Eleanor Norton

Ms. NORTON

Ms. NORTON. Mr. Speaker, I am pleased that a non-New Yorker has been able to get a word in edgewise this morning. I come to the floor as a fourth generation Washingtonian to pay tribute to a great New Yorker and a great American. Actually, I was a New Yorker. I was Chair of the New York City Human Rights Commission and I was the executive assistant to Mayor John Lindsey. The Senator introduced me when I was nominated to be the Chair of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. But I come this morning because Washingtonians would want me to come and other Americans would want me to come to thank the Senator for what he has done for the Nation's Capital, and, therefore, for his country. This is only one of the unique roles the Senator has managed to carve out in 25 years in the Senate. As an African American, I also thank him for the prescient role he played in pointing out difficulties in the black family, a position that has now been embraced by black leadership themselves. As an academic, I thank him for his work as a public intellectual. I fished out only two of the many books he has written from my bookcase this morning. How he has managed to write books and be a Senator, this academic still does not understand. The lasting monument of this great man, I must say to you, for this city and the country, is surely his work in resurrecting Pennsylvania Avenue. From the Capitol to the White House, instead of a slum, the American people now see an avenue the equivalent of the Champs Elysee. It would not have been that way were it not for the determination and the sheer persistence of Daniel Patrick Moynihan. We will not have to rename The Avenue for you, Senator, in order to remember you. We will remember your work on Pennsylvania Avenue by our ongoing work and by your remarks in your Jefferson lecture at the University of Virginia in April, where you said, ``In all a reassuring tale. An urban design, indivisible from a political-constitutional purpose, endured during two centuries and has now substantially prevailed. Pennsylvania Avenue lively, friendly and inviting. Yet of a sudden closed. Just so. In 1995, blockades went up at 14th Street and at 16th Street in front of the White House. Blockades and block houses. Armed Guards.'' We will open The Avenue for you, Senator.

Ms. NORTON

Ms. NORTON. Mr. Speaker, the Congressional Black Caucus held its annual meeting and events this past week. I rise this evening to speak about an issue that has unusual resonance, as one can see everywhere one goes where there are significant numbers of African Americans. Vice President Gore spoke at Howard University and again Saturday evening to the Congressional Black Caucus dinner participants. At both places he briefly mentioned racial profiling. No issue, animated the mostly African American audience more than the mention of racial profiling. At Howard University, the Vice President had a moment of silence for Prince Jones, a student at Howard University who was followed by police from Maryland into Virginia, apparently stopped; he backed his car into the police car and was shot many times in the back. The Vice President was careful to say that it was a case still under investigation; none of us had any way to know whether there was provocation for this. The students, of course, were up in arms that this model student at Howard University, a young man whose reputation was impeccable, was shot down this way. The point I want to make here is not that the police were wrong, but that we have come to a point in the African American community where racial profiling is so widespread that nobody believes that anyone who was shot was doing anything, because there have been so many instances of black people in every class of every kind and of every profession being followed simply because they were black. Mr. Speaker, what this amounts to is a loss of confidence in a vital part of the criminal justice system, and this at a time when African Americans have embraced the police because of crime rates in the African American community. But look at what they see. Wholesale of police brutality incidents reported. Sentencing rules for small time drug offenses with a disproportionate racial impact so severe that in the Federal system, sentencing guidelines have been repudiated by much of the Federal judiciary. The use of the death penalty, whose racial consequences have shaken the American public, led to a moratorium in some of the States; and now we have the Justice Department reporting that even in the Federal system on death row, there are disproportionate numbers of African Americans. Mr. Speaker, nobody wants to see the criminal justice system held up to anything but the highest praise from us all, particularly at a time when our crime rates, though going down; there was a 10 percent reduction in crime in this country since last year, are still far too high and the highest in the western world. But if we wanted to begin somewhere to restore confidence in the criminal justice system, surely we would begin with the notion that when a black person goes out on the street and walks down the street, there ought to be more than that to have him picked up or followed. That is what we have come to. There has been so much concern about the way crime escalated in the early 1990s, that though we have brought it down, we have this terrible residue. We recognize that there are disproportionate numbers of African Americans who, in fact, have been picked up and put in jail. All the more reason to be careful about branding folks who have abided by the rules and done what they should do. Imagine how mothers of young African Americans in their 20s, I am one who has a son, finished college in 4 years, now works at ABC Sports, is doing what he is supposed to do, I do not know in New York City where he works, when he will get stopped, because, in fact, the stops there and elsewhere have been so frequent. Frankly, I love the cops. I love the Capitol Police, I love the D.C. police and I do not know what I would do without them; I am struggling to get more of them on the streets. We have coordinated police so that Federal police and D.C. police work together. I think it is most unfair that we have not found a way to go at this so that we can restore confidence in the police, not lose that confidence right when we need to all gather in a circle around the police, thank them for what they do and ask them to do more of what they do. They put their lives on the line. Mr. Speaker, States and cities need to do more to arrest racial profiling and police brutality. In the next session of Congress we need bills to help the States and cities do more. I promise to be a part of that effort.

