Eleanor Norton

Ms. NORTON

Ms. NORTON. Mr. Speaker, on Tuesday the majority leader announced that he had not been able to muster enough votes to pass a civil rights bill, the District of Columbia Voting Rights Bill, which had a gun amendment which would wipe away the District's gun laws leaving us defenseless. Yesterday, a brave young man, Stephen Tyrone Johns, a guard at the Holocaust Museum, one of our most popular museums because it is so moving, lost his life. There are political considerations that keep us from moving directly against gun laws. I ask us to show that we are not defenseless to protect official Washington, not paralyzed when it comes to gun safety, by at least passing, but not allowing gun amendments to stop unrelated laws like the District of Columbia Voting Rights Act and opening the city to gun carnage of the kind we saw yesterday. Let this be the last gun carnage of its kind. Let the District of Columbia Voting Rights Act pass this year.

Ms. NORTON

Ms. NORTON. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that I be removed as a cosponsor of H.R. 848, the Performance Rights Act.

Ms. NORTON

Ms. NORTON. Madam Speaker, today, I introduce the Golf Course Preservation and Modernization Act to renovate and modernize the three National Park Service, NPS, golf courses in the District of Columbia. Several years of research, investigation and consulting on ways to improve these courses demonstrate this bill is necessary to turn around the deterioration of these unique and valuable federal assets. Langston Golf Course, Rock Creek Golf Course and East Potomac Golf Course are in desperate need of capital investment to maintain and preserve their historic features and to reverse decades of deterioration. East Potomac Golf Course was built in 1920 and included three courses that accommodated all levels of play, with an 18-hole tournament level course and two 9-hole practice courses. East Potomac was initially segregated, with African Americans permitted to play only on Mondays. The course was desegregated in 1941 by the Secretary of the Interior, Harold Ickes, following pressure from an African American women golfers club, the Wake Robin Golf Club. Rock Creek Golf Course opened in 1923 as a 9-hole golf course and an additional nine holes were added to make Rock Creek an 18-hole tournament level course in 1926. Langston Golf Course opened in 1939 as a segregated golf facility for African Americans and is listed in the National Register of Historic Places. Langston was the home course to the Royal Golf Club and the Wake Robin Golf Club, the nation's first clubs for African American men and women golfers respectively. Langston was named for John Mercer Langston, the first African American Congressman from Virginia elected in 1888. Originally a 9-hole course, Langston's expansion to an 18-hole course began in 1955, but was not completed until the mid 1980s. The courses were built and have been administered by the NPS since the early 20th century for the enjoyment of the general public. However, despite their best efforts, NPS has had a constant struggle to maintain the courses. None has been modernized and all three courses have fallen into disrepair and lack the amenities necessary to serve the public today. As a result, they are underused considering their value to the public. NPS was created by Congress to ``. . . conserve the scenery and the natural and historical objects and the wild life therein, and to provide for the enjoyment of the same in such a manner and by such means as will leave them unimpaired for the enjoyment of future generations.'' (16 U.S.C. 1) However, NPS's own backlog of repairs, its chronic funding limitations, and the continuing use of concession contracts that are inappropriate for the unique capital investment required for golf courses militate against appropriate maintenance, historic preservation and the NPS mission ``to leave them unimpaired for the public enjoyment.'' This bill will restore the original intent of Congress, consistent with this important NPS mission. The three courses together constitute an undervalued public asset that, if appropriately funded, could be renovated and modernized, facilitating affordable recreation, attracting significantly more golfers, and perhaps producing new revenue for the United States Treasury. Unlike other NPS facilities, golf courses require unique and continuing significant capital investment to keep them not only maintained but operational. As a result for nearly 100 years, the courses have had problems associated with upkeep and insufficient capital investment. Without a ready source for capital investment, apart from appropriations, NPS has continuously struggled to manage and maintain each of these courses since their inception. There is no prospect that the necessary federal funds for capital investment and improvement of golf will be available today or in the future. Moreover, the current fee to play at the golf courses, as established in the concessions contract process, must remain affordable and cannot generate sufficient revenue for NPS or the concessioners to keep the courses properly maintained, or to make the capital investment required for a golf course today. In fact, NPS owes millions of dollars to the concessioner of the golf courses for necessary improvements. General Services Administration land and real estate professionals and other experts advise that the best option consistent with federal law and practices is to create a long-term ground lease that bundles all three of the courses into a single contract and then to request proposals that allow for response with ideas and alternatives for modernization and maintenance consistent with anticipated use and affordability. This bill requires that historic features of the courses be preserved and that two of the three courses remain affordable to the general public. The confines of federal concession law inhibited NPS and the concessioner from making improvements to the courses because Federal concession laws are incompatible with golf course operations. Historically, the constrictions of NPS concessions law have been a direct cause of disrepair and capital disinvestment, reducing the quality of play and jeopardizing the historic preservation of the courses. However, the NPS joined two of the three golf courses together for the next seven years under a proposed concession contract that was issued on October 23, 2007. The contract requires only that the next concessioner be able to perform routine repair and maintenance consistent with NPS practice and the limits imposed by concession law. The contract does not and could not impose any requirement that capital improvements be made to the courses, usually guaranteeing that these courses will stay in the same poor condition until 2015. East Potomac was excluded from the proposed concession contract because its concession contract expires next year, not for any reason associated with maintaining and improving the courses for public use. This separates East Potomac, the only financially viable golf course, from Langston and Rock Creek, the two that need subsidy for their operations. The effect will leave Langston and Rock Creek worse off than they are today. Now the contract for East Potomac is expected to be put out this fall. This bill would require the new lease for East Potomac to be set to expire on the same date as Langston and Rock Creek leases, binds the three courses into one contract and exempts these golf courses from concession law. This approach applies another vehicle commonly used by the federal government to allow for more creative solutions consistent with the NPS mission to preserve general public access and preserve the historic qualities of the courses. The single long-term ground lease for all three courses, designed outside of the constraints of concession law, provided by this bill would encourage private investment in these courses, improve the quality of the courses, ensure affordable play, and preserve their historic nature. I urge my colleagues to support this legislation.

Ms. NORTON

Ms. NORTON. Madam Chair, on rollcall No. 322, had I been present, I would have voted ``aye.'' Amendment No. 7 Offered by Mr. Larsen of Washington

Ms. NORTON

Ms. NORTON. I thank the gentleman for yielding, but above all, I thank him for his masterful work in further cleaning up airport transportation security and for the cooperation he established with the minority. I particularly thank the chair for including helicopters in the General Aviation Working Group section and for the working group itself because, Mr. Chairman, the large-scale airport requirements have begun to creep into general aviation. The best example of that is right here in the Nation's Capital, where we're down from 200 general aviation flights per month to 200 per year--only, I must say, in the District of Columbia because we don't have enough guidance as to how general aviation should be treated. General Aviation was reopened here in the Nation's Capital for the first time only a couple years ago after the Transportation Committee threatened to hold TSA in contempt if it didn't open Reagan National Airport to general aviation. Then TSA issued regulations that essentially kept general aviation out of the Nation's Capital, signalling that, 7 or 8 years after 9/11, we still don't know how to keep our capital safe, which surely is not the case. The irrationality begins to mount. In addition, commercial helicopters had been allowed to come to Reagan with the Secret Service's permission, which had kept the helicopter port open because it served certain security purposes but has closed down commercial service now. So I thank you, Mr. Chairman, for the General Aviation working group to straighten out these issues.

