Eleanor Norton

Ms. NORTON

Ms. NORTON. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding time to me. Mr. Speaker, the results of this debate are a foregone conclusion, yet this matter is too serious to have been treated as it has been, as a setup. There was a better way. We have questions that need answering: Why a bill that is unconstitutional on its face in defiance of Roe versus Wade? Why a bill that was never considered in committee? Why a bill that trades off mother for fetus? Why a bill that is sure to be vetoed? Why a bill that lower Federal courts have already indicated was unconstitutional? Why a bill that makes a tragic necessity for a late-term abortion even more tragic? This is very serious. It deserved to be treated seriously. It deserved the bipartisan solution that was indeed available. We have compounded the tragedy of late-term abortions here today.

Ms. NORTON

Ms. NORTON. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding me this time. Mr. Chairman, when I was a full-time law professor at Georgetown, one of the subjects I taught was labor law. I never thought I would live to see a debate on the House floor where we would be debating the dismemberment of the symmetry between the employer and the employee represented by the Fair Labor Standards Act. My friends, this is one of the great statutes of the 20th century. It ranks right up there with the civil rights laws of the 1960's. We have lost our way if the only way we can think of to bring updated benefits to workers is to trade off historic protections. This is a one-sided trade-off. Yes, the worker can make a decision. The worker can make a decision if the worker is willing to confront the greater power of the employer, and therein lies the problem with this bill. This bill is being proffered in the name of women, yet working women would be the last to benefit from this bill. Why? Because America's low-wage workers most in need of overtime pay are women. They are the low-wage hourly workers, because half of the workers who moonlight in America today are women, because almost all the single parents who are struggling with little or no child support are women, yet the need for flexibility is overwhelming, and it is great, and it is felt by women as well as men. There are many alternatives. Why do we not spread some of the innovative leave benefits that Federal workers have? Leave banks where employees bank their leave for others to use when they are in need; leave transfer, a one-on-one transfer, one worker to another; the Family Friendly Leave Act, a bill I wrote, where a worker can use her own sick leave to care for a sick family member; and there are many more. We can find them together, but only if we are willing to abandon the zero-sum-game approach represented by H.R. 1. Let us do that and sit down, and write a bipartisan bill.

Ms. NORTON

Ms. NORTON. Mr. Speaker, I thank the very kind gentleman from Virginia [Mr. Scott] for yielding to me. I want to thank the gentleman from Indiana [Mr. Burton] and the gentleman from Virginia [Mr. Davis], as well as the gentleman from California [Mr. Waxman], the ranking member, for their work on the District of Columbia Inspector General Improvement Act, a bill that would allow the District's director of personnel to waive the residency requirement for employees in the office of the inspector general at the inspector general's request. In April 1995, the Congress passed the District of Columbia financial responsibility and management assistance authority law, which expanded and strengthened the office of inspector general in the District of Columbia. Pursuant to the financial authority statute, Angela Avant was appointed inspector general in January 1996. Because of the apparent delay in finding a suitable candidate, Ms. Avant was under considerable pressure from Congress and the financial authority to recruit staff. She received some criticism for not filling positions quickly enough, in part because the positions allocated to the inspector general are ``excepted service'' positions and thus were subject to the requirement of District residency. The inspector general found that the residency requirement made it difficult to recruit several highly specialized personnel to staff her office. To alleviate these concerns, Mayor Barry transmitted legislation to the council on March 28, 1996, which contained a provision that waived the residency requirement under very limited circumstances. When it appeared that it would take some time for the Council Committee on Government Operations to consider the bill, I called council member Harold Brazil, then chairman of the committee, who said that he had no objection to the waiver going forward in the Congress. The residency requirement for the inspector general then became part of H.R. 3664, the District of Columbia Improvement and Efficiency Act of 1996, and on the assurance that this noncontroversial waiver was likely to be enacted, the inspector general hired several staff members who reside outside of the District of Columbia on a temporary basis. H.R. 3664 was never brought to the floor because another provision of the bill violated the pay-go rule. To overcome that problem, the gentleman from Virginia [Mr. Davis] submitted the residency language to the House District of Columbia Committee on Appropriations for inclusion in the 1997 omnibus appropriations bill, but in the rush to finalize the language of the omnibus bill in the final days of the 104th Congress, this provision apparently was omitted. Mr. Speaker, it is urgent that the Congress pass this bill to allow the Office of Inspector General to keep on staff personnel that have already been hired. Under the Merit Personnel Act, the temporary waiver of residency expires for employees who are ``excepted service'' after 6 months. Several of the employees hired by the inspector general will be in violation of this rule as early as March 24, if this legislation is not enacted. Maintaining the inspector general's staff is a high priority for the Congress and the financial authority because of the urgent need to uncover instances of waste, fraud, and abuse in the D.C. government. By passing this bill, the House sends a message that it wants to encourage fast action on these important priorities. I emphasize that this bill involves no violation of home rule because all branches of government, the Mayor, and the city council apparently agree that it should be passed expeditiously without going through the council, which would not be prepared to take it up as quickly as we have been. I ask the House to pass this piece of unfinished business from the 104th Congress, the District of Columbia Inspector General Improvement Act, H.R. 514.

Ms. NORTON

Ms. NORTON. Mr. Speaker, today I introduce the Parental Equity Leave Act of 1997, a bill which will ensure that employees who choose to care for a foster child or adopt a child will benefit from the same leave policy as their coworkers who are birth parents. This bill does not mandate that employers provide leave benefits beyond existing law, but rather that if they choose to provide such benefits, they do so for all parents equitably. The bill does no more than remove discrimination against foster and adoptive parents at a time when Congress and the President are urging Americans to come forward in far greater numbers as foster and adoptive parents. Because the employers who offer leave benefits beyond existing law are generally larger businesses and the number of children is very small, the bill will not burden employers and the costs will barely register. The Family Medical Leave Act of 1993 [FMLA] provides that employers must grant up to 12 weeks of unpaid, job-protected leave for adoptive, birth, and foster parents to care for a new child. Although some employers go beyond the mandate of the act and provide additional parental benefits, such as paid leave or the use of sick leave by employees with a newborn, they often extend such benefits only to birth parents and not to foster parents or parents who adopt. My bill merely tracks the FMLA, correcting this inequity by providing that if an employer allows additional leave benefits for the birth of a child, the employer must not discriminate against the parents of a foster child or an adopted child, but must provide the same leave. Thus, my bill does not require employers to provide leave policies beyond the requirements of the FMLA, but provides only for equal treatment for adoptive and foster parents, in keeping with the intent of the original legislation. The reasons for granting parental leave to both foster and adoptive parents overlap and merge, but both need the same leave benefits as birth parents, perhaps more so. There is an acute foster care crisis in the United States, with many more children in need of such care than there are foster or adoptive parents. Foster children are generally older children who have been removed from their own homes. Often they are children with specific needs. Increasingly, they have been abused or have parents with debilitating problems such as drug abuse and are hard to place. Thus, a foster parent will normally have a greater challenge of adjustment than a birth parent. A foster parent must acclimate to a child who already has set habits and personality traits. The foster child is sometimes intimidated by being thrust into her new surroundings. She may have come from dangerous or even life-threatening circumstances. In addition, foster care systems, especially those in large cities often are in great disrepair. A recent GAO study reported disgraceful circumstances for the care of many of these youngsters, a situation that is pervasive throughout the United States. The wreckage left behind by failed foster care systems is often reflected in the lives of foster children. They clearly need their parents in their new home as much, and probably more than the newborns who are the major recipients of the FMLA. Adopted children are generally not as old as foster care children and may not generally come to their new families from troubled circumstances. However, because most adoptive parents are caring for an infant or young child, their situation is similar to the parents of newborns. There is no reason, therefore, to treat them differently than birth parents. There are few foster or adoptive parents in any single workplace, guaranteeing that the effects on the employer would be small, in keeping with the policy of the FMLA. I urge my colleagues to support this bill to help ensure that foster parents and adoptive parents receive the same opportunity as birth parents to bond with a new child and to acclimate that child to her new family and surroundings.

