Eleanor Norton

Ms. NORTON

Ms. NORTON. Mr. Speaker, today, I introduce a bill that would give the mayor of the District of Columbia authority over deploying the D.C. National Guard, after consultation with the Commanding General of the D.C. National Guard, with the President retaining final authority. In local emergencies, including natural disasters and civil disturbances unrelated to national or homeland security, the mayor of the District of Columbia should have the same authority that governors exercise over the National Guard in their states. Each governor, as head of state, has the authority to mobilize the National Guard to protect his or her state, just as local militia did historically. The National Guards in the 50 states operate under dual federal and local jurisdiction. Yet only the President and the Commanding General of the D.C. National Guard currently have the authority to deploy the D.C. National Guard for local and national purposes, respectively. Today, the most likely need for the D.C. National Guard here would be for natural disasters and to restore order in the wake of civil disturbances. The mayor, who knows the city better than any federal official and who works closely with federal security officials, should be able to call on the D.C. National Guard for local natural disasters and civil disturbances, after consultation with the Commanding General of the D.C. National Guard. The President should be focused on national matters, including homeland security, not local D.C. matters. Homeland security authority, with respect to the D.C. National Guard, would remain the sole province of the President, along with the power to nationalize the D.C. National Guard at will. It does no harm to give the mayor this authority for civil disturbances and natural disasters. However, it could do significant harm to leave the mayor powerless to act quickly. If it makes sense that governors would have control over the mobilization and deployment of their National Guard, it makes equal sense for the mayor of the District of Columbia, with a population the size of a small state, to have the same authority. The mayor of the District of Columbia, as head of state, should have the authority to deploy the D.C. National Guard in instances that do not rise to the level of homeland defense activities. My bill requires that the mayor only deploy the D.C. National Guard after consultation with the Commanding General of the D.C. National Guard. The bill is another important step toward completing the transfer of full self- government powers to the District of Columbia. Congress itself began with the passage of the Home Rule Act of 1973, when it delegated most of its authority to the District of Columbia. The bill follows that model. I urge my colleagues to support the bill.

Ms. NORTON

Ms. NORTON. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to ask the House of Representatives to join me in honoring Bert Randolph Sugar for his contributions to the boxing profession, as well as for his support of youth in the District of Columbia at Kids In Trouble, Inc. By serving as a member on the Board of Directors of Kids In Trouble, Inc., Mr. Sugar, a native Washingtonian, a graduate of District of Columbia Public Schools, and a boxing historian, has provided our youth with special inspiration by his achievements. His induction into the International Boxing Hall of Fame in 2005 speaks to his special talents, and makes all D.C. residents, particularly our children at Kids In Trouble, Inc., proud. Throughout his career, Bert Randolph Sugar has honed his skills as a boxing analyst, making frequent appearances on HBO's pay-per-view boxing broadcasts and ESPN. He has published dozens of books and articles, and has served as an editor of Boxing Illustrated and of Ring Magazine. Over the years, Kids In Trouble, Inc. has grown to serve thousands of D.C. youth, especially in the Brightwood neighborhood in Northwest D.C. Bert Randolph Sugar has contributed to our youth at Kids In Trouble, Inc. over several decades, and was honored with the Kids In Trouble, Inc. 2005 Lifetime Achievement Award at the 40th Anniversary Toy Drive for needy children in D.C. I applaud the contributions Bert Randolph Sugar has made to Kids In Trouble, Inc. to help improve the lives of minority and underrepresented youth residing in the District of Columbia. Mr. Speaker, I ask the House of Representatives to join me in honoring Bert Randolph Sugar for his contributions to Kids In Trouble, Inc., his commitment to youth in the District of Columbia, and particularly for a lifetime of achievements.