Ms. NORTON

Ms. NORTON. Madam Speaker, Memorial Day Weekend, May 17th-25th, is the 19th Annual DC Black Pride celebration in Washington, DC. DC Black Pride is an exciting six-day event complete with dynamic workshops, receptions, cultural arts activities, small and large nightclub events that culminates in the world's oldest, most inclusive Black Pride Festival. Many consider DC's festival one of the world's preeminent Black Pride celebrations. The Festival consistently draws more than 30,000 people to the Nation's Capital. Attendees come from every major urban area in the United States as well as Canada, the Caribbean, South Africa, Great Britain, France, Germany, and the Netherlands. The Black Pride Festival features activities for the entire family, including performances by national recording artists, 200 exhibition booths, book signings from noted writers, participation from national and local health organizations, and arts and crafts. Black Lesbian and Gay Pride Day, Inc. (BLGPD), the celebration's organizing body, chose the theme ``Pure Love'' to encourage the Black lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) community to recommit themselves to advocacy, continuing the work towards combating homophobia and heterosexism, promote health and wellness, strengthen their community, and inspire Black LGBT people everywhere to live their lives with pride and integrity. Black Lesbian and Gay Pride Day, Inc., a non-profit organization with a volunteer Board of Directors, coordinates this annual event. BLGPD's 2009 Board of Directors consists of: Khalid Parker, President; Christopher Lane, Secretary; Maegan Marcano, Treasurer; and the following Members at Large: Jhahbriel Moore, Karim Shabazz, and Jimma Eliot-Stevens; and these Members Emeriti: Earl Fowlkes, James W. Hawkins, Eric E. Richardson, Clarence J. Fluker, Courtney Snowden, Sterling Washington and Cheryl Dunn, who lead BLGPD in its mission to build knowledge of and to create greater pride in the Black LGBT community's diversity, while raising funds to ameliorate and prevent health problems in this community, especially HIV/AIDS. I ask the House to join me in welcoming all attending the 19th annual DC Black Pride celebration in Washington, DC, and I take this opportunity to remind the celebrants that United States citizens who reside in Washington, DC, are taxed without full voting representation in Congress.

Ms. NORTON

Ms. NORTON. Madam Speaker, the Pre-Apprentice and Apprenticeship Training Act of 2009 makes mandatory the one half of one percent of funds now available under 23 U.S.C. 140(b) to ensure federal highway funds are used to provide on-the-job training and other services to combat a serious training deficit that builds in the effects of past discrimination and that is necessary because the current cohort of journeymen and other skilled workers is retiring. Currently, only 17 states use fund previously made available for training and even that participation is spotty. The Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, under the strong leadership of Chairman Jim Oberstar has already taken the first important steps to include training as an essential part of building our infrastructure when he included, at my request, $3 million specifically for training in the General Services Administration stimulus authorization this year. He also included $20 million for federal highways training programs. Today, the official unemployment rate already is at 15 percent for blacks and 8 percent for whites, a typical gap throughout economic cycles. Most analysts predict that there is more unemployment to come. This surface transportation reauthorization is also necessary to finally afford the opportunity for minorities and women to gain their first foothold in the high-wage construction industry. More than 25 years ago, the federal government abruptly ended the government-sponsored labor-management remediation program designed to address training and exclusionary practices in the construction industry. Although deliberate exclusion has largely receded, elimination of this program has left a significant training deficit for workers in skilled construction trades, which is largely responsible for the white male profile of the construction industry today. This training deficit guarantees that infrastructure jobs will continue to go to trained, mostly white male construction workers, who now have faced a long period of unemployment and job scarcity. Particularly considering a steep rise in unemployment for minorities and whites alike, this bill will also help avoid racial tension. Because of the scarcity of trained workers during boom times, a few union programs had even begun training ex-offenders as pre-apprentices and apprentices to do construction work. This bill will mount a major national infrastructure program focused on job creation with a well- designed component of pre-apprenticeship and apprenticeship programs that can lead to high-paying journeymen jobs for the new workers who will be needed in the future. And it will assure compliance with the 14th Amendment and Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which bar discrimination in the use of government dollars. More than 25 years ago the federal government prematurely ended the successful government-sponsored labor-management remediation program that addressed exclusionary practices and lack of training in the construction industry. Without a significant and systematic government effort, a serious training deficit has remained and continued to build. This training deficit is largely responsible for the white male profile of the construction industry today. Unless training is a strong component of the highway and transit reauthorization, underrepresentation of minorities and women will deepen. Training is a major barrier, particularly for African Americans and women in construction. Congress recognized the training deficit and encouraged the use of one half of one percent for training in the use of highway funds. Because use of federal funds was not mandated for training, only 17 states have chosen, intermittently, to fund training programs, since the program was authorized in 1998. Without appropriate training, federal funds will exacerbate the training deficit among previously excluded groups and others who have not had access to training in the construction trades. A recent study of African Americans, in particular, in the construction industry in eighteen metropolitan areas found that they are under-represented in construction jobs. If African Americans were employed in construction at the same rate that they are employed in the overall workforce, the study estimated that 42,700 more African Americans would be employed in construction in the eighteen metropolitan areas. The official unemployment rate as of April 2009 already is 15 percent for African Americans and 8.8 percent for whites. This disparity has been typical throughout economic cycles. A major, well-designed component in the surface transportation reauthorization bill for pre-apprenticeship and apprenticeship programs can lead to high-paying journeymen jobs, where, in good times and scarce, labor supply has developed. Congress must assure compliance with the 14th Amendment and Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which bar discrimination in the use of government dollars.

Ms. NORTON

Ms. NORTON. Madam Speaker, I rise to pay tribute to the 34th Annual Capital Pride Festival, a celebration of the National Capital Area's Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender, GLBT, communities, their families, and friends. The Capital Pride Festival has grown from a small block party in 1975 to the current ten-day-long celebration. This year Capital Pride Festival culminates with what Washington's City Paper has declared D.C.'s Best Parade for two years running, the Pride Parade on June 13th and ``The Main Event,'' a street fair on Pennsylvania Avenue in the shadow of the Capitol, June 14th. This year, the Festival's new organizers, the Capital Pride Alliance, Inc. anticipates an attendance of 250,000, making Capital Pride one of the largest GLBT festivals in the United States. 2009 marks the 40th anniversary of the Stonewall Riots, which, in the early hours of June 28, 1969, New York City's GLBT community spontaneously and publicly asserted its rights in defiance of government oppression. The Capital Pride commemorates this event with the theme ``Generations of Pride: Celebrate and Remember.'' I have marched in the Pride parades since coming to Congress to emphasize the universality of human rights and the importance of enacting federal legislation to secure those rights for the GLBT community and the District of Columbia. Congress has much work to do. We must pass The Family Leave Insurance Act of 2009, Employment Non- Discrimination Act, The Local Law Enforcement Hate Crimes Prevention Act / Matthew Shepard Act, Safe Schools Improvement Act, The Military Readiness Enhancement Act, ``The Domestic Partnership Benefits and Obligations Act, Tax Equity for Health Plan Beneficiaries Act, The Family and Medical Leave Inclusion Act, Uniting American Families Act, Responsible Education About Life Act, and the Early Treatment for HIV Act. This year, as Iowa, Maine, and New Hampshire have extended full rights to their GLBT residents. Our city of 600,000 residents, 10 percent more residents than the entire State of Wyoming, who pay more taxes per capita than 49 of the 50 states, remains the only jurisdiction in the United States where all its citizens are denied their basic rights by being subjected to Taxation Without Representation. The residents of our Nation's Capital are entitled all their rights as citizens. I support and, I will defend, DC Council's action to extend full faith and credit to all marriages contracted in the United States as necessary to stabilize and protect all DC Families. I ask the House to join me in welcoming the celebrants attending the 34th Annual Capital Pride Festival in Washington, DC, and I take this opportunity to remind the celebrants that U.S. citizens who reside in Washington, DC are taxed without full voting representation in Congress.

