Loretta Sanchez

Mr. LORETTA SANCHEZ of California

Mr. LORETTA SANCHEZ of California. Madam Speaker, I rise today to honor Jackson Tobiska, a senior at Orange County's High School of the Arts, for being selected as a 2003 Presidential Scholar. Jackson is one of 137 winners of this very prestigious award, selected nationally by a 32 member commission. It is comprised of leaders in education, medicine, law, social services and government, and they select the scholars. The scholars are selected based on their academic skills, on their community service, and, of course on their leadership skills. In a time when there are budget cuts that are cutting across our education system and when our schools, especially in my home State, are suffering, it is refreshing to see that both students and teachers are dedicated to academic excellence. I am very proud of Jackson for his hard work and for being selected as a Presidential Scholar for 2003. He reminds us that with determination and with dedication, anything is possible.

Ms. LORETTA SANCHEZ of California

Ms. LORETTA SANCHEZ of California. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to voice my anger, my anger over the Bush administration's willingness to plunge our economy further into debt. The Congressional Budget Office had projected that this year's shortfall to the budget would be $300 billion. But recently they came back and they now tell us it is going to be over $400 billion. This year's budget deficit will be the biggest one since 1992 and it will be the second consecutive one under this President after we had 4 years of surplus by President Clinton's administration. Instead of enacting fiscally responsible legislation, this administration continues to do further tax cuts for the wealthy. Former President Clinton recently said, When you find yourself in a hole, a practical person stops digging. But this Bush administration, it is asking for a bigger shovel. Mr. Speaker, it is time to stop digging. Fiscal responsibility needs to be the rule and not the exception to the rule.

Ms. LORETTA SANCHEZ of California

Ms. LORETTA SANCHEZ of California. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to talk about something that the President does not want you to hear about. It is called our country's current unemployment situation. Now, when the President began his term a little over 2 years ago, our Nation's unemployment rate stood at 4.1 percent, but today it stands at 6.1 percent. That means that there are 2.6 million people more who do not have a job. That is not those people who lost their jobs during this time and were able to find another job that paid less. There are plenty of those people who are making less. Or those people who stayed on the job but had to make less because their wages were cut. No, these are people who are out of jobs, 2.6 million more people; 1.1 million more of them in California. The situation is even worse if you are a Hispanic, because the unemployment rate is now at 8.2 percent for Hispanics. More than 1.5 million Hispanics, Mr. President, have lost their jobs since you took office. We have got to start talking about this and doing something about this job loss.

Ms. LORETTA SANCHEZ of California

Ms. LORETTA SANCHEZ of California. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to talk about that sleight of hand that happened in the last few days when the Republicans put together the newest tax cut for the American people. At the time, they decided to eliminate the child tax credit for 12 million children here in the United States, because, of course, they had to find a way to pay for their tax cut for dividend earnings. One would say, so what? It is just 12 million children that we are not going to give the tax credit to their families for. But it was 12 million children of low-income families. That means that if they made somewhere between $10,000 and $26,000 as a family they would not get that child tax credit. People tell me all the time there is no possibility. They just cannot make $10,000 a year because $10,000 a year, they cannot live on that. Darn right. They cannot live on $10,000 a year. Let us look at what it takes to live when they are making minimum wage, minimum wage in Orange County, California, where I live. Let us say they live in Santa Ana and they are making minimum wage, and there are a lot of people who make minimum wage out there. Why? We have got Disneyland; we have got tourist attractions there. We have got the maids who make the bed when they come and stay in Anaheim. The dishwashers, the people who serve. We have the gardeners who are cleaning up everything, the janitors. They all make minimum wage; and they make no benefits, most of them. So minimum wage, and in California it is higher than the rest of the Nation. Our minimum wage is $6.15 an hour. Multiply that if they are going to work for 2,040 hours a week. That is working every week. That comes to less than $13,000 a year. But by the time just their payroll taxes get pulled out of that paycheck, they are taking home about $11,000. And let us say that they are a family of three, that they have got a child, that they go home to live in their one-bedroom rented apartment in Santa Ana, California, where the average rent is $950 a month. When they do all the math, they figure out that earning minimum wage means they can barely pay their apartment rent. That is not their utilities. It is not health care. It is not clothes for them or their children. It is not school books or supplies. It is not transportation to get to their job, and it is not food. It is not medicine. So, yes, it is very difficult to live on minimum wage where I live, but a lot of people do it. They are working hard every single day. I remember about a year ago we unionized our janitors there, and they had a contract that would pay $6.40 an hour. And the workers came to put in their bid of whether they were going to accept that contract or not, $6.40 an hour for cleaning toilets, cleaning toilet after toilet after toilet in a high-rise all night long every floor. Who do the Members think cleans those buildings? And they were voting on this, $6.40 an hour. That was the contract. One holiday a year and 5 sick days a year. There was this guy, this older gentleman who was crying as he put in his ``yes'' vote, and he said to me ``You know, Congresswoman, I have been a janitor here for 17 years. This is the first time that I will get a raise.'' People live and they work very hard for these wages. So I hear the other side say it does not matter; we should not give people this tax credit. We need to give people that tax credit. What about the 200,000 families that are in our military, some of them stationed in Iraq, having put their lives on the line who are not eligible for the child tax credit because the other side decided that they needed to give rich people more money? When we first discovered it and we started to talk about it, some said, oh, my God, we did not know. How could that happen? Someone just slipped it in. Nobody slipped it in. The White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer said it was a very well-known fact what they were doing and the White House knew about it. Let us pass the DeLauro bill. We have got to get money to the families who really need it.