Ms. NORTON

Ms. NORTON. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Alabama for yielding to me. Mr. Speaker, to live the life of a nun these days is not good enough if you want to serve your country. That is what Alexis Herman, the President's nominee to be Secretary of Labor, wanted to be. It is our good fortune that she decided to serve her country in this way. To live a righteous life is not good enough. That is what Alexis Herman has done. Moreover, Mr. Speaker, Alexis Herman has lived a life which groomed her for this agency. When she was a younger woman, she served in a number of capacities in the Labor Department, in the Women's Bureau, and as assistant to Ray Marshall, who was then Secretary. The Senate has been on a fishing expedition for 3 months now. It has come up empty. I find very few people in this life whose integrity I would personally vouch for. Alexis Herman is one of those people. I have seen this nominee up close. It is difficult to think of any American who would serve her country better as Secretary of Labor. I hope that the other body will soon recognize this and will in fact vote her to be the Secretary of Labor of the United States of America. I thank the gentleman for yielding to me, Mr. Speaker.

Ms. NORTON

Ms. NORTON. Mr. Speaker, today I introduce a bill to encourage Members of the House of Representatives to act in the spirit of welfare reform and to set an example by hiring at least one welfare recipient to work in either their Capitol Hill or their district office. The bill increases the number of staff that Members are now permitted to hire from 22 to 23 without any increase in their budgets, provided that the extra staff member is full-time and a welfare recipient. Members may hire welfare recipients now, as some have done, but others feel constrained by the limit on the total number of employees. By allowing an additional position, this legislation may also encourage the hiring of welfare recipients who are hard to place because of lack of experience and opportunities. Members may credit a welfare recipient from this city or region to her own home State's work participation rate, if desired. The Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996 requires that, by the year 2002, 50 percent of all families-- including 90 percent of two-parent families--receiving welfare be in the workforce or in work activities. In only 1 year, this year, half that number or 25 percent must be working--including 75 percent of two- parent families. This is a daunting goal to achieve nationwide, especially considering the wide differences in the economies of the States, cities, and rural areas and great differences in the skills and background of welfare recipients today. Yet large penalties ultimately totaling up to 21 percent of a State's grant may result if the quotas are not met. At a time when we are asking private employers to hire welfare recipients, we must take the lead. The President has directed Federal agencies to take steps within the next 30 days to hire welfare recipients. Congress must also do its part. While this revenue neutral bill contemplates no increase in a Member's allowance, it removes a hurdle to hiring a welfare recipient for offices that already have the authorized number of staff or must use their full complement. Under current rules, Members are allowed to hire 22 staff members, 18 permanent and 4 nonpermanent, in their Washington and district offices. The last time the number of permanent staffers was increased was in 1975--from 16 to 18--and the 4 nonpermanent staff positions were added in 1979. There is no corresponding increase in Member allowance. Several Members have already begun to hire recipients of public assistance. This legislation encourages others to follow by reducing one possible impediment. This legislation is also in the spirit of the Congressional Accountability Act that applies the same laws to Congress as to other Americans. Employers are not required to hire welfare recipients, and neither are we. They are encouraged to hire welfare recipients, and so should we. I urge each and every Member to cosponsor this bill and to help ensure its early passage.

Ms. NORTON

Ms. NORTON. Mr. Speaker, after last weekend, Hershey, PA, may have acquired an additional identity. Congress went to Hershey to make peace. What began as a question mark turned into an exclamation point. What emerged was a truism that has not always been true: Collegiality across party lines is an essential ingredient to the work of a legislative body. This is an idea whose time has come--some would say long ago. The Nation will be watching to see whether the idea lives on in the House past last weekend.