Ms. NORTON

Ms. NORTON. Madam Speaker, I rise to pay tribute to the 34th 01 Annual Capital Pride Festival, a celebration of the National Capital Area's Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender, GLBT, communities, their families, and friends. The Capital Pride Festival has grown from a small block party in 1975 to the current ten-day-long celebration. This year Capital Pride Festival culminates with what Washington's City Paper has declared D.C.'s Best Parade for two years running, the Pride Parade on June 13th and ``The Main Event,'' a street fair on Pennsylvania Avenue in the shadow of the Capitol, June 14th. This year, the Festival's new organizers, the Capital Pride Alliance, Inc., anticipates an attendance of 250,000, making Capital Pride one of the largest GLBT festivals in the United States. 2009 marks the 40th anniversary of the Stonewall Riots, which, in the early hours of June 28, 1969, New York City's GLBT community spontaneously and publicly asserted its rights in defiance of government oppression. The Capital Pride commemorates this event with the theme ``Generations of Pride: Celebrate and Remember.'' I have marched in the Pride parades since coming to Congress to emphasize the universality of human rights and the importance of enacting federal legislation to secure those rights for the GLBT community and the District of Columbia. Congress has much work to do. We must pass The Family Leave Insurance Act of 2009, Employment Non- Discrimination Act, The Local Law Enforcement Hate Crimes Prevention Act/Matthew Shepard Act, Safe Schools Improvement Act, The Military Readiness Enhancement Act, The Domestic Partnership Benefits and Obligations Act, Tax Equity for Health Plan Beneficiaries Act, The Family and Medical Leave Inclusion Act, Uniting American Families Act, Responsible Education About Life Act, and the Early Treatment for HIV Act. This year, as Iowa, Maine, and New Hampshire have extended full rights to their GLBT residents. Our city of 600,000 residents, 10 percent more residents than the entire State of Wyoming, who pay more taxes per capita than 49 of the 50 states, remains the only jurisdiction in the United States where all its citizens are denied their basic rights by being subjected to Taxation Without Representation. The residents of our Nation's Capital are entitled all their rights as citizens. I support and, I will defend, D.C. Council's action to extend full faith and credit to all marriages contracted in the United States as necessary to stabilize and protect all D.C. Families. I ask the House to join me in welcoming the celebrants attending the 34th Annual Capital Pride Festival in Washington, DC, and I take this opportunity to remind the celebrants that U.S. citizens who reside in Washington, DC are taxed without full voting representation in Congress.

Ms. NORTON

Ms. NORTON. Madam Speaker, I told the District of Columbia National Guard 547th Transportation Company, who deployed to Iraq last Saturday, that I would introduce two D.C. National Guard bills this week in their honor. Therefore, today I first introduce the District of Columbia National Guard Retention and College Access Act, NGRCA, a bill to permanently authorize funding for a program to provide grants for secondary education tuition to the members of the D.C. National Guard. I also introduce the District of Columbia Executive National Guard Act to give the mayor of the District of Columbia authority to call the D.C. National Guard for assistance with natural disasters and non- security civil disturbances. NGRCA authorizes an education incentive program, recommended by former Major General David Wherley and his successor, Major General Errol Schwartz, who suggested that education grants would be useful in stemming the troublesome loss of members of the D.C. Guard to units, in part, because surrounding states offer such educational benefits. I am grateful that the Appropriations Committee has allocated appropriation funds in some years, with smaller contribution from the District, in the Defense Authorization bill. An authorization is necessary to assure that the D.C. National Guard members receive equal treatment and benefits to other National Guard members on a regular basis, especially with surrounding states that do, in fact, have the higher education benefits we seek for D.C. National Guard members. The Guard for the Nation's Capital is severely under- competing for members from the pool of regional residents, who find membership in the Maryland and Virginia Guards more beneficial. A competitive tuition assistance program for the D.C. National Guard will provide significant incentive and leverage to help counteract declining enrollment and level the field of competition. The D.C. National Guard, a federal instrument that is not under the control of the mayor of the District of Columbia (but see District of Columbia Executive National Guard Act), is losing personnel to other Guards, partly because it is not able to offer the same level of benefits that adjacent National Guards provide. The federal government supports most other D.C. National Guard functions and should support this small benefit as well. The small education incentives in my bill would not only encourage high quality recruits, but would have the important benefit of helping the D.C. National Guard to maintain the force necessary to protect the federal presence, including Members of Congress, the Supreme Court, and visitors, if an attack on the Nation's Capital should occur. I am pleased to introduce this bill on the advice of Guard personnel who know best what is necessary. A strong D.C. National Guard able to attract the best soldiers is especially important given the unique mission of the D.C. National Guard to protect the federal presence in addition to D.C. residents. This responsibility distinguishes the D.C. National Guard from any other National Guard. The D.C. National Guard is specially and specifically trained to meet its unique mission. I urge my colleagues to support this bill.

Ms. NORTON

Ms. NORTON. Madam Speaker, today I also introduce a second bill in honor of members of the 547th Transportation Company, who deployed to Iraq last Saturday. The District of Columbia Executive Guard Act would give the Mayor of the District of Columbia some additional authority over the District of Columbia National Guard (DCNG). In circumstances constituting local emergencies, including natural disasters and civil disturbances unrelated to national or homeland security, but not homeland security matters, the mayor of the District of Columbia should have the same authority as governors. The National Guards in the 50 states operate under similar dual federal and local jurisdiction. Yet, the President of the United States alone has the authority to call up the DC National Guard for any purpose here, local or national. Each governor, however, as the head of state, has the authority to mobilize the National Guard to protect the local jurisdiction, just as local militia did historically. Today, the most likely need for the National Guard would be because of natural disasters or to restore order in the wake of civil disturbances. The mayor, who knows the city better than any federal official and works closely with federal security officials, should be able to call on the DCNG to cover local natural disasters or civil disturbances without relying on the President, who should be preoccupied with national matters, including homeland security, which would remain the sole province of the President, along with the existing power to nationalize the D.C. National Guard at will. As it is, the President must rely on a delegated official with little familiarity of the city to call up the National Guard to duty here for any purpose. It does no harm to give the mayor the authority for civil and natural disasters. However, it could do significant harm to leave him or her powerless to act quickly. If it makes sense that a governor would have control over the mobilization and deployment of the state National Guard, it makes the same sense for the mayor of the District of Columbia, with a population the size of that of small states, to have the same authority. The mayor of the District of Columbia, acting as head of state, should have the authority to call upon the D.C. National Guard in instances that do not rise to the level of federal importance necessary to implicate the authority of the President. Today, requiring action by the President of the United States could endanger the life and health of D.C. residents, visitors and federal employees. Procedures that require the mayor to request the needed assistance from the commander in chief for a local National Guard matter are as old as the republic, and as dangerously obsolete today. Moreover, this bill merely delegates the President's authority in specific circumstances and would not deprive the President of his authority over the D.C. National Guard at will, as the Congress can do in making laws for the District despite delegated home rule. This bill is another important step necessary to complete the transfer of full self-government powers to the District of Columbia that Congress itself began with the passage of the Home Rule Act of 1973. Congress delegated most if its authority to the District of Columbia. The District of Columbia Executive National Guard Act follows this model. I urge my colleagues to support this bill.