Ms. LORETTA SANCHEZ of California

Ms. LORETTA SANCHEZ of California. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to congratulate the Mighty Ducks of Anaheim for their spectacular success in the 2002-2003 National Hockey League season. Even though they did not win the Stanley Cup this year, they came into the playoffs as the seventh-best team in the Western conference, faced down their critics, and made it to the Stanley Cup finals for the first time in their 10- year history. Sweeping the Detroit Red Wings in four games, the Dallas Stars in six, and the Minnesota Wild in four, the Ducks proved that they were a serious contender for the sport's most coveted trophy; and Jean Sebastien Giguere, the Duck's spectacular goal tender, was selected as the most valuable player, winning that trophy for his hard work and incredible skill that gave the Ducks their fire throughout all of these playoff games. Congratulations to my hometown team, the Mighty Ducks. Thanks for making this season a great one to watch and for making us proud.

Ms. LORETTA SANCHEZ of California

Ms. LORETTA SANCHEZ of California. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to celebrate the 38th anniversary of the Head Start Program. As a former Head Start kid, I know firsthand the valuable, comprehensive education program that Head Start does for low-income families, and I celebrate the program's many achievements. The Republicans, on the other hand, will celebrate Head Start's 38 years of success by pushing forward with the School Readiness Act. This legislation is not only a bad idea, it has the possibility of eliminating key services to nearly 1 million students by converting the Head Start Program to a block grant program. Block granting Head Start is a blockheaded idea that will undoubtedly hurt this very successful program. One problem in particular with this plan is that States are already dealing with huge budget deficits, and they may be tempted to divert Head Start funds to use for other purposes. How would that improve the Head Start Program? I urge my colleagues to celebrate Head Start's 38th anniversary by opposing this misguided legislation.

Ms. LORETTA SANCHEZ of California

Ms. LORETTA SANCHEZ of California. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to pay tribute to our Nation's National Guard and Reserve. These brave Americans voluntarily leave behind families and their civilian duties to serve in our Nation's military for the sake of protecting our Nation. And how do we repay them? By requiring long terms of duty and often paying them less salary than they would earn by staying at home. Today, the House will consider House Resolution 201, paying tribute to private companies who have been willing to support these troops in part by filling in this pay gap for some of our reservists. However, just last month, when my colleagues and I tried to introduce amendments to the Defense authorization bill that would have ended all pay gaps for reservists, they were not only defeated by my Republican counterparts, but they were not even allowed to be debated on this House floor. It is time that Congress does more for the reservists than just pay accolades to private industry. To truly give tribute to our national reservists we must pass legislation so that all of these individuals who risk their lives for our country will not risk financial disaster.