Ms. NORTON

Ms. NORTON. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding this time to me and for yielding me his time from the other side of the aisle. It was not necessary, but I think it does show the bipartisan spirit in which this bill in particular has come to the floor. I also want to thank the gentleman from Iowa (Mr. Leach), the chairman of the full committee, and the gentleman from New York (Mr. LaFalce), his ranking member, and I thank the gentlewoman from California, the ranking member of the subcommittee for her strong support of this bill and for her consistently strong support of the District of Columbia. I appreciate especially the initial work of the then chairman of the committee, the gentleman from Delaware (Mr. Castle), and, of course, the gentleman from Alabama (Mr. Bachus), the current Chair, who has worked as tirelessly with us as we have with him to make sure that we would get to the day when all American jurisdictions would be included in the coin commemoration act under discussion here today. When the District and the four insular areas were inadvertently left out of the 50-State Commemoration Coin Program Act, we did not see any reason to hold everyone else up. We thought that the act should proceed so that the 10-year period for incorporating States could go forward because we had the assurance of the gentleman from Delaware (Mr. Castle) that D.C. and the insular areas would indeed be included. I knew he would keep his word. There was never any doubt about that. Not only did he move immediately in that direction by joining all of us who are delegates as a cosponsor of the bill, but the gentleman from Alabama (Mr. Bachus) also never lost a beat in continuing in that tradition until the work was done. In any case, no damage has been done because there is a 10-year period according to date of admission to the Union, and, therefore, they would not have gotten to us anyway before now. We are very pleased that the first 10 States are already on-line, some of them joyously touting their coin. We know that the differences between the States, the District and the territories was never meant to be invidious and never has been in this body; and we have never been so treated in this body. We are all Americans, and we appreciate that this body has, for the most part, included all of us whenever possible. That was always the intent on both sides of the aisle here. After all, there are no differences between the insular areas and the District of Columbia on the one hand and the States on the other with respect to our American citizenship. None of the differences go to participation in a coin commemoration program. If I may say so, this is a matter of particular pride to the areas and to the District. In a real sense, because we are not States, we perhaps reach out for ways to indicate our unity with the States. We do it in the way we carry the flag, and wave the flag. We do it in our service in the Armed Forces where the territories and the District of Columbia consistently show membership in the armed service greatly disproportionate to their numbers. The District, for example, had more residents who served in the Gulf War than 47 States. So it may be that this coin act, which may not mean very much to the average citizen, it may mean much more to those of us who come from the areas and the District of Columbia, because we look for ways to show that we are full-blooded Americans in jurisdictions of the United States, not colonies or inferior territories. Therefore, we appreciate when this body and the Senate afford us that recognition, the maximum permissible under law. In the past, we have even won the right to vote in the Committee of the Whole, although that was withdrawn. D.C. especially longs for all the recognition it can get. If you were part of a jurisdiction in the United States that was third per capita in Federal income taxes, you would look for all the recognition from those who control the United States Treasury that you could get, and so this D.C. coin is just another way of saying we, too, are Americans. We note that on one side of the coin will be the picture of the father of our country, and I cannot tell my colleagues what it will mean to the people I represent, that the other side, will be some image of the District of Columbia. We are already talking about what it should be. We are going to hold a competition to see what it should be. There is going to be enormous excitement when we get to that day. We know that day is not going to be there for a few years now, but the excitement is bubbling up in the District already. We appreciate that there has been no controversy whatsoever about our participation in the coin program. Indeed, we know that in this case the more the merrier because it means more money to the U.S. Treasury. We note with particular joy that this program has already brought $1.8 billion into the United States Treasury. We mean to be a part of filling the coffers of the Treasury along with the 50 States and the other areas. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Alabama (Mr. Bachus) very much for yielding me the time.

Ms. NORTON

Ms. NORTON. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Chairman, Members will recall that the matter involving contraception turned on when a veto would take place. The mayor had promised a veto. He believed that a pocket veto was the appropriate way to proceed because, as this body well knows, if a veto is straight out that is a declaration of war. There may be a compromise thereafter, but it is a little more difficult. So my amendment addressed the notion that the mayor should be allowed to pocket veto and we should respect his word that a pocket veto would take place. That pocket veto has taken place. The chairman knows that he had written language that was otherwise acceptable to me. It is perhaps not the exact language I would have written with respect to contraception, but I had discussions with him concerning his language. I understand his concern on his side of the aisle. I have asked my own Members on this side of the aisle to consider that what we are trying to do is to get some kind of understanding that we can all live with to get this bill passed. I am not prepared to ask for anything further now that the bill has been vetoed, except that I would like to ask the chairman if that is satisfactory to him and, if so, if he would accept my amendment.