Ms. NORTON

Ms. NORTON. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to ask the House of Representatives to join me in honoring the life of Christopher Calomiris, who is fondly remembered by the residents of the District of Columbia and this region for a landmark business, Calomiris Fruits & Vegetables at the Eastern Market--a family owned and operated business for 62 years. As the child of Greek immigrants, Christopher grew up on Capitol Hill and was groomed in his father's D.C. produce business, which was located in several markets before settling at Eastern Market. With Christopher Calomiris' gentle and dependable guidance, Calomiris Fruits & Vegetables thrived and continues to offer their signature friendly, high-quality customer service with the leadership of Christopher's wife, Maria, and the Calomiris children, Tom, Leon, and Joy, all of whom helped in this classic generational business. Christopher Calomiris' battle with cancer over the last several years did not prevent him from working on weekends to continue to support the family business. The business that Christopher Calomiris built represents the best tradition of family-centered, American-made business. In recognizing his lifetime of hard and productive work and service to the community, I ask the House to join me in honoring the life and legacy of Christopher Calomiris of Calomiris Fruits & Vegetables in Washington, DC.

Ms. NORTON

Ms. NORTON. Look, the majority has chosen to run the government, the Federal Government, from CR to CR. But the majority has no right to inflict this operational outrage on the local funds of a local jurisdiction, the District of Columbia. The majority may want to incur for the Federal Government the operational difficulties. After all, the District of Columbia delivers services to Federal officials, including the President, Federal buildings, foreign embassies, and the like. But does the majority really want to risk, to put the District and its operations at risk or to place, what Wall Street almost surely will do, a risk premium on the District due to the uncertainty that we are at bay from CR to CR? This is a fragile economy for every big city, but D.C.'s local budget was approved a year ago in the city and last summer by the Appropriations Committees. Yet the District of Columbia is being held hostage to a Federal fight, although the District of Columbia can do nothing to free itself from this Federal fight. I have tried to get the District on successive CRs so that we could spend our own money all year. There is no disapproval of that here. I wager that very few Members even know that the District would close down if the Federal Government closed down; would be perplexed by it; would have no objection to our spending our own local money all year long. We raise and manage $8 billion. We have a right to spend our local funds without being dragged into a Federal fight. You can't run a big city from CR to CR. I ask you to find a way between now and 3 weeks to free D.C. to run its own city for the rest of the fiscal year. Let my people go.

Ms. NORTON

Ms. NORTON. That's such an important point about translating them. Unlike what the Federal Government is required to do, the people who have been throwing around the comparisons don't do what the Bureau of Labor Statistics does. Now, this is very, very difficult work. When the Bureau of Labor Statistics compares workers in the public and private sector, they have to, for example, look beyond the title of budget analyst. In the Federal Government, they may be dealing with a budget analyst who has oversight over multimillion-dollar agency budgets. In the private sector, that may be somebody who is sitting in an office pushing papers, is qualified, but nowhere near the same kind of responsibility. What the Bureau of Labor Statistics does, and only the government can do this, because only the government has the resources, is to literally get into the weeds so that when you see the government statistics, those are the statistics to be trusted. I have got to ask my good friend to help me as well on one of the great distortions, and that is on Federal benefits. I think most Americans don't know that Federal employees pay for 30 percent of the cost of their health care. If you get dental and vision, you pay 100 percent. If you have group life insurance, the employee pays 66 percent of the premium and the full cost of any additional coverage, and if you have, and many employees now have, Federal long-term care, 100 percent. The Federal Government, yes, is a decent employer. It is by no means an overly generous employer. Just compare that to Fortune 1000, Fortune 500 employers and see if these employees who pay 30 percent of their health care premium are coddled. I don't think so. Another issue that is often raised is contractors. One of the most astounding things about the Federal workforce, and some things should be done by contracting out, but there are more contracted, contracted Federal employees than there are Federal employees. When you are attacking Federal employees, you are attacking people who work in the agencies, who work, as my two colleagues have spoken in detail, work as a park ranger, who work as a rocket scientist. But the invisible workforce is the contracting workforce. At the Department of Homeland Security, for example, we have 188,000 employees but there are 200,000 contracting employees working for the Agency. So if the public really wants to know where the money goes, they shouldn't be targeting the employee who stands up, has USA written across their chest, is proud to work for the Federal Government. They should look at the entire workforce, which turns out to be many, many contracted workers. It's interesting to know that the President is cutting the number of contracted workers and expects to save $40 billion annually by, in fact, bringing that work in-house, so that we know who is performing it, we can measure them. We can get rid of the work we don't need. You contract the work out, it's gone, and it gets a life of its own.

