Louise Slaughter

Ms. SLAUGHTER

Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Emanuel).

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

Ms. SLAUGHTER. Madam Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Hoyer).

Ms. SLAUGHTER. Madam Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Mississippi (Mr. Taylor), a man who knows of what he speaks.

Ms. SLAUGHTER. Madam Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Menendez). (Mr. MENENDEZ asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Ms. SLAUGHTER. Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Madam Speaker, high talk from the majority follows the abysmally low performance of the Federal organizations that they oversee and that our people trusted to protect them in their hour of need. And today we are told it is our constitutional duty to find out why the government was so unable to protect life here at home during and after Hurricane Katrina. I would like to remind our friends on the other side that one of our constitutional duties as representatives of the will of the people is actually to represent the will of the people of the United States. So let the record show that as of today, according to the Republican leadership, the will of the American people no longer matters. The fact that 76 percent of the citizens of our Nation want an independent commission to investigate the Katrina disaster does not mean a thing. The fact that over 60 percent of Republicans want an independent commission does not register with them either. Apparently, the people of the United States are to be patted on the head and told, Do not worry. We will find out what happened here. The fact that thousands of men, women, and children are dead; the fact that hundreds of thousands more have become evacuees in the richest country in the world shows that we do not have everything under control. The fact that we cut corners and underfunded those responsible for maintaining the levees that protected New Orleans by tens of millions of dollars only so that later thousands of lives would be needlessly lost, tens of billions of dollars would have to be spent cleaning up the mess left behind shows that we do not have anything under control. That is really a case of being penny wise and pound foolish. And now, to show how seriously it takes its constitutional responsibility to get the government back on track, to show that it is not interested solely in rhetoric but also in results, the majority has seen fit to create a partisan political body, which we all know will care more about the political survival of the leadership than the actual survival of the people. How do we know this? Because the committee put forth by the majority is intentionally designed to be partisan. It has a Republican majority. It includes subpoena power controlled by the majority. And the scope of the investigation will be the whim of the leadership of the majority. The idea of having a truly bipartisan commission to investigate the tragedy was never seriously entertained. If it was, joint subpoena power would exist in this bill, as would joint control of the committee's operation, scope, and direction. Instead of this, platitudes promising cooperation and shared power have filled this hall, leaving no room for a resolution calling for either a truly bipartisan committee or, what would be infinitely better, the creation of an independent commission which will actually eliminate politics from what will otherwise be an incredibly politicized investigation. All of this is obvious to nearly every observer, and yet the leadership tells the Democrats if we are objecting to their Republican- first agenda, we, the Members of the minority, are being partisan. Apparently, in the wake of disaster comes hypocrisy. Along with its assurances of a fair and honest investigation of the failures of the Federal response to Katrina, assurances which are the product of wishful thinking as opposed to a sincere review of recent history, the majority puts forth empty arguments in favor of this bill. We created the Department of Homeland Security and FEMA, so only we can investigate it, they argue. That means that this leadership also helped to create the systemic problems which caused DHS and FEMA to fail. What exactly is their incentive to publicize their lack of vision and errors in judgment? As the gentleman from California (Mr. George Miller) said earlier today, it would be like nominating Enron to investigate stock fraud because they helped to perfect it, and it would not make much sense. But the gentleman from California (Mr. Dreier) told us this morning that none of this matters. It would be absurd, he says, to think that any Member of this body would not want to get to the bottom of the failures. Madam Speaker, more absurd things happen in this House all the time. For example, some might say that appointing a man with absolutely no experience in emergency management to head the Federal Emergency Management Association was absurd, and yet nobody challenged that appointment until it was far too late. Madam Speaker, I do not mean to say that the chairman and his colleagues do not care about improving our national preparedness for a future emergency, because I know that they do; but the fact that political pressures have in the past and will again in the future distort and in some cases destroy investigations of government failings when the investigations are carried out by us, this is so obvious that it should be beyond question. The only real question left before us today is why does the majority find an independent commission to investigate the tragedy so objectionable? Would any of them like to claim here that the 9/11 Commission was a mistake? They all voted for it. Should we reject the findings of that body? Should we here and now state that because it was not run by those managing the government on September 11, 2001, for that reason, what it discovered was illegitimate? Is there anyone here who would like to state for the record that the creation of the 9/11 Commission was an abdication and denial of our constitutional responsibility as Members of the House of Representatives? Not one Member of this body would make such a claim, and yet the majority makes this claim about the creation of a similar body to investigate what happened on the gulf coast. There is only one explanation for it. Dare I say this absurd stance is control. The majority wants to keep the investigation under its control so it can make sure that the answers that the committee produces toe the party line. Thinking about crass political considerations when Americans are dying and are homeless, that, and only that, is an abdication of our constitutional responsibilities as Members of this Congress. Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from North Dakota (Mr. Pomeroy).

Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Connecticut (Mr. Larson).

Ms. SLAUGHTER

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

Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time. I ask for a ``no'' vote on the previous question so I can amend the rule and allow the House, instead of H. Res. 437, to consider H.R. 3764, which creates an independent 9/11-like commission to investigate the events involving Hurricane Katrina. I offered this amendment in the Committee on Rules last night, but, sadly, it was rejected. I want to reiterate that 76 percent of Americans in a recent ABC/ Washington Post poll preferred that a commission of outside experts, similar in nature to the 9/11 Commission, and, in fact, I wish for the same people, to investigate the devastating events surrounding Hurricane Katrina, and that is not just Democrats that were asked. Sixty-four percent of Republicans in that same poll said they, too, supported an independent commission to investigate the government's preparedness and response effort. Please vote ``no'' on the previous question so we can authorize an independent commission that will not be influenced by partisan politics instead of a Republican-controlled committee investigating the failings of a Republican-controlled administration. Too many people's lives were turned upside down because of the failure of governmental officials to adequately prepare for and respond to the impact of Hurricane Katrina. Let us not fail them a second time. I urge a ``no'' vote. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the amendment be printed in the Record immediately prior to the vote on the previous question.

Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, if an independent commission is an abdication of our authority, why did we all vote unanimously to establish the 9/11 Commission? Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to yield 5\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Hastings). (Mr. HASTINGS of Florida asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. McGovern), a member of the Committee on Rules.

Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, on Tuesday, President Bush said that he took responsibility for the recent failure of the Federal Government to fulfill its ultimate duty of saving the lives of its own people within its own borders. But what does responsibility mean? If it means anything, it means the sincere concern for what has happened under his watch. It means stopping at nothing to find out why a Nation led by officials who claim to care about keeping Americans safe presided over a recovery effort which left behind so many innocent men, women and children as they were crying out for help. It means caring about the truth, and it means putting people before politics. Today, this Congress has to offer the American people its own definition of responsibility. The appalling aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, which swept over citizens from Louisiana to Alabama to Mississippi, was the product of a combination of failures: failures of planning, failures of execution, failures of accountability. It is the responsibility of this body to examine why our Federal Government was behind so many of those failures. There is only one way to do this and only one path the public will respect, only one route to producing real answers to real questions which the American people will trust. We need a 9/11-type commission for Hurricane Katrina. The 9/11 Commission was our government's response to the tragedy of September 11, 2001; and after an exhaustive study, it produced a report that was trusted by the American people and by the members of our government. This trust was earned. The 9/11 Commission was not beholden to any interests besides those of its own integrity and the good of the country. This honorable response to the tragedy of September 11 puts to shame what has been proposed today in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. What was perhaps our Federal Government's greatest failure to date to defend life at home is being met with a failure of leadership and openness and honesty in this Chamber today. The Republican leadership of the House and Senate has called for the creation of an overtly partisan congressional committee to investigate the government's pre- and post-Katrina actions. They have specified that it would be a committee appointed by Republicans, with a Republican majority. They would give Republicans control of every aspect of the proceedings, and they alone would control who would be subpoenaed. They alone would control which documents could be examined, and they alone would control the scope of the investigation. They would have the power to take the investigation in any direction they chose, with no checks, no balances and no incentives to get real answers. They have nominated the fox to guard the hen house. Mr. Speaker, I do not object to such a plan because Republicans would be in control as opposed to Democrats. I object to it because it is the Republican Party which controls the levers of government and, as such, manages FEMA and the Department of Homeland Security and every other Federal institution which must be examined. The conflicts of interest that are present are so obvious that it is incredible anyone would deny them, but the members of the majority do not only do this, but they put forth one justification after another for their plan, each one less convincing than the one before it. They tell us that the structure of the committee is based on precedent and cite the bipartisan commission which investigated the Iran-Contra affair as evidence of this. Never mind that in that situation a Republican President was being investigated by a Democratically controlled committee, eliminating the political pressure to sweep truths under the rug. Last night, in the Committee on Rules, they told us, rather incredibly, that nobody is better to evaluate in this body than its own Members. But the American people do not believe that. After all, accountability has not exactly been the hallmark of this Republican leadership. This majority did not investigate those who concealed the Department of Health and Human Services' real estimate of how much the 2003 Medicare legislation that we passed would cost. It did not investigate the role of top Bush campaign contributors in writing Vice President Cheney's energy plan. It did not investigate the Valerie Plame scandal. It did not investigate what led to our dehumanizing and shameful treatment of detainees at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba and Abu Ghraib in Iraq. Why did these investigations not take place? The majority has no answer, except promising to us that this time things will be different. Last night, the chairman did offer his personal assurances again and again that the commission would allow the Democrats to ask questions. It probably never occurred to us that we would not have been able to do that, but this is ultimately a promise that he cannot keep. Only allowing a hand-picked group of witnesses to be questioned prejudices the investigation before it has even begun. If a true interest in a fair, open, thorough and independent investigation runs that deep with my Republican colleagues, why not just create the independent panel? That is the central question I have for my colleagues today. Why will you not support the creation of an independent commission? What are you afraid of? The American people clearly had faith in the 9/11 Commission model. Why do you not? A commission controlled by the politicians of one party charged with investigating itself will face tremendous internal political pressure to eliminate embarrassing truths from the public eye, to defer blame and to hide facts. That is the fundamental truth, because we all know how politics works. Politics, by the way, is exactly why those recent scandals I just mentioned were never investigated. Is the creation of an independent commission an abdication of our responsibility? Absolutely not. In fact, exactly the opposite is the case. If we intentionally create a partisan, political investigation, that, Mr. Speaker, would be an abdication of our responsibilities. The American people need answers, they need true accountability, and the only way that we can live up to our responsibility and give them answers they can trust is through an independent commission. The public already overwhelmingly supports the creation of such an independent commission by 76 percent, and over 160 Members of this body, representing more than 100 million of our Nation's people, have already supported the creation of such a commission through a substitute resolution by the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Hastings), my colleague. Its findings would not just help us to prevent another terrible disaster from taking place, they would also help our government to regain its credibility in the eyes of the public. A Newsweek poll from earlier this week found that fully 57 percent of the general population has doubts that government officials will respond well the next time a disaster strikes. Those doubts would not be reduced until people believe that a real, independent investigation of Katrina has taken place. But the findings of the congressional commission being proposed by the Republican leadership will be forever tainted by the pervasive public belief that details were overlooked or truths hidden for political reasons. We have plenty of evidence to believe that. Mr. Speaker, 2 weeks ago, our government missed an opportunity to rise to the occasion when it was sorely needed. The consequences were worse than we could have imagined. We cannot afford to miss another opportunity here today, and we object to the fact that this resolution is titled ``bipartisan commission'' because, truly, there will not be one. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. George Miller). (Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Ms. SLAUGHTER. Madam Speaker, I demand a recorded vote.

Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I object to the vote on the ground that a quorum is not present and make the point of order that a quorum is not present.

Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Pelosi), the minority leader.

Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to yield 4 minutes to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Matsui), a member of the Committee on Rules.

Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Mississippi (Mr. Thompson), the ranking member on the Committee on Homeland Security. (Mr. THOMPSON of Mississippi asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Oregon (Mr. DeFazio).

