Mark Souder

Mr. SOUDER

Mr. SOUDER. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Traficant), our third Democrat to speak on behalf of this in a rare bipartisan effort to try to reach out to those who are hurting.

Mr. SOUDER. Mr. Speaker, I inquire of the Chair how much time each side has remaining.

Mr. SOUDER. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, as the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Edwards) already knows, Title 7 of the 1964 Civil Rights Act allows a religious organization to discriminate in employment on the basis of religion. This amendment simply clarifies that in spite of all the statements on the floor. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. DeMint).

Mr. SOUDER. Mr. Speaker, I will withdraw my inquiry.

Mr. SOUDER. Mr. Speaker, parliamentary inquiry. Why is it not a point of personal privilege when a statement is made about racism which I did not make. The question was on religion.

Mr. SOUDER. Point of personal privilege.

Mr. SOUDER. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, nothing in this legislation requires anybody to be saved or to participate in any program. In other words, there is an opt-out provision. I believe it will unleash the incredible influence and power of the African-American church in America. The Hispanic churches are actually very effective at the grass roots level. Mr. Speaker, I include the following material for the Record: The American Community Renewal Act answers to objections raised to faith based drug treatment provisions on the american community renewal act (h.r. 815) Objection 1: It's Unconstitutional--it violates the separation of church and state: This is untrue. Currently, two voucher programs have been successfully and legally implemented. First, the Child Care Block grant was voucherized in 1993 so that parents could use federal daycare dollars at the provider they choose-- religious or secular. Second, the new welfare law allows states to contract out their social services to both religious or non-religious providers. ACRA's drug treatment provision is the same. It voucherizes the Substance Abuse Block grant and other treatment block grants and allows the addict to decide where to use the voucher. The Court has ruled that as long as the voucher recipient has a choice among providers both religious and non-religious and the participant makes the decision, then the choice is Constitutional. Consider it this way: If you oppose this provision of ACRA, you oppose Pell Grants. With a Pell Grant, students use this federal grant money to attend Notre Dame, Providence College, or Yeshiva University without raising constitutional concerns. The Substance Abuse Block grants are no different. Objection 2: There is no certification of counselors in the bill: Why would you exclude a program that is the most successful? Let's keep our priorities straight. What is more important--curing addicts or enforcing certification requirements? ACRA places its priorities on helping addicts--not on who has what credentials. ACRA will not allow for a program to be discriminated against if it has a high success rate--even if there is no formal certification of its counselors. Bob Woodson of the National Center for Neighborhood Enterprise works with some of the most successful faith-based drug treatment programs around the country has testified before the House Small Business Committee saying, ``The silver bullet of the success of faith based substance abuse programs is staff composed of men and women who have themselves overcome addictions and can establish a basis of trust and openness necessary for addicts to be freed from their habits.'' Objection 3: Advancing these faith-based programs is an untested idea even according to a GOP commissioned GAO report: Faith-based programs work. According to the National Institute on Drug Abuse, faith-based programs have a 60-80% cure rate. In sharp contrast, a RAND Corporation issued a report showing conventional treatment programs have only a 6- 13% success rate. In addition to being more successful, faith-based programs are almost always cheaper. Teen Challenge in PA spends only $25 to $35 a day compared with $600 a day for conventional, therapeutic hospital-based care. Objection 4: ACRA forces religion on people: ACRA forces religion on no one. It only makes highly successful programs accessible to more people. The language is very clear that the individual makes the choice of where to get the treatment--not the state. Even if they are not happy with their choice, addicts can leave the program and use their voucher at another program at anytime. Objection 5: H.R. 815 allows for faith-based programs to discriminate against hiring people with different religious backgrounds: Doesn't it make sense that a church can have the ability to pick their staff based on their religious beliefs? If that is a part of their recipe for success, then they should be able to hire those that believe. Essentially, this is no different than publicly run programs discriminating against counselors because they don't have a masters degree.

Mr. SOUDER. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. SOUDER. Mr. Speaker, the answer is no. Clearly, there will be matters of interpretation. In most of these laws, we have specifically that one cannot use specific religious indoctrination, but one does not have to change the character of the program. For example, religious people can teach it; a priest could be in a collar, you could have religious symbols in the room.

Mr. SOUDER. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. SOUDER. Mr. Speaker, the fundamental underlying answer to your question is nobody is required to go to this program, there is an opt- out provision; and the answer is, yes, the integrity of the hiring organization, a Jewish organization can fire a Protestant if they chose.