Ms. LORETTA SANCHEZ of California

Ms. LORETTA SANCHEZ of California. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to voice my concerns over the FCC's decision to relax media ownership rules. The new regulations would allow a single company to own 45 percent of media that reaches United States households, instead of the current 35 percent. As it stands now, there are only a handful of media companies that we get to see, that we see, that we hear, and that we can read. When we do this, there will be an even smaller number of media companies owning a larger share of the media market. And that moves us dangerously close to a monopoly-like situation in the mass media business. One of the greatest things about our country is freedom of press and freedom of speech. That is what our Constitution has in it. Under these new regulations, we are moving toward limiting the information that citizens get to see because there will be fewer points of view brought forward because there are fewer companies. Congress should take a closer look at this.

Ms. LORETTA SANCHEZ of California

Ms. LORETTA SANCHEZ of California. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in frustration over the Committee on Rules' failure to allow the Cooper Civil Service Bill of Rights to be offered today as an amendment to the defense authorization bill. On the day that Congress left for the Easter recess, the Department of Defense presented Congress with the largest civil service reform package in nearly half a century. Impacting nearly 620,000 Department of Defense civilian employees, the proposed bill strips workers of fundamental protections, including the right to collective bargaining and the right to belong to a union without fear of discrimination. In fact, it does not even guarantee overtime pay for firefighters. Although I agree that the Department of Defense civil service reforms are necessary, the manner in which these reforms have been moving through this body is disgraceful. Congress is doing a disservice to our hard-working men and women at the Department of Defense by failing to bring this issue up for a debate. The Cooper amendment would have restored, among many things, critical worker protections, including veterans' preferences, freedom from political patronage, collective bargaining rights, membership in labor organizations, and protection from discrimination. Mr. Speaker, the leadership in this body has failed our Department of Defense employees.

Ms. LORETTA SANCHEZ of California

Ms. LORETTA SANCHEZ of California. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Chairman, I close by reminding my colleagues that this is a bipartisan issue. We have Planned Parenthood, NARAL, the College of OB- GYN physicians who support this amendment. I would like to close finally with a voice from a woman who found herself in this situation while stationed in the Army in Germany. She says: ``I chose to fly back to the States because I did not trust foreign doctors. It cost me over $800 for the trip. It would have cost me more, but I went by military hop. Plus the $300 for the abortion, not counting the fact that I had to use my vacation time. Luckily my trip was approved in time for me to get back before I reached the end of my first trimester. I can remember thinking at the time how unfair it was that I had to resort to these drastic measures. Had I been in the States, it would have not been an issue. I can remember being resentful of my fellow male comrades who were able to have vasectomies paid for by the military in Germany and yet I had to use my leave time and my own funds to fly back to the U.S. for what is also a reproductive choice. Women in the military are denied their right to control their reproductive process while abroad, although men in the military enjoy the same rights abroad as they do in the States.'' She says, ``I believe it is time that the women of this country enjoy the same rights their male counterparts enjoy, for that is what I think I was fighting for when I was stationed there.'' Support the Sanchez amendment.

Ms. LORETTA SANCHEZ of California. Madam Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Lee).

Ms. LORETTA SANCHEZ of California. Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.

Ms. LORETTA SANCHEZ of California. Madam Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from California (Mrs. Davis), another member of the Committee on Armed Services.

Ms. LORETTA SANCHEZ of California. Madam Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from California (Mrs. Tauscher), one of my colleagues on the Committee on Armed Services.