Ms. SLAUGHTER

Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, today I am proud to celebrate the accomplishments of our foremothers by introducing the National Women's Rights History Project Act. In contemporary American society, women enjoy rights to education, wages, and property ownership. However, it was only 85 years ago that women were finally granted the right to vote. Yet few Americans have any real knowledge of the long struggle to obtain the rights that we take for granted today. The National Women's Rights History Project Act will provide Americans with the opportunity to learn more about the female heroes that fought tirelessly to secure these rights. On July 19, 1848, a group of activists including Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Lucretia Mott, and Mary Ann M'Clintock convened the first Women's Rights Convention at Wesleyan Chapel in Seneca Falls, New York. The Women's Rights Convention heralded the beginning of a 72-year struggle for suffrage. During the Convention, 68 women and 32 men signed the Declaration of Sentiments, which was drafted to mirror the Declaration of Independence and set out such radical notions like women's freedom to own property, receive an education, and file for divorce. In 1851, a second women's rights convention was held in Akron, Ohio. It was at this convention that Sojourner Truth delivered the famous ``Ain't I A Woman?'' speech. The woman's suffrage movement, however, was not solely limited to organized conventions. Under the leadership of Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony the National American Women Suffrage Association (NAWSA) was formed. Susan B. Anthony also established the Equal Rights Association to refute ideas that women were inferior to men and fight for a woman's right to vote. In 1872, Susan B. Anthony and other women voted in the presidential election, and were arrested and fined for illegal voting. At her trial, which attracted nationwide attention, Susan B. Anthony made a speech that ended with the slogan ``Resistance to Tyranny Is Obedience to God''. She also campaigned for the rights of women to own property, to keep their own earnings, and to have custody of their children. I am especially proud that it was in Rochester, New York that Susan B. Anthony fought so hard for the rights that women throughout this country rely on today. In fact, in 1900, she persuaded the University of Rochester, in my Congressional District, to admit women. In the early 1900s, a new generation of leaders joined the women's suffrage movement, including Carrie Chapman Catt, Maud Wood Park, Lucy Burns, Alice Paul, and Harriot E. Blatch. During this era, the Women's Rights movement increased its momentum by organizing marches, pickets and other protests. Suffragette Alice Paul and other activists began chaining themselves to the White House fence and participating in hunger strikes to gain the attention of Congress. The struggle for women's suffrage was not easy, and oftentimes it was made more difficult as a consequence of public misinformation and fear. Consider these remarks which, in 1912, appeared in the New York Times under the title, ``The Uprising of Women'': ``The vote will secure to woman no new privilege that she either deserves or requires . . . Women will get the vote and play havoc with it for themselves and society, if men are not wise and firm enough and it may as well be said, masculine enough, to prevent them.'' If by playing havoc, the New York Times meant becoming the single most sought after voting block in the country that often determines the outcome of elections, I guess they were right. Because of the persistent dedication of Susan B. Anthony and other remarkable leaders, women persevered. Although Susan B. Anthony was not alive to see it, the efforts of the women's rights struggle came to fruition when the Nineteenth amendment to the U.S. Constitution, giving women the right to vote, was finally passed by Congress on June 4, 1919, and ratified on August 18, 1920. We have clearly come a long way in 85 years--and we still have a long way to go. We must work to continue the momentum that started in Seneca Falls, by not only ensuring that all women vote, but that they do so with an understanding of the long fight to obtain this right and with a sense of responsibility to do their part in the struggle for women's equality. To honor these important women, the National Women's Rights History Project Act will establish a trail route linking sites significant to the struggle for women's suffrage and civil rights. It also will expand the current National Register travel itinerary website, ``Places Where Women Made History,'' to include additional historic sites. Finally, this bill will require the Department of Interior to establish a partnership-based network to offer financial and technical assistance for interpretive and educational program development of national women's rights history. The women of this country have fought tirelessly to achieve equitable rights for our grandmothers, our mothers, ourselves, and our daughters. It is my hope that this bill will provide Americans with the opportunity to learn more about the female leaders who struggled to secure these rights. Mr. Speaker, I encourage all Members to join me in celebrating their accomplishments by National Women's Rights History Project Act today.

Ms. SLAUGHTER

Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I object to the vote on the ground that a quorum is not present and make the point of order that a quorum is not present.

Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Florida for yielding me the customary 30 minutes, and I yield myself such time as I may consume. (Ms. SLAUGHTER asked and was given permission to revise and extend her remarks.)

Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, the vitally important bill before us today will help to begin the process of rebuilding one of our Nation's greatest regions and the lives of the people within it. It comes to us in the wake of what was last week nothing short of a catastrophic failure of responsible and competent governance. And not surprisingly, the way in which we are going about passing this bill is itself a tremendous failure, the most recent in a seemingly endless line. It is a failure, Mr. Speaker, because almost no time has been provided for discussion of this bill and because no amendments have been permitted to be introduced. This body is about to spend more than $50 billion and all the minority wants is to spend it wisely. All we want is to give the Members a chance to know where the appropriations are going and to actually give Representatives from the affected States a chance to make suggestions to the legislation before it becomes law. We want to ensure that that this body will address as quickly as possible the tremendous errors which have been made by our Federal Government in its response to Hurricane Katrina. Last night in the Rules Committee we implored the majority to allow even a mere 2 hours of debate and to allow Members to offer amendments which would make this a better, more effective bill. Their response? Sorry, America, we don't have time for that. We don't have time? After 5 weeks of recess in the Chamber, 40 minutes is all the time the United States Congress has to give? It took our government 5 days to even respond to the crisis, and we cannot give more than 40 minutes here today to craft a bill that will provide relief and help rebuild an entire region of our country? We tried to break through, but they simply would not hear us. They would not hear us because they do not want to be challenged or blamed or to deal with alternative solutions. It simply wants us to accept its leadership, once again quietly and without comment. But what the American people want is reform. They want change. They want us to work hard here in the House and try to fix this mess. And so we will not keep quiet because our Nation is demanding that we speak out. This government failed the people of Louisiana and Mississippi and Alabama. This government, one so willing to tell other nations and peoples how they should live their lives and organize their states, has revealed itself to be unable to save the lives of its own citizens and to protect its own States when they are in need. Indeed, that neglect has cost lives. It was unable to meet its most basic responsibility and the ultimate reason for its very existence, the defense of life within its own borders. It is obvious that the current administration and departments in its care did not have a plan sufficient to handle the kind of crisis they were confronted with. Disturbingly, however, they were armed with a plan to shift blame away from themselves. And so a few days ago, Homeland Security Director Michael Chertoff tried to blame local government officials for what had happened. Such an argument is embarrassing and shameful because this Federal Government has not been adequately supporting those State and local officials in the years that led up to last week, and it did not give them what they needed after the hurricane struck. Instead, it neglected them and then kicked them when they were down. This kind of situation is exactly why FEMA exists. That is why it is called Federal emergency management. That is exactly why it was part of the Homeland Security Department. The $90 billion that has been spent on the Homeland Security agency has left us more vulnerable than ever. If there is an American that feels safer after the expenditure of that $90 billion, I would like to meet them. Do they feel safer? Absolutely not. There was a tremendous outpouring of help coming from locations around America and the world during the first days of this crisis, but FEMA and Homeland Security were unable to use it constructively. One thousand firefighters sent from Utah and nearby areas were asked to do community relations work, handing out leaflets, instead of putting out blazes and rescuing children. Aid and rescue technology offered by more than 90 countries has often been unable to penetrate FEMA's bureaucracy and has yet to be used. Wal-Mart sent three trailer trucks of water to New Orleans early last week but were turned back by FEMA officials. They said they did not need it. To people who had no water. FEMA would not let a nearby Coast Guard ship distribute 1,000 gallons of fuel to people on land. And while that particular ship was able to take on patients and treat them and give them medical care, they were awaiting the orders that never came. FEMA cut the emergency communication lines that authorities in Jefferson Parish were using, for who knows what reason. The president of Jefferson Parish had the sheriff's department replace those lines and put them under armed guards to protect them from? FEMA. Mr. Speaker, this is just the tip of the iceberg. The tales of failure go on and on and on. Failure before Katrina, failure during Katrina and failure after Katrina. Ours is a government which has spent much of the last 4 years focused on national security. Ours is government which has spent tens of billions of dollars theoretically preparing our country for impending disasters. Ours is a government which has justified its hold on power by warning us that only this administration's leaders could keep America safe. But the administration was not up to the task. Nor was FEMA. Nor was the Department of Homeland Security. Our government failed. Until every aspect of our emergency response system is analyzed and reevaluated, this government will have a hard time finding its credibility in the debris. I suggest that we should start trying to regain that credibility right here, today. This administration and this Congress and the agencies of this Federal bureaucracy concerned with emergencies like Katrina have a great debt to pay back to the American people. This Congress owes them more than a mere 40 minutes of consideration of the Nation's response to what is quickly becoming the worst national disaster in American history. We owe them more than to silence the voice of the American people on this floor. We owe America more than to intentionally prevent this body from crafting the very best hurricane recovery legislation that it can by refusing to allow any amendments to even be considered and by shutting out almost half of this House from any consideration of this bill. And because this leadership does not want to lose a vote or have their ideas challenged or suffer the indignity of disagreement in the people's House, we will not be able to do a thorough discussion today. It is the very mentality, the arrogance of this government, its unwillingness to allow accountability to be brought into the process which they have reduced to a game. They call it the blame game. It is not a game, Mr. Speaker; it is a tragedy. We cannot afford to go on like this, not even for one more day. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I yield 6 minutes to the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Hastings), a member of the Rules Committee. (Mr. HASTINGS of Florida asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)