Ms. NORTON

Ms. NORTON. Madam Speaker, the first bill that President Barack Obama signed was H.R. 11, the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act of 2009 to restore the Equal Pay Act (EPA) to its interpretation since it was enacted in 1963. That bill could not wait until today, Equal Pay Day. Equal Pay Day marks the day nearly four months into a new year--that women must work to earn as much as men did last year. However, although the EPA was highly successful for close to 20 years, the EPA had grown so creaky with age that the Ledbetter Act could do no more than resuscitate the old EPA. However, it is long past the time to amend the EPA to meet the changed economy, where women work as much as men, and in today's troubled economy women are increasingly supporting husbands, sons and families. My House colleague Rosa DeLauro and I, and scores of other Members got the House to pass the Paycheck Fairness Act and on Equal Pay Day, we urge the Senate to pass the Paycheck Fairness Act. Congresswoman Rosa DeLauro and I have long pressed for the passage of the Paycheck Fairness Act and both of us testified at its first hearing before the Committee on Education and Labor during the 110th Congress. My own experience as chair of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), when President Jimmy Carter moved the EPA and other civil rights statutes to the EEOC as parts of a historic reorganization, demonstrated to me both the strengths and the weakness of the EPA. As important as the Ledbetter Act, was it is only a gate opener to the EPA. The Paycheck Fairness Act, passed in the House this session is also an important update of the EPA's basic procedures, giving them ``the same muscle'' as other anti-discrimination statutes, including Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act and the age Discrimination in Employment Act, both of which I administered along with the Equal Pay Act. However, the Fair Pay Act (FPA) goes the next step, putting an end to wage discrimination against women and others by establishing equal pay for equal work. This bill recognizes that women earn significantly less than men for work, and amends the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938, known as the Equal Pay Act, to provide more effective remedies to victims of wage discrimination on the basis of sex. The Paycheck Fairness Act instructs the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) and the Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs to train EEOC employees and affected individuals and entities on matters involving wage discrimination and authorizes the Secretary of Labor to fund skills training programs for girls and women. The bill further directs the Secretary to provide studies, information, summits, guidelines, awards and assistance for employer evaluations of job categories based on objective criteria. Therefore, with Senator Tom Harkin, I am pleased again to introduce the FPA to pick up where the EPA leaves off, by bringing the EPA into the 21st century by taking on sex segregated jobs where gender influenced wages leave the average woman worker without any remedy. The FPA sends a message to the average woman worker, who is often steered to and then locked into a job with wages that are deeply influenced by the gender of those who have traditionally held those jobs. Women often are used inconsistent with their qualifications today because of employer steering, and because of deeply rooted wage stereotypes that result in pay according to gender and not according to the skills, effort, responsibility and working conditions necessary to do the job. We introduce the FPA because the pay problems of many women today stem from sex segregation between the jobs that women and men traditionally do. Two-thirds of white women, and three quarters of African American women, work in just three areas: sales and clerical, service, and factory jobs despite women's superior education to men for several decades. Only a combination of more aggressive strategies, including the Paycheck Fairness Act and the Fair Pay Act can break through the ancient societal habits present throughout human time the world over, as well as employers steering women into ``women's jobs'' which is as old as paid employment for women itself. The FPA recognizes that, if men and women are doing comparable work, they should be paid a comparable wage. For example, if a woman is an emergency services operator, a female-dominated profession, why is she often paid considerably less than a fire dispatcher, a male-dominated profession? Is this because each of these jobs has been dominated by one sex? The Fair Pay Act does not decide this issue, but the bill does allow women to show that some or all of the wage disparity is gender based. The burden is on the female plaintiff, a difficult case to make in a market economy, but women deserve the right to carry that burden in appropriate cases. The FPA, no more than the EPA, tampers with our market system. As with the EPA, the burden will be on the plaintiff to prove discrimination. As with the EPA, she must show that the reason for the disparity is sex discrimination, not legitimate market factors. Corrections to achieve comparable pay for men and women are not radical or unprecedented. State employees in almost half of the state governments, in red and blue states alike, have already demonstrated that the pay gap that is due to discrimination can be eliminated. Twenty states have adjusted wages for women state employees, raising pay for teachers, nurses, clerical workers, librarians, and other female-dominated jobs that paid less than men with comparable jobs. Minnesota, for example, implemented a pay equity plan when they found that similarly skilled female jobs paid 20% less than male jobs. There often will be some portion of the gap that is traceable to market conditions, but twenty states have shown that you can tackle the discrimination gap without interfering with the free market system. The states generally have closed the discrimination gap over a period of four or five years at a one-time cost no more than three to four percent of payroll. In addition, routinely, many women workers achieve pay equity through collective bargaining. In addition countless employers on their own, as they see women shifting out of vital female-dominated occupations, the effects of the shortage of workers in vital occupations, and the unfairness to women, are raising women's wages with pay equity adjustments. The best case for a strong and updated EPA with at least the Paycheck Fairness Act occurred here in the Congress in 2003, when women custodians in the House and Senate won an EPA case after showing that women workers were paid a dollar less for doing the same and similar work as men. Had they not been represented by their skillful and dedicated union, they would have had an almost impossible task using the rules for bringing and sustaining an EPA class action suit today. The FPA simply modernizes the EPA to make such a suit more possible by women acting alone. Start where we like, but Congress should be ashamed to let another year go by while working families lose more than $200 billion annually--more than $4,000 per family--even considering education, age and hours of works and location. Unequal pay has been built into the way women have been treated since shortly after Adam and Eve. To dislodge such deep seated and pervasive treatment, we must update old vehicles like the EPA with the Paycheck Fairness Act and create new laws, such as the Fair Pay Act I introduce today.

Ms. NORTON

Ms. NORTON. Mr. Chairman, I would have voted ``aye'' on rollcall 200; ``aye'' on rollcall 201; and ``no'' on rollcall 202. Amendment No. 11 Offered by Mr. Shadegg

Ms. NORTON

Ms. NORTON. Madam Speaker, the Kingman and Heritage Islands Act of 2009 will make it possible for the District of Columbia, the Army Corps of Engineers and environmental education groups to develop Kingman and Heritage Island as a center for environmental education, a recreation site, and for restoration of the Anacostia River eco-system. Kingman and Heritage Islands were created by the Army Corps of Engineers in the 1920's as part of the Anacostia Tidal Flats Reclamation project and were managed by the U.S. Department of the Interior/National Park Service (NPS) through 1996. At the request of the District, Congress dedicated the two islands to a child-oriented theme park in the National Children's Island Act of 1995. This Act transferred title of certain NPS property in Anacostia Park to the District of Columbia (District). These properties included Heritage Island and a portion of Kingman Island located within the District. However, the law includes a reversionary provision to the Department of Interior if a theme park was not built, necessitating this bill. As times have changed, the District no longer believes that a theme park is the highest and best use of the space. Instead, the District announced plans to use Kingman Island as part of an initiative to help revitalize the River. The bill calls for a unique environmental natural reserve park to restore the ecosystem, provide usable open space for residents and visitors, and environmental education, including a September 11th Remembrance Grove. In my view, this is an even more appropriate use for Kingman Island. This use also buttresses my own work in the Congress on the Anacostia River, particularly the Anacostia Watershed legislation, which Congess has passed and whose implementation is now underway. A renovated pedestrian bridge now provides access to these islands for environmental programs and the general public. Over 40 acres of tidal marsh in Kingman Lake are currently being restored through the combined efforts of the Army Corps, the District and local environmental teaching groups. The renovated islands will include a particularly appropriate memorial tree grove dedicated to the three District of Columbia schoolchildren who were victims of the September 11 terrorist attack. Self-guided trails and interpretive stations will instruct visitors about the abundant natural history of the Anacostia River and will track contemporary efforts to restore the river's wildlife, habitats and water quality. This non-controversial, no-cost bill will have a positive effect on the deteriorating ecology of the region. Because the bill involves a District of Columbia property, it has little national significance except for residents of the region and visitors to the nation's capitol. The bill will serve all who are here or are visiting and therefore I intend to ask that the bill be put on the suspension calendar after review by the appropriate committee.

Ms. NORTON

Ms. NORTON. Madam Chairman, on rollcall No. 191, had I been present, I would have voted ``no.''

Ms. NORTON

Ms. NORTON. I want to thank the chairman and the ranking member for bringing forth this very important set of bills that benefit Federal employees. One that perhaps has not been spoken to I'll speak to now. It's the Employees' Equity Act, which restores credible service or retirement years to District of Columbia employees who were involuntarily transferred to the Federal Government pursuant to the Revitalization Act and, in the process, somehow, by an error of government, not an error of their own, they have lost retirement years. Not money, just years. Some of them are working when they could have retired 10 years ago. This bill simply restores the years, gives them credit for the years so that, in their transfer from the District of Columbia to the Federal Government, they haven't lost all of those years of service. They have to start over again as if just entering the Federal Government. No one intended that. And because you, Mr. Chairman, and the ranking member have understood this bill, which has been in the Congress for some time, we come forward now to correct this mistake. Some of them will retire, some of them will stay on, but all of them will have all of their years in public service credited to them. I thank you both.