Ms. NORTON. Mr. Chairman, here is more veto bait. This is an attempt by the gentleman from Kansas (Mr. Tiahrt) to do what he could not do last year and to do what he was not even able to do in the Committee on Appropriations, and that is to kill the program. It is a poison bill. It is designed to kill a program that is saving the lives of children, innocent children in the District of Columbia. Children do find needles, but the gentleman has no evidence that those needles come from the needle exchange program. They come from addicts where there are not, in fact, programs. The gentleman is not expert on how needles infect school children in the District, but the D.C. Police Chief Charles Ramsey does, and I am now quoting him from a letter he wrote the House, ``the current needle exchange program is well managed and has an exemplary return rate. I have no reports that indicate that the program has been abused in any way or created serious public policy problems in the District.'' I ask Members to listen to our police chief and not the gentleman from Kansas about what should happen in this city. This is a disease that has become a black and brown disease. It is killing African Americans. It is killing minorities. It has moved from gays to people of color. People of color see this directed against them. They know what saves lives, and those who vote for this amendment are voting to kill men, women, and children in my district. I am asking Members to oppose this amendment and go back to what we have reluctantly accepted, and that is an amendment that is before this House that would leave us with no local funds, no Federal funds, and only a very modest and hardly standing private program that must fish for money wherever it can.

Ms. NORTON. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Moran) for yielding me this time. Mr. Chairman, I would like to put the American Lung Association letter in the Record and the Tobacco Free Kids letter in the Record opposing the Bilbray amendment. I am outraged at the amendment of the gentleman from California (Mr. Bilbray). He brings forward this amendment when the city council is in the midst of considering the Bilbray amendment. This amendment went through the House in 1999, the first year of Mayor Williams' term, despite a personal plea from Mayor Williams that he would like to try another approach in the District. That provision, the Bilbray provision, was one reason why the bill was vetoed in 1999. The provision was removed and sent back here and here comes the Bilbray amendment again. Mayor Williams knows his city. The gentleman from California (Mr. Bilbray) does not know Mayor Williams' city. The mayor again wrote the gentleman from California (Mr. Bilbray) in May, after another threat by the gentleman from California (Mr. Bilbray) to intrude in local affairs was received. Mayor Williams had already partially responded to the gentleman from California (Mr. Bilbray). His budget that we are considering now funds a smoking prevention program for minors. This in addition to the bill that is in the council, the mayor wrote to the gentleman from California (Mr. Bilbray). And I am quoting, ``I respectfully request that you withhold introducing your proposed legislation.'' I thank the gentleman for his respect of our mayor. He continued, ``so that we can move forward to consider your proposal along with our own local proposal.'' And he said, ``as a former city mayor, I am certain that you understand the importance of local government in these public policy issues.'' The gentleman apparently understands how important local knowledge and local prerogatives are as applied to his city of Imperial Beach, California, and he understands it in all the gentleman speeches about devolution, but like an authoritarian rule, the gentleman is trying to impose legislation on a city that is already going strong on a tough issue and in the midst of considering the gentleman's approach among others. In the District, elevation of possession of tobacco to a level 1 infraction in the D.C. public schools has to be very carefully considered. Shall we do that or not when the measure imposes suspension on a city with one of the highest dropout rates in the country, is that the best thing for my city? I do not think so. I do not even think I know, but I do think that the mayor of this city knows. He asked the gentleman not to introduce it, and I am asking this Congress not to move forward with it. The mayor and the council have done the gentleman from California (Mr. Bilbray) a courtesy. The gentleman has refused to do them that today. They are considering the gentleman's approach. Hearings have been held. I am sorry we do not move at the pace the gentleman would like. There are other matters that have to be considered, like our own appropriations that are here, like the fact that our city is just out of insolvency. But we have said that we will consider the gentleman's approach. We are considering the gentleman's approach. This debate is not about inaction. Our city has moved to put before the entire city council Mr. Bilbray's approach. He wants his action. This is a free country I say to the gentleman. We do not impose smoking codes on cities. We allow cities to decide what is best for themselves. American Lung Association, Washington, DC, July 25, 2000. Dear Representative: The American Lung Association opposes the Bilbray amendment to the District of Columbia Appropriations bill that penalizes kids for the possession of tobacco products. Penalizing children has not been proven to be an effective technique to reduce underage tobacco usage. In fact, penalties may adversely effect existing programs that are proven to work and are required, such as compliance checks utilizing young people. The Bilbray amendment would make these checks illegal. The Synar Amendment on marketing tobacco to children could not be enforced because it would be illegal for supervised teens to attempt to purchase tobacco. Attempts to put the blame on our children, the pawns of decades of sophisticated marketing by the tobacco industry, instead of the manufactures and retailers, is just another smokescreen by big tobacco. The tobacco industry favors shifting both the blame and the attention away from their marketing efforts onto the shoulders of young persons. For example, a 1995 study by the Maryland Department of Health and Mental Hygiene discovered that 480 minors were penalized for possessing tobacco but no merchants were fined for selling tobacco to minors. On July 16 and 21, 1998, the American Lung Association conducted an undercover ``sting'' operation to determine whether teens could purchase tobacco in the U.S. Capitol complex. Five out of nine attempts were successful, and in the House office buildings, all attempts were successful. Here is clear proof that existing laws regarding selling to teens are not being enforced. Existing laws and regulations need to be enforced. The tobacco industry favors criminalizing our kids. This alone should be adequate reason to reject the Bilbray amendment to the D.C. appropriations bill. Sincerely, John R. Garrison, Chief Executive Officer.