Ms. NORTON. This is such an important point. I would say to my friend from Maryland because, remember in Wisconsin, the public employees said, look, we will do our share. Yet the Governor insisted upon going at collective bargaining. Anyone who thinks public employees are not willing to do their share does not understand how unions operate. If you have a workforce that needs to be downsized, if you have a workforce that needs to give up some of what it has for a period of time, the best way to deal with that workforce is through an agent that the workers trust. If the employer has no agent and simply goes in and does it, that becomes a deflating, morale-sapping exercise. Unions are very sophisticated. Unions operate within our capitalist system. They know when there's money on the table and when there's not. Unions are said to have been the major agent in creating the American middle class. What do we mean by that? After all, there were businesses, automobile companies and managers. What we mean by it is that when that money was coming, when that revenue was coming to business, it was sitting across from a union who said, workers help produce this product, the revenue from this product should be shared with workers. Out of that came the great American middle class. That is why an automobile worker, for example, who didn't have a college education, could get a pension and could support a family. And unions did this, yes, across the bargaining table; but in doing it for their own members, they spread it through the society, because then competitors had to meet the union wage. And so what happened was you got a great American middle class that you did not have before the unionization of American workers. And they deserve credit for that. Unions deserve credit for that. They don't deserve to be bashed. I have to say to my good friend, I was never so gratified to read what the polls show us. And I indicated some of those figures when we began this special hour that 2-1, Americans oppose weakening the bargaining rights of public employees. After all that has happened in Wisconsin, instead of their reaping the whirlwind for it, American people understand what it means to take away a precious right, even a right some of them don't enjoy. And so they say they would rather have their taxes raised than to even weaken--weaken the collective bargaining rights of workers. If that is not a lesson for the other side of this Chamber, which is overreaching in 1,000 different ways, nothing is. It is a bellwether of what is to come.

Ms. NORTON. I want to thank the gentlelady for coming down. You make a very important point about the stagnation of the American standard of living. It correlates with the stagnation of the American labor movement. The stagnation of the American labor movement has everything to do with the difficulty under the National Labor Relations Act of organizing a union today. When unions were first legalized in the 1930s, they were encouraged. Today, it is very difficult under the existing statute to organize a union; and I'm amazed that unions are still alive and kicking. But I must say what we've seen from Wisconsin is a national reawakening of the American trade union movement. I think unions are going to be able to organize in ways they would never have been able to organize without Wisconsin. Thank you, Governor Walker. As I close this hour, I want to particularly thank my two friends from Hawaii and from Maryland for coming down to share this special hour with us. We think the least we can do is to, every once in a while, say to Federal employees and to public employees, we appreciate what you're doing. President Obama perhaps said it best. I don't think it does any good, he said, when public employees are denigrated or vilified or their rights are infringed upon. We need to attract the best and the brightest to public service. These times demand it. Again, I thank the gentlelady for coming forward.