Ms. LORETTA SANCHEZ of California. Madam Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Today I offer an amendment about freedom, safety and choice. Members of the Armed Services are entitled to a quality of life equal to that of the Nation they are pledged to defend. Whether you are pro-life or pro- choice, agree or disagree with the merits of reproductive freedom, the facts remain, the women of the United States have a constitutional right to reproductive services. So why would we choose to place an overseas female soldier or military dependent into a subclass of citizenship? Currently, servicewomen may fly back to the United States to obtain reproductive services but only after they have authorization from commanding officers and can find a space on a military transport. If your daughter, wife, sister or friend had to make a tough reproductive choice and were stationed overseas, do you believe that as adult women they should be required to disclose this information to their commanding officer? Would you want to put her on the plane alone? Our servicewomen and dependents deserve better. My amendment allows military personnel and their dependents serving overseas to use their private funds to obtain safe, legal abortion services in overseas military hospitals. No Federal funds would be used. This amendment will only affect United States military facilities overseas, and my amendment will not violate host country laws. It does not compel any doctor who opposes abortion on principle to perform one. It will, however, open up reproductive services at bases in countries where abortion is legal. Vote for the rights of our servicewomen and dependents abroad. Vote for the Sanchez amendment. Madam Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Ms. LORETTA SANCHEZ of California. Madam Chairman, I offer an amendment.

Ms. LORETTA SANCHEZ of California. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Washington (Mr. Inslee). (Mr. INSLEE asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Ms. LORETTA SANCHEZ of California. Madam Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. I would like to remind my colleagues that no public funds are used under this amendment. The individual who wishes to have an abortion would have to pay from her own funds. Madam Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from New York (Mrs. Maloney). (Mrs. MALONEY asked and was given permission to revise and extend her remarks.)

Ms. LORETTA SANCHEZ of California. Madam Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. It is quite obvious to me that my colleague who just spoke has not recently received any type of a bill from a hospital, because if he would see that, he would understand that even right down to the last vitamin or pill that is administered in a hospital, you are charged when you are there. So the cost of this would be borne by the woman and her family. Madam Chairman, I yield 1\1/4\ minutes to the gentlewoman from Connecticut (Mrs. Johnson), a tireless fighter with respect to women's reproductive issues. (Mrs. JOHNSON of Connecticut asked and was given permission to revise and extend her remarks.)

Ms. LORETTA SANCHEZ of California. Madam Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Madam Chairman, I would remind Members there is a clause that doctors do not have to perform these services if they are opposed to them. We are not making medical personnel do something that they are opposed to or do not believe in. Madam Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Kirk).

Ms. LORETTA SANCHEZ of California. Madam Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from Colorado (Ms. DeGette).

Ms. LORETTA SANCHEZ of California. Madam Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Woolsey).

Ms. LORETTA SANCHEZ of California. Madam Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Harman) and the original sponsor of this bill way back when.

Ms. LORETTA SANCHEZ of California

Ms. LORETTA SANCHEZ of California. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to speak out against the Readiness and Range Prevention Initiative proposed by the Department of Defense. This initiative would provide exemptions to the United States military from enforcing and abiding by the Marine Mammal Protection Act and the Endangered Species Act, two very important pieces of legislation that have for decades provided safeguards and protections to our environment. Many of our bases are home to critical habits and endangered species, especially, for example, Camp Pendleton, which is very near my district, where there are currently 17 endangered species. Mr. Speaker, this initiative is harmful, it is unnecessary, and it is an attack on our environment. Laws already exist that provide exemptions for the military for purposes of national security. The military just has not bothered to enact those. There is absolutely no need for the type of broad-based policy such as the Readiness and Range Prevention Initiative. We were able to defeat this measure last year, and I am confident that we will do it again this year. There is no evidence that suggests that our military should be exempted from these laws.

Ms. LORETTA SANCHEZ of California

Ms. LORETTA SANCHEZ of California. Mr. Speaker, today the House will debate H.R. 1000, the Pension Security Act, and the bill has an appropriate number because it will make employees 1,000 times worse off than they are today. We need real pension reform that protects the pensions of all the workers and gives more protections to employees with 401(k) accounts. Real pension reform must include independent investment advice for 401(k) investors, the ability to diversify company-matched stocks within a year, and a voice for employees on pension boards. Real pension reform must also include language that would require companies that are converting to cash balance plans to ensure that older workers receive the same amount of benefits they would have received under their existing defined benefit plan. As the President has said, what is good for the captain is good for the crew. The bill as it is currently written allows executives to sell off their stock while the ship is sinking, while the workers see their retirement savings disappear. I urge my colleagues to vote against the pension insecurity act.