Eleanor Norton

Ms. NORTON

Ms. NORTON. Mr. Speaker, I very much thank the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Cummings) for yielding and for his kind words, and I want to thank the gentlewoman from Maryland (Mrs. Morella) and the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Cummings) for their leadership on this very important issue. Mr. Speaker, I also want to congratulate the Office of Personnel Management for bringing this matter to the attention of the Congress so that we could take action that is corrective of this problem. Delay in correcting fraud and abuse at a time when premiums for Federal employees are on the rise should not be tolerated, and I am very appreciative that this bill has come to the floor before we adjourn. By moving to allow the OPM to sanction providers who engage in misconduct, we are sending a strong message that being a provider of health care for Federal employees is not a right but a privilege. Those who abuse that privilege will lose that privilege or be sanctioned for their abuse of that privilege. Over and over again, Mr. Speaker, the FEHBP is cited as a model for health care in the country, and in a number of important ways it has proved to be that over time. It will lose its place in that regard unless we are willing to step up and do what this bill does, and that essentially is to wipe away some of the causes of administrative delay which have been responsible for the fact that OPM has not been able to move promptly in some instances where misconduct was brought to its attention. Mr. Speaker, may I also speak in favor of the increase in the physicians' comparability allowance. This is a period in which vast disparities are found in the location and the willingness of physicians to serve. When those disparities can be traced back to income, we must look closely at the effect. Here we are not talking about an increase in budget. We are talking about allowing an increase in comparability pay where that is necessary. This provision attends to a real shortage of physicians willing to serve as we need them. For these two provisions and for the others in this bill, I am personally grateful to the gentlewoman from Maryland (Mrs. Morella) and the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Cummings), and I once again thank them for their very diligent and excellent work on this bill.

Ms. NORTON

Ms. NORTON. Mr. Speaker, the Supreme Court begins its session today and has announced a set of cases it will decide, among them another troublesome sexual harassment case, this one called Davis versus Monroe County Board of Education. It involves student-on-student sexual harassment under Title IX. We have here a student who was making As and Bs but fell to failing grades, to writing suicide notes, a fifth grader, after 5 months of groping of her breasts and other parts of her body. There were constant complaints from her parents, there were vulgar comments and the rest, until finally the parents simply sued the school after the school ignored the complaints. We have a split in the circuits based on how we have written Title IX, two circuits saying damages are recoverable, two circuits are saying they are not. Well, Mr. Speaker, I hope there will be no split here in this body. If the Supreme Court rules that Title IX does not cover this kind of action, we must take action next term. Why do I raise this now? Because the Court has already moved in an unacceptable direction on a not dissimilar case last term in the case of Gebser versus Largo Vista School District. There we had a ninth grader whose teacher sexually assaulted and harassed her, and yet the Supreme Court set a standard that makes it almost impossible for a parent and a child to recover against a school system. The reason, the Court said, was that, quote, ``the statutory text of Title IX does not shed light on Congress' intent with respect to the scope of available remedies.'' Understand that this was a child who beginning in the eighth grade had her teacher during Advanced Placement classtime initiate sexual relations with her and at other times and otherwise engage in sexual activity with this youngster. This decision is a virtual summons to Congress. Justice Stevens thought that Title IX did cover damages. That was not the majority, however. Instead the Court set an absolutely absurd standard that the school had to have actual notice or a deliberate indifference by an official with authority to implement correction measures before damages could be obtained. What we are left with now is an indefensible distinction in our law. If a principal sexually harasses a teacher, even though the superintendent knew nothing about it, damages are forthcoming under Title VII. We must make sure that teachers who are sexually harassed by other teachers or by their superiors do not have rights superior to when a teacher harasses a student or a student harasses another student. We must protect students at least as much as we protect teachers from sexual harassment. I am already writing a bill to remedy the finding that sexual harassment by a teacher on a student cannot yield damages. Mr. Speaker, if the court fails again, this time in a case involving outrageous student on student sexual harassment, this House will have a second provision to correct next term.