Ms. NORTON. Mr. Speaker, I rise to lead a Special Order this evening in tribute to public employees everywhere, and especially our Federal employees here in the United States, 85 percent of whom do not work in Washington. I hope that my colleagues and I will be able to offer some little known facts about Federal employees today so that the word ``Federal employee'' gets a face and you know who it is we're talking about. Today I introduced a resolution supporting the right of all workers to bargain collectively, public and private workers. I'm grateful that Representative Donna Edwards cosponsored this resolution with me and invite others to cosponsor the resolution. The resolution reminds us of what our grandfathers and our forefathers would have told us, that for a long time there was a fight waged after it became clear that individual workers standing alone have little or no bargaining power against some employer that they hope will hire them or in whose employ they find themselves. Thus rose, and finally was legalized as the National Labor Relations Act, the right of workers to form unions. In no free society in the world is the right to bargain collectively barred. That right has been under attack for decades, and the decline of unions in the United States is directly attributable to the difficulty in organizing workers today because the National Labor Relations Act is a figment of another century. I think we will see in some of the statistics coming out of Wisconsin and out of the country at large that the decline of unions today does not mean that unions are not prized institutions in our country, and I will have some statistics that show that. What I think most Americans recognize is that they owe to the American trade union movement much that they take for granted today, even if you are not a member of a union movement. Unions could have been content to bargain at the table for health and safety conditions, for a 40-hour week and the rest of it. Instead, they led the country in making laws that require a 40-hour workweek, child labor laws, require health and safety conditions, require overtime pay, and encourage health insurance and pension insurance. Those matters which began at the bargaining table now many Americans enjoy, and yet we have seen targets especially placed on the backs of public employees. I'd like to open by giving you an idea of who a public employee is by speaking of a public employee in my own district, the District of Columbia. I don't know Anthony Hutchinson, but I've heard about him. He is an example of an exceptional Federal employee, I understand. He is a husband and a father of two. He lives on Savannah Street in southeast Washington. He is a transportation security officer, and he has worked at the Ronald Reagan National Airport for the last 6 years. He is also a member and shop steward of his union, which in this case happens to be the National Treasury Employees Union. He has been named the Transportation Security Officer of the Year. He has received outstanding ratings from his employer. He was once the chair and once the vice chair of the Safety Committee. He is on a team that has designed ways to keep transportation security officers up to date on techniques for identifying weapons and prohibited items through x-ray machines. He served on the Emergency Readiness Team--that's a team that deploys within 24 hours in the event of an emergency or national disaster. Anthony Hutchinson is a Federal employee. When you speak of Federal employees, it seems to me we owe them at least the courtesy of recognizing them for what they do for the American people. But you would not have understood that if you have been watching over the last few weeks the episodes in Wisconsin. These were shocking. And many I think thought, well, maybe it has come to this. Unions aren't very popular and maybe people are ready to bash unions in just this way. But look what the polls are showing us. The polls show, following Wisconsin, when there have been national polls about the standing of public employees and public employee unions, that Americans oppose weakening the bargaining rights of public employee unions by a huge margin, by a margin of 2-1, 60 percent to 33 percent. Only a slim majority, just a slim majority of Republicans favored taking away bargaining rights. It's as if Americans understand a right when they see one. Now, bargaining rights are not like the rights of freedom of religion or freedom of speech. But they're right up there on my list of six or seven rights that Americans believe, once you get, you are entitled to because you have gotten them democratically. You had to go worker by worker. You had to organize. And it looks as though there has been a horrific backlash from Wisconsin. Indeed, now Americans, when asked how they would choose to reduce their own State deficits, having watched Wisconsin, say they prefer tax increases over benefit cuts for State workers by a margin of 2-to-1. That is what Wisconsin has given the country. It has laid bare what a frontal attack on a basic right means. And what it means is Americans are not for it. We saw what happened in Wisconsin overnight, that through the tricks of parliamentary maneuvers they were able to, in fact, weaken the bargaining rights of Wisconsin workers. There is going to be a price to pay in Wisconsin, I believe, and I'm going to point to why. The present Governor of Wisconsin came in with a six-point margin of victory. His polls show seven points behind now. Forty-five percent strongly approve of his performance. The man has only been in office a little more than 3 months. Public employees' unions, including teachers' unions in Wisconsin, now have favorable, positive ratings, 16 points higher than Walker's ratings. The turnaround in Wisconsin I think tells us where the country is headed when they see the overreaching here in Washington and when they see the overreaching at the State level. The Wisconsin results are just astounding. They fly in the face of everything Walker was doing. They are the classic backlash to overreach. The State's population now believes that Walker should reverse course and raise taxes on those making $150,000 a year. That's by a 72 percent to 27 percent margin. There you have it. A kind of incubator in one State that I think, writ large, tells us where the country stands when it comes to public employees. Now, the national poll found, not unexpectedly, that 71 percent of Democrats opposed weakening collective bargaining rights. But there was also almost as strong opposition from Independents--71 percent Democrats, 62 percent of Independents. And only a bare margin of Republicans were for weakening collective bargaining rights. We know that when it came to Walker, there was no doubt what he was after, because the unions, seeing that the State was indeed in trouble, had a huge deficit, gave him what he desired in savings. And still he would not compromise. He held his ground, and in holding his ground, appears to have lost his State. This is a turning point moment for the country. This is a moment that is sorting out those who linger on the extreme from those who have fought to find their way to the mainstream. And Wisconsin is a harbinger of what overreach will reap here in the House of Representatives as polls in Wisconsin show it has already done there. Look what we have here. The President already announced a freeze, a 5-year spending freeze, on Federal employees in the State of the Union. They didn't like that. But that seems to have whet the appetite of Republicans for more and even more. They come to the floor with bills that would furlough Federal workers for the 2 weeks, would impose an additional 1-year pay freeze, and cut 200,000 Federal jobs. There's another bill that would limit the ability of Federal workers to bargain collectively. The bills just roll out of Republicans--a freeze, a cut in the Federal workforce by 15 percent. Don't you think somebody would want to look and see who the workers are before coming up with a number like that? Cutting agency funding to 2008 levels in 2012, as H.R. 1 does, and then to 2006 levels for the next 9 years. That would reduce most agency budgets by 40 percent. I see that my good friend who has also cosponsored the resolution paying tribute to America's public and Federal employees has come to the floor, and I am pleased to grant her such time as she may desire.