Mr. SOUDER. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. I would like to point out for the record that we have already adopted, as I said earlier, this three times; and I understand there are some differences on the Democratic side, but the Vice President of the United States, on his home page, on Gore 2000, actually says that ``where faith can play a unique and effective role such as drug treatment.'' He also said in his speech, ``I believe the lesson for our Nation is clear in those instances where the unique power of faith can help us meet the crushing social challenges that are otherwise impossible to meet, such as drug addiction.'' So he is specifically referring to some of these programs where they have the drug addiction. In his longer speech, the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Scott), where he was referring to pervasively sectarian, that is directly contrary to the Vice President's speech where he said, ``I have seen the transformative power of faith-based approaches.'' He talks about: While I believe strongly in separation of church and state, but freedom of religion need not mean freedom from religion. There is a better way. He specifically talks about an organization where his wife practices. He says, my wife, Tipper, practices her faith and sees its power through her work with homeless people who come to Christ House. Now, if it is pervasively sectarian, in fact, it would undermine the very principle that both parties are backing Mr. Speaker, I yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Pitts).

Mr. SOUDER. Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and agree to the resolution (H. Res. 207) expressing the sense of the House of Representatives with regard to community renewal through community- and faith-based organizations.

Mr. SOUDER. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. I think it is fair to point out that in the Civil Rights Act there are also rights for those who want to practice their belief, and we should not say Christian counselors or Jewish counselors need not apply if they are going to practice their faith. There is no mandatory requirement to go into this program. The Vice President has supported this. This House has supported a similar provision in a welfare reform and social services block grant and now in juvenile justice. Mr. Speaker, I yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Davis).

Mr. SOUDER. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, I want to point out for those who may be viewing this in their offices and elsewhere that this is not really a close vote situation. We had 346 Members for this earlier on juvenile justice last week; the Vice President supports this concept, particularly on drug treatment, as do most Republicans. We have already had several Democrats supporting this. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to my distinguished friend and colleague, the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Ehlers). (Mr. EHLERS asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.) Announcement by the Speaker Pro Tempore

Mr. SOUDER. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days within which to revise and extend their remarks on House Resolution 207, the legislation under consideration.

Mr. SOUDER. Mr. Speaker, I yield the balance of my time to the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Pitts).

Mr. SOUDER. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of H. Res. 207 which recognizes a significant role that neighborhood community-and faith-based organizations are playing in the renewal and empowerment of struggling families and communities around this country. Today we want to commend and extend our gratitude to the private nonprofit organizations and volunteers whose commitment to meeting human needs compassionately and effectively in areas of poverty is key to the long-term renewal of our urban centers and distressed world communities. It is the strength of mediating institutions such as families, churches, schools, nonprofit organizations, local leaders and businesses which empower individuals and communities. These are the unsung heroes in my district and throughout the country that are making the difference in the lives of people. As a renewal alliance, our desire is to eliminate barriers which may hinder the effective community building work of these groups. We can assist legislatively by helping lessen the tax on regulatory burdens on our most distressed communities as H.R. 815, the American Community Renewal Act, does in a bipartisan manner with a hundred cosponsors, including 19 Democrats. We can also seek to empower charities and faith-based organizations around this country by providing a level playing field so that they can also compete for government funds when they are providing services which the government is contracting out. Just last week, the House of Representatives extended this principle of religious nondiscrimination in charitable choice to juvenile justice programs by an overwhelming bipartisan vote of 346 to 83. This principle has been in law since 1996 when we passed it in welfare reform and more recently in 1998, when we included it in the Community Services Block Grant Reauthorization. It may not be as glamorous or as newsworthy as our debates on guns and/or the Ten Commandments, but the fact is we have been moving ahead systematically over a number of years of expanding charitable choice. Another way that we can help these community builders is by encouraging charitable donations to these effective charities. I have my own legislation which encourages giving to charities in general, the Giving Incentive and Volunteer Encouragement Act which increases the charitable deduction 120 percent of individuals' contribution, allows non-itemizers to once again receive a deduction for charitable contributions, eliminates the cap on how much people can give and deduct, and extends the charitable contribution deadline to April 15. This House can also encourage State charity tax credits, as we did in the Community Services Block Grant where we gave flexibility--the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Kasich) in H.R. 1607, the Charity Empowerment Act, which I cosponsored, extends this discretion past what we did to other Federal block grants and expands the principle of charitable choice in a manner and addition consistent with what Vice President Gore. Not only has the leading Republican contender, Governor Bush, but now Vice President Gore, has started promoting charitable choice. States as varied as Texas, Maryland, Indiana are partnering with faith-based organizations in the effort to assist those groups most able to walk alongside those individuals in greatest need. Local communities and taxpayers are impressed with the results. Government can be a partner rather than a hindrance in a barrier to renewed communities. I urge the support for this resolution to commend and thank all those unsung heroes throughout this country who are working to restore hope to all segments of American society. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. SOUDER