Ms. NORTON

Ms. NORTON. Mr. Speaker, I rise to pay tribute to the Lane Memorial Christian Methodist Episcopal Church, one of the District's most distinguished congregations, on the occasion of its 132th Anniversary and Homecoming Celebration. Lane has a long history of community service and has touched the lives of thousands through its outreach ministries that include the ``Break of Life'' Ministry and the Clothes Closet. Lane was established in 1866 under the pastorate of the late Reverend Henson Primrose. The original and present site at 14th and C Street, NE was purchased with the assistance of General O.O. Howard, head of the Freedmen's Bureau and founder of Howard University. Participating in the purchase were Lane officers: Jacob Crumpton, James Green and Benjamin Whitaker. In 1898, under the leadership of the Reverend J.R. White, the original white frame building was torn down, and a brick edifice was erected. In 1924, under the direction of Reverend P.L. Moore, an addition was constructed in the rear of the church. Following the death, in 1937, of the Right Reverend Isaac Lane, Fifth Bishop of the Colored Methodist Episcopal Church, the East Washington Mission was renamed Lane Chapel in his honor. In 1945, under the pastorate of Reverend C.E. Kelly, the mortgage was paid off and the church was renovated. The parsonage, at 1615 East Capitol Street, NE, was purchased, in 1951, while Reverend W.C. Doty was the pastor. The church was deeded to the Colored Methodist Episcopal Church, and in 1954, the denomination's name was changed to the Christian Methodist Episcopal Church. Reverend Giles R. Wright served as pastor from 1954- 1959. Under his leadership, the church purchased two adjacent lots. In 1977, during the patorate of Reverend Allen W. Singh, an Educational Building was erected on the two lots. Further renovations were made while Reverend Marshall Jenifer was pastor, including a unique set of stained glass windows and a mural. The windows tell the story of the denomination's illustrious history and proclaims its Christian message. The church offices and parsonage were renovated in 1993, and air conditioning was installed in the sanctuary. Outstanding among the many former pastors of Lane are, Reverend A.W. Womack, who was elected Bishop in 1950, and Reverend M.L. Breeding who, in 1954, was elected General Secretary of the Department of Kingdom Extension. Over the years, many sons of Lane have answered the call to the ministry. The church has witnessed the acceptance of the call by five of its sons and two of its daughters: Joseph Carter, Walter Gaskin, Joseph Collins, Oliver Chase, Charles H. Roman, Azarine Mayes McClellan and Paulette M.E. Stevens. The Reverends Helen S. Clanton, Drexel N. Mitchell and Kenneth K. Dubose have served as associate ministers and received their first charges from this congregation. The present pastor, the Reverend H. Shirley Clanton, was assigned to Lane on August 2, 1998. Mr. Speaker, the Lane Memorial Christian Methodist Episcopal Church is a beacon of light and hope in this city. I ask this body to join me in celebrating its rich history and traditional of spiritual, civic, and social activism.

Ms. NORTON

Ms. NORTON. Mr. Speaker, I very much thank the gentleman for yielding to me. Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong support of the bill of the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Cummings), and I rise also to thank the gentleman for this innovative and important piece of legislation and to compliment him and the gentlewoman from Maryland on the third bill of this particular session of the House. It shows a very productive commitment to Federal employees. We are now awash in life saving techniques, but we have not learned how to get maximum use out of them or to assure equality in their distribution. The bone marrow provision that allows 7 days' leave appears to be appropriate; but when it comes to an organ transplant, we are dealing with an operation that itself is a high risk operation. If we really want to encourage people to donate organs such as kidneys, where the need is greatest, we are going to have to move to provide a greater incentive. One thing we ought to do is to assure persons generous enough to offer an organ that there would be the minimum risk to the person who has stepped forward. If that person is a Federal employee, the last thing we would want the employee to think is that I do not have very much time that I should take, so I better rush back. The 30-day incentive is important to finally getting people to understand that offering these organs is a very important act of generosity. In today's paper, it may have been yesterday's paper, is a story of a husband and a wife. The husband is donating the kidney to the wife, or vice versa. I forget which. It does not really matter. What does matter is that the odds are tremendously against, I think it is 1 in 25,000, that a husband and a wife would be married, these people are not kin, and would match in a vital organ. The spouse that was receiving the organ did not want the other spouse to give the organ, and the reason simply is that there is a risk in undergoing a major operation to give a healthy organ to someone who has an unhealthy organ. Anything we can do to encourage what is already a process underused is something we ought to move forward to do. It is astonishing how few organs are available given the number of organs that should be available. The incentive that the bill of the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Cummings) offers today is akin to the leadership the Federal Government has always taken with respect to blood donations. Blood donations are allowed on the premises. We allow the Red Cross to set up on our premises. We allow employees to go down on government time because we recognize how important it is to donate blood. Today we have moved from blood to other vital life giving substances and organs, sharing not only blood, but we now can share vital organs. This is a very small loss in productivity or time to the government. Particularly what it offers is life and hope. This is a model that I expect certainly large employers around the country to follow. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for the important breakthrough that the Cummings bill provides. (Mr. CUMMINGS asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks and include extraneous material.)