Ms. NORTON

Ms. NORTON. Mr. Speaker, I first want to say how indebted I am to the gentleman from South Carolina [Mr. Clyburn]. After I organized this special order it became necessary for me to leave the House, and on very short notice he was willing to conduct this special order. He is a most appropriate gentleman to conduct it, and I very much thank him for the grace and skill with which he has done just that. Mr. Speaker, I am not sure that the best way to celebrate your 86th birthday is listening to a bunch of Members of Congress, but leave it to Arnold Aronson, always at work, to spend his 86th birthday just that way. Now, you know there is a cliche about unsung heroes. But in a very real sense Arnold Aronson gives that phrase new meaning largely because he never sought the credit and the praise that is rightfully his in a movement where people are not exactly shy in stepping forward to claim credit. It is not every good man who is honored on his 86th birthday. It is certainly not every good man that brings Members of the House for a special order of indebtedness to his work. But Arnold Aronson deserves that, and he deserves more, and the fact is that he will probably not get a lot more. He will probably not get a lot more because in a real sense he has lived a life in which he has not sought a lot more. It is up to those of us who know his work and appreciate his work to spread the word of his work, and not only, I might say, to do tribute to his work because in a very real sense the work of Arnold Aronson deserves recognition today because it deserves repeating today and because there are too few willing to stand in the exact place where he stood, hoisting the flag of the principles that make him a great American. I come before you this evening with particular humility as a former chair of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, as a child of the civil rights movement. I know my own personal indebtedness to Arnold Aronson. I know quite well that the agency that it was my great honor and privilege to chair, the law I came to administer did not simply pop up on the lawbooks one day as this House decided to do the right thing. What is too little appreciated today is the kind of work and the kind of atmosphere in which that work had to be done. What is too little appreciated today is what it was like 56 years ago, when Arnold Aronson was there with A. Philip Randolph and where our country was at war, proudly marching off to war, with an army segregated to the core and thinking not one thing about it, marching off in peace and freedom to fight a war against the ultimate bigotry in a segregated army, and there were very few who understood that irony or even understood that it was wrong to step forward then. If you were white or if you were black was to separate yourself from the great masses. Blacks were deprived of every conceivable right. Whites, even those who knew the difference between racial right and racial wrong, seldom had the courage to act on what they knew. Arnold Aronson has never lacked that courage. We did not get here by ourselves. We got here marching behind others, and Arnold Aronson stands among those at the front of that line. The agency I came to chair, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, had its origins in the Fair Employment Practices Committee, which Arnold Aronson, working with such stalwarts as A. Philip Randolph, helped to achieve. Even the beloved Franklin D. Roosevelt did not step forward because it occurred to him that maybe black people working in the war industry ought to have equal opportunity in jobs. Somebody had to suggest it to him. And in fact there were a small band of great men who did so, and history will remember them: Joseph Rowell, Bayard Rustin, Clarence Mitchell, Arnold Aronson. There are names of the 1990's, but we had best remember the names of the 1940's if we want to know truly how we got here. Arnold Aronson wrote some of the most compelling reports of the period, the reports, the documents that made people especially those in high places, like President Truman, understand that it was time to move forward. One of the most compelling of those was to secure these rights drafted indeed by Arnold Aronson. Today, when we are trying to get more funds for the EEOC, it perhaps seems impossible to believe that the idea of a permanent FEPC, or Fair Employment Practice Committee, was a radical idea. Money for it? The point was should there be any such committee at all. As late as 1950 Arnold Aronson was at the forefront of those struggling for a permanent FEPC. Even the wartime experience, so successful, had not led to a permanent agency, and we were not to get one until 1964, when Arnold Aronson, unbroken in his work in the movement, helped lead the march on Washington that got finally a permanent FEPC, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. The fact is that as late as the 1950's Arnold Aronson was working with Roy Wilkins to get an antilynching bill; that is what they called it when I was a child and perhaps even when my colleagues were children. They called it antilynching bills. It operated at that level of terror. We did not call it civil rights acts in order to keep people from engaging in violence, and it was at the raw level that Arnold Aronson and his colleagues were trying to convince people that you should not lynch people. That was not self-evident. That was not evident to most Americans. Somebody had to stand up and keep saying it and not relent and find ways to make it come true in a country born in racism, determined in its racism. And what was the cry for an anti-lynching statute was to develop into the success of the 1960's, and when the 20th century closes its eyes and bids farewell and they name the half dozen pieces of legislation that made this century and made this country, the laws which Arnold Aronson helped achieve, particularly in the 1960's, will be numbered in that group. In 1961, Mr. Aronson wrote the pioneering work Federal Support of Discrimination. That is what it was all about, Federal funds, the great might and weight of the Federal Government in support of discrimination. Somebody had to make this country face that fact, that the greatest support for discrimination came from the greatest country on the face of the Earth. Somebody had to do it without hanging back and without dropping the ball and had to do it from one decade to the next, because even today the work is not done, and the work has been left to those who refuse to lay down their swords and retire, but recognize that they had to go forward into yet another decade, and that was Arnold Aronson. When I was in law school and I would come down in the summers to Mississippi, to the March on Washington, to New York where it was being organized, to wherever there was work to be done, the fine hand of Arnold Aronson was always there. He belongs to that extraordinary coterie of men to whom this country owes everything. We owe our dignity as a country; we owe the elimination of the greatest scar on the American polity; we owe it to them. We could never be a great country until that scar was wiped away and the great civil rights laws finally achieved, in no small part out of their personal labors, and especially the labor of Arnold Aronson wiped away that scar and helped us to emerge finally as a great Nation. Let me finally say something about an issue that needs to be confronted as we are celebrating the life of Arnold Aronson. We live now in a country where people go off into their respective ethnic and racial corners. In a real sense there was more discourse across racial lines when I was a girl in the civil rights movement. We have lost some of the spirit that guided the times and events of Arnold Aronson, and I would ask us tonight not simply to honor him on his 86th birthday, but to try to reclaim and recapture the moral authority of Arnold Aronson. He had that authority because he knew no prejudice, first and foremost; because he lived the word that we were all created equal. So today the great alliance between African-Americans and Jews needs to come alive again, needs to come alive again if we are to remember from whence we came and who were there with us when nobody else was there. I have to say it, Mr. Speaker. The one thing I cannot understand is black anti-Semitism, because the one group of people who were always there with African-Americans were American Jews. I cannot understand it, and we need to confront it, and we need to remind people how we got there. Arnold Aronson, for most of his life, worked for the National Jewish Community Relations Council and worked in that capacity for full rights for American Jews and American blacks. If indeed we mean to finally finish this struggle, we can only finish it if we rededicate ourselves to the principles that made it a great struggle. If it is only about our rights, it is about nobody's rights. It means nothing if we take on the very mantle of prejudice that we are ourselves so long have criticized others for wearing. So this evening let the life of Arnold Aronson take us back to basics, to our first principles that all men and women are created equal, that if I am a black I will stand up first against anti- Semitism. If I am an Hispanic, I will stand up first against racism. The rest of you will have to stand after me. Only then and only with that resolve, only with that sense of coalition and moral authority will we complete the work so valiantly carried on by Arnold Aronson. He does us great honor by allowing us to honor him this evening.

Ms. NORTON

Ms. NORTON. Well, Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman for reading off names of Members who may want to now place matters into the Record. I believe she also read Julia Carson and Kay Granger. If not, I want to be sure their names were included. I am certain that there are perhaps even more Members who will want to add statements to the Record. I thank the gentlewoman for acquiring this time and for sharing it with me.