Mr. SOUDER. Mr. Speaker, earlier this afternoon we passed a bill regarding the Paoli and Brandywine Battlefields and the visitors' center at Valley Forge. I had planned to do a 5-minute this afternoon where I touched on some of the points in my comments regarding that bill, regarding a dispute that has arisen in the development regarding Gettysburg National Historical Park. This past weekend, my son Zachary, who is in fifth grade, was here with the Deer Ridge Elementary School, and among other things they went to Antietam, and on my way back to Indiana I joined them and then went on up to Gettysburg. We had a 3-hour hearing of the Subcommittee on National Parks at Gettysburg that I sat through and found the debate fascinating. Partly it is the struggles between a community that does not want to see the visitors' center moved away from where many of the retail attractions are and the National Park Service. I came away from that, A, not fully understanding the community's opposition. While I understood some concern if the visitors' center moves a half mile, in fact as a former retailer, and actually still own and lease out our retail businesses, it looks to me like this would be a huge advantage to every retailer in the town of Gettysburg, because the increased length of stay, the repeat visits, the more things to see and do will lead to more dollars being spent in the community. But beyond that, this is a national area, and it raises a number of questions that we have to sort through specifically on Gettysburg, which I hope will move ahead rapidly. This report was just released last week on the final general management plan, and I hope we can proceed. It has been held up for some time, and they have gone through all the procedures, but we need to get going on this. Also, some national debates, the differences between a historical park and a National Park. For example, this is not a wilderness area. One of the things, when we look at the basic purpose of a historical park is that it should look like it did at the time of the historic event, or at least have the feel of that historic event, and one of the problems that we have on some of our battlefields is, quite frankly, they are overgrown. One of the points that they make in this report on page 44 is that the peach orchard, which was a very critical point in the second day of the battle at Gettysburg, that it is now fashioned for fruit production, and then it does not look like the current peach orchard. So we look and say, how could the soldiers have used that as any type of shield as the Confederate Army moved towards the Union line? Furthermore, the woods from McPherson Ridge, now the woods are overgrown, choked with growth, and we cannot experience the battlefield because we cannot visualize how the troops are moving. In many areas there are woods where there should not be, or farms that have been taken out so one cannot see what it was like for the soldiers to go through. One of the important parts of the experience is to see what it was like at the time the battle was fought. The National Cemetery movement took place, of which Edward Everett and President Lincoln spoke at Gettysburg. When we had the National Cemetery movement those were places of contemplation, where we reflect what happens when people die in battles. But the National Park itself should have the historic integrity of the battlefield. That is one of the key parts of this plan. Part of that is when we go, and currently at Gettysburg the visitors center sits at a key point in the fishhook of the Union line. So when we try to get a feeling of the battle, there sits the visitors center, there sits a modernist-looking building, which is a very architecturally significant building but nevertheless modern, that has a cyclorama in it, not to mention this huge tower going up. We cannot possibly get a feel for what it looked like to General Pickett coming up the hill or on Little Roundtop as you are looking down on the battlefield when you have this huge tower sticking up, and the visitors center and the cyclorama right in the heart where the battle was. The proposal would move the visitors center and the cyclorama over toward an area where the fighting did not occur. There was fighting to the east of it and fighting to the west of it, but it would be out of the center of the battlefield so we could appreciate it more. Furthermore, the visitors center has numerous purposes, one of which is interpretation. They need more space. Gettysburg is arguably, certainly in the Civil War, the case could be made it was the most significant battle. In addition, they have storage and display problems of artifacts and archives which are now in a non-air conditioned area. We pay sometimes hundreds of thousands or more to restore guns, or in fact have withheld restoring these because they are not in air conditioning, not in a place where you would put minor or let alone major artifacts, which we have from both armies in the Gettysburg battle. Furthermore, support services. There has been a big dispute. The restaurant and gift shop proposals have been scaled back, but one of the fundamental questions here is where do revenues come from and how are we going to fund these parks. I think this is a good plan. I hope this Congress will support it.

