy was flawed. But our affirmation of democracy during World War II set the stage for its expansion and growth in the post-war era. Now we are called upon to defend freedom from chaos and mindless terror. This new kind of war will be long and difficult, for the enemy is elusive and as we have seen, modern societies are highly vulnerable. We will win that war if we fight for our American values and if we act consistent with those values. If we defeat them militarily but in the process become less free, less open--they will have won. Such measures are part of being at war and they are acceptable limitations so long as our basic freedoms are intact. We must not allow the inroads on those basic freedoms that can happen in times of national emergency. In World War One, there was a ``Red Scare'' in which the government ignored constitutional rights like freedom of speech. In World War Two, Japanese Americans, including U.S. citizens were forced into detention camps. Such things happen during wartime, when feelings run high. They must not happen again. For even if we win battles, we would lose the war. We must be on guard against subverting our constitution and our civil liberties in the name of defending the constitution and liberty. The terrorists who turned civilian planes into destructive missiles were sending a message. It was a message that was not addressed to the White House or the Pentagon or to Wall Street. It was addressed ``to whom it may concern'' and that means all Americans and all free people. But they are all Americans. And in the eyes of the terrorists, they all stand for values that are central to the American fabric. And that was enough to make them targets. Just as you and I and all our loved ones are targets now. Black Americans hold America's values dearly. At times, it seemed as if we were the only ones who did. When this nation was in the grip of racism and segregation, it was black people who reminded America of its basic values of freedom and democracy. It was black Americans who helped America to close the gap between its beliefs and its practices. And America has responded to our pleas and our demands by changing. Not as fast as we might wish. Not as willingly as we hoped. But change it was. We must understand that change and help moved it forward. For we cannot be frozen in a bitter past; we cannot forever lick yesterday's wounds. And if we have done so much when we had so little, think how much more we can do now that we have so much more. We have in fact changed the face of American and the world. We are a great people, and we are patriotic Americans. Take heart from our glorious past and be encouraged by it because it can inspire us to understand the great things we can do when we come together to do them.

Ms. NORTON

Ms. NORTON. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding me this time. Mr. Chairman, there is a lot of, if my colleagues will forgive me, flying on the vote on the Oberstar substitute. It is as if one wing said passenger safety and the other wing said economic recovery. On September 11, we paid a very high price in human lives when planes went down. Since then we have been paying the price in jobs and empty airline seats. The planes are up, but 20 percent of the passenger loads is down and 40 percent of the revenue is down. Unless we help people conquer the new fear of flying, more planes will be grounded and more jobs lost. September 11 taught us that we must not have one standard of personal safety in the air and another standard on the ground. The average American has just one question for us this evening, and that is are we doing everything humanly possible to maximize safe air travel. Sadly, not with the Republican bill. We cannot make government accountable for the people's safety by cloaking a private employee in red, white and blue. If it quacks like a contractor it cannot walk like a law enforcement officer. There is only one way to have one system of care and accountability coast to coast and that is with one Federal employer. My good Republican friends are fond of saying that the only indispensable function of government is national security. For heaven's sake, do not cop out on national security in the air for the American people. Support the bipartisan Senate bill and substitute.

Ms. NORTON

Ms. NORTON. Mr. Speaker, everybody knows we are in a recession. What America knows is that this body is deepening that recession by the delay in our airline security bill. There is a new fear of flying and there are enormous disincentives to flying that are having an atrocious effect on our economy. What will it take to make the pictures of September 11 and the Twin Towers recede? People want something close to a guarantee that it will not happen again, guarantees we cannot give them. What we can give them is a uniform system of public accountability for screening and airline safety. By definition, private contractors are not uniform. That, indeed, is one of their advantages. They give us diversity. It is not diversity we need when it comes to screening and airline safety. What the public is demanding in order to get them back in the air is that we maximize uniformity and that we maximize accountability. The only way to do that is to federalize in the air the way law enforcement operates on the ground.