Ms. NORTON. I thank the gentlewoman for yielding to me, for her kind words, for her very hard work on behalf of women, for her bipartisanship and for her great intelligence and energy in this body. It is a great pleasure to commemorate Women's History Month, as a partner with my co-chair of the Congressional Women's Caucus. This is the 20th year of the Congressional Women's Caucus, so Women's History Month this year means something very special to the 53 Members, who are women in the House of Representatives. It is a special enough occasion so that tomorrow the women Members will be going to the White House at 5:00 p.m. in order to commemorate its 20th anniversary with the President of the United States. I want to indicate before I begin, Mr. Speaker, that my co-chair and I are only beginning this series. The second week of this series for Women's History Month will concern women in the military. That is an issue of great importance to the Women's Caucus this year, particularly considering the sexual harassment and sexual assault charges that have arisen at Aberdeen and other places. The third week of March, the subject will be women's health. That is a very special matter for this caucus, since, I believe it is fair to say, the caucus can take much of the credit for advances that have come from this body on the issue of women's health. The gentlewoman from Maryland [Mrs. Morella] and the gentlewoman from New York [Ms. Slaughter] will lead us the third week of March on women's health. But where the gentlewoman from Connecticut and I begin is perhaps the place to begin this year discussing women and economic equity. The emergence of women in the workplace puts a burden on this body and on the American people to absorb this very large group with fairness and equity and equality. The new woman is a woman who works. She is often a woman with children working part time. She is often a woman who works only after her children are in school. But it will be a rare woman of the coming generation that has not spent some time in the work force. Last year, April 11, the President declared National Pay Inequality Awareness Day. That was the day on which a number of bills to encourage greater fairness toward women in the workplace were introduced. The reason April 11 was chosen last year is that was the day on which American women's wages for 1996, when added to their entire 1995 earnings, finally equaled what men earned in 1995 alone. This year I will be introducing the Fair Pay Act on that day. That is a bill I have introduced before and will introduce until there is more substantial progress for women in the workplace. I also support a bill that has been introduced in the Senate entitled the Paycheck Fairness Act. The Paycheck Fairness Act will be introduced here in the House, and I intend to be a cosponsor. It is a far milder bill than the bill that I have written, the Fair Pay Act, and, therefore, it is a bill that I would hope most Members could embrace. It will require greater penalties for violators of the Equal Pay Act. It will require the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission to maintain payroll records by race, sex, and national origin even as it now maintains these records with respect to other terms and conditions of employment. And it will require the EEOC to train its employees in wage discrimination. This bill is necessary because the notion of equal pay for equal work, embraced by virtually everyone in this body, is not getting the attention by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission it should get today, and there has been a decline in the number of cases. We think that the Paycheck Fairness Act and what it would encourage will increase vigilance under the Equal Pay Act. Mr. Speaker, I was the Chair of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission during the Carter administration. As such, I enforced the Equal Pay Act and the other discrimination laws, including those that relate to pay. Out of that experience, it has become clear to me that we need the Equal Pay Act to be amended to do for women in the 1990's what the Equal Pay Act did for women in the 1960's. The Equal Pay Act has been one of the most successful bills or one of the most successful pieces of legislation designed to offer equal opportunity ever passed by the Congress. It has in fact helped to narrow the gap between men and women in pay. But no one would stand in the well of the House and say, it has done its work or that it is as effective as this statute, the Equal Pay Act, could in fact be. Progress has been made but a great deal of that progress is sadly illusory. Women's wages have now gone from 62 cents on a man's dollar, as was the case in 1982, to 71 cents on a man's dollar today. The problem with that progress is that it does not reflect straightaway progress for the average woman in the work force. The new presence of highly educated women in entry level positions accounts for part of that progress. But sadly, part of that progress simply shows up because men's wages have fallen so precipitously. Why then is there a wage gap today? The wage gap persists largely because most women are still segregated in a few low paying women's occupations, pure and simple. If you got the opportunity to go to law school or business school or medical school, you are not among those women. But the fact is that the average woman makes about $14,000 a year, and that is because she works below her skill level in a women's occupation. These occupations have stereotyped wages. They do not in fact pay in equivalency what a man would get in a job of equal skill effort, responsibility and working conditions. The jobs may be dissimilar, but why should the pay be different if the skill, effort, responsibility and working conditions are the same? For example, would anyone like to indicate to me why an emergency services operator, a female, dominated-occupation, should be paid less than a fire dispatcher, a male, dominated-occupation? There is no defensible reason for the disparity in their wages, but there is an easily ascertainable reason. And that is clearly that the wage scales have built in the fact of gender in the occupation. That is a problem that pervades the work force and pay levels. My bill, the Fair Pay Act, would simply require that in the same workplace an employer pay men and women who are doing jobs of equivalent skill, effort, responsibility and working conditions the same, even if the jobs are not exactly the same. This bill poses no threat to the way in which employers do business or the way in which our economy operates. The burden would be on the woman to show that her wage, the difference in her wage, for example, between the fire dispatcher and the emergency services operator, is not because of market conditions and supply and demand, but the burden would be on her to show that the reason for the disparity is discrimination based on sex. I am the first to indicate that not all women will be able to show that they earn less money than men in a comparable occupation because of gender discrimination. All my bill does is to allow those women who do the opportunity to show that they in fact are paid less than men because of their gender. By now it is a truism that the decline in men's wages and the decline in the standard of living over a couple of decades as well have made work a necessity for the average husband-wife family. The growth in female heads of household, the return now or the entry now of welfare clients into the work force means that we must redouble our effort to make sure that women are paid what they are worth in the workplace. The Fair Pay Act takes up where the Equal Pay Act leaves off. We have already seen in at least a half dozen States, from the State of Washington to the State of Connecticut, that one can enforce comparable pay discrimination without upsetting the economy of a State, for the State employment systems in those States have done exactly that. To illustrate the currency of the issue of equal pay and comparable pay, let me finally cite the case of Marianne Stanley. Marianne Stanley is now coaching at Stanford. The sports aficionados will, of course, recognize who Marianne Stanley is. She was known especially for her work as head coach at Old Dominion, where she had a winning percentage of 351 to 146 during her stay there. The school won the AIAW titles in 1979 and 1990 and added an NCAA title in 1985 to her credits. Until this season, by the way, when Tennessee's Pat Summit won her fourth national title, Stanley and Summit were tied for the most national women's basketball titles. Marianne Stanley has now brought an Equal Pay Act suit. She brought that suit when she left Old Dominion, and she became head coach at USC, and she was there from 1990 to 1993. She was considered a national treasure, and led USC to the final eight of the NCAA tournament in 1992. Her teams, her Trojan teams, reached the NCAA tournament in each of her final 3 years there. This woman is a winner. But she was fired following the 1992 season, reportedly because of a dispute with her athletic director over not receiving a salary equal to the salary that men's coaches were paid. She brought a lawsuit. That lawsuit is now on appeal. Here is a woman who has broken through as coach in a sport where women got scant attention until recently, but as everyone knows, women's basketball is the coming sport, and here we have a champion in her own right who goes on to be a champion coach. All I can say, without knowing the outcome of the suit that is on appeal, is that she was not paid the same as men's coaches. I do not think that one who won games the way she did should be subject to less pay than men's coaches who, by the way, had not, so far as I understand, won or had the championships as she had. Equal pay and comparable pay issues abound in the workplace. This is the month to remind Americans of that. Too often we use commemorations like Women's History Month to congratulate ourselves for commemorating the fact of such a month. We must use these occasions to remind ourselves that there is work to do, and to then put that work forward. My cochair has indicated that she will be using this month to introduce her bills. I will be using this month to introduce bills designed to help women. I hope that women in the caucus and our many colleagues throughout the Congress will use Women's History Month to focus on doing something for women that will have an effect on increasing their opportunities in the work force.

Ms. NORTON

Ms. NORTON. Mr. Speaker, today, I introduce the Officer Brian Gibson Tax Free Pension Equity Act of 1997, a bill which will allow the survivors of a Federal or local law enforcement officer killed in the line of duty to receive that officer's pension tax free. This legislation bears the name of Officer Brian Gibson, a brave police officer, a hero recognized as a model by his peers, an example for all who wear a police officer's badge anywhere, and a District of Columbia resident who was laid to rest on February 10 after being fatally shot in the line of duty. Officer Gibson was a devoted family man who left a wife, Mrs. Tracie Gibson, and two children. He graduated from H.D. Woodson High School in the District. Officer Gibson was a family man devoted to his wife, his children, his family, his community, his city, and his Police Department. I name this bill for Officer Gibson to help us remember him and all officers who die in the line of duty, and to help young men understand the meaning of courage, manhood, service, and family. Current Federal tax law allows officers who retire on disability to collect disability payments tax free. However, Officer Gibson's family must pay taxes on the survivor benefits of his pension. This disparate tax treatment is unfair because whether an officer retires on disability or is killed, that officer's family loses a wage earner, and in many instances, the family's sole wage earner. This bill is retroactive to taxable year 1997 to enable Officer Gibson's young family and the survivors of other officers killed in the line of duty in 1997 to begin receiving their survivor benefits free of Federal income taxation. For the average officer's family, this bill could mean 28 percent more money in survivor benefits. The police families who have lost their loved ones in police service have lost the irreplaceable. I urge my colleagues to support the Officer Brian Gibson Tax Free Pension Equity Act and afford the families of our slain law enforcement officers the same tax free treatment in survivor benefits we have already granted to officers who retire on disability.