Ms. NORTON. If the gentlewoman would yield, I think it's very interesting that we have on the floor Members from, perhaps, the most dense part of the Federal workforce, all the way to Hawaii. Eighty-five percent of Federal workers does not work in the Washington region. Ms. Edwards and I feel fortunate to live in the National Capital Region, but we by no means regard ourselves as representative of Federal workers. Every Member has Federal workers in her district. So, when you're bashing Federal employees, you'd better watch yourselves because you're bashing your own constituents. Does the gentlelady from Maryland want to speak to that issue?

Ms. NORTON. Mr. Speaker, may I inquire as to how much time I have remaining?

Ms. NORTON. The gentlewoman is making a very important and much misunderstood point with these comparisons between apples and bananas. Half of the Federal workforce, I learned, work in the nine highest paying occupation groups: judges, engineers, scientists, nuclear plant inspectors. That's half of the Federal workers. Less than a third of private sector workers work in these same nine top-drawer occupations. So when you hear these comparisons, you are not comparing comparable workforces. The private sector has categories we don't even have here like cooks and manufacturing workers. So these comparisons that you speak of, I say to the gentlelady, could not be more important to distinguish. We are talking about the highest level workforce in the United States of America. And I will say to the gentlelady, I learned as well that there are far fewer of them than when I was a child. In 1953, there was one Federal worker for every 78 residents. Today, there is one for every 147. How did you go from one Federal worker for every 78 residents to one for every 147 residents? Productivity. This is a knowledge workforce. It is a workforce to die for. I yield to the gentlelady from Maryland.

Ms. NORTON. I am glad to yield to the gentlewoman from Hawaii.

Ms. NORTON. I thank the gentlelady, and I hope she will remain with us, because the gentlelady is pointing out distinctions that the public is largely unaware of. Some of these job categories that my friend from Maryland points to ought to be instructive: rocket scientists, VA nurse, park ranger, cancer researcher, prison guards. It's interesting that the cooks in the Bureau of Prisons are probably paid more than the cooks in the private sector because they have supervision of prisoners, who also work in the kitchen. How do you measure that? You don't do it by throwing out a bunch of statistics, public versus private, and believe that that tells the whole story. Now we are very pleased to be joined by the gentlewoman from Hawaii, our new Member from Hawaii, and I am pleased to grant her 5 minutes.

Ms. NORTON. They deserve just the opposite.

Ms. NORTON. Far from scapegoating, it seems to me we ought to stand up and salute Federal employees for what they're doing for this country now.