Ms. NORTON

Ms. NORTON. Madam Speaker, I am pleased to introduce a bill today to permit two statues honoring citizens of the District of Columbia in Statuary Hall in the Capitol, just as statues honoring citizens of States are placed in the historic hall. This legislation would allow the city to offer two statues to the Congress on behalf of D.C. residents. This bill is important to ensure equal treatment for the residents of the District of Columbia with the residents of the 50 States, who already have statues representing them in Statuary Hall. The D.C. statues would likely be of Frederick Douglass and Pierre L'Enfant, known for their contributions to the city and to the Nation, who were selected by the D.C. Commission on the Arts and Humanities through a public process. The D.C. statues could help cure the diversity embarrassment of statues in the Capitol. When the Capitol Visitors Center (CVC) opened in December, many were surprised and embarrassed that even in the part of the CVC Congress named Emancipation Hall, to honor the slaves and free blacks who helped build the Capitol, there were no statues of African Americans. It also is an embarrassment, and an indefensible one at that, that the 600,000 American citizens who live in the nation's capital have no statues of their own, while all 50 States have statues. On August 10, 2006, the D.C. Commission on Arts and Humanities began the process of creating the two statues to be placed in Statuary Hall, when the Commission chose Frederick Douglass and Pierre L'Enfant as the two prominent residents whose statues would represent the District of Columbia. The Commission also hired two Washington area sculptors, Steven Weitzman and Gordon Kay, to work on the sculptures of Frederick Douglass and Pierre L'Enfant. Both statues were placed in the lobby of One Judiciary Square, a District government building. Douglass (1818-1895) was born a slave in Maryland and became a District resident in the 1870s. He held diplomatic and District appointments and is considered to be the Father of the Civil Rights Movement. Douglass also displayed his talents as an orator and journalist throughout his life here. His home in southeast Washington is a national monument that attracts hundreds of thousands of visitors annually. L'Enfant (1754-1825), an architect, engineer and soldier, left France to serve in the American Revolution. George Washington chose L'Enfant to design the new federal city of Washington, D.C. He became a U.S. citizen and spent the remainder of his life in D.C., implementing the plan that made the Nation's capital the beautiful city it is today. The District of Columbia was born with the Nation itself over 200 years ago. Throughout these two centuries, the city has created its very own rich and uniquely American history. In the Congress, we undermine the Nation's efforts to spread full democracy around the world. While D.C. residents have not yet obtained the same political equality and voting rights as the citizens of the States, they have all the responsibilities of the citizens of the States, including paying all Federal taxes and serving in all the Nation's wars. Today, when our residents are serving in Iraq, the least we should do is to give this city its rightful and equal place in the Capitol. The statues would offer District residents the opportunity to enjoy the same pride that all other citizens experience when they come to their Capitol--the opportunity to view memorials that commemorate the efforts of residents who have made significant contributions to their jurisdiction and to American history. The statue bill I introduce today is part of our ``Free and Equal D.C.'' series, which includes the D.C. House Voting Rights Act, bills for budget autonomy and legislative autonomy, an elected district attorney position, and other bills designed to ensure that District residents, who pay Federal taxes and fight in wars like other Americans, are granted the same privileges as other Americans.

Ms. NORTON

Ms. NORTON. Madam Speaker, today, I am again introducing the Nuclear Disarmament and Economic Conversion Act (NDECA), as I have done since 1994, after working with the residents who were responsible for a ballot initiative passed by D.C. voters in 1993. NDECA requires the United States to disable and dismantle its nuclear weapons when all other nations possessing nuclear weapons enact laws to do the same. NDECA further provides that when U.S. nuclear weapons are dismantled, the resources for supporting nuclear weapon programs would be used for our growing human and infrastructure needs, such as housing, health care, Social Security and the environment. I chose to introduce the NDECA before the March 20th memorial service for William Thomas, who sat in front of the White House in an anti- nuclear vigil for nearly 28 years. His efforts have been called the longest uninterrupted war protest in U.S. history. He truly embodied our inalienable First Amendment rights. Tragically, instead of nuclear disarmament, nations around the world have increased efforts to seek or acquire nuclear capability with Iran's failure to halt uranium enrichment captured attention until recently, China's nuclear weapons and today North Korea continues testing missile long range missiles and there is little doubt that North Korea has acquired a nuclear device. India and Pakistan continue to fight over the Kashmir region and with the recent terrorist strikes in India, the instability in the region persists. Pakistan assures us that its weapons are safe, as nuclear secrets are sold by its top scientists, the streets are riled with protests, a military coup is not out of the question, and the semi- autonomous regions are dominated by Al-Quaeda and the Taliban. The invasion of Iraq cost the United States much of its leadership on nuclear proliferation and other urgent international issues. This country reached a non-credible status in dissuading other nations who aspire to become or remain nuclear powers as we ourselves took greater initiative in increasing our own nuclear weapons program. We moved in the right direction when the Senate ratified the Moscow Treaty in 2003, which provides that by 2012 both the U.S. and Russia will reduce their long-range warheads by two-thirds from approximately 6,000 warheads each to 2,200. However, the Bush administration failed to build on this effort. According to the study, ``Securing The Bomb: An Agenda for Action'' (May, 2004; prepared by the Belfer Center, Harvard University Kennedy School of Government): ``Total nuclear-threat-reduction spending remains less than one quarter of one percent of the U.S. military budget. Indeed, on average, the Bush administration requests for nuclear-threat-reduction spending over FY 2002-2005 were less, in real terms, than the last Clinton administration request, made long before the 9/11 attacks ever occurred.'' Instead, the Bush administration moved to increase the country's nuclear capacity. However, the problem today is even more complicated than nuclear disarmament by nation states. The greatest threat today is from inadequately defended and guarded sites in many countries where there is enough material to make nuclear weapons and many opportunities for terrorists or nations without weapons to secure nuclear materials. Astonishingly, because of the previous administration's absence of leadership, less nuclear material was seized in the two years following the 9/11 attacks than in the two years immediately preceding the attacks (``Securing The Bomb: An Agenda for Action'', May 2004). In my work on the Homeland Security Committee, I know that threats from nuclear proliferation and available nuclear material are more dangerous in the post 9/11 era than in 1994, when I first introduced the Nuclear Disarmament and Economic Conversion Act. It is more urgent than ever to begin closing down nuclear capability here and around the world. Today, our country has a hobbled economy, 45 million people still without health insurance, a long list of other urgent domestic needs put on the back burner following the invasion of Iraq, large tax cuts for wealthy people and corporations, and millions of Americans losing their homes and jobs. As the only nation that has used nuclear weapons in war, and still possesses the largest arsenal, the U.S. has an obligation to begin the arduous process of leading the world in the transfer of nuclear weapons funds to urgent domestic needs.

Ms. NORTON

Ms. NORTON. Since the gentleman from Georgia has come in, I hope that he will have a 5-minute period.