Ms. NORTON

Ms. NORTON. Mr. Speaker, in a season that will be dominated by deficit reduction, all Federal spending must be scrutinized and made accountable. Today I am introducing four bills to bring accountability for the first time to the shadow government. While the Federal agency work force is being cut each year, we are continuing to support a growing and largely unmonitored private contract service sector and work force from which the Federal Government procures services. The huge $114 billion service contracting portion of the Federal budget has avoided reductions while deficit reduction has spared few others. Members who favor contracting out and privatization and those who prefer that the work be done by Federal agencies can all agree that both must be held accountable, because both are funded by taxpayer dollars. Service contracting constitutes the fastest growing area of Federal procurement, accounting for over $114 billion of the $200 billion spent each year on outside contracts. In only 3 years, between fiscal year 1989 and fiscal year 1992, the number of contractors doing business with the Government rose from 62,819 to 82,472. Just a few years ago, the OMB itself indicated that contracting is out of control. Yet this large Federal expenditure has remained hidden in the shadows, unlike Federal agencies and employees. There is no way to know whether this sector has contributed a single dollar to deficit reduction. It is remarkable that despite a governmentwide effort to promote efficiency, we have not considered the inefficiency of guaranteeing contractors an invulnerable chunk of tax dollars. The Clinton administration, to its credit, has worked hard to make service contractors more responsive--for example, by proposing new performance-based standards for existing service contracts. However, the budget that Congress is now considering proposes no cuts in funds allocated specifically to service contracts--thus leaving untouched a huge source of potential savings--while demanding continuing sacrifices from the career work force that makes up the visible government. The time is long past due for overhauling the contracting practices of the Federal Government. With the four bills I am introducing today, I hope to help begin the process of re- inventing Federal contracting just as the rest of the Federal Government is being re-invented. full federal pay raise My first bill would cut $5.7 billion in Federal agency funds for service contracts and make this money available for pay raises that are due Federal employees in 1998. Federal employees are again being required to give up part of their statutory pay increases while contract employees paid from the same Federal budget again remain untouched. The intent of this bill is to eliminate the discrimination that allows the Government to extract sacrifices from civil servants without considering ways to seek some savings from contractors. The process of competitive bidding does not insure savings and efficiency, but only that the Government may get the best deal among those who are competing. The 5 percent cut would compel contractors to scrutinize themselves for efficiency in the same way as we are now requiring of Federal agencies. Especially when compared with the sizable reductions agencies have experienced, this cut is so small that it should be beyond debate. buyout reform My second bill would plug a hole in the buyout legislation reauthorized last year. When enacting the initial legislation in 1994, Congress went to extraordinary lengths to ensure that civil servants who were bought out with cash, could not be replaced with new hires and that the resulting 272,900 planned reductions in the Federal work force would be permanent. However, as it stands now, the buyout law would allow untold numbers of contract employees to replace bought-out Federal employees. Congress did not intend for buyouts to result in a simple substitution of contract employees for career employees. Rather, Congress made the judgment that the Government should be smaller and that considerable saving should result. The anticipated savings will not be made if one set of FTE's--Full-time equivalent employees--are substituted for another. cost comparisons The reason most often advanced for contracting out work is that it is cheaper. However, a 1994 GAO study contradicts this assumption, and a 1994 OMB study revealed that cost-savings comparisons often are not always done. Federal agencies routinely do not compare the cost of contracting with the cost of doing work in-house. Thus, my third bill would require agencies to make these cost comparisons and would prohibit them from entering into an outside service contract if the services could be performed at a lower cost by agency employees. Beyond the discrimination against career employees who are denied work regardless of efficiency and costs, current contracting practices are fundamentally bad business. According to the GAO report, issuing service contracts and hiring consultants can very often actually cost Federal agencies more than using Federal employees. In several of the cases analyzed by GAO, agencies could have saved more than 50 percent by keeping the work in-house. Size of Contracting Work Force The absence of basic information, beginning with the size of the contracting work force, makes it impossible to make intelligent decisions about contracting out. To its credit, Congress in 1988 passed legislation requiring agencies to significantly cut service contracts. However, a subsequent GAO report found that there was no way to know if the agencies had actually complied with the legislation. Therefore, my fourth bill requires the OMB to develop a governmentwide system for determining and reporting the number of non-Federal employees engaged in service contracts. All four of these bills would provide more systematic ways for monitoring and constraining the expenses associated with contracting out of services--just as we have insisted for Federal agencies and employees. Efficiency and deficit reduction must not stop at the door of the Federal agency. We need to bring the shadow government into the full light of day so that the sacrifices demanded in the name of re- inventing government may be shared by all employees and by every area of Government.

Ms. NORTON

Ms. NORTON. Mr. Speaker, today I introduce the District of Columbia Tax Revenue Nondiscrimination Act of 1997, a bill which would remove congressionally established tax exemptions that prevent the District of Columbia from taxing favored special interests within its borders. The bill targets 36 organizations, without regard to political affiliation or influence, which have been given property or income tax breaks on an ad hoc special interest basis. Congress granted each of these tax exemptions prior to home rule-- many in the 19th century--when Congress governed the District and freely allowed tax breaks for Members' favorite special interests. My bill would remove these prehome rule exemptions. Removing these congressionally mandated tax exemptions will not solve the District's financial crisis, but will correct profound discrimination and inequity at a time when the District is on its financial knees. Congress should no longer contribute to the District's financial crisis by denying it access to ordinary revenue. I urge my colleagues to pass the District of Columbia Tax Revenue Nondiscrimination Act and let Congress finally become a part of the solution to the District's financial crisis, rather than remaining a major contributor to the District's financial problems. The following is a list of the 36 organizations covered by this bill: American Chemical Society, American Forestry Association, Brookings Institution, Medical Society of the District of Columbia, National Academy of Science, American Pharmaceutical Association, National Geographic Society, National Lutheran Home, American Association to Promote the Teaching of Speech to the Deaf, Disabled American Veterans, National Society of the Colonial Dames of America, Jewish War Veterans, Louise Home, Oak Hill Cemetery, Corcoran Gallery of Art, Luther Statue Association, Young Women's Christian Association, Young Men's Christian Association, Edes Home, General Education Board, Daughters of the American Revolution, National Society United States Daughters of 1812, National Society of the Sons of the American Revolution, American Legion, National Education Association, Society of the Cincinnati, American Veterans of WWII, Veterans of Foreign Wars, National Women's Party, American Association of University Women, National Guard Association of the United States, Woodrow Wilson House, American Institute of Architects, Federal National Mortgage Association (Fannie Mae), Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation (Freddie Mac), and Student Loan Marketing Association (Sallie Mae).

Ms. NORTON

Ms. NORTON. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, I want to begin by thanking the gentleman from Indiana [Mr. Burton] for allowing us to expedite consideration of this bill, and I want to express my appreciation to the subcommittee chair, the gentleman from Virginia [Tom Davis], for his work in making certain that this bill came to the floor this morning. Mr. Speaker, in August 1939 Congress granted a Federal charter to Group Hospitalization, Inc., which authorized it to arrange for the provision of hospital services on a nonprofit basis to individuals residing in the District of Columbia. This was necessary because, at the time, the District had no laws in place to regulate nonprofit health insurance companies and, of course, there was no self-government at the time, but this body was the legislating body for the District of Columbia. The District only had the means to regulate mutual insurance companies, which group hospitalization did not wish to become. As a consequence, Group Hospitalization, Inc. began its operations exempt from local regulation. In October 1984, the charter was amended to expand Group Hospitalization's purpose beyond arranging for hospital services to include arranging for the provision of medical services on a nonprofit basis. This amendment also provided for a change of the company's name to Group Hospitalization and Medical Services, Inc., otherwise known as GHMSI. GHMSI is currently licensed by the Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association to do business as Blue Cross and Blue Shield of the National Capital area. In the early 1990's, GHMSI's management engaged in a wide range of questionable business practices which threatened the corporation's financial stability. The Senate Government Affairs Committee's Subcommittee on Investigations held hearings on the situation. The subcommittee determined that the situation might have been avoided had GHMSI been fully regulated by the District government. To remedy this situation and protect the interests of the citizens served by GHMSI, the Congress amended its charter in both 1992 and 1993 to provide that it be licensed and regulated by the District government. Last December, the District government enacted the Hospital and Medical Services Corporation Regulatory Act. This legislation establishes an improved statutory framework for the District's insurance administration to regulate GHMSI and any other similar nonprofit insurance corporations. Last month GHMSI and Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Maryland announced that they had signed a letter of intent to combine their business operations through the formation of a nonprofit holding company. Both health plans will continue to operate as subsidiaries of the holding company. This arrangement is expected to enhance their financial stability and provide their members with access to a wider array of service providers. The completion of this transaction would be made possible by the repeal of GHMSI's Federal charter. However, it would still be subject to regulatory reviews and approvals by the insurance commissioners of the District of Columbia, Maryland, and Virginia. Today, GHMSI is the only federally chartered health insurance corporation. All other Blue Cross and Blue Shield plans and all other commercial insurance companies are State chartered and subject to State regulatory oversight. In order for GHMSI to make a change in its corporate structure, the Congress would have to amend its charter. This is a burdensome process that encumbers GHMSI's efficient operation. In order to enable GHMSI to compete within the insurance industry on a level playing field, it is appropriate that Congress grant its request to repeal the charter and allow the local government to exclusively regulate GHMSI's affairs. This bill is fully in keeping with self-government and home rule. We therefore have before us, Mr. Speaker, a bill that facilitates the operations of a very important company located in the District of Columbia at the same time that it removes a remnant from the prehome rule period of the District of Columbia. So it serves the interests of all involved. I am pleased that it also serves the interests of the local governments in the neighboring regions as well.