Ms. NORTON

Ms. NORTON. Mr. Speaker, I am amazed to have had to have come to the floor more than once on this issue. The Treasury, Postal rule went down again. There may be more than one reason why. But underlying that rule is a bill that allows basic minimal health protection for women. Since when does contraception for female government employees deserve to be in a bill whose rule is voted down? The women of America would say, no, never. And the bipartisan Women's Caucus of this Congress has said no in no uncertain terms. This is a bill that deserves the word ``noncontroversial.'' It passed unanimously in the Senate. In the House it has passed twice. What we are talking about is a provision that simply says that if a health plan pays for prescriptions, it must also pay for contraception prescriptions. Plans are often willing to pay for abortion. Plans are willing to pay for surgical procedures involved in reproduction. They certainly ought to be willing to pay for what prevents abortion. They pay for sterilization often, but not for simple contraception measures. Now, the provision contains a religious exemption. Among the religious plans would be Catholic plans. Catholic plans would not have to pay for contraception. The gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Smith) has inserted himself into this matter. He wants a morality exemption. That, of course, could never be granted by the Congress. One of the problems, I suppose, in a country like ours is we cannot figure out where everyone is on basic moral questions, but we do know where people are on religious questions. I do not know what the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Smith) or anybody else is doing in this matter. We are talking about a non- conferenceable item. There was no disagreement between the House and the Senate. Why is this matter up for grabs? Unless we now are in a Soviet-style body where both sides can pass a bill but somebody else can zap in and overturn it. The gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Smith) has a provision that is a true insult to the women of America. He says, yes, they can cover contraception but only for the diaphragm. Surely only police states would tell women what kind of contraception to use. But let me be clear. Women need options in contraception precisely because some do not work, some make people sick, some are unsafe to some people, some have long-term effects and consequences. It is not for this body to decide. The health plan, if it is providing prescriptions anyway, should not be able to exclude this basic minimal kind of prescription that most women of childbearing age in fact need in one form or the other, and it is not for the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Smith) or any Member of this body to tell women which kind of contraception is the one that should be covered. Women indeed should not have to explain themselves to this body on this question. I am embarrassed to have to stand before this body to talk about contraception for women, especially for women who work for the Federal service. There are five major forms of contraception used, and none of them involve or come close to abortion. The pill, the diaphragm, the IUD, Norplant, and Depo-Provera. Ten percent of Federal plans offer no contraceptive coverage at all. This is a real family bill, when we consider that the woman of the family in this country pays 68 percent more for health coverage than the man in the family. We have got to get this thing down to size. This provision is central to women's health. Above all, we should not bring abortion-style politics into contraception. That is where we have a broad umbrella of agreement. Thus, this provision presents two fundamental issues for this House. One is simple democracy, when an item is non-conferenceable because both sides have agreed to it. Democracy works. We must leave it alone. We must not set the precedent that someone else can turn it around. And the second principle, of course, is that contraception is central to women's health. Leave it be. Pass this provision in the Treasury, Postal appropriations bill.

Ms. NORTON

Ms. NORTON. Mr. Speaker, a bunch of fellows from this body are running around the Treasury, Postal conference committee trying to get into the contraception business, women's contraception business, that is. But women's contraception is nobody's business but theirs. Yet there is stealth action in this House to overturn a bill that passed both houses, that contraception be treated like other prescriptions in Federal health plans. Passed unanimously in the Senate, passed twice in the House, we must not tolerate Soviet-style reversals of noncontroversial provisions. I am outraged at a substitute that would allow only the diaphragm to be required in plans. Women need options. Some do not work. Some make us sick. There is no more sensitive issue for women than contraception. The bipartisan Women's Caucus supports the Lowey provision, and so do the majority of the House, the majority of the Senate and the majority of the American people.