Ms. NORTON. To show you the shame on us, we were granted, for a brief period, a delegate, we finally got the delegate and home rule, as we call it, at the same time. But Madam Chair, there was a brief period where when in the 19th century we got the delegate and the right and a mayor and a city council. And that was when the Republicans came to power after the Civil War. Again we are talking about a city where they could see the reason for the disempowerment. And this, of course, is why so many African Americans nationally became Lincoln Republicans and why you would expect the Republican party to be right here with me, as Tom Davis and so many Republicans here, have been. The fact is that during Reconstruction, we had basically the same kind of home rule we have now. It wasn't an African American mayor. But that is not what we were after. We were after self-government for everyone here. Reconstruction ended. And I will say to my good friend and colleague who chairs the Black Caucus that one of the first things that the Democrats did in reclaiming power was not simply to resegregate the South. What the Democrats did was to wipe out what the Republicans had done with the District of Columbia. They wiped out the delegate. And the Democrats wiped out home rule. We don't have clean hands. The Democrats got religion, finally, on matters of equal rights long after the Republicans had it and kept African Americans, of course, as a constituency, because they never forgot it until the New Deal came. And our party was still full of segregationists. But the bottom line of survival and the New Deal brought them here. Madam Chair of our caucus, the thing has for me been a great ride for my constituents. But I tell them the truth that there is also something personal in this for me because I'm a third-generation Washingtonian, and my great-grandfather, Richard Holmes, got here shall we say the hard way. He walked off of a Virginia plantation where he was being held as a slave and got as far as the District of Columbia, and the Holmes roots got planted here. And so on the Holmes side, those who continued to live here have never experienced the same rights that others have seen, including rights that they saw people down South get just a few decades ago. So Madam Chair of our caucus, this has racial roots. But those roots have been dug up. They are not there anymore. All that is left is a partisanship that exists here in the Congress but not in the country. I think we are close to bringing the two together, the people with the Congress. I especially am pleased that the gentlelady from California has never ceased to carry this personally when she worked as Chief of Staff for Congressman Ron Dellums, who has gone on, as she said, to be the mayor of another great city, Oakland, and now is Chair of our caucus, I would like to say one word about the constitutional question which is raised. Well, I can't swear that any bill we passed is constitutional. All I know is we are not the ones who decide that question. We decide questions of right and wrong, of whether or not a bill should be passed or not. But I am not worried about the constitutional issue, not when former Court of Appeals judge Kenneth Starr appeared before us and testified in very scholarly testimony that the bill is constitutional. I am really not worried about it when Professor Viet Dinh who spent some years as the constitutional point man in the Justice Department, Attorney General for Legal Policy it is called, has been one of the prime constitutional advocates for the bill. I'm relying not only on people who usually agree with me on constitutional issues, but on scholars who will concede that any bill as unprecedented as this would raise constitutional issues. But in good faith, after more than 200 years, who are we to continue to deny these rights when the very Constitution they cite has ordained an independent institution to make that final judgment? We will be held accountable for this judgment. And so they say you are not a State, so how can you possibly have the rights of States? There is very scholarly testimony from former Assistant Attorney General Dinh about how in each and every instance, more than half a dozen, where the notion of treating the District as a State has been raised, each and every time the Congress and the Supreme Court had said the same thing, when it comes to the Commerce Clause, the fact that it says commerce among the States does not mean, said the Congress first, and then, of course, the court, does not mean it doesn't apply to the District of Columbia. There is not a case which extracts us from that line of reasoning, both congressional reasoning and, of course, the reasoning of the court. I have to say to the gentlelady, the one that I think makes me smile most is article 1 section 2 clause 3 which provides that representatives and direct taxes shall be apportioned among the several States. The court said, go away from here. When it comes to paying your income taxes, D.C., that means you. Don't take these words so literally that they are meaningless. You are not outside the United States. You are different from the States.

Ms. NORTON. That is why I have been so pleased, that even Members who are far more conservative than I voted for this bill on the Republican side and on the Democratic side. On the Democratic side, we had many Members who come from districts, we are so pleased to have them, because we are the signature of big tent political party ever since FDR, and the unity that we have shown and the many Republicans who voted for me does say to me that people understand this vote to be just like the reauthorization of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 a couple years ago. Remember, in our country when in another part of the country almost nobody of color had the vote. We changed all that. So the only people who don't have that kind of representation here are, of all people, the people who live in plain sight of the Congress. We feel very deeply about our people who have gone to war. We talk about no taxation without representation. That pales beside giving your life for a country that doesn't think enough of you to give you even a vote in the people's House. This time, I dedicated the bill to an unknown soldier and to the first soldier who died in the Iraq war. The unknown soldier is a soldier who lived in the District of Columbia, who went to war on the war cry of ``no taxation without representation.'' That was the reason that you could get people to take up arms against the mother country, an act of treason. Imagine if they hadn't succeeded what would have happened to them. The other soldier I dedicated the bill to is one whose name I know very well, Army Specialist Daryl Dent, 21 years old, a graduate of Roosevelt High School, National Guard. When you sign up for the National Guard, especially at the beginning of this war, a kid who I am sure did not envision that he would be overseas, he went the way Guardsmen and reservists and enlisted men and women have always gone, ready to do their duty for the United States of America. I am just asking that we do our duty to these veterans who leave me feeling the same way that all of you feel, only with a deeper hole in my heart. I could have dedicated this to a lot of other men and women who have died for the District of Columbia. In World War I, this city lost--this is a city, now--lost more than three States. So there were three States that didn't lose as many men at that time as we did. World War II, more than four States from this one place. Korea, more than eight States. Vietnam War, more than 10 States. We have paid our dues. I don't think that can be doubted. One of my constituents now is a man who owns a business here and lives here, and he was born in Iraq. He stood with me, and I want to quote from him. I don't think Americans know the facts as he told them. His name is Andy Shallal. He said, ``People like me of Iraqi ancestry, and even my son who was born in the United States, are entitled to vote in the Iraqi election due in large part to the service of the citizens of the District of Columbia and other Americans who have fought and died in Iraq.'' I just think that says it all. This country was so intent on making sure that Iraqis, all Iraqis, and even Diaspora, and people who could not even be counted in their Diaspora because they were in fact born here and raised here just like the gentlewoman and I, those people had the right to vote in the Iraqi elections. And that is what we in the District are told we are supposed to swallow. That is why I must give my thanks to Governor John Huntsman of Utah, who continues to support this bill strongly. If I could quote from him. ``The people of Utah have expressed outrage over the loss of one congressional seat since the last census. I share their outrage. I can't imagine,'' Governor Huntsman wrote, ``what it must be like for American citizens to have no representation at all for over 200 years.'' I want to say to the gentlelady what I believe most Americans don't know. The schools of the District of Columbia were integrated as a result of Brown versus Board of Education just as I was about to leave high school. The District of Columbia was one of five Brown versus Board of Education States, right along there with South Carolina and the rest of them. Why? Because the Congress of the United States saw to it that all public accommodations, that public schools, were indeed segregated. They went further. The Congress of the United States left these American citizens for 150 years without any mayor or city council. Instead, the President, with the consent of the Congress, appointed three commissioners. These three unelected people ruled the city for more than 150 years. There can be no doubt that while race has very little to do with this today, it seems to be all about partisanship. I say to my colleagues, my colleague who chairs the congressional black caucus, it was your party and mine that denied the vote to the people of the District of Columbia, denied any kind of self-government. We were denied any kind of self-government. It was the capture of our party then by southern Democrats who are today gone and forgotten, because there is a new South, white and black, that looks very different because they could not conceive of a denial on race alone. Of course, what particularly hurts this third-generation Washingtonian is that for most of that time, the city was a majority white jurisdiction. The presence of a significant number of black people was enough to rally the anti-civil rights forces to keep all people from getting representation and from getting any right to govern themselves until the civil rights movement broke through in all.