Ms. NORTON

Ms. NORTON. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Pallone) for yielding. This morning a very important development occurred in the work of the world to build toward a post-Taliban regime in Afghanistan that will be democratic. A group of Afghan women asked to be included in talks concerning a new democratic government in Afghanistan. Women are the oppressed people of Afghanistan. There can be no freedom there if the United Nations and the United States do not yield to this plea of Afghan women. I believe I know what segregation, racial segregation is because I grew up in the segregated District of Columbia. I believe I know what racial apartheid was in South Africa. I was one of the first four people to go into the embassy which led to many people being arrested and finally sanctions and the end of apartheid. But what we are seeing in Afghanistan is something I have never seen up close before. It is gender apartheid. That is very different from gender inequality which is, of course, universal. Gender apartheid as we are seeing in Afghanistan is much like the stigmatization we saw in Nazi Germany or to slavery. Indeed, the women in Afghanistan have been essentially converted into slaves. All the elements of slavery are there. They cannot work. They cannot go to school. They cannot go to universities. They cannot even leave home except in the company of a man. It has become shameful to be a woman. You are covered from head to toe, not just your face and head as so many religions require, but every part of you. It is shameful to be seen as a woman. All the physical aspects of slavery are there, public flogging, selling into prostitution, women taken by commanders as wives, killing, indeed, for those who violate Taliban decrees. What makes this especially tragic in Afghanistan is that pre-Taliban, in some way, Afghan women were more advanced than women in most advanced countries. Half of the university students were women, 40 percent of the doctors, half the health care workers, 70 percent of the teachers. All that is gone. That is all merit and hard work brought down. The Afghan Constitution guaranteed freedom and equality to women, as our Constitution does not explicitly. That was suspended in 1992. Now, 75 percent of the refugees are women and children. I am not surprised that a regime propped by people who use planes as missiles to take down innocent people would treat their own women as chattel. I would be surprised, I would be very disappointed and I do not believe we can let happen if our government does not insist that the liberation of Afghanistan must include the liberation of its women. Any future government talks must have the women of Afghanistan at the table.

Ms. NORTON

Ms. NORTON. Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to be back here where I feel most at home, on the House floor, and have felt that way for more than a decade now, especially tonight when we have had an Earth- shattering experience here in the District, just when the 600,000 people who live here were getting a grip. I speak, of course, of the death of two postal workers unexpectedly that has come down upon us. Mr. Speaker, I come to the floor also to say that no city has had a greater number of direct consequences from the September 11 attack than the District of Columbia: The closure of National Airport; the shutdown of our major industry, tourism, the only real industry we have got here except government; the closure of the House; anthrax scares and now anthrax deaths. Like most of you, I know my constituents look to me, they have to look to me for leadership, especially in times of crisis. I am trying to help my people move on to avoid panic, and I need the help of this House and of the entire Congress. My folks are being very brave when you consider what they have encountered. I have just come from D.C. General Hospital where Majority Leader Daschle, Mr. Sarbanes, Ms. Mikulski of Maryland, Mayor Williams, and all of us gathered to inspect the facility where postal workers are receiving Cipro. We pray for the families of those who have died from Brentwood and of those who have come down with the disease there and on the Hill. I must tell you that the postal workers there were amazingly calm, in their uniforms, simply ready to get their Cipro and go on with their work. But, Mr. Speaker, the 24-hour cable and the announcement that health officials have to make, public officials have to make, warning postal workers and Americans of danger have eclipsed any messages that we are Americans and we have got to go on with our lives and not be terrorized by terror. The leadership role those of us in the Congress, all of us who are public officials, must play in times like this compels us to help our people get their balance, avoid paralysis, panic, and pain. We have got to start reminding our folks not only of the danger but that most of us are safe. Yes, I am struggling with the grief of two who died here; but at the same time, I tell my people that the two who died here of anthrax which gives flu-like symptoms, that 10,000 die of flu every year. We have got to put this into some perspective or else we are simply going to help paralyze our own people. We have got to remind them that the Nation's capital is the best protected city in the world notwithstanding the anthrax deaths. We have got to help the people of this city and of the United States get past this. We have got to help them understand that the House and the Senate and the Congress will soon be safe enough for all to come and see. Above all, we have got to send a message that yes, school children can come again to their Nation's capital and can come to their Congress. I ask for your help in getting out to the people of this city and to the American people messages of reassurance that all now hunger for.