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

Ms. NORTON

Ms. NORTON. Mr. Speaker, there is an issue of great potency brewing in the African American community such that I feel compelled to bring it to the attention of this body. Like other Americans, African Americans are animated by the same issues. Education is at the top of the list. And of course, there is a Patients' Bill of Rights and preserving Social Security and Medicare. But what amazes me from the data and, anecdotally, when looking at black publications in my own district, is a surprising issue that has greater interest and intensity than others; and that issue is racial profiling and police brutality. This is most interesting because the African American community has embraced police because there was such high crime, especially in the early 1990's. Crime is down 10 percent now from last year, 34 percent over the last few years; and yet there is this intense hostility based on what is happening particularly to black men but also to black women. If one has raised a boy the way that I have so that he gets to go to college, graduates in 4 years, has a good job, it does not make a dime's worth of difference if he is driving down a road and there is a sense that who he ought to pull over are black people rather than others. So that, if we look at Interstate 95, where 17 percent of the drivers are African-Americans, 56 percent of those searched are black; or let us look at California in a 1997 study that showed that only 2 percent of 3,400 drivers stopped yielded contraband; or a recent study of racial profiling on I-95 here in the East, about 17 percent of those who drive along I-95 are African Americans but they represented 60 percent of the drivers searched in 1999. Something is wrong with those figures. And it has now penetrated deep in the African American community and it knows no class bounds. The richest and most middle-class African Americans know that there is no difference to a police officer who is looking for black people between a youngster that has done all he should do and somebody who may, in fact, be carrying drugs. What amounts to a loss in the criminal justice system has occurred throughout the African American community where so many young African American men are caught up in the first place. We need to have that community where we had it when they began to embrace police in the 1980s, and we are losing them. This body apparently had some recognition because under the present majority, H.R. 1443, which was a bill sponsored by the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Conyers) was indeed passed in 1998, which allows the collection of certain kinds of information about traffic stops. This body passed it. It was sent to the Senate. The Senate Committee on the Judiciary never acted on it. We need to pass this bill again. It is now called H.R. 118. We need to pass it. Because about the worst thing that can happen in our society is that people believe that criminal justice does not have justice. And it is very hard for me to believe that there is justice in the system when the disparities are as huge as this. Obviously, most African Americans play by the rules. So when you do not know whether playing by the rules will get you pulled over or not, particularly if you are a young black man, the stereotypic person to pull over, the rage of a loss of confidence that you are operating in a fair system becomes very great. This is an issue for us all. This is an issue we can eliminate simply by first studying it and coming to understand what its causes are. H.R. 118 does not ask this body to take specific steps now. We need to know what is happening and why it is happening. If, in fact, black Americans see that we do not care enough even to find out why these disparities exist, I think we are sending a horrific message, especially now as people get ready to go to the polls. They want to see whether or not something can be done. I am not asking that something be done during this session. I do believe that during this session we have to start the ball rolling so that we can know what, if anything, we can do about these very telling statistics.