Ms. NORTON. Ms. Edwards, you are probably also aware that we hear about the best and the brightest. The Federal workforce, now with many baby boomers, is eligible to retire, and there is absolute panic about whether or not we will ever see a workforce as good as the workforce we got in the post-Kennedy period. These were people who came fresh with all of the notions of the Kennedy era that public service was a wonderful thing, and they made their careers in the Federal service. Ninety percent of them could retire in the next 10 years. Now the whole world is open to them. They could go to the high-tech companies. They could go to Hawaii. They could go to California. Will we be able to attract the best and the brightest right when we most need them--in an era when the country needs, on this side as well as on the military side, the very best talent we can find?

Ms. NORTON

Ms. NORTON. Mr. Speaker, today I rise, in advance of leading a special order this evening, to offer a resolution supporting the rights of all workers, including federal employees and other public employees, and calling for the end to attacks on their ability to organize and to collectively bargain. There are only a few salient rights recognized by every democracy, such as freedom of religion and freedom of speech, and on that list always appears the right for workers to organize in order to bargain collectively with an employer. It has long been recognized that individual workers have little, if any, bargaining power sitting alone with an employer who has hired or could hire her. When unions organize workers, the ground becomes more level and economic conditions decide the outcome. Mr. Speaker, the American labor movement has been a major catalyst for the formation of a majority middle class in the United States by leading the way for improvements for all workers, which unions have gained through collective bargaining. I ask the House to join me in recognizing the American union movement and those who work in the public and private sectors.

Ms. NORTON

Ms. NORTON. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to offer the District of Columbia Local Funds Continuation Act, to permanently protect both the 600,000 residents of the District of Columbia and the Federal Government from an unintended catastrophe in any future Federal Government shutdown. The bill would allow the District to spend its local funds at the start of a fiscal year if Congress has not approved the District's budget by such time and thereby avoid a District government shutdown if the Federal Government shuts down. Although the District raises and manages its own $8 billion budget, Congress technically appropriates these local funds back to the District, a holdover and throwback to the pre-home-rule period. Several years ago, Republican appropriators and I reached a bipartisan agreement to approve the District's local budget in the first continuing resolution, CR, allowing the District to spend at next year's level, if Congress has not passed the District's regular appropriation bill by the start of the fiscal year. We are grateful that this agreement has held through Democratic and Republican congresses and administrations. This agreement has enabled the District to operate its complex big-city functions more effectively than during the many years when the city's local budget was only approved months after the start of the fiscal year. However, this year we see the limits of even this helpful agreement. As I speak, if the Federal Government shuts down when the current fiscal year 2011 CR expires on March 18, 2011, the District government would shut down as well, even though the city's local budget was forwarded to Congress on time last year. I am working with our Senate allies to permit the District to spend its local funds for the remainder of fiscal year 2011, but, regardless of whether the Federal Government shuts down this year, a permanent solution has become necessary to avoid disruptive, unintended consequences. The District of Columbia Budget Autonomy Act, to end the anti-democratic anachronism of Congress appropriating to the District its own local funds in the first place, is, of course, the best long-term solution, but today's bill is a critical stopgap measure. The District urgently needs relief now because even more is at stake than the cessation of vital municipal services. If the District shuts down, it could default under certain financing agreements and leases. When Congress cannot reach agreement on regular appropriation bills, it often operates under successive CRs to avoid a Federal Government shutdown. However, successive CRs greatly hinder the operations of the District. Not only do they make it difficult for the city to plan its activities for the year, successive CRs greatly increase the city's costs of doing business. The city's partners, from Wall Street to small vendors, may charge it a risk premium due to the uncertainty created by successive CRs. Members who were not here during the last Federal Government shutdown are probably unaware that the District government was forced to shut down, too. The District government had passed its budget months earlier, but Congress had not yet voted for final approval. I am grateful that after the first of several government shutdowns and partial shutdowns, Speaker Newt Gingrich and I worked together to ensure that the District remained operating. Disputes over the Federal budget have nothing to do with the District's local funds. I do not believe that any Member wants to shut down the D.C. government and bring a large, complicated city to its knees because of a purely Federal matter. Moreover, D.C. residents are not alone in relying on vital District services. Federal officials, including the President, Federal buildings, foreign embassies and dignitaries, and businesses rely daily on the city's services, as well. It is time we remove the District and the multiple, unintended consequences of a District government shutdown from Federal Government shutdown controversies. I urge my colleagues to support the bill.