Ms. NORTON. I thank the gentleman not only for yielding to me, I thank the gentleman for his leadership. When people see me come to the floor, they are used to my coming to the floor for a bill on the District, often a bill I've sponsored. This is what is known as a Special Order or Special Hour, but it wasn't a Special Hour that I requested. I cannot say enough about how much it meant to me to hear colleagues who could be on a plane now give up that time to come to the floor to speak on this matter. The chairman of the Progressive Caucus could be halfway--is from halfway across the country in Minnesota; not to mention the Chair of the Congressional Black Caucus, who has even further to go. Indeed, it ought to be said that today the Congress let out early. So many hightailed it, of course, to their own districts, who would have otherwise been here. The gentlelady from California has my thanks for another initiative she took, and that is the meeting that was held yesterday with the Speaker of the House. The Congressional Black Caucus--of course, this is a largely African American city, but it's also a city where the Black Caucus would be out in front for the vote if anybody was denied the vote. But the Black Caucus has carried this since it was founded. The Speaker, in fact, agreed to a meeting with us in her office. It was a very important and very gratifying meeting, all at the leadership of the Congresswoman from California. I cannot thank her enough. It's very important to me what Mr. Ellison and Ms. Lee have done because it is their own initiative. It's very important to say that, unlike with so many issues, they are broadly representative of our House and of our Senate and of our country in believing that we should have the vote. The poll that I think is duplicated perhaps in what Mr. Ellison had shows an unusual majority across all lines; most Democrats and Republicans. And think about it. What red-blooded American would oppose the right to be represented in the national legislature? How many of us would want to be at the mercy of a group of people, however benevolent, where none of them was accountable to us, even by a single vote. That's been where the residents of the District of Columbia have been for 212 years now because the expectation of the Framers that Congress would in fact make sure that the vote continued after the 10-year transition period has not occurred. Congress dropped the ball. Those who gave the land from Maryland and Virginia actually got in the first Congress legislation that assured them that the residents of Maryland and Virginia, who now, after 10 years, would be part of the Nation's Capitol, would be left with exactly what they had when they left Virginia and Maryland. They voted for Members of Congress. They voted in the same way all the other Americans did. It is a long, sad story as to why that did not happen. Understand what my colleagues have been talking about--only the House vote. We are not talking about a vote in the Senate of the United States. Only in the people's House. We are seeking from the House exactly what the House gave us last time. In an extraordinary vote, this House was the first to pass this bill and send it to the Senate. They fell three votes short because, remember, over there, 51 percent is not a majority. You need 60 percent. That's a new definition of majority that the Senate has created. I want to thank my colleagues first for the leadership of my colleagues who have come forward as representative, I can truly say, of this House. But I want to thank for all of those who voted for this bill last year. This bill originated with one of my Republican colleagues who thought of the idea of making it as bipartisan as possible in the hopes that that would draw members of his party as well as my party because the District, like every large city virtually in America, has more Democrats than Republicans. So he teamed us with Utah, which had barely missed getting a vote because Mormon missionaries, who were out of the State on a religious mission, always had been counted, and they were not counted in the 2000 census. Utah was only too happy to join. I want to thank the Governor of Utah, its own delegation, who have been with us from the beginning. Two hundred-nineteen Democrats voted for this bill last time. Only six voted ``no.'' That is very extraordinary. And I am asking each and every one of them to repeat the vote they made last time. I was in a meeting with a Republican Member who shares my view on the Capitol Visitor Center because there's some things we want to fix about how staff can conduct their own tours. He came to me afterwards and said, By the way, I'm voting for D.C. voting rights this time. I do expect that there will be more Republicans voting for the bill than last time. Twenty-two Republicans voted for the bill. They were under some pressure not to. I want to thank Tom Davis, who spearheaded this bill. He has since retired but is helping me even as I speak. I do want to say that the bill carries a triple bonus. How often is it that we use the word bipartisan and it doesn't quite mean that each side gets exactly what the other side gets? Look at what happens here. Utah felt cheated, and that is a good word that Mr. Cummings used for how residents who pay taxes and go to war here feel, and they have joined with the District of Columbia, which has never had a vote. If that isn't bipartisan. One for you, one for me. No compromises there. One each. If that is not bipartisan, I haven't heard a real definition of the word. This vote does something for the House. It increases the House for the first time in 100 years. Every time that a new State has come in, you have the same 435 seats. You're going to have 437 seats now. In addition to Republicans and Democrats each getting one, now they have one more seat that makes it easier for each to compete. You would think that Republicans would particularly welcome that since they are in the fastest growing areas of the United States. This failure of the House to permanently increase the House in 100 years has been broken if we pass this bill. Before I ask another question of my good friend who has remained with us for a little while, I do want people to know what it is that moves most Americans by these kinds of margins, almost two-thirds of all adults, for example, being for the bill, almost 60 percent Republicans, almost 70 percent Democrats. What is it that moves them? Americans would have given us this vote before, I am sure, if we could have gotten the word out. We have an indigenous organization called D.C. Vote. We have got a leadership conference on civil rights with its 200 organizations spreading the word for one-half dozen years now. That is the only way that this has become visible enough so that people who didn't even know we didn't have the vote, which is most Americans, now know it and cannot conceive of it. Who can conceive of somebody in our country paying taxes without getting any payback on that right to vote ``yea'' or ``nay'' on whether those taxes should be paid or not? And I know Americans cannot conceive of the experience I have had of going to Arlington Cemetery to bury residents from the District of Columbia in the Iraq and Afghanistan war, who have now succeeded in getting the vote for the people of those countries who did not have it before, and died without having that vote in their own Nation's capital, the only capital of any nation to deny the vote to its own residents. This is an anomaly. Don't blame it on the framers, and don't blame it on the American people. Now that they know it, they say do it; don't leave us in this way with this message that steps on our message of democracy around the world, a district the average size of congressional districts in the United States and a district that is larger than some States. This point has been made, but let me drive it home when they say the notion of having everybody who can vote, except you. What Members are referring to is that among the things that the District has to do is to send its budget here before it can spend a dollar of its own tax-raised money; send its laws here, and let them lie over and see if someone wants to overturn them. So, this House will see the D.C. appropriation come forward this year. That is another way of saying the taxes that the people who live in the District of Columbia alone have raised, they will see that come forward as an appropriation. Now, my good friend from California is now a member of the Appropriations Committee. I wish you would describe what it means to come forward with this bill, knowing good and well that you are going to have a vote on it, every Member on both sides of the aisle are going to have a vote on it, but that no Member from the District of Columbia will have a vote for it. You are on that committee.