Ms. NORTON

Ms. NORTON. Mr. Speaker, last night the Treasury-Postal conference settled virtually everything except the controversy over contraceptives in this body. Normally, such controversies concern differences between the House and the Senate. There are no differences between the House and the Senate on the matter of allowing Federal employees options for contraception. This matter was won in the House; it was won in the Senate. There is an attempt to undemocratically overturn the will of this House and the will of the Senate in conference. Both the House and the Senate understood that this no-cost health necessity for women is elementary. Yet a group of men, largely of men, in this body is trying to reverse what the majority of two houses have done. What have we done? We simply require that health plans cover contraception as they do other prescriptions. Most of what men need in prescriptions are covered, yet many health plans do not cover contraception. This is essential for the health of American women, in this case Federal employees, because of vast differences in contraceptives. We all know, for example, of the pill. And there are some people who cannot take the pill. Some kinds of contraception do not work for some people. Some have serious side effects. Some are uncomfortable. Some have long-term effects and people do not wish to take the risk. Federal employees do not have the options necessary for their health today. Eighty percent, that is the vast majority of Federal plans, do not cover the range of available contraceptives and, thereby, are putting the health of women in the Federal service at risk. Ten percent do not cover contraception at all. Imagine that. Often plans cover abortion but not contraception. Really turns on its head the way we should be going at this issue. One reason why women of reproductive age spend 68 percent more in out-of-pocket costs for health care is this failure to cover contraception which most American women use and need. Most Americans, including the majority of pro-life voters, support the requirement that health insurance cover contraception. So why is it, then, that the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Chris Smith), the gentleman from Oklahoma (Mr. Istook), and all the Republicans on the conference committee on the House side, and even the gentlewoman from Kentucky (Mrs. Northup), who is on that committee, are trying to defeat the will of the majority in conference? The bipartisan Women's Caucus of this House supports this measure. This measure was won fair and square in committee, and then there was an attempt to overturn it here in the House. Now it has been won fair and square in both Houses, and democracy does not yet rule. This gets to be very personal, Mr. Speaker, because we are here not only talking about women's health, we are talking about the most personal side of their health: reproductive health. We have no right to limit what contraception a woman may use. The five leading methods, oral contraception, diaphragm, IUD, Norplant, and Depo-Provera, are none of them associated with abortion. That, of course, is already taken care of in the bill. Federal employees are put at considerable disadvantage by having their options limited in so basic a way. Allow women equal benefits under Federal health plans. Let the will of the majority of the House and Senate prevail. Do not give in to an energetic minority not committed either to women or to democracy in this body.

Ms. NORTON

Ms. NORTON. Mr. Speaker, October 1st is fast approaching, this Thursday, and we will be at the end of the fiscal year, with miles to go and much to do in order to fulfill our most basic responsibility, and that is to pass 13 appropriations bills. As co-chair of the Women's Caucus, along with the gentlewoman from Connecticut (Mrs. Nancy Johnson), I am pleased that the House has gotten through four of the seven priority bills chosen by the Women's Caucus. That brings credit to this House. I hope that the House also will bring itself credit by the way its treats the capital of the United States. The District's appropriation is one of those left hanging and unresolved. The city is not a Federal agency, and when it is on tenterhooks wondering whether its appropriation will go through or, as in the case of the CR, held to last year's spending limits, a living, breathing city suffers. The problem with our bill comes from 10 hours during which attachments of every kind were put on our bill, attachments at war with the democratically voiced views of the residents of the District of Columbia: Adoption forbidden for unmarried couples, even though we have children languishing in foster care; vouchers once again put on our appropriation, although the President had not 3 months prior vetoed such a bill; a police helicopter of the Park Service funded out of D.C. funds; advisory neighborhood commissions defunded entirely, though they are the lifeline of neighborhood life in the District of Columbia to keep the services coming at the neighborhood level. The District deserves better. This Friday, the District is about to break ground on a new convention center funded entirely by the private sector. Most such centers in this country are funded with public funds. The schools have shown enormous progress. We now have perhaps more charter schools per capita than any other jurisdiction in the United States. We had a magnificent summer school called Summer Stars. To make sure that we eliminate social promotion, children went not only to catch up but to get ahead. Test scores were up significantly on the Stanford 9 even before summer school--scores up in every grade. We have a new vigorous control board that is keeping the District's feet to the fire and preparing the District for the return of home rule. This is a city that has come back. We have just had an election with fresh leadership promised next year, vigorous new leadership committed to getting the city's House in total order, even more than is being done now. This is the kind of progress that one would think that the Congress would want to encourage. Ten hours of attachments to our appropriation did just the opposite. It dispirited residents who have suffered greatly in the past few years and have taken great pride that their city is coming up and coming alive. This is a time for the House and the Senate to encourage the capital, it is not the time to punish the residents of the Nation's capital. By October 1st we hope that this body will have shown that it does indeed take pride in the progress the Nation's capital is beginning to make.

Ms. NORTON

Ms. NORTON. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding time. I come to the floor with a sense of both relief and concern, relief that this bill, this rule, the bill underlying this rule no longer requires sex segregation in the armed forces; concern that it does express a sense of the House that sex segregation return to the armed forces of the United States. Mr. Speaker, there is an old saying that says ``if you don't know something, you better ask somebody.'' I hope we will listen to those who do know something about this complicated issue. A report is due in March from military experts. Meanwhile, the armed services have told us that sex-integrated training is safest and best for our country. Perhaps that is to be turned around. We certainly should not move in advance of that. Training, it seems to me, is precisely where women and men should first meet. Delay puts both at risk if for the first time you meet the opposite sex after you have been trained when you may be in a theater of war or elsewhere in danger. Mr. Speaker, I hope that our country has learned after all these years that there ought to be a profound presumption against segregation based on race or sex. The Armed Services deserves credit for the great success they have made of gender-integrated training. The top enlisted men of all four Armed Services opposed gender-segregated training, and I want to quote the Chief Master Sergeant of the Armed Forces who says, we have done the job and we have done it with men and women serving together. I am confounded as to what the problem is. I am, too, Mr. Speaker, and I hope we will stick with what we have.