Ms. NORTON

Ms. NORTON. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman from New York (Mrs. McCarthy) for yielding me this time. I especially want to thank her for her consistent and dedicated leadership on gun safety; leadership that has not faltered, as I am sad to say this Congress has. I want to congratulate the gentleman from Colorado (Mr. Tancredo), who knows firsthand what gun violence can mean to a State and to a jurisdiction, for the bipartisan leadership he has given on the bill that is before us today. It is a useful bill. It is useful if nothing more as an advertisement for districts to know that this money exists. It is useful as a reminder to the Department of Education, if the Secretary has not already done it, to send out notices that these funds are available. It is useful to help prevent further gun violence. But if I may say so, if we are truly serious about preventing gun violence, we will look at more than threats for gun violence. There would be fewer threats if there were fewer guns. The gentleman from Colorado (Mr. Tancredo) mentioned the kind of emotion that he knew his bill would call forth on the floor. Well, particularly for those of us from high gun violence jurisdictions, what kind of Members would we be this late in the session if we had no passion for this issue? I can tell my colleagues this, the representatives of the Million Moms came to see me recently. Last week they went to the press in desperation. The mothers who appeared with pictures of their dead children. Yes, we are angry, Mr. Speaker. They were angry, many of them, to the point of tears. School was opening throughout the region and throughout the country. They could not believe that the 106th Congress had made no progress on gun safety since the Columbine youth massacre more than a year ago. They were incredulous, and they mean for us to be incredulous. They were dismayed that the leadership could be sitting on gun safety legislation as their children were about to go back to school. They could not believe that we would consider going home without taking this bill out of conference and passing it now. That is what they wanted me to come to the floor to say this afternoon. I would be here in a 5- minute speech if not for this legislation. My colleagues are going to hear, not only from me and the gentlewoman from New York (Mrs. McCarthy), they are going to hear from many of us until this bill is passed and especially during this session. The moms cannot believe that, after families pulled off the largest gun safety demonstration in American history, this House, this Senate has not yet heard them. I can tell my colleagues this, they have not gone away. They have not only not gone away, look in the districts of my colleagues. They are in their district now organizing. They are making gun safety a potent election issue, which it did not have to be, because there is bipartisan support for the minimum gun safety legislation that is locked up in a self-imposed moratorium in conference committee as I speak. I can tell my colleagues one thing. It is dangerous to treat moms like children with short attention spans. They are in for the long haul. They are not going to forget. They did not forget when they came, and they are not going to forget in November. As Congress came back, the families felt no safer, even though it was reported during that very week that crime was down 10 percent in the country over last year. We hear one hand clapping. I do not hear the moms clapping. We are down 34 percent since 1993. Do my colleagues know why they do not hear them clapping is because they do not feel any safer. Now, I do not know if passing the gun legislation locked up by the majority will make them be any safer, I know they will feel safer. It is the shadow of Columbine, I will say to the gentleman from Colorado (Mr. Tancredo), that is hanging over the heads of parents and children in every State of the Union, in the District of Columbia, and the insular areas. Imagine waking up just before Congress reconvenes and reading in the Washington Post that the FBI was preparing a guidebook on how to detect children who might go on a shooting spree. I want to know how to detect the guns and get the guns out of the hands of children who might be inclined to go on a shooting spree. Congress better watch out, we are way behind the moms. We are still at the level of high-capacity ammunition, safety locks on guns, and the gun show loophole. They have sailed ahead to licensing and registration one gun a month. But if we were to do just what is before us now, I think they would feel that they and we had accomplished much. I know this much: they have got long memories and their memories are not sustained by the statistics that show about 80,000 children killed in gun violence since 1979. They are not sustained by the statistics from the District of Columbia that show that there were 700 children killed by gun violence in my district. Do my colleagues know why I am emotional? Seven hundred children in this city of half a million. I know some of my colleagues will say, Yeah, you have got legislation that bans guns, Eleanor, so what good is it? I will tell them what good it is. Not one of those guns came from the District of Columbia. Every one of them was brought in from jurisdictions that allow guns to be sold with loopholes and without safety locks. This is one country. This is all of our country. Guns travel across borders the same way that children do. And until there is a national gun law, there is no gun law and there is no safety for any child anywhere in America. We do not measure them by statistics. We measure them by the way I do, by Harris ``Pappy'' Bates, who went on Easter Monday to the National Zoo, set up by this body, and got shot in the head. I am pleased to report that somehow he has survived. We measure it by Andre Watts and Natasha Marsh of Wilson High School, who were buried in their graduation gowns. Many of us stand with Mothers Across America. I say to my colleagues, I come to my colleagues with their message: we go home without gun safety legislation at our peril.