Ms. NORTON

Ms. NORTON. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me this time and also for his work in bringing forward this bill, and I thank the gentlewoman from Virginia as well for her work. I am particularly grateful to the gentlewoman from California, the worthy successor of Julian Dixon, for her work early in her term in bringing forward a bill that she will find unanimous agreement on, I am almost sure, in this body. Mr. Speaker, we like to think that post offices are named on the basis of sheer merit. I am not prepared to speak in the aggregate, but I will vouch for this one. No one was prepared for the sudden death of Julian Dixon, or for that matter of any Member; and when Julian died, he brought a huge plane load of people from both parties to California to his funeral. Least prepared, of course, were his own constituents, if I may say so, and a close second were the residents of the District of Columbia, whom he served for 15 years as Chair of the Subcommittee on the District of Columbia of the Committee on Appropriations. It should be enough to have a post office named for you because you were a good Member, or even that you served two districts, the way Julian did, his own preeminently, but also the District of Columbia; but I would like to put forward four reasons why I think this courthouse naming is especially merited: the unique institutional role that Julian carved out in the Congress, his prolific work as a model legislator, his unique service to the District of Columbia, and the character and collegiality of this man, one of our most admired in this House. First, institutionally. Julian not only served his constituents with the most extraordinary excellence, he served this institution uniquely. He was Chair of the Committee on Standards of Official Conduct when the Speaker of his party was brought before the committee, and he was a Member of the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence advising on the security of the United States of America. Very difficult assignments, which he performed, passionate man though he was, with such balance and nonpartisanship that his stature grew in this House to a towering dimension. He served on both these committees at very difficult periods in the life of this body. Second, his work as a legislator and as a model for other Members, Julian was fifth on the Committee on Appropriations when he died. He had been named one of 12 unsung heroes for his sheer ability to gather support for his position on appropriations and in the Congress. Of course, he brought millions of dollars to his own district in California; but he will be remembered just as much as the architect of appropriations in the national interest, especially civil rights. Third, his unique role in service to the Nation's Capital. Here was a labor of love, Mr. Speaker. Because you get nothing for being Chair of the Subcommittee on the District of Columbia. Of course, this was a native Washingtonian whose parents took him to California. That should have been enough for Julian to say ``bye-bye, D.C.'' Instead, he, in fact, for 14 years, worked tough love with great respect for self- government and democracy in the Nation's Capital. Finally, the man himself. Here is a Member who ranks among the most admired. If there were a list of all-time most admired, Julian Dixon is going to be right up there near the top. Why? Character, temperament, for collegiality, for intelligence, for hard work. He was a man of few words. He did not jump up on this House floor every time we were in session just to say what everybody else was already saying. And people, therefore, listened, stopped to listen, stopped to hear, because they knew when Julian spoke it was worth hearing. In naming a courthouse for Julian Dixon, we only begin the process of honoring a man of the House who always will be remembered, I believe, in the House that he loved.

Ms. NORTON

Ms. NORTON. Mr. Speaker, today I am introducing a bill to give the mayor of the District of Columbia the same authority over the National Guard as the Governors of all 50 states. This bill is another important step necessary to complete the transfer of full self-government powers to the District of Columbia that Congress itself began with the passage of the Home Rule Act of 1973. District authority over its own National Guard apparently was not raised during the Home Rule Act process. However, it was unthinkable then that there would be war in the homeland, much less terrorist threats to the nation's capital. While the National Guards in the 50 states operate under dual jurisdictions, federal and local, the D.C. National Guard (DCNG) has no local jurisdiction, no matter the local emergency. The President of the United States as the Commander-in-Chief alone has the authority to call upon the National Guard for any purpose, local or national here. Each governor, however, as the head of state, has the authority to mobilize her National Guard to protect the local jurisdiction, just as local militia have always done historically. Most often, this has meant calling upon the National Guard to restore order in the wake of civil disturbances and natural disasters. For such local emergencies, it makes sense that the governor would have exclusive control over the mobilization and deployment of the state militia, and it makes the same sense for the mayor of the District of Columbia with a population the size of that of small states, to have the same authority. The mayor of the District of Columbia, acting as head of state, should have the authority to call upon the DCNG in instances that do not rise to a level of federal importance or involvement. Currently, needless formalism requiring action by the President of the United States could endanger the life and health of D.C. residents and many more who work here in the event of an emergency. Today, the mayor must request the needed assistance from the President, who serves as the Commander-in-Chief for a local National Guard. In an emergency unique to the District, the mayor, who knows the city better than any federal official, can deploy his own National Guard only by relying on the President, who is necessarily preoccupied with national matters, including perhaps war or homeland attack. Following the September 11th terrorist attacks, the House has recognized that the District of Columbia must be an integral part of the planning, implementation, and execution, of national plans to protect city residents, federal employees, and visitors by including the District of Columbia as a separate and full partner and first responder in federal domestic preparedness legislation. Allowing the mayor control over the DCNG at a minimum demonstrates the respect for local governance and home rule that every jurisdiction that recruits members of the military to its National Guard deserves. If the mayor has local control over his own Guard, the Executive would give up nothing of his necessary control because the President would retain his right to nationalize the DCNG at will, as he can for the states. The confusion that accompanied the September 11th attack plainly showed the danger inherent in allowing bureaucratic steps to stand in the way of responding to emergencies in the nation's capital. September 11th has made local control of the DCNG an imperative. I urge my colleagues to support this bill.