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

Ms. NORTON

Ms. NORTON. Mr. Speaker, the cold war is over, but nuclear weapons remain. The bill I introduce today would substantially reduce the likelihood that nuclear weapons will become a renewed threat. The Nuclear Disarmament and Economic Conversion Act would require the United States to disable and dismantle its nuclear weapons and to refrain from replacing them with weapons of mass destruction once foreign countries possessing nuclear weapons enact and execute similar requirements. The United States, the leading nuclear power in the world, has an obligation to take far bolder leadership in moving to help disarm these weapons. The act would then require that resources used to sustain nuclear programs be used to address human needs such as housing, health care, education, agriculture, and environmental restoration. Funding such initiatives here in the United States is necessary to bring peace within our own country. As deficit reduction forces cuts, reducing needless nuclear weaponry is the place to begin. This bill is especially relevant today with the Clinton administration's push to expand the number of countries that are members of NATO and would be bound by the treaty to come to each other's defense. My bill will put our money and our principles where our mouth has been. We must not continue to spend on nuclear weapons while we preach peace and the end of nuclear proliferation.

Ms. NORTON

Ms. NORTON. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that my name be removed as a cosponsor of the Working Families Flexibility Act of 1997, H.R. 1.

Ms. NORTON

Ms. NORTON. Mr. Speaker, I come to the floor today first and foremost to thank the leadership of this country for the priority they have placed upon the capital of the United States, to thank President Bill Clinton, majority leader of the Senate Trent Lott, and our own Speaker, Newt Gingrich, who have agreed that among the five priorities for this session of Congress should be special attention to the capital of the United States. There is there the kind of bipartisanship that one would expect from a great country for its great capital. Why this priority for the capital of the United States? Well, I suppose its name tells it all. It is the capital of the United States, and there is in this body and this country a fiduciary obligation to its own capital. It is self-evident. The District of Columbia is a financial orphan under our Constitution. It is not a part of any State. It cannot even tax people who come here from other regions, use our services and go home without leaving any, not even one thin dime of tax money here. Why has the city come to this state of affairs now? Well, all of the cities are in great trouble, but they have States. There is not a big city in the United States that would not be flat on its back if it were not for its State. Cities are increasingly clusters of the poor, with the middle class having fled. This chart tells the story of the death-dealing crisis of your capital city. We are on line to lose three times as many people in the 1990's as we lost in the 1980's. If we mean to have a capital, now is the time to move in. This is the session of Congress to move in to help the city. The reason this has not been as apparent as it should be is that the District Government has been historically poorly managed. That hides the poor performance of the Congress and of the country. The poor performance of the city should not give rise to the abandonment of the capital by our country. And what about the performance of the Congress, which offloaded $5 billion in pension liability built up before home rule? What about a Congress that says to a city in this day and time, hey, you pay for State functions, prisons, Medicaid, courts, all by yourself with no help from anyone else? It cannot be done, my good colleagues. And yet there are no sure and fast answers to the problems of the District. I went this week to the funeral of a brave young officer, Officer Brian Gibson, executed, and I come back the day of his funeral to find a Member of the other body wanting to put the death penalty on the District of Columbia. This is 4 years after the District faced this issue and voted that it would be among the jurisdictions not to have the death penalty. The top killing States in the United States all have the death penalty. We do not see the death penalty as the answer to the crime problems of the District of Columbia. We do note that the American Bar Association says that the death penalty is so inequitably applied that there should be a moratorium on it. We ask the help of our country. We are prepared to make, and are making, excruciating sacrifices that no city which has gotten into trouble has had to make, that New York and that Philadelphia, which all became insolvent years before the District, none had to make, because there was a State. We are asking for the help of our country. We believe that the half- million people who live in the District deserve the help of our country. But please do not impose on us matters that we ourselves have not approved. This is yet a free country, and this is the Congress that boasts that it is devolving power back to the localities, not usurping power from the localities. I welcome the help of my colleagues. I look forward to working with the President, with the majority leader of the Senate, with the Speaker of the House, and with my own leadership to make the capital of the Unites States a city that we truly can all be proud of.

Ms. NORTON

Ms. NORTON. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentlewoman for yielding this time to me. Mr. Chairman, progress in family planning is one of the great success stories of the world. It is where we are making progress throughout the developing world. I am proud of the role my country has played in this progress. This is one of the bright stars of American foreign policy. I respect the conscientious and religious objections of those who oppose abortion, but I cannot imagine what the world thinks of this debate that drags abortion into a family planning matter. We must not see abortion in issues that allow us to cut off our noses to spite our faces. Family planning and contraception in the developing world impact three issues of awesome importance: maternal health, children's health and AIDS. In the early century, graveyards showed more women dying at an earlier age than men. We have turned that around almost exclusively because of family planning. Let us do for the world what we have done for our country. Let this money go.

Ms. NORTON

Ms. NORTON. Mr. Speaker, tomorrow we will recognize the achievements of women and girls in an important area that has been traditionally dominated by men: sports. As part of the 11th Annual National Girls and Women in Sports Day, many women, athletes and members of Congress will be celebrating the athletic accomplishments of women. As cochair of the Congressional Caucus for Women's Issues, I am proud to have the opportunity to spotlight women's activity in an area where they have often been overlooked. The majority of media coverage focusing on sports coverage goes to men's sports. While a recent study found that 94 percent of local television news sports coverage goes to men's sports, women's sports get 5 percent of the coverage. Unfortunately, one of the results of this low level of media coverage is insufficient financial support of women's sports in universities across the United States. Less than 24 percent of college sport operating budgets and less than 18 percent of athletic recruiting dollars are allocated to women's sports. This is despite the fact that women are as athletic and as talented in sports as men, and that women and girls involved in sports have greater self-esteem and do better in school than those who do not participate in sports. By participating in sports, women and girls learn how to work as a team and to strive to achieve a desired goal, skills vital to succeeding in any career. Many women also choose sports as a career, including returning to high school or universities to coach young athletes. Yet even here women are not equal to men. According to a recent survey of head coaches of Division I basketball teams, head coaches of women basketball teams average only 59 percent of the base salary of head coaches of men's basketball. This disparity in women's pay in many fields is the reason I introduced the Fair Pay Act that would prohibit discrimination in the payment of wages on account of sex, race or national origin. While this law will help prevent discrimination in the pay of the women working in sports, it will not get them the recognition women athletes deserve. As an accomplished women's basketball coach has said in a recent interview, ``It is really frustrating to have a championship team and get two-inch stories in the paper while some average men's team gets pages written about them.'' This is slowly--too slowly--changing. It is my hope that tomorrow's events commemorating National Girls and Women in Sports Day will, by its own recognition, help women gain equality in sports.