Ms. NORTON

Ms. NORTON. Mr. Speaker, I very much thank the gentleman from Maryland for yielding me this time. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate enormously the work of the gentleman from California (Chairman Thomas) and the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Hoyer), ranking member, in working together to bring this matter forward. I am enormously grateful, of course, to the gentleman from Oklahoma (Mr. Watts) and the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Lewis), my long-time friend and colleague from the civil rights movement, for their leadership in bringing forward the bill that brings us to the floor today. I want to recognize the work of a local reporter for Channel 4 News here, Edward Hotaling, who brought this matter to public attention and was responsible for our bringing it, therefore, today to public light, for what we are doing this evening is opening the eyes of America to an important discovery for most in American history. We know the cliche because we have said it over and over, the slaves helped build America. But there are seldom any specifics to that. What slaves? What part of America? It turns out that the oldest and most treasured parts of America, the most hallowed places are what we are talking about; the White House, yes, and this very place where we meet. What is true here is probably true for every historic public building south of the Mason-Dixon line. We celebrate the slaves who built the Capitol and the White House, but the same could be said throughout the American South and much of the American North if the building is old enough. It is a matter of public record that slaves and free blacks built these two buildings. But it is also true that much of the District of Columbia was built by slaves and free blacks. My own great grandfather, Richard Holmes, was one such slave. Richard Holmes walked away from slavery in Virginia, got hired before the Civil War to work in the streets of the District of Columbia, got discovered by his white owner who was refused ownership when my great grandfather did not answer to his name when he was discovered and the white foreman refused to allow his return to the owner who had discovered him. I have no information that Richard Holmes worked on the White House or the Capitol, but we do have information that has been lost to history that many black men and free blacks did, in fact, work on these and other places in the District of Columbia. We know them by their works. We also know that slaves did every job imaginable, including the most highly skilled jobs. We know their owners were compensated. We know that neither they nor their descendants were. Let me lay to rest whether anybody feels any confusion about whether to be proud or ashamed that our most revered structures were built by slave labor. Let us not be like the Soviets who revise or deny history. Let us, with this bill, put those questions for these purposes aside, put these emotions aside because on one question there can be no disagreement. We often have recognized what the slaves achieved and the tributes over and over again to these great buildings, and to the 25 million visitors who come every year to the District of Columbia to see this building among others. It is time finally to recognize the men who helped achieve the place where we work, the place that we love. I thank my colleagues very much for all they have done on this bill.

Ms. NORTON

Ms. NORTON. Madam Speaker, after the Bush press conference yesterday, there are now competing prescription drug plans from the candidates. But for the elderly or the baby-boomers, the competition is already over. The Bush plan is a fundamental, third-rail change from universally available benefits the way Social Security and Medicare have always been to a low-income benefit more like welfare. If they have little money, they get it; otherwise, they do not. I represent a lot of lower-income seniors who will be taken care of by either both the Bush or the Gore plan. But I am not about to support a plan that leaves out my many middle-income seniors who are in the same boat when it comes to expensive drugs. Governor Bush cannot restructure Medicare by restructuring the middle class out of it.

Ms. NORTON

Ms. NORTON. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding me the time. Mr. Chairman, I rise to speak for the city where free Americans reside, not the Federal city. The Federal city belongs to everyone. As free American citizens, Wards 1 through 8 belong to those of us who live in the District of Columbia. Each year lots of time has been spent debating the minutia of details of one city far afield from urgent national business and outside the competence of national legislators. The result, without exception, has been multiple vetoes that ultimately result in turning around the very controversial amendments voted into this bill or substantially changing them. When will we learn? Hopefully, this year. There is not enough time left in this session to play games with the D.C. appropriation. The Mayor, the D.C. council and I have been clear about our two major objections to this bill. One: not merely cuts, but redirection of the remaining funds from indispensable priorities that the Mayor and the council specifically requested Federal funds to cover, including a subway station that is essential to the District's number one economic priority and to a new Federal ATF facility on New York Avenue; and two: reinserting into the bill not only social riders, to which we have always objected, but gratuitously a far larger number of riders that are so out of date, or irrelevant that OMB and the District believed that no Member would want the bill encumbered with them. A new administration that is cleaning house in the city and streamlining D.C. government deserves at least to be relieved of outdated and redundant riders from prior city administrations. The dollars used in this bill to pay for items meant to be federally funded deserve special mention and has been discredited in a June 30 GAO report commissioned by the chairman himself. The bill requires D.C. to use interest accumulated on D.C. accounts instead of Federal money in the President's budget. Yet the June 30 GAO report to the chairman stated that Congress has already instructed the District on how the interest must be used. The GAO concluded: ``As a result, the District does not have any interest earnings on available Federal funds.'' The Mayor and the city council have made their views known in writing to the chairman, and I have had some discussions with him. The bill is not yet acceptable to the District, and I ask my colleagues to vote no on this bill. We are not naive about bills before this body. We are prepared to support any amendments or changes that would produce not the preferred bill but a better bill. To accomplish this, it will take more give and take and more respect for the local prerogatives freely given to every other locality than this bill reflects for the District. Let us get to work and challenge ourselves to do better.