Ms. NORTON

Ms. NORTON. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word. Mr. Chairman, I had an amendment at the desk which I intend to withdraw out of appreciation for the way in which Chairman Regula and Ranking Member Obey have preserved the Porter initiative to combat obesity and overweight in the American population. Originally Mr. Porter, our former colleague, for the first time placed $125 million in the 2001 budget for a program directed against obesity and overweight in children. My amendment would have sought full funding. I am very appreciative that the chairman and ranking member have kept this initiative from being defunded by placing $85 million in the 2002 budget. This is a major legacy of our former colleague, John Porter. It is something he worked on for some years and in his last year I worked with him. This initiative marks the first time the Congress has given more than token funding to the most serious, widespread health problem in the United States today, and that is overweight and obesity. Fifty percent of Americans are either overweight or are obese. At the time that this matter was on the floor last year, Chairman Porter engaged in a colloquy with me on this provision. In that colloquy, to quote briefly from it, I asked the chairman if he would agree that some of the $125 million in this Labor-HHS bill be spent on the activities specified in the LIFE bill legislation. That was my legislation, Mr. Chairman, Lifetime Improvement in Food and Exercise. Chairman Porter answered: I support the LIFE bill and believe that some of the $125 million in additional funding I have included in this appropriation bill for the CDC should be directed toward the initiatives of the LIFE legislation. The major difference in the LIFE legislation is that it applies beyond children to Americans of all ages. Americans of all ages, of all races, of all backgrounds and educational groups are experiencing this epidemic in obesity and overweight. I am pleased that the funding for the education part of this initiative has already begun. The LIFE bill would also promote training by health professionals to recognize the signs of obesity and then to recommend prevention activities and actual strategies so that people engage in exercise and other activities designed to mitigate this extraordinary problem we have in our country. The importance of this initiative springs from the fact that it is the major contributor to some of the most serious preventable diseases in the American population, everything from high cholesterol and Type II diabetes to arthritis and cancer. The fact that there has been a 100 percent increase in obesity among children in the last 15 years ought to itself make us all pause. It means that these children are on their way to death early unless somehow we can put our country on a different path, a path where people get out and walk, a path where there is less in fatty foods and caloric foods and more in the kind of ordinary, everyday exercise that can mean the difference now between life and death. I am very appreciative but not very surprised that the Chair and the ranking member of this committee would understand that to get this kind of funding finally and then to have it evaporate in a single year would have done a disservice to this very serious health problem. I am very appreciative for what they have done. I would like to work with them in future years so that we can, in fact, get this matter up to full funding. That way we will see it save much in Medicare and Medicaid, not to mention the health care bill of Americans in general.

Ms. NORTON

Ms. NORTON. Mr. Speaker, the House is pleased to welcome the Right Reverend Jane Holmes Dixon who delivered the prayer this morning. Bishop Dixon was named Bishop of Washington pro tempore, and will be the ecclesiastic authority during the search and transition for the eighth bishop of Washington. She has been suffragan bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Washington. She is a native of Winona, Mississippi, and only the second woman to hold the Office of Bishop in the Episcopal Church. All were moved after hearing Bishop Dixon at the service at Washington National Cathedral a few days after the September 11 attack on our country. This wife, this mother, this grandmother, presides over the diocese of the District of Columbia and four Maryland counties. She became a priest in 1982 and has served in churches in Maryland and Virginia. She got her doctorate of divinity in 1993 from the Virginia Theological Seminary. Bishop Dixon not only serves her church, she serves her community, she serves on the theology and urban affairs committees of the House of Bishops, she is president of the Board of the Interfaith Alliance. She is a member of a board of the Fair Housing Council of Greater Washington and a member of the Women's Forum of Washington, D.C. Bishop Dixon has been selected by the Washingtonian Magazine as one of the 100 most influential women in the Washington, D.C. area. Bishop Jane Holmes Dixon, churchwoman, citizen.