Ms. NORTON

Ms. NORTON. Madam Speaker, I rise today to introduce the National Mall Revitalization and Designation Act. The National Mall is one of Washington's best known and most treasured sites, but also is the District's most neglected and undervalued. The Mall lacks everything that a majestic natural wonder deserves, from an official identity to necessary amenities. My bill (1) authorizes the National Capital Planning Commission (NCPC) to officially designate and expand the boundaries of the Mall and (2) requires the Secretary of the Interior to submit a plan to enhance visitor enjoyment and cultural experiences within 180 days of passage of the bill. I worked closely with NCPC and other agencies in framing the bill. It would give the NCPC the responsibility and the necessary flexibility to designate the Mall area for the first time since its creation and to expand the Mall area when appropriate. The bill requires the NCPC, to accommodate future commemorative works and cultural institutions, working with key federal and local agencies, and with participation from the public and recognized national leaders in culture and development. Frustrated at continually fighting off proposals for new monuments, museums, and memorials, on the crowded Mall space, I asked the NCPC to devise a Mall preservation plan five years ago. In 2003, Congress amended the Commemorative Works Act to enact the NCPC's designation of a no-build zone where no new memorials can be built. This action was helpful in quelling some but by no means all of the demand from groups and individuals for placement on what they view as the Mall. The bill spells out the needed authority to preserve the no-build zone while expanding the mall to accommodate commemorative works. The NCPC and the Commission on Fine Arts (FAC) are working on the National Capital Framework Plan and already have shown they can identify sites near the existing Mall which are suitable for new memorials, including East Potomac Park, a part of the Mall area that is seldom viewed as integral to the more familiar space between the Capitol and the Lincoln Memorial; Banneker Overlook, the grounds around RFK Stadium, the Kennedy Center Plaza site and the new South Capitol gateways. Five new prestigious memorials are scheduled for such sites, including the Eisenhower Memorial and the U.S. Air Force Memorial. I appreciate that NCPC and the FAC work closely with the District of Columbia in designating off-Mall sites for new monuments. The District welcomes the expanded Mall into appropriate neighborhoods, enhancing the work of the District of Columbia government and local organizations such as Cultural Tourism that offer historic tours of District neighborhoods in developing the tourism that is vital to the city's economy. Additional Mall sites for various monuments also complement the creation of entire new neighborhoods now underway near the Mall particularly the District's redevelopment of the Southwest waterfront and my own work on the Southeast Federal Center, now known as The Yards, that is to becoming a mixed use public-private development and waterfront park. A second and important goal of the bill is to make the Mall a living, breathing, active place where things happen and visitors can be comfortable. The bill seeks to achieve this vibrancy by requiring the Secretary of the Interior to submit a plan, in consultation with the appropriate federal agencies, and leaders in culture and development and the public, to ``enhance visitor enjoyment, amenities, cultural experiences in and the vitality of (the National Mall).'' Bordered by world class cultural institutions, the Mall itself has been reduced to a lawn with only a few--too few--ordinary benches and a couple of fast food restaurants. The Mall lacks the most basic amenities appropriate to such an area including restrooms, shelter and informal places to gather and interesting places to eat. When it rains, there are no places to stay dry on the Mall and when the humidity reaches sky high, there are few places to rest and have a cold drink. Nevertheless, in writing this bill I was compelled to recognize today's reality that funds to make the Mall the 21st century destination it deserves to become are simply not available, and will not become available in the near future until the deficit and other priorities make room. Yet, the Mall needs a total makeover for the 21st century to be worthy of L'Enfant's vision for the city he planned and the MacMillan Plan that is largely responsible for the space between the Capitol and the Lincoln Memorial that is known today as the Mall. However, we must move now to begin to do all we can to rescue this space from its present dull and uninviting condition, damaged by heavy use and often used as no more than a pass-through, despite its magnificent potential. With the necessary imagination, a plan to make the Mall a welcoming place with cultural and other amenities envisioned by the bill is achievable now. I am pleased that Chip Akridge and the Trust for the National Mall have embarked upon an ambitious fundraising effort to bring the private sector into the revitalization of the National Mall. The Congress started to do its part last year when, at my request, Chairman Grijalva held the first hearing in decades on the National Mall and this bill, and in FY10 Congress included $10 million for the sinking Jefferson Memorial and $135 million above 2008, to continue the 10 year initiative to upgrade our National Parks before the 100th anniversary of the National Park Service in 2016. The National Park Service is also prepared to meet the requirements of this bill as they progress on their own National Mall plan and the National Capitol Planning Commission with its final National Capitol Framework plan on April 2nd, 2009. The private sector, the executive and legislative branch all recognize the need for repair and revitalization of our National Mall and no event signified the need like the largest gathering in the Mall's history with almost two million people at President Obama's inauguration. The Mall Designation and Revitalization Act is the first step in an effort to begin to give the Mall its due after decades of neglect and indifference. The bill begins at the beginning--defining for the first time what we mean by the Mall, allowing for expansion of its natural contours, and taking the first steps to breathe life into a space that is meant for people to enjoy.

Ms. NORTON

Ms. NORTON. Madam Speaker, today, I introduce the District of Columbia Hatch Act Reform Act of 2009, to eliminate discriminatory treatment of the District of Columbia, which alone among U.S. jurisdictions still falls under the federal Hatch Act, as it did before the Congress made the District an independent jurisdiction that today enacts its own local laws. This bill would retain federal Hatch Act authority concerning prohibited partisan and political activity that applies to every state and locality upon receipt of federal funds or functions, and importantly, would require the District to enact its own local version of the Hatch Act barring similar local violations to become effective. Local Hatch Act violations in the District are rare, but the District needs its own Hatch Act to fully account and be responsible for local violations, with which only a local, objective body would be familiar. This bill will leave in place the federal Hatch Act restrictions that apply to other jurisdictions on the use of official authority, specifically as it relates to elections; the solicitation, acceptance, or receipt of political campaign contributions; the prohibitions on running for public office in partisan elections; and the use of on-duty time and resources to engage in partisan campaign activity when federal funds or responsibilities are involved. My bill would remove only the federal Hatch Act jurisdiction that applies solely to the District of Columbia and would require the District to have its own local Hatch Act, like every other jurisdiction, instead of requiring the federal Office of Personnel Management (OPM) and its Special Counsel to devote staff time and other resources on investigation, fact-finding and judgment of unfamiliar local matters. Indeed, OPM has asked for the federal guidance my bill offers. In recent cases, OPM cited an ANC (Advisory Neighborhood Commissioner) commissioner for violations of the Hatch Act when he ran for higher office, even though ANC commissioners are ``elected officials'' under D.C. law. As a result of the failure to clear up the confusion between local and federal jurisdictions, the application of the Hatch Act to ANC commissioners has been selectively enforced by OPM. For example, OPM recently filed cases charging Hatch Act violations against an ANC commissioner running for the D.C. Council but did not file when several members of the current D.C. City Council ran for the D.C. Council from positions as ANC commissioners. The present law results in possible violations of the federal Hatch Act while leaving OPM with local responsibility that does not implicate its federal jurisdiction. The House recognized that the present federal Hatch Act jurisdiction over the District was inappropriate and obsolete and removed this federal responsibility several years ago, but the Senate failed to act. The District should bear this local responsibility. My bill will eliminate the double indignity of placing a local burden on the federal government and depriving the District of a responsibility, which only local jurisdictions familiar with local laws can be expected to handle responsibly. The Hatch Act Reform is the fourth in the ``Free and Equal D.C.'' series of bills that I have introduced to eliminate anti-Home Rule or redundant bills that deprive the city of equal treatment and recognition as an independent self-governing jurisdiction. This uncomplicated and straightforward bill is not controversial, has been enacted before by the House and should be passed forthwith.

Ms. NORTON

Ms. NORTON. Madam Speaker, I rise to ask the House to join me in congratulating the remarkable students from The SEED Public Charter School and DC Preparatory Academy. Students from these schools participated in We the People: The Citizen and the Constitution Middle School Showcase on January 7, 2009 for the District of Columbia at the Charles Sumner School Museum and Archives and demonstrated a remarkable understanding of the fundamental principles of our nation. The students participated in a simulated congressional hearing where they responded to questions on the U.S. Constitution and Bill of Rights from a panel of adult judges. They responded to questions about English philosopher John Locke's view of the purposes of government, the principles embedded in the Declaration of Independence, the compromises made at the Philadelphia Convention, how the Constitution protects our most basic rights, and rights and responsibilities of citizenship. The We the People: The Citizen and the Constitution is administered by the Center for Civic Education and funded by the U.S. Department of Education under the Education for Democracy Act approved by the U.S. Congress. It is one of the best programs in the nation to promote a deep understanding of the U.S. Constitution, the Bill of Rights, and the principles they embody. I would also like to congratulate teachers LaTonya Davis at DC Preparatory Academy and Ian Milne at The SEED Public Charter School who did an exceptional job preparing these young students. I also wish to commend Justin Rydstrom, the state coordinator for the We the People program in the District of Columbia. Special recognition should be given to the National Capital Lawyer's Auxiliary who provided volunteers to make the event a success. Madam Speaker, I am pleased to submit the names of these young ``constitutional experts'' for special recognition by our colleagues in the House of Representatives and wish them the best of luck as they develop into the future leaders of our nation. The SEED School: Dymond Andrews, Roshae Ball, Chandler Connelly, Ashley DaCosta, Jevian Gudger, Makayla Head, Joseph Johnson, Loria Pate, Janell Proctor, Michael Moore, Shamari Pratt, Latiece Smith, Daa'Jah Wallace, and Chardae Walter. DC Prep: Tawfiq Abdul-Karim, Saqwan Adams, Rashawn Alexander, Hakeem Bello, Kyleisha Byrd, Deshaun Cannady, Jennifer Carter, Marc Childs, Carl Costley, William Delaney, Desmond Dixon, Jade Dixon, Shaquille Hall, Tony Hansford, DeVante' Hendren, Lundon Hudgens, Aleia Johnson, Keith Kelly, Martin Marshall, Denzel Mitchell, Kenny Montague, Ken Mutamba, Ryan Perkins, Melissa Reid, Jessica Robinson, Renita Robinson, Jonnae Spann, Ricardo McCrary Steward, Wesley Tebo, Brianna Thomas, Eddie Vann, Jada Vereene, Taurus White, and Mari Roe Wills.