Ms. NORTON

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

Ms. NORTON

Ms. NORTON. Mr. Speaker, a serious step was taken last week when the House defunded an elected body that had only a token amount in the D.C. appropriation, a 100th of 1 percent amount in a $6.8 billion consensus budget that had been approved by the control board and the elected officials. This may be because the group involved, Advisory Neighborhood Commissions, are perhaps not routinely found in other jurisdictions, and there is little understanding of the vital role they play in our urban environment. Many members seem to think that ANCs, as we call our Advisory Neighborhood Commissions, are like civic organizations in their own home towns. In one important way, they are. The ANC commissioners are volunteers and are never paid. But, unlike traditional civic organizations, ANCs perform official government duties. For example, they must be notified 30 days before any neighborhood action is taken. They must hold hearings and receive comments. Then they must transmit their comments to the agency involved, and then the mayor and the city council must give great weight to the comments of the ANCs. These are unusual officials. Aside from their official duties, they perform tasks that have become indispensable to maintaining the quality of life in the District of Columbia. Let me give just a few examples. ANC commissioners cleaned streets and alleys when the city was unable to deliver services during the fiscal crisis. Commissioners notified the city of declining properties when city inspectors were unable to inspect deteriorating housing. An ANC used the notification process to require developers to include infrastructure improvements, like sidewalks, when building new housing. Upon receiving notification for liquor license renewal, an ANC was able to force a store owner to stem public intoxication. An ANC uses its funds to operate a youth center, placing teens in jobs with neighborhood vendors. Our ANCs have taken a 50 percent cut since the fiscal crisis began in 1994. Thus, giving them just a small amount of that back helps our neighborhoods in indescribable ways. Ironically, these neighborhood institutions were placed in the home rule charter by the House of Representatives itself. Now, they are being defunded by the House. The Senate has not defunded them. The House chose not to leave to chance grass roots participation in local government when it approved the charter of the District of Columbia, believing that a cadre of front-line elected officials could be the veins and arteries leading out into the neighborhoods to other parts of the government and to the mayor and the city council. The truth is that the 37 commissions, consisting of 299 commissioners, have the most thankless job in the District. This volunteer job has so few rewards that many single-member districts are without candidates. It is a real labor of love. It is difficult enough without eviscerating ANC by depriving commissioners of the basics, such as phones and faxes. Defunding an elected body is a blow to democracy itself. The ANC contribution to the city is an important example of the link between democratic grass roots participation and the quality of life. This contribution deserves to be applauded, not defunded. In the District, we get much more out of the ANCs than we put in. I ask that their funding be returned.

Ms. NORTON

Ms. NORTON. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding this time to me, and I want to thank him and the Chair of the subcommittee for their hard work on this very important bill, a bill that had the very special concern of the Congressional Women's Caucus as well. Mr. Speaker, there was a time when talk of mammograms was for the ``cognizentti'' the most conscious of women. Today mammography has become the primary engine for a virtual revolution in the battle against breast cancer. Women of all backgrounds and income groups are coming forward in large numbers to take advantage of mammography. Why has mammography become so important and so widely used? Part of the reason is that women are now convinced that the machinery is safe and reliable and that the people who in fact implement that procedure know what they are doing. The Mammography Quality Standards Act is at the center of this confidence of women and their families. The bill before us would reauthorize the act to 2002. It is important to have it reauthorized every few years because of changes in science. We who are in the Women's Congressional Caucus, virtually all the women in Congress, are particularly grateful for this bill because we choose this bill among seven as our priority must-pass bills. Already this body has passed four of the seven must-pass bills, provisions of the Violence Against Women Act, the bill that allows Federal employees choices in contraception; a bill that will set up a commission on women and minorities in science and technology, and this most important mammography standards act. The act is critical because untrained and unqualified physicians and technicians may be people who misread mammograms, may cause more problems than they solve. It is bad enough to suspect having this disease, but false positives are quite intolerable. The bill assures us that equipment and personnel will be FDA approved. Mr. Speaker, the Women's Caucus had its own hearings this year on tamoxifen, this great new discovery that looks as if it can prevent and cure cancer, but no miracle drugs can be effective without reliable detection. Today's legislation will save lives, it fulfills an important obligation of the 105th Congress. On behalf of the Congressional Women's Caucus, I want to extend my appreciation for those who have worked so hard to bring this bill forward.