Ms. NORTON

Ms. NORTON. Mr. Chairman, I offer amendment No. 3.

Ms. NORTON. Mr. Chairman, my amendment would strike all general provisions in this bill. There are 27 in all. They include so-called social riders, and they include redundant and duplicative provisions. I recognize that the chairman has removed half of those provisions. He will be the chairman next year. If this amendment does not prevail, we can perhaps work together next year to at least rid this bill of those redundant and duplicative riders. Mr. Chairman, the Hill newspaper has an important headline this week: Congress United For Now. And the first paragraph reads: ``After a week of extraordinary bipartisanship, inspired by the terrorist attacks on New York and Washington, Members are questioning how long their unprecedented unity will last.'' I rise to ask that the appropriation for the District of Columbia not be the one that breaks this unity. We have heard of at least two riders that would break this unity. I ask that the Members hold back on breaking the unity that the Committee on Appropriations tried to preserve and that is in danger here. These general provisions that I would have struck are a fancy word for attachments, legislating on an appropriation undemocratically, against the will of the people of the District of Columbia. Most of them are so-called social riders, the riders that chairman of the subcommittee, the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Knollenberg) and chairman of the full committee, the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Young), meant when they said let those riders go this time; that the ranking members, the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey) and the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Fattah) meant when they said it is inappropriate to put such riders, attachments, to a bill of local jurisdiction. These riders are duplicated in every jurisdiction of the United States. They are laws there, they are laws here. They are almost always controversial. That is the difference between L.A. and New York, yes and the District of Columbia on the one hand and small rural areas on the other. My colleagues, this is a Federal Republic. We are one Nation. And the only reason we have been able to hold together as one Nation is we have respected diversity and difference between jurisdictions and local law according to the democratic will. It is here that we get a national consensus, not in local jurisdictions. We say to local jurisdictions, democracy means you can go your own way, we are not to intervene. That is your right as Americans. Do I have to remind this body that the 600,000 people I represent are Americans every bit as much as they, and they should demand exactly the rights that they would demand? And yet there will be abortion services denied to poor women if the riders remain, even though almost half the States allow their local jurisdictions to pay for abortions for poor women. And in any case, what my colleagues have done is to create a fund in the District of Columbia so that private funds may be used to pay for abortions for poor women, and they are regularly used. So we have not reduced abortion in that way, but may I inform this body that, on our own, we have reduced abortion. The District of Columbia is one of only three jurisdictions in the country that is being awarded extra Federal funds for reducing teen pregnancy without abortion. We are getting $25 million that almost none of the rest of my colleagues are getting because we, on our own, have reduced teen pregnancy without sending those teens to abortion clinics. We do not want those teens to go to abortion clinics. We want them to abstain. We want them to use birth control. And it is working. We, indeed, had the largest decline in teen pregnancy without the use of abortion. And let me compare what we have done in the District as my colleagues try to bar our youth from abortion with what other States have done. Forty-eight States saw increases in their unwed birth rates that make almost all of my colleagues ineligible for the bonus that the District of Columbia will get. Virginia, right next door, had their unwed birthrate climb by 2.3 percent, making Virginia number 18 in the country; and Maryland's rate climbed 3.3 percent, making them number 33 in the country. Mr. Chairman, I believe that in the name of democracy and the people I represent, I had to put this matter before the body. Mr. Chairman, I ask unanimous consent to withdraw my amendment.

Ms. NORTON. Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment to the amendment.