Mr. SOUDER

Mr. SOUDER. Mr. Chairman, I thank our distinguished chairman. One of my privileges in this Congress has been to join the Committee on Natural Resources, and particularly the Subcommittee on National Parks and Public Lands with the gentleman from Utah (Mr. Hansen), and I really enjoyed this. I sought out appointment to this committee because of my interest in historic preservation and in the roots of our Nation. My friend and colleague from Pennsylvania (Mr. Weldon) is not only an enthusiastic champion, he is probably the foremost expert on Russia, and I had a great privilege to go with him in December. In understanding the roots of our liberty and our traditions and our culture is essential, and part of that is the part of our park system in the development of the understanding and the outreach of that park system, and I wanted to make two points: In addition to Pennsylvania clearly being much of the cradle of our liberty from Independence Hall out to Valley Forge and Paoli and Brandywine and the capital moving to York, and my personal favorite, John Dickenson, the letters of Pennsylvania farmer who then argued against the revolution, but while the others were still talking, he went out and actually fought. Pennsylvania has all this centered there. And I want to make a couple points: One is the battlefield integrity. It is really important for the understanding of American citizens to be able to go out where there has not been a lot of alteration, and as we work in our national parks, in the historic parks it is not supposed to be a natural preserve, it is supposed to be a historic preserve so we can understand what the soldiers faced at that particular point in time, and when we have these rare opportunities to get that land, we should purchase it. Secondly, visitor centers, and I think in the current budget pressures we have no choice but to move to more public-private partnerships. There are dangers in the commercialization of our park system, but if we do this right, we can actually expand our ability to provide information not only to young people, but to adults. A couple of points with this: One is we need better visitor centers in a number of our key historical parks so that we can make history more understandable. Secondly, the artifacts that we have, as was mentioned here related to Valley Forge, is also true at Gettysburg, and other locations are often scattered. Many of them are in harm's way, and we need better facilities to restore these. Once they are lost, they are permanently lost, and there are some places that are so critical to our American history, we should try to preserve these before they are lost and protect them before they are lost to future generations. And then the outreach programs. There is no question that one of the largest movements in education in America, as we have seen it in the Committee on Education and the Workforce and other places, is towards brain research and trying to and capitalizing on the new research results and findings that are showing that kids interact so much better when they can sense something, participate in something, in addition to just being taught it. As we see our national parks and our historic parks in particular reaching out to involve those schoolchildren in interactive activities, it is a major advance. They often have pre-and post-programs that they can send, and we ought to be looking at ways not only for the regional areas around Pennsylvania who will have access to this but the many field trips that come into Washington, D.C. have access to this type of thing too because it is a way to get our young people involved so they understand the fundamental underpinnings of our liberty, what people had to do and fight for to get there. It is not just something handed to them, and so much of the efforts of the Subcommittee on National Parks and Public Lands, particularly in the historic areas is critical to our long-term preservation of liberty in America, and I want to congratulate all my colleagues from Pennsylvania who have been a leader in this in addition to the gentleman from Utah (Mr. Hansen).