Ms. NORTON

Ms. NORTON. Mr. Speaker, the District of Columbia is fortunate to have many good people who dedicate their lives to improving the common good. One such person is Ms. Rosann Wisman who, for the past 14 years has served as president and chief executive officer of Planned Parenthood of Metropolitan Washington. During Ms. Wisman's 23 years of experience in family planning management, she has built a local and national reputation for her commitment to the highest standards in reproductive health care. Planned Parenthood of Metropolitan Washington grew significantly during Ms. Wisman's tenure--both in number of people served and programs offered. Today, over 20,000 women, men, adolescents--more than three-quarters of whom are very poor with little or no access to other medical care--rely on this non-profit's seven family planning clinics. The three Planned Parenthood clinics in the District are located at 2811 Pennsylvania Avenue, SE; 2513 Alabama Avenue, SE; and 1108 16th Street, NW. Ms. Wisman expanded clinical services to include abortion, the diagnosis and treatment of sexually transmitted diseases, including HIV testing and counseling, and primary care. Today, Planned Parenthood, now in its 62 year, is the largest provider of family services to Washington area low-income women and the District's largest provider of first-trimester abortion services. Since 1990, as a result of a bilingual outreach program spearheaded by Ms. Wisman, Planned Parenthood has also become a major provider of bilingual, culturally-sensitive family planning services to Latino women and families in Washington and the surrounding area. And, in 1992 under her leadership, Planned Parenthood established a partnership with African-American churches in the District to help reduce unplanned teen pregnancies. This partnership effort led to the opening of a Planned Parenthood family planning clinic at the Allen Chapel A.M.E. Church in Southeast Washington. Rosann Wisman's commitment to access to reproductive health care services springs from her belief that every child should be a wanted child. Toward that goal, Ms. Wisman advocates freedom of choice--that no woman should be pressured to continue a pregnancy against her will by the government, religion or society. Ms. Wisman has testified frequently on allowing the District of Columbia the freedom to use its local revenue to fund abortions for the city's poor women, and on other birth control and reproductive rights issues before Congressional and local legislative committees. Throughout Ms. Wisman's 14 years of leadership at Planned Parenthood of Metropolitan Washington, she has helped demonstrate that access to family planing medical services and birth control education reduces the need for abortion, lower infant and maternal deaths, and combats the cycle of poverty and teen childbearing. Rosann is leaving Washington to move with her family to Japan. It is with special pride that I salute Rosann Wisman and wish her farewell. She will be missed.

Ms. NORTON

Ms. NORTON. Mr. Speaker I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, I rise to speak in favor of the Aaron Henry Federal Building and United States Courthouse. In doing so, I must say, Mr. Speaker, that I do so out of great and personal respect for a man with whom I worked with when I was a young woman in the civil rights movement. When I went south in 1963 as a student in the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee, Aaron Henry, in Mississippi, was a fearless freedom fighter who every day risked his life simply by living through each day as the President of the NAACP as a pharmacist at a time when the State of Mississippi was known throughout the world for racial terrorism. This is a man who did as much as any man alive to bring the black and white Mississippians together. As a young lawyer, I represented the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party before the 1964 Democratic convention when the Freedom Democrats, blacks who were excluded from participation in the Democratic Party in the State, challenged the official Democratic Party and delegation. Aaron Henry was the cochair of that delegation. It says everything about our country and about Dr. Henry, that he lived to become the chair of the Mississippi Democratic Party itself. H.R. 892 is a bill to designate the Federal building in Clarksdale, Mississippi, and the Aaron Henry Federal Building and United States Courthouse. Dr. Aaron Henry was a civil rights pioneer, a thoughtful mentor, scholar and great humanitarian. He led an active, committed, exemplary life. After attending the local public schools in 1942, he joined the Army and was a veteran of World War II. After the war, he attended and graduated from Xavier University in New Orleans. In 1953, Dr. Henry organized the Coahoma County branch of the NAACP and served as the state NAACP president. From 1960 to 1993, during the 1960s, he participated in the Freedom Rider movement and in the Mississippi Freedom Summer's nonviolent campaigns of public protest. Dr. Henry served on numerous boards, such as the Executive Committee of the NAACP, the Federal Council on Aging and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. Acknowledging his contributions as a civil rights leader in 1979, the citizens of Coahoma County elected him to the Mississippi House of Representatives, where he was reelected in 1983 and 1987. Dr. Henry was instrumental in securing passage of legislation which created the Office of Economic Opportunity, and was a strong advocate and spokesman for the Job Corps and Head Start. Dr. Henry was an active member of the Haven United Methodist Church, serving as lay leader. He was committed to community, educational and civil issues throughout his rich life. It is most fitting and proper that we support the gentleman from Mississippi (Mr. Thompson) and honor the great contributions of Dr. Henry. It gives me personal pleasure to urge the passage of this bill. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Ms. NORTON