Ms. NORTON. Mr. Chairman, this House has just done a historic act. For the first time, it has broken through the prejudice against gay men and lesbians on this floor. It is an extraordinary moment. It is even more important than recognizing the local prerogatives of the District of Columbia. I am asking this House to do with respect to my amendment exactly as we have just voted very decisively to do in the last vote. My amendment would disallow any Federal funds for the enforcement of the provision and decision of the District of Columbia Human Rights Commission. Only local funds could be used. That is what we have just voted. Please be consistent. Mr. Chairman, this was not a knee-jerk vote by the District of Columbia Human Rights Commission. They submitted a very well-reasoned, 74-page decision which I think they can reasonably argue is very much consistent with the Supreme Court decision on this very issue. The Supreme Court says that gay men cannot interfere with the message of the Boy Scouts. The District of Columbia found that the gay men here were not strong activists of the kind that the Supreme Court recognized as interfering with the message of the Boy Scouts. Let us suppose that the District of Columbia is wrong. If the District is wrong, the Boy Scouts of America, as I speak, are pursuing their remedy. They are pursuing it because that decision was appealed on July 19. Therefore, they are now in the courts. If we proceed, we are not only undermining the local courts of the District of Columbia, which, by the way, are Federal courts, but we are undermining the independence of the Federal judiciary as well, because this decision is based on a decision of the Supreme Court of the United States; and this matter will ultimately find its way there, if it has been incorrectly decided by the District's Human Rights Commission. We interfere with the independence of the judiciary when we, the Congress of the United States, decide that a politically unpopular decision has been made and, therefore, we will politically intervene into a court decision. We do not want to do that. We do not want to go there, especially not now. So long as this matter is not settled, we ought to let it be, because there will always be another time to settle it. Suppose we do not like what the local courts find. We could come back and overturn the local courts. If, on the other hand, the Supreme Court finds that what the District of Columbia has done is consistent with Supreme Court decisions, then we will be barred and ought to be barred. The fact is, Mr. Chairman, that this amendment piles on yet another constitutional violation, because the Congress of the United States is, in fact, imposing its own one-sided views on a matter that is of constitutional import. We cannot do that. Justice Scalia himself wrote, ``The government may not regulate speech based on hostility or favoritism towards the underlying message expressed.'' If it is the underlying message that you object to, you are in violation of what Justice Scalia has said, because the amendment is not viewpoint- neutral. My amendment, on the other hand, gets the Federal Government out of this messy business, leaving only the District of Columbia to do what it is doing anyway, which is responding to the appeal. This matter will not be settled by my amendment. It still leaves to us, ultimately, if the local courts are wrong, the ability to come back next year and overturn it so long as the Supreme Court does not say that that amendment was correct. Leave this be. Vote as we have just voted on the prior amendment. Do not cast another vote against people who are gay just because they are gay.

Ms. NORTON. Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote, and pending that, I make the point of order that a quorum is not present.

Ms. NORTON. Mr. Chairman, how can anyone with a heart or mind try to keep anyone from paying money for their own health care today? Cities such as Atlanta; Scottsdale, Arizona; New Orleans, and thousands of businesses have more comprehensive domestic partnership plans than the District of Columbia. Mr. Chairman, the Weldon amendment is an expression of unadulterated bigotry. Do not mar the D.C. appropriations with ugly prejudice.