Mr. SOUDER

Mr. SOUDER. Mr. Speaker, this really has been an exhausting week, and it will be interesting to see how people address this. Earlier one of our Members who said that we did not actually do anything this week, we did in fact pass a juvenile justice prevention bill, and I thought that that was our goal here which was to reduce juvenile crime and to reach those who have gotten in trouble and try to help them straighten out their lives. If one is obsessed only with guns, and particularly if one is obsessed only with their solution to the gun problem, perhaps we had a difficult week because their bill did not pass, but let us not confuse that with the fact that we did accomplish some advancement in an effort to try to reach youth. Furthermore, some of us were disappointed that we did not do more to address the question of violence in the media, and hopefully over the next few months we will be able to address that. One amendment that I had that passed, the charitable choice amendment, gets lost. Charitable choice and many other things like this are not as glamorous or as media driven, and the general public does not focus on them like the Ten Commandments or like the one video game called Postal, where actually someone goes crazy and it shows how many of the people are remaining to be killed and a person gets more points if they hit them in the chest or at a main artery as opposed to other places in their body. This type of disgusting type of thing will get a lot of media attention, but when we do charitable choice where we are allowing juvenile prevention funds to be used by religious-based organizations, where people are actually trying to help the kids who are being impacted by this, it does not get as much media coverage. We had hoped this afternoon to be able to move under unanimous consent a sense of the House of Representatives in regard to community renewal through community and faith-based organizations. Out of respect to the minority who did not have adequate time to look at this and has some objections, this will probably be addressed on Tuesday, but I wanted to speak a little bit about this resolution and the renewal alliance efforts of this past week. The gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Pitts), the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Kasich), the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Talent), the gentleman from Oklahoma (Mr. Watts), the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. English), the gentleman from Tennessee (Mr. Wamp) and many others, as well as former Democratic colleagues Fred Flake of New York and Denny Davis of Chicago, have worked together in trying to put together both legislative packages, as well as in our renewal alliance efforts this past week, to have a number of meetings, to highlight local groups, to visit local charities and we were hoping that this resolution would have been a capping to that week. The resolution, which we hope to have come up on Tuesday, states that while steady economic growth and low inflation has yielded unprecedented prosperity, many American citizens have not in fact benefited from this prosperity and continue to be socioeconomically disadvantaged. Many of these live in inner cities and rural communities where they continue to be plagued by social breakdown, economic disadvantage and educational failure that fosters hopelessness and despair. Many of the groups that are by far the most effective are community and faith-based organizations. Many of us believe through the American Community Renewal Act and other pieces of legislation that we need to figure out how to get more dollars to the groups that are the most effective. We need to know how to capitalize on their vision of compassion, of volunteerism, of caring for the poor and the vulnerable; that when we see our national leaders, our current Republican leader candidate for president, Governor Bush has been a leader in the area of prisons where he has worked with Prison Fellowship. He has worked with a number of other local groups in Texas and has actually put this into practice. A little bit newer to this is Vice President Gore but he has been outspoken in the past few weeks on the importance of including charitable, particularly religious and community-based organizations, in this effort. In fact, on his election campaign home page he specifically says that he believes charitable choice should be promoted, and that was reflected in a vote this week on my amendment, where we not only had 346 votes but we had, I believe it was 130 Democrats for it and only 79 Democrats against it. We are in an unusual period right now in America, and that is both parties are coming to realize that the Federal Government, for that matter the State and local governments alone, cannot accomplish and solve all the problems related to poverty. Not that anybody can, but they need the help; in particular are seeking the help. Many of us in government now realize we have to work, we must work, with the churches and volunteers in our local community. We must give tax incentives. I have one tax bill, the charitable tax bill, that would increase the value of the charitable deduction to 120 percent; that would let nonitemizers take the charitable deduction; that would lift the caps on higher income and delay the effective date to April 15. We need to be looking at creative tax solutions, at creative solutions as we now have, in welfare reform where we have done charitable choice, in social services block grant where we did charitable choice last year, and now in juvenile justice where we have put charitable choice in. So whatever else we may or may not have accomplished, we did move some prevention programs. We have once again advanced the charitable choice and next hopefully we will have another resolution that will put the House on record in this exciting and really substantive, if not the most sexy concept, that we are proceeding with.

Mr. SOUDER

Mr. SOUDER. Mr. Speaker, I move that the House do now adjourn.

Mr. SOUDER

Mr. SOUDER. Mr. Chairman, how much time remains on both sides?

Mr. SOUDER. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman from Alabama (Mr. Aderholt) for yielding me this time and for his leadership. This debate is about what is going on with our kids in America, and that is why it is part of the juvenile justice bill. And there are millions and millions, probably the overwhelming majority of Americans, who believe part of this is the lack of moral teaching and the moral influence which we have sucked out of our system in this country. I am tired of hearing tonight on the floor about how neutral our Founding Fathers were and this and that. The fact is we have lawgivers all around this body, and all their heads are sideways on this side, and all their heads are sideways on that side, except for one. Moses is looking straight down on the Speaker of the House. And up above the Speaker of the House it says ``In God We Trust.'' And it is Moses looking here, not all these on this side and not all these on this side. They are part of a tradition, but this is the central tradition. We have denied and sucked out the central tradition. We now have diversity, and in the schools we allow posting of posters from the Hindu background, from the Mexican background, prayers from Indian faiths, but not the Ten Commandments. In Congress, Members who are interested can get and have the different plaques, the stone plates, and I hope we do not drop these because I do not want to bring any bolts of lightning down on us, of the Ten Commandments. We can put these in our offices. We can have Moses staring down here, but these things apparently are dangerous for our children. We would not want them to have other gods. We would not want them to learn about killing and stealing. Apparently, this is more dangerous than whether they can wear Marilyn Manson T-shirts, whether they can have posters in the schools advertising rock concerts. Anything goes pretty much in the schools as long as it is not the Ten Commandments. That is what we are concerned about, is the stripping of the religious freedom for the central part of our culture, not trying to deprive other people of their rights. I am fine with posting different versions of the Ten Commandments, if that is what it takes. We are not trying to restrict other people's rights. We are trying to bring the rights back for the central faith of this country.

Mr. SOUDER. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. (Mr. SOUDER asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)