Ms. NORTON. Madam Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman from Hawaii for yielding to me. Madam Speaker, I rise to strongly support H.R. 3007 and to thank and congratulate the gentlewoman from Maryland for her hard work in pressing this bill forward. I rise also on behalf of the bipartisan Women's Caucus to express the strong support of the women of Congress for this particular bill. The Women's Caucus is 21 years old this year. When you get to be 21, the Caucus decided that it is time to have your own must-pass agenda. The Caucus chose seven bills, all of them consensus bills, and presented those bills to the majority and minority leadership as bills that we thought would make every Member of this body proud. I am delighted that this is the third of those bills to pass. Women's contraceptive choices for Federal employees has been one. It was not the first. The first was Provisions of the Violence Against Women Act. Tomorrow, Madam Speaker, the Mammography Quality Standards Act, another of the bills that the Congressional Women's Caucus urged on this body, will come to the floor. I am pleased that the Commission on the Advancement of Women in Science, Engineering, and Technology Development Act now includes also minority and disabled people because this bill comes to the floor at a most propitious time. There are bills at this time to increase the number of technological workers that would be imported from abroad because of a shortage that all can see throughout the country of such workers. Some oppose those bills because they want such jobs to go to our own workers. At the same time, we must concede that the shortage is created by the failure of our own workers to be prepared in sufficient numbers for these jobs. So that in order to keep the jobs in this country, some have come forward to say let us import workers for these jobs. The gentlewoman has focused on one of the reasons for this dilemma in looking to underutilize parts of our population. Women who are now almost half of the work force are far less than half of those represented in science and engineering, yet they come from the same homes, the same backgrounds, the same communities. We see similar disparities for minorities and disabled people. Surely as we enter a period when technology is the overriding need of the work force, we do not want to leave underrepresented people who would have such skills to offer if they could only be uncovered. So we must begin by finding out why and then finding out what can be done about this dilemma. This bill in my judgment uses the most efficient way to go at this problem. It is a vehicle designed to find what the facts are and then to get something done. The commission consists of people from industry and from education. Now those are the people directly responsible for filling this gap. Important fact finding will be an important part of the commission; how to recruit and retain minorities and women and disabled people. Such other matters, as what kinds of model programs are there in education and in industry that are already successfully recruiting and retaining minorities and women will, through this commission, be made available to others throughout the country. This is an innovative piece of legislation that will cost virtually nothing but is likely to produce a great deal for our country. I am pleased that this important bill has come to the floor at the request of the Congressional Women's Caucus among others who recognize the great good it can do. I once again congratulate the gentlewoman from Maryland (Mrs. Morella) for her initiative.

Ms. NORTON

Ms. NORTON. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Kucinich), the ranking member, could not be here at this time. I am pleased to note that the minority has worked with the gentleman from California (Mr. Pombo) and with the majority on this matter of special concern to the gentleman, and we have no objections to this bill. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Ms. NORTON

Ms. NORTON. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, S. 2032 is a bill to designate the Federal building in Juneau, Alaska as Hurff A. Saunders. Mr. Saunders was a lifelong Alaskan who helped write chapters of Alaskan history. He was the civil engineer for the United States Coast Guard and in charge of constructing the Juneau Federal building, which was completed on budget and on schedule. Mr. Saunders later supervised the many public works projects for the territory and later for the State of Alaska. His work on correcting the navigational charts for the waters in southeast Alaska aided the Navy and the Coast Guard during World War II. Mr. Saunders was widely respected and viewed as a dedicated public servant, a devoted father, and beloved husband who lived a full life and died peacefully at the age of 94. Mr. Speaker, the city of Juneau and the Juneau Rotary Club both passed unanimous resolutions supporting this designation, also the American Society of Civil Engineers and the Society of Professional Engineers adopted resolutions urging this distinction be bestowed upon Mr. Saunders. It is fitting, and in recognition of his outstanding contributions to Alaskan life, that the Federal building in Juneau, Alaska be designated the Hurff A. Saunders Building. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Ms. NORTON

Ms. NORTON. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me the time. Mr. Speaker, there are few instances in this Chamber where bipartisanship is required. There are almost no instances where fairness is required. Bipartisanship is not even required when we are declaring war. As we saw in the way the Gulf War was handled, there were divisions among us, and yet we came together. But Mr. Speaker, bipartisanship and fairness are necessary in a procedure that could overturn a democratic election. We are failing the joint test of bipartisanship and fairness this morning on the easiest of the issues of this proceeding, access to an accusatory document by the accused. Mr. Speaker, I have spent my life in the law arguing matters of due process, down to including first amendment matters, where I was defending the rights of racists to vindicate the right of free speech. I can say to the Members that I believe history will ask, what would have been lost if the President had been given a day or two to inspect documents that accused him? Ten days for Members accused, no day for the President of the United States when he is accused. We could have regulated how the document would be inspected. We could have sequestered those who would inspect it. There are any number of conditions, but the notion of no inspection does violate fundamental fairness. Impeachment is a matter of a process that we make up as we go along. Particularly because this Chamber is not controlled by the President's party, they should be at pains to bend over backwards on each and every element of fairness. They have failed to do so in this proceeding.