Ms. NORTON

Ms. NORTON. Mr. Speaker, may I begin by thanking the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Knollenberg), the chairman of the subcommittee, and the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Fattah), the ranking member, for their very hard work on this bill, the best bill in some time for the District of Columbia. I must say that there was a very good chance that for once we might be able to support a rule, especially since the Committee on Appropriations, to its credit, made substantial progress on the infamous social riders by voting to eliminate one that had long plagued this bill, a rider that provides for health care benefits if paid for by a partner who may be a grandmother or mother, or may be a gay person. So the Committee on Appropriations decided that wherever they stood on gay rights, it was not worth taking down everybody at a time when health care is so important and when this body has not done its job to make sure that everyone has health care. This, I say to my colleagues, is no time to make hay or to make politics over the local budget of a city. A city where Congress time and again has shown it has no expertise to get into its local budget, who could expect Congress to? I do not have any expertise on the D.C. budget. We have limited interest, and the District of Columbia respects that interest, because of the Federal presence here. My side has tried to respond to the crisis we are in. We agreed to a limited time for general debate, for example. We have agreed to limited time for amendments. Otherwise, of course, we would not be acting in the national interest. If, in fact, what we do is to crowd this bill with the usual riders, we will not only look silly, this year we would look careless and insensitive to the suffering and the felt needs of the American people. At the very least, in recognition of the uniquely serious crisis we are in, I am asking Members to forebear attachments and amendments, even if protected, which they know are opposed by D.C. law. I thank the Committee on Appropriations for, in fact, not including, not including a domestic partners rider in this bill. I ask my colleagues to respect what the Committee on Appropriations did when its position is put before us here today. After all, we are defending democratic values more than rhetorically this session. At a time when the world is watching, this body must not be seen as engaging in patently undemocratic actions such as overturning local laws against the democratic will of the people of the District of Columbia. I was prepared, absent actions taken on social riders, to support a rule this time, even with some serious imperfections; and let me say what has happened to those imperfections, because there was a puzzling decision made to delete completely noncontroversial budget provisions which had never been bothered before in the history of home rule. I brought this to the attention of the chairman and the ranking member, and I must say I am deeply appreciative for the way both have worked with me to make substantial progress. As they have had the time to study these provisions, we have made many of them consistent with the will of the Mayor and the city council of the District of Columbia. Moreover, the chairman has promised me that he will continue to work with me, even into conference, if necessary. What he has done shows very substantial good faith. He has, in his manager's amendment, included provisions that went before the Committee on Appropriations. We made very substantial progress on the remaining deletions, and the chairman had already removed 35 redundant and duplicative amendments and provisions beforehand. In other words, the chairman, the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Knollenberg), and the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Fattah), the ranking member, and I have tried to behave like grown-up Members of Congress, not able to get all we wanted, understanding that we had some disagreements, each reciprocating; and I was prepared not to object to moving forward. Mr. Speaker, I regret that this rule must be opposed. I hope that if this bill does, in fact, make it to general debate, we will respect the chairman's call. He made it known as soon as he became chairman that he would like no attachments on his bill. I recognize some have been made in order. I hope that my colleagues who have such attachments will reconsider, in light of the chairman's call. He simply wants to get his bill through. He wants to be an appropriator. If my colleagues have other matters, I am willing to take them to the D.C. City Council or to take them to the authorizing committee. Matters such as domestic partners, abortions, other matters of controversial local concern do not belong on this bill. Let us get this bill done; let us make this a banner year for D.C. We are off to a bad start on the rule. I ask my colleagues to oppose the rule. If my colleagues vote for the rule, I certainly ask my colleagues to be mindful of the fact that this is a local appropriation and to follow the lead of the Mayor of the District of Columbia and the council when it comes to how to respond to any attachments that may come forward. Once again, I thank the chairman and the ranking member for very important progress and for the respect they have shown the people and the government of the District of Columbia.

Ms. NORTON

Ms. NORTON. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong support of the bill to amend P.L. 105- 33, legislation that has done much to cure our coordinated efforts of Federal and local law enforcement officials in the Nation's capital. I want to thank the chairman of the Subcommittee on the District of Columbia (Mrs. Morella) for her leadership and her work in bringing this bill to the floor today and moving so quickly to facilitate this important bill. H.R. 2199, the District of Columbia Police Coordination Act of 2001, amends the Police Coordination Act I introduced in 1997, signed that year, by allowing those agencies not named in the original legislation to assist the Metropolitan Police Department with local law enforcement in the district. Inadvertently, P.L. 105-33 failed to make the language sufficiently open-ended to include agencies not mentioned in the original bill. Prior to the Police Coordination Act, Federal agencies often were confined to agency premises and were not able to enforce local laws on or near their premises. Instead, for example, Federal officers sometimes called 911, taking hard-pressed D.C. police officers from urgent work in neighborhoods experiencing serious crime. Federal officers were trained and willing to do the job, but lacked the authority to do so before the passage of the Police Coordination Act. When our country has been attacked, this flexibility provided to Federal police officers to pursue suspects beyond their desks is both timely and necessary. Five agencies have already signed agreements with the U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia enabling them to assist the Metropolitan Police Department, including the Federal Protective Service, the largest Federal force to participate. Now over 400 officers are assisting D.C. police. Federal agencies understand that the extension of their jurisdiction will enhance safety and security within and around their agencies, while offering needed assistance as well to District residents. The Capitol Police and Amtrak police, who have the longest experience with expanded jurisdiction, report that the morale of their officers was affected positively because of the satisfaction that comes from being integrated into efforts to reduce and prevent crime in and around their agencies and in the Nation's capital. This non-controversial technical amendment to the Police Coordination Act is another step toward achieving my goal of assuring the most efficient use of all the available police resources to protect Federal agency staff, visitors, commuters, and D.C. residents. I urge all of my colleagues to support H.R. 2199. Once again, I thank the chairman for her work on this bill. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.