Ms. NORTON

Ms. NORTON. Mr. Speaker, I come to the floor first and foremost to thank Members for the way they responded to the President's remarks concerning the District yesterday. The President spoke, in his State of the Union speech, warmly of his own intention to assist the District, and partly in his words, ``to renew this great capital city so that Washington, DC, is a great place to live, and is once again the proud face America shows to the world.'' I appreciate as well the concerned words of Speaker Gingrich, who devoted part of his own opening speech, upon being sworn in, to the District. The Speaker has in fact been very helpful to the District during the 104th Congress. The President has put on the table a strong plan. First, it takes back $5 billion in pension liability racked up by the Congress before home rule and off-loaded on the District. Second, it recognizes that the District is not a State and like every city in the United States cannot today bear State, county, and municipal functions all by itself, even if it becomes the most efficient government on the face of the Earth. Last night the President offered words on an empowerment zone approach that he intends to spread to cities across the United States, including the District. It is a traditional approach that is already in use across the country. I am very grateful that he wants to include the District in this approach. I welcome it. But I welcome it only in combination with income tax relief in light of a bill I have introduced yesterday. As the sole response to the crisis of the capital city, the empowerment approach is unacceptable to me and to the District. Why? The President's own plan, the President's strong plan--for pension and State cost relief--would take this much, represented by the orange color, off the table from what District taxpayers now pay. What that means is that 90 percent of what District taxpayers pay they would continue to pay. Strong as his plan is, it really is marginal in what it does to take away what a dwindling tax base would pay. We are now at 1933 population levels. We do not have a State like New York and like Florida. We are losing, in the 1990's three times as many people as we lost in the 1980's. Consider what our alternatives are. Commuter tax, massive infusions from the Federal Government and, finally, use of our own money through a tax cut. Commuter tax, thank you, Mr. Congress, you have taken that off the table. We are barred from a commuter tax, even though virtually all the jobs go to commuters. They come in and use the services of an insolvent city and do not leave one thin dime here. You took that off the table. Massive infusions from the Federal Government, you have taken off the table for everybody, even the capital of the United States. I am down to the only option I have left: Let us use our own money to pay what it takes to revive our own city. The District of Columbia Economic Recovery Act is a bipartisan tax cut bill. I put it in only because we have no State. If we had a State, I would not do it. I would go to the State. Big cities get almost all of their revenue from State and Federal sources. D.C.'s revenue must come from a tax base that is disappearing with no way to recycle money back from those who leave. Think about it. Even if you come from a small town, think about the great cities in your State, New York City, L.A., Detroit, Atlanta, Seattle, Houston, Chicago, Newark, Nashville, Greenville, Charlotte, Richmond, and Baltimore. None of them support themselves. They are basically supported by their States. If you did not have a State, what would you do? What do you expect the capital of the United States to do? An empowerment zone by itself does not address taxpayer drain. Even businesses in D.C. tell us that for every ten jobs we make in D.C., nine of them go to suburbanites. They say that is because we are losing our skilled work force, which is another way of saying losing our tax base. They say that an empowerment zone incentive will not help the District because business looks to the skilled work force, not to tax incentives when deciding whether or not to locate in a city. This is not your average tax cut. It is not what we usually mean in this House. It is not about money saving; it is about life saving. We have to think outside the box. We have to understand that in essence, if not this, what? You have a unique situation in the capital of the United States. You have a stateless city. It is insolvent. Its revenue is dwindling away with its tax base. The capital is trapped. Help us free ourselves.

Ms. NORTON

Ms. NORTON. Mr. Speaker, after the Aberdeen revelations concerning sexual harassment, the Army brass came to the Women's Caucus and unequivocally pledged that they would never go back to discriminatory training of men and women. Yesterday, however, in the other body, the Army Chief of Staff, Dennis Reimer, suggested that they might be open to a reexamination of sex-integrated training. Following recent revelations, one can understand their frustration, but, Mr. Speaker, it is totally unacceptable to move back to the dark ages when there were two armies, one for men and one for women. The Army itself has field tested single-sex training and found that it improves the performance and morale of women with no negative effect on unit cohesion. Look, if I get mugged outside of the Capitol, do not tell me not to walk down that street anymore. Make it safe. To the Army brass I say: Don't throw in the towel. Above all, don't throw the towel at women. They can die together, they can train together.

Ms. NORTON

Ms. NORTON. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the attention that the Speaker and, more recently, the President has given to the problems of the District of Columbia. The reason for that attention is that those problems are indeed desperate. Let me concede that there are operational problems of the city that must be laid at the feet of the city and the city has accepted that challenge. I come as an advocate for my city, not as an apologist. All the analysts also say that there are structural defects in the financial relationship between the city and the Federal Government. They can perhaps be summed up in the notion that this city pays for State, county, and municipal functions and, though the vast majority of those who work in the city come from the suburbs, it is the District that must pay for the services they use. And they make no contribution. As a result, I have introduced a bipartisan bill, the District of Columbia Economic Recovery Act. It is a progressive tax cut. Essentially it would allow the residents of the District of Columbia to use their own money to save the Capital of the United States. Why is this necessary? Perhaps that is best understood by looking at this chart, ``Frightening Decline of D.C. Tax Base.'' Mr. Speaker, this is 1990. This is the year 2000. When cities begin to lose their tax base at this rate, the State kicks in and keeps them from going belly up. There is no State to do that for the District of Columbia. Most cities, particularly the large cities of the United States, Detroit, New York, Chicago, Newark, LA, would not have been left standing if, given similar flight, they had not had a State as a safety net. If the District were not stateless, I would not have put in my tax-cut bill. The President will speak tonight, I believe, of a proposal he has to help the District by taking some of the cost of State functions from the District and taking back pension liability that the Congress built up. The fact is that as grateful as we are for a proposal that is serious, it is marginal. It would take about 10 percent of what District taxpayers pay now and, remember, those taxpayers are rapidly disappearing. It would leave those same disappearing taxpayers with 90 percent of the costs they now pay. My bill contains protections against gentrification. It is a progressive tax cut based on income. Mr. Speaker, no one even speaks today of the underlying democratic flaw that afflicts the Capital of the United States. It is the last great injustice on American soil, that the District is third per capita in Federal income taxes and yet has indeed taxation without representation. The four territories have a delegate just as the District does. They pay no Federal income taxes. I even won the right to vote on the House floor in the Committee of the Whole and in one of this body's most ungenerous acts, this vote was taken from me by rule by the majority, an act that violates the principles of the majority and the minority. It is a vote I hope to reclaim. More important than my vote, Mr. Speaker, however, is the survival of my city and your Capital. As we begin the 105th Congress, I ask Members to keep an open mind as we try to find a way toward recovery for the Capital of the United States. We are not asking to tax others. We are asking that the money we spend in Federal taxes be cut somewhat so that we can help revive our city. You must not allow the Capital of the United States to become an absolute disgrace because its problems have been laid only at its feet and its own great country has not come forward to help it. The President wants to help. I now ask my own colleagues to help as well.