Ms. NORTON

Ms. NORTON. Mr. Speaker, I ask my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to give me a ``no'' vote on the rule before you. The rule is unworthy of a serious national legislature. The Congress has received a balanced consensus budget with a surplus no less from a local jurisdiction, the District of Columbia, containing only the city's taxpayer-raised funds. Instead of minding its own national business and getting on with the mountain of work left for us to do, this bill has become an excuse for indulging the controversial social and financial whims of some Members of this body. That is unfair to you, it is unfair to me, and it is unfair to District residents. Defeat this rule, unless you are prepared to waste a lot more time in Washington on the smallest appropriation and the one least relevant to your constituents. I have the Administration's Statement of Policy here. A litany of objections to this bill are listed by the Administration. Among them are three amendments which have been made in order, vouchers, the prohibition on adoption by married couples, and the prohibition on local funds for needle exchange, among others. This rule reads like a who's who of special interests. It nullifies a modest residency rule that the Control Board supports because the residency law strengthens the recovering D.C. economy. It puts this body through another vouchers fight not three months after the President has vetoed vouchers. It will make you vote on tricky social issues many Republican and Democratic Members would just as soon avoid. Two provisions strike at the core of democracy. One gratuitously bars the use of local funds in cooperating with a pro bono voting rights lawsuit that hardly involves the city, anyway. The other defunds the advisory neighborhood commissions that get pittance amounts as elected neighborhood officials who attend to grassroots problems like assuring that parks and river banks do not accumulate trash or harbor crime. At the last minute, a Member got a bright idea, he decided that the District's tobacco prohibitions might be strengthened but did not give me the courtesy of allowing me to ask the City Council to do it themselves. When you vote on this rule, you will make a statement of where you stand on controversial social issues and where you stand on democracy and devolution. The D.C. appropriation is not the place to take your stand on social legislation. The D.C. appropriation is the place to stand up for democracy. The way to do both is to defeat this rule.

Ms. NORTON

Ms. NORTON. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself the balance of my time. Mr. Chairman, I am not asking for anything special for the District of Columbia. I am asking for what this body has already ceded to every other district in the country. District residents have decided this question. Cruel consequences could flow, unique consequences will surely flow, if the District does not have the right to spend its own money as it sees fit, the way every other district does. Do not single the people I represent out. I ask my colleagues to not do to District residents what they cannot do to other Americans.

Ms. NORTON. Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.

Ms. NORTON. Mr. Chairman, I rise to oppose gratuitous language that would forbid the District to use its own funds as part of a lawsuit testing whether American citizens who happen to live in the Nation's capital are constitutionally entitled to voting rights in the Congress of the United States. I stand here as the only Member who represents taxpaying American citizens who are denied full representation in the Congress. Are we to add to this basic denial an attempt to deny the right to seek redress in the courts, as well? Do we really want to add one basic denial onto another, first denial of fair representation, then denial of the right to test that notion in a court of law? This provision is unworthy of this House unless we want to be in the company of the authoritarian regimes of the world. The denial of court redress is gratuitous and futile because the lawsuit is being carried pro bono by a major downtown law firm. The District's involvement is marginal, involving only such occasional advice from the City's Corporation Counsel, as should be responsibly required. It would be hard to even calculate the amount of District funds, so great is the responsibility of the private lawyers. Please, do not allow history to add to the litany of denials to the people I represent. Remember the most brazen and the most recent of the denial of basic rights already on the record of this Congress: that I won the right to vote in the Committee of the Whole; that the District Court and the U.S. Court of Appeals upheld that right; that the Republican majority retracted that right. For good measure, will that same majority shame itself today by forbidding the right to seek redress in a court of law, knowing not what that court will find, having an equal chance to prevail if they disagree with my position? What is to be gained by keeping the Corporation Counsel altogether out of the picture? Whom does it hurt if he provides an occasional piece of advice to those bringing the suit? Not one cent of Federal funds is involved. The District expenditures supporting this suit are too small even to calculate. Please remove this provision. Let us be.

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

Ms. NORTON. Does the gentleman realize that within the bill is a liberal waiver provision?

Ms. NORTON. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Texas (Ms. Jackson-Lee). (Ms. JACKSON-LEE of Texas asked and was given permission to revise and extend her remarks.)