Ms. NORTON. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Chairman, I rise to introduce a democracy amendment that will wipe out all riders, most of them operational riders, that are outdated or irrelevant. Members would not commit themselves one way or the other on the substance of any underlying provision by voting to eliminate them all. The chairman announced on the floor just a few minutes ago that he has himself begun to look at these provisions and has found some of them to be outmoded. I appreciate that he is now looking into the bill in this way. In his budget, as transmitted, the President offered to work with the Congress and the District to identify and limit at the very least the number of general provisions or attachments not only to be consistent with the principle of home rule but also because most are so old that they have been overtaken by events, or they are now a part of D.C. or Federal law. Last year, the chairman indicated that riders in the D.C. appropriation reflected the fact that over many years, whoever was President had been transmitting old riders and the chairman had simply included what the President sent. Upon inspection, the White House found that most of the attachments are no longer applicable. Many already exist in Federal law or the D.C. Code. Example, section 114 requires council approval of capital project borrowing; but that is now required by the D.C. code. Other riders should be deleted because they are incorporated into the D.C. budget text or the local budget act, or will be proposed locally this year. Example, restrictions on the use of official vehicles, a restriction required by Congress and adopted in the local Budget Support Act. Still, other riders should be deleted because they are one-time provisions, are no longer applicable or duplicate existing Federal law. Example, the bill says appropriations or obligations that expire at the end of the year unless otherwise stated. Yet this matter is covered by Federal law. Other provisions should be deleted because they are issues of local home rule and/or should be deleted to ensure that the District is treated the same as any other State or local jurisdiction. Some of these are social riders, such as voting rights. Most, however, are operational matters normally left to local jurisdictions. The democracy amendment I offer today would eradicate all of these riders, most of them operational and out of date or redundant of current law. No Member would answer for any one of them, because the amendment is a democracy and autonomy amendment that does not address any substantive issue or specific provision. However, we will surely answer for the piling on of amendments that are already in local or Federal law, or corpses, left over from prior years and circumstances and administrations that are dead and gone. Mr. Chairman, District residents gave themselves a new start with a new mayor and a reconstructed city council. I ask the House to respond with a new bill that does not hang on the back of today's cities, tails, and times it has thrown off. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Ms. NORTON. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Hoyer).

Ms. NORTON. Mr. Chairman, I understand the rules of the House. I appreciate that I have been heard on what, for us, is a vital amendment. I will continue to work with the gentleman from Oklahoma (Mr. Istook) to eliminate such provisions as we can agree should be eliminated.

Ms. NORTON. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from Wisconsin (Ms. Baldwin).

Ms. NORTON. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. If I may respond, the gentleman has named what amounts to violations of D.C. law and violations of what is required in this appropriation attachment. All that demonstrates is having it in an attached provision, does not get the provision enforced. The point is, is it a matter of D.C. law, and is it a matter of Federal law? Once it is a matter of law, anything else we do to make it a matter of law is redundant, a law that is already there. And if one has a complaint about sole-source contracts, and I certainly would, if one has a complaint about competitive bids, and I certainly would, then you have to go to those who are not enforcing the law, not simply pile on attachments, which also do not enforce the law. Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Moran).

Ms. NORTON. I do, Mr. Chairman.

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

Ms. NORTON

Ms. NORTON. Madam Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Ms. NORTON. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Chairman, I have had it. I have really had it. Why do you see people go to the gallery, screaming at the top of their lungs, something I do not encourage now and did not encourage then, it has a lot to do with what we have just heard. A mayor of the District of Columbia who has credibility with every Member of this body has indicated in writing and publicly on television that he will pocket veto a bill, and the reason he is going to pocket veto the bill is because if he just vetoed it in the face of the council, then it would be hard of him to bring the Catholic Church, and he is a Catholic, together with his council. He has indicated publicly, this mayor, who has all the credibility in the world, that he is going to do what this chairman has asked him to do. The mayor has asked me to accept the language this chairman has written and this chairman has just gotten up and said that that is not enough. We, in the District, are damned if we do and we are damned if we try to do what we say do. A pocket veto from a mayor who is trying to do what you say do should be all you need when he has accepted the language that we asked him to accept and when he is working with his own Catholic Church, and they have agreed to work with him and they have agreed not to come here to ask us to do another thing, we ought to declare victory and go home. I am insulted by the fact that you would not accept my amendment by how hard my mayor and my city council have worked. You have cast aspersions on their credibility. You have indicated that the mayor had nothing to do with the debate in the council, it will never be enough for you. You have two more bites at the apple. Supposedly he is a liar, and that is what you called him today. Supposedly he is a liar. You need to have a veto. You need to make it almost impossible for him to bring the sides together by putting a veto in his face. Supposedly he is a liar. You still have two bites at the apple by rubbing the city's nose in it, time and time again. Patience is running out with this body. I resent what the gentleman has done, and I want you to know it. Mr. Chairman, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Moran).