Ms. NORTON

Ms. NORTON. Mr. Speaker, as I speak, Secretary of the Army, Togo West, is reporting in the Senate on his progress in eliminating sexual harassment following the revelations of last November. I can only hope that today's revelation is not emblematic of that progress. The headlines read ``Top Enlisted Man Accused of Sexual Harassment.'' I hasten to add that the operative words are accused and that the officer denies the charges and is entitled to his presumption. However, this case is especially troubling. First, because of the charge: Sexual assault and sexual harassment; second, because of the rank of the accused, top enlisted man, Legion of Merit holder, 29-year veteran; third, because of the record of the complainant, a 22-year veteran herself recently retired; and, fourth, because of the circumstances of the public charge she alleges that became public only after months of no action by the Pentagon and only after the accused was actually appointed to the panel reviewing the Army's handling of sexual harassment. Much better, much faster, Army of the United States.

Ms. NORTON

Ms. NORTON. Mr. Speaker, today, I am introducing the District of Columbia Economic Recovery Act [DCERA] as my first bill of the 105th Congress. It would be irresponsible not to do so. I introduced virtually the same bill on April 15, income tax day, last year. I reintroduce the bill today for two reasons: First, lethal taxpayer flight continues unabated; second, the District has no State safety-net backup to recycle income back from wealthier areas. With only the residents who remain available to keep the city alive, a tax cut incentive to keep taxpayers here has become an imperative. In short, taxpayers are in full flight, and only a dramatic and focussed incentive can keep them here. The DCERA will reduce Federal income taxes in three ways. First, to effect the tax cut the DCERA raises the traditional standard deduction and personal exemptions: $15,000 instead of $6,550 for single filers; $25,000 instead of $8,450 for single heads of household; and $30,000 instead of $11,800 for married joint filers. Thus, residents who can least afford to pay the city's high taxes and the high cost of living-- with incomes below $15,000, $25,000, and $30,000--will pay no Federal income taxes. Second, a uniform rate of 15 percent will be applied progressively up the income scale to reduce present tax liability--from a 79-percent reduction to a 34-percent reduction, depending on income. The lower the income, the greater the tax reduction. The uniform rate rescues residents from bracket creep, the mechanism that taxes away a portion of an individual's income as it increases from one bracket to the next. The uniform rate assures that residents whose income increases because of the tax cut will not have any significant portion immediately taxed away. Third, the mortgage interest and charitable deductions remain. The home mortgage interest deduction is especially vital because homeowners make a sizeable investment in the city and are most likely to remain here. Home ownership in the District of Columbia is the lowest among the 50 States and the District of Columbia. The bill also seeks to spur business and economic development in the city in two ways. First, the DCERA exempts capital gains so long as they derive from District investments by District residents. Second, investment income will qualify for the low 15-percent rate, so long as these are investments in activity within the District by District residents. Social Security income and income from traditional IRS- qualified pension plans also qualify for the low DCERA rate. In the absence of a State, a unique tax incentive is fully justified, is profoundly fair, and absolutely essential. The tax cut is justified and fair because District residents pay the full load of Federal taxes while lacking full representation and full home rule, and they have no State to recycle income from wealthier areas. Instead, the city is burdened with just the opposite. The Congress has imposed on District residents the cost of providing services for commuters while protecting them from paying any part of the rising cost of those services. The tax cut is essential because every plan and proposal, including the recent, welcome proposal by President Clinton, will pick up only a small fraction of the costs the District taxpayer bears. As important and gratifying as the President's plan is, its basic assumption is that there will be a large enough tax base here to pay for most of the costs of the city. That assumption defies the latest census data. This city is on track to lose nearly three times as many residents in the 1990's as in the 1980's. Today, the city's population has dropped to where it was in 1933. Yet, the President's proposal will leave 90 percent of District Government costs that are currently funded from locally raised revenues to be picked up by a tax base that is being miniaturized. The analysts agree on the two basic necessary for the city to recover: An adequate tax base and relief from State functions and pension liability. We are gratified that the President's proposal strides in the direction we must go to fund at least some of the functions no city could bear today. My bill assures that his plan will not be stillborn. Stated painfully, but plainly, the President's plan will fail if taxpayers continue to leave at the present rate. The DCERA has been carefully crafted as a bipartisan bill consistent with the principles of both parties. It is sizable enough to attract Republicans and to act as a realistic incentive for District residents to remain. It is steeply progressive in the tradition of Democrats in general and the 1963 JFK tax cut in particular. Once the bill is passed, half of District residents will be off the Federal income tax rolls. Tax cuts for working people will progressively depend on income. To encourage investment in a city desperate for business, the DCERA taxes small District-based business at the 15-percent rate and eliminates capital gains, but only for District residents, thus accomplishing two goals at once. It helps reverse the huge business exodus from a city that is dangerously overdependent on the rapidly downsizing Federal sector, while encouraging business people to reside here--the only way to take advantage of the DCERA. Already impoverished, the District's business sector lost 1,800 businesses between 1990 and 1995. Equally important, the bill contains protections against gentrification and unnatural increases in the cost of living. For example, the DCERA applies only to bona fide District residents who spend 183 days of each taxable year physically in the city, to wages earned in the District or the metropolitan region, and to investment income earned on District investments only. The bill exempts capital gains taxes only on investments in the District by District residents. Stand-by legislation further guards against unnatural increases in the cost of living. Examples include: a city council bill passed last year, at my request, that freezes property, sales, and income taxes effective when the DCERA is enacted; a measure similar to TRIM in Prince George's County that limits property tax rates and the growth of assessments; a surtax on capital gains if derived from excess profits; and a revolving fund for zero-percent interest loans--or tax credits--for home buyers to cover unusual increases in home prices, with the money to be paid back upon the sale of the home; and the maintenance of rent control. The bill also requires the Secretary of the Treasury to prepare an annual study to determine the effects of the bill, thus allowing each year for the correction of unintended consequences, if any. However, the analysts and experts who have studied the DCERA closely to not predict unusual effects, but rather, they indicate that the market will discount for urban conditions in general and conditions and services in the District of Columbia in particular in the prices of property and other investments. Our greatest risk at this late hour is that even a tax cut may be too little to check the flight. At the very least, however, the overwhelming support for the bill among residents of every ward, every income group, and every racial and ethnic background is some evidence that the bill will help keep taxpayers here who might otherwise leave. The DCERA will give us time to improve services and to more fully regenerate our tax base. The introduction of the DCERA and the strong support it has won in the Congress has already raised resident morale and contrasts sharply with the long-running dearth of support for other approaches to help the District in the House and Senate. Time is running out to stop the taxpayer drain. We must hope that we have not already passed the point of no return. Once a city loses a critical mass of taxpayers, it loses the capacity to turn taxpayer losses around. No city has ever reversed a taxpayer hemorrhage. With the city on life support and no state safety net to rescue the District, the greater risk lies in doing nothing. Only blinders to the last great injustice on American soil could lead any American to question a bill reducing Federal taxes on the residents of the Nation's Capital. Third per capita in Federal income taxes, District residents stand alone in shameful defiance of the American principle of no taxation without representation. The four territories pay no Federal income taxes yet have the same representation in Congress as the District. The four territories have full self- government; the District's limited home rule is self-government only when the Congress says so. The Congress will compound the harsh civic injustice it imposes if it also insists on taxing the District's tax base into extinction. With the DCERA, District citizens ask only to rebuild their own city with their own money. Their country owes them that, and more.