Ms. NORTON

Ms. NORTON. Mr. Speaker, I ask the House of Representatives to join me in commemorating the one-year anniversary of the passage of the District of Columbia Religious Freedom and Civil Rights Equality Amendment Act or 2009 (L18-0110). One year ago, the District, led by the law's authors, D.C. Council member David Catania and then D.C. Council Chairman Vincent Gray, now the mayor of the District of Columbia, joined five states in affording full marriage equality to our residents. Our landmark marriage equality legislation is not the first time the District has led the country in enacting human rights legislation. The District's unique history makes our residents particularly sensitive to human rights, not only for themselves but for others, as well. Even though some of our residents do no favor same-sex marriage, there is among them a deep tradition of tolerance and respect for the rights of others that could serve as a model for other Americans. It has been refreshing and heartwarming to see the happiness of our new same-sex marriages. Many have had wedding celebrations that have, in turn, brought great happiness to their families and friends. At the same time, the city's new law has benefited our local economy. We celebrate the first year of the District of Columbia Religious Freedom and Civil Rights Equality Amendment Act for the many benefits it has brought to our city and our residents. I ask the House to join me in commemorating the one-year anniversary of the passage of the Religious Freedom and Civil Rights Equality Amendment Act.

Ms. NORTON

Ms. NORTON. I thank the gentlelady for yielding because I want to bring this right home to what is happening on the floor of this Congress as we speak. There is too little recognition of what you have indicated that when you cut agencies, you strangle services. That goes for the Federal sector as well. And I think we have to be very wary that this could come to the Federal sector. Federal workers have been targeted. They've got a great big bull's eye on their backs. They are among the best educated workers in the United States. Bear in mind, I say to the gentlelady, because this will particularly be important in your State, the deadly deficit commission warned that no cutting should be done in this year, 2011, small cuts perhaps in 2012 and no real programmatic cuts until 2013. And they gave as a reason--this is the deficit commission--they gave as a reason that you would strangle the recovery. It's a fragile recovery. Mr. Bernanke spoke. I don't know if anyone mentioned that.

Ms. NORTON. Mr. Bernanke spoke. I'm not on that committee, but I heard what he said. He has said, as well, don't harm the recovery. You don't, in the midst of a bear recovery, start acting as though you had a full-fledged economy. Everybody has been talking about a double dip. They are going to find out what a double dip is. If we had what independent observers say, 700,000 jobs gone because of these cuts, gone in Wisconsin, gone from the Federal Government, there is no way for us to recover. We cannot kick workers to the curb without having an effect on the recovery itself. Watch out, Wisconsin. And particularly I say to my Republican colleagues, watch out that you don't bring it here and don't mess with collective bargaining of our Federal employees the way you're doing in Wisconsin. This is not Wisconsin.