Ms. NORTON. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. I rise to ask that subsection (a) of section 168 be stricken as moot. It certainly repeals a section of D.C. law soon to be vetoed locally. The Congress like every legislature or law enforcement body always prefers to have people act on their own. This is what the mayor and the D.C. council have done to extinguish the controversy that arose concerning the council bill to provide contraception as an option in insurance sold in the District. The council, on its own, came close to adopting a conscience clause but narrowly failed. Now indisputably the council is ready, willing and able to act. A joint letter from Mayor Anthony Williams and Council Chair Linda Cropp to the chairman indicated that they, quote, ``who know the issues best and all the parties well are prepared to address the necessary clause, giving great weight to parties in the District who advocate family planning and religious liberty,'' end quote. To make good on his letter, the mayor publicly announced, on television, that he will pocket veto the contraception bill and work with the council to produce an acceptable compromise. The mayor is using a pocket veto rather than a veto now not because of any reluctance to veto the bill but because he has taken upon himself to bring all the parties together to a solution acceptable to all. Mayor Williams is himself Catholic, and he has met with Auxiliary Bishop William Lori. He knows his council, and his judgment is that a pocket veto is what is appropriate if the point is to reach a solution acceptable to church and state alike, rather than further polarize the parties. The letter from Council Chair Cropp and Mayor Williams to the gentleman from Oklahoma (Mr. Istook) and the Mayor's public announcement that he will pocket veto the bill as well as assurances of the pocket veto received here in writing to the chairman makes subsection (a) of section 168 moot. What would remain is section 168(b). This section relating to religious and moral concerns more than satisfies the issue that has been raised in the Congress. Not to strike section (a) comes close to an insult to the Mayor and the Council Chair who have given their word in writing and publicly. In political life, a public man or woman's word is his or her bond. What D.C. officials have written and the Mayor has publicly declared concerning a pocket veto surely closes the circle and gives all the assurances that out of respect and dignity should ever be asked. There is more. As you know, D.C. law is not law until it lays over for 30 legislative days. That time frame means that considering the upcoming recess days, no bill could become law until sometime in March. To add to that insurance policy, the Congress can on its own, sui sponte, introduce and enact any bill or amendment concerning the District, such is your all-consuming power over the District of Columbia. Mayor Anthony Williams and Council Chair Linda Cropp and the D.C. City Council deserve their dignity as grown-up public officials with reputations for integrity elected to govern our Nation's capital. I ask you to show them the same respect we ourselves would demand. Please strike section 168(a). Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

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

Ms. NORTON. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding me the time. Mr. Chairman, for many of us, this has become an issue laden with emotional content because of its life-or-death consequences so visible where we live. HIV-AIDS has become another burden of race in our country and in this majority black and Hispanic city. Today, the disease is largely a black and brown killer because of contaminated needles. The overwhelming majority of new cases have been black and Hispanic for years now. HIV- AIDS is now a racially based public health emergency. What Congress does on needle exchange is heavily laden with racial content. The Congress allows citizen localities everywhere else on Earth to do what is safe and what works for them. The Congress must not condemn women, men, and children who live in the District to die because they live in the District. That is what we do if we wipe out the District needle exchange program in the city.

Ms. NORTON. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding me this time. I am a strong supporter of charter schools. This city has more charter schools than any other jurisdiction in the United States. It has been very generous with them. Some residents went around our mayor and came up here to get this amendment. I believe Mr. Peabody and Mr. Patten. There may be others. If they were having trouble with the District, they have now had a meeting with the District, they should have come to me or someone else. Instead, what we get is a heavy-handed amendment that this House could never, never, at least if it is a market-driven House, could never approve. It slaps a huge compelled nonmarket-driven reduction on property without knowing where the property is or what it is worth and otherwise directs how properties should be disposed of. We do not do that in a free economy. We do not do that in a market-driven economy. The District has very scarce resources precisely because the Federal Government takes up all of the space. Mayor Williams wrote to the chairman saying, ``I am opposed to language concerning disposition of surplus school property that would hamper the District Government's ability to utilize its assets to reform our schools.'' This amendment is big-time overkill to tell the City how much it should sell property for, how much it should reduce property to. Some of it should be reduced to nothing; some of it should be reduced very little. None of us in this body knows. I arranged a meeting when I learned of this problem. I understand that the City itself is going to deal with this and it should have it dealt with within a month. I hope that by the time we get to conference, the chairman will see fit to withdraw this, because I think the matter shall have already been taken care of.