Ms. NORTON. I am in solidarity with the gentlewoman from Wisconsin and with my friend from the Virgin Islands as well, those who have come down, and in special solidarity with the workers in Wisconsin, in Ohio, in Indiana, who are fighting for their collective bargaining rights. Now, unlike the gentlewoman from Wisconsin, I don't know whether paying 5.8 percent into their retirement benefit is good or not, or whether paying 12 percent of their health care costs, I know it's double or triple the amount. I don't know about any of that. I do know that when you have health care and retirement systems, there is usually a quid pro quo. You take less pay. But I don't know the answer to that. All I know is that in a democratic society, where people have won collective bargaining rights, those matters are bargained at the table. I am here to reinforce the importance of collective bargaining rights that are now on the table of the country, beginning in Wisconsin, spreading rapidly and, watch out, they could come, this insidious movement against collective bargaining could even come to the Congress of the United States. We have to stop it in its tracks in the Midwest. In any free society, there are four or five rights that everybody will cite, the right to free speech, the right to religion and, guess what, the right to bargain collectively. Once you have established that the workers have elected a union, it is one of those fundamental rights. I want to say to the gentlewoman from Wisconsin, if one of the developing countries that we always complain are not democratic enough, were to take away the collective bargaining rights of some of its workers, well, you would have to fight people at the well in order to quell the stampede of people saying you have violated a fundamental right of a free society. I have just come from a hearing on the Postal Service. It was amazing to hear management and the private sector say that the reason you have a post office today and that it hasn't gone down the drain is because the workers across the table from management have helped them to manage the downsizing of the Postal Service. The best thing that you can have when there is downsizing to be done is, indeed, to have a union. Because when people know that the downsizing, that the rights they hope they had that they don't have have been bargained for, they will accept those rights in a way they would not if management came in and just pulled them himself. That is what Governor Walker is trying to do right now.

Ms. NORTON. Will the gentlewoman yield?

Ms. NORTON. This is very important because it means that Americans understand a fundamental right when they see one. And they are saying, and they know best of all, we're willing to take these cuts, don't go into people's fundamental rights, in fact, don't cut as much as you were doing. Look, this majority rode into town on the promise of jobs. Where is the jobs bill? Instead, they proceeded forthwith to cut jobs. They cut jobs first in the health care bill. Now they are cutting hundreds of thousands of jobs on the floor with their own version of deficit reduction. All we're asking for is balance. The workers in Wisconsin are willing to take cuts. They said so. Look, we'll take your cuts, Governor. Don't take away our collective bargaining. Everybody is willing to share. The Governor wants it all. Collective bargaining is about sharing. They need collective bargaining to get a fair deal for all concerned in Wisconsin. And I compliment the gentlelady from Wisconsin for reinforcing her workers and reinforcing what the gentlewoman from the Virgin Islands has told you is the view of the majority of the American people.

Ms. NORTON

Ms. NORTON. Mr. Speaker, I rise to ask the House of Representatives to join me in recognizing the 150th anniversary of the start of the Civil War and the contributions of African Americans in abolishing slavery. The Association for the Study of African American Life and History, ASALH, selected ``African Americans and the Civil War'' as its 2011 National Black History theme to show appreciation for the successful efforts of free and enslaved African Americans, during the Civil War, to end slavery. ASALH has issued a statement, which I bring to the Floor: In 1861, as the United States stood at the brink of Civil War, people of African descent, both enslaved and free persons, waited with a watchful eye. They understood that a war between the North and the South might bring about jubilee--the destruction of slavery and universal freedom. When the Confederacy fired upon Fort Sumter and war ensued, President Abraham Lincoln maintained that the paramount cause was to preserve the Union, not end slavery. Frederick Douglass, the most prominent black leader, opined that regardless of intentions, the war would bring an end to slavery, America's ``peculiar institution.'' Over the course of the war, the 4 million people of African descent in the United States proved Douglass right. Free and enslaved blacks rallied around the Union flag in the cause of freedom. From the cotton and tobacco fields of the South to the small towns and big cities of the North, nearly 200,000 joined the Grand Army of the Republic and took up arms to destroy the Confederacy. They served as recruiters, soldiers, nurses, and spies, and endured unequal treatment, massacres, and riots as they pursued their quest for freedom and equality. Their record of service speaks for itself, and Americans have never fully realized how their efforts saved the Union. In honor of the efforts of people of African descent to destroy slavery and inaugurate universal freedom in the United States, the Association for the Study of African American Life and History has selected ``African Americans and the Civil War'' as the 2011 National Black History Theme. We urge all Americans to study and reflect on the value of their contributions to the nation.'' Mr. Speaker, I ask the House of Representatives to join me in recognizing the 150th Anniversary of the Civil War, and applauding African Americans for their work to abolish slavery and for their contributions toward the equalization among American races.