Maxine Waters

Ms. WATERS

Ms. WATERS. Mr. Speaker, will the gentlewoman yield?

Ms. WATERS. Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased and proud to join the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Pelosi) here on the floor this evening to talk about a subject that I believe is the number one issue confronting the world today. I would also like to thank the gentlewoman for all of the years that she has put in not only on the issues of debt relief but on the issues of foreign affairs and foreign assistance and foreign relations. The gentlewoman has become one of our premier experts, and she has provided leadership to this House. And it is because of the gentlewoman and the knowledge that she brings to these discussions that we are all able to advance and to move forward. So I truly appreciate everything that the gentlewoman has done and the gentlewoman's leadership in pulling together this time tonight for us to further talk about debt relief and these very poor countries who are depending on us to come to their aid and to their assistance. I am so pleased and proud to be a Member of Congress at this particular time. Yes, there are many frustrating moments; and, yes, there are many disappointing moments, but I am here in this Congress at a time when I see both sides of the aisle coming together around debt relief. I am the ranking member on the Subcommittee on Domestic and International Monetary Policy of the Committee on Banking and Financial Services, but I serve on that committee with the chair of that committee, the gentleman from Alabama (Mr. Bachus), a man who is obviously a Republican, and I am obviously a Democrat. I am considered to be much more liberal; he is considered to be conservative. But when we hear the gentleman from Alabama (Mr. Bachus) on this issue, and we see the work that he has brought to this issue, it really does make us proud that there are moments and there are periods in this great body of ours where we can put aside our philosophical differences and come together in the most humane fashion to do something good and send out the best messages from us to others about who we are and what we care about. So the gentlewoman has referenced and referred to Jubilee 2000. This is a wonderful moment and a wonderful time. Just as I and the gentleman from Alabama have come together, and others from both sides of the aisle on the Committee on Banking and Financial Services, on the Committee on International Relations, on the Committee on Appropriations, all over the world various religious denominations have come together as well, and all of these nongovernment organizations, all of these nonprofit organizations, consumer-related organizations have come together all over the world to embrace debt relief. We have all come to the point in time where we understand that it is absolutely illogical for us to think that many of these countries are able to repay debt that is owed to us and to others. Whether we are talking about bilateral or multilateral debt, many of these nations are spending a disproportionate amount of their revenue trying to make this payment, to the point oftentimes of starving the children and not being able to provide for health care, not being able to have anything that approaches decent education systems. So we sit here at a time when the economy is performing rather well, at a time when we are able to spread prosperity, and we are taking advantage of this time to say this is the time to do it. So we are moving forward and everybody is coming on board. As a matter of fact, we had some people who started out saying, well, we can do something; we can do a little bit of this, a little bit of that. And now we have more people moving toward 100 percent. The President of the United States, when he addressed the International Monetary Fund conference that was here in Washington, D.C., made us proud with his commitment to do 100 percent debt relief. I know not everybody is there. And even on the appropriations subcommittee we do not have the money that has been allocated to the tune of what was asked for by this administration. But I am convinced that we are going to get there. One way or the other we are going to get there. I do believe there is enough of us who are focused, and we are focused on this issue, to be able in negotiations, that I know will take place no matter what has happened on our appropriations bill. I do believe that we will get to negotiations that will help us to understand that there must be more money for debt relief. I know that there are those who make the argument that somehow we are taking all of the taxpayers' money to give to somebody else. And I think the gentlewoman made the point the other day that it is less than 1 percent.

Ms. WATERS. Mr. Speaker, the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Frank) who really has been working on this for a long time, he preceded me and once was the chair of the subcommittee and he has been working very closely with the gentleman from New York (Mr. LaFalce) working at some very important details of shaping and forming the final legislation in this effort. So I want to say bravo to them. Once again, let me just conclude my remarks by saying bravo to my colleague for all the time and effort that she has spent even until tonight staying late to take this issue up. And, of course, she certainly did not have to add one more hour to her schedule.

Ms. WATERS

Ms. WATERS. Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Pelosi) for her wonderful leadership in international relations and foreign affairs. Mr. Speaker, I rise to speak in opposition to the conference report for H.R. 2606, the foreign operations appropriations bill for fiscal year 2000. This bill makes drastic cuts in vital foreign assistance programs and endangers the lives of millions of children and families who live in poverty in Africa and Latin America. This conference report cuts funding for debt relief for poor countries to only $33 million. That is $87 million below the President's request. Moreover, it completely eliminates funding for the Highly Indebted Poor Countries, HIPC, initiative that provides debt relief to countries that desperately need it. Last week, the International Monetary Fund, IMF, held its 1999 annual meeting right here in Washington, D.C. At this meeting, President Clinton announced his support for the cancellation of 100 percent of the debts owed by poor countries to the United States. As the ranking member of the Subcommittee on Domestic and International Monetary Policy of the House Committee on Banking and Financial Services, I applaud the President's decision; and I urge Congress to appropriate the funds necessary to make full debt cancellation a reality. Many impoverished countries have been forced to make drastic cuts in essential social services, such as health and education, in order to make payments on their debts. In Tanzania, debt service payments in 1997 were equal to nine times the spending on basic health services and four times the spending on basic education. In Nicaragua, over half of the government's revenue was allocated to debt service payments in 1997. This was equivalent to 2\1/2\ times the spending on health and education combined. Now is the time for Congress to cut debt relief funding. This inhumane conference report cuts funding for the African Development Fund to $77 million. That is $50 million below the administration's request. The African Development Fund is a vitally important program which provides low-interest loans to poor countries in Africa. Furthermore, the conference report also cuts funding for the African Development Bank, which provides market-rate loans to qualifying African countries. The conference report also cuts refugee assistance to $625 million, which is $35 million below the administration's request. There are 6 million refugees and internally displaced people in Africa today. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees said recently that the world is neglecting the plight of African refugees. Now is not the time to cut funding for refugees. I just want to say that some people who would like to make it difficult for us to get up here and be advocates for other parts of the world would have us believe that we are taking the taxpayers' money and we are literally throwing it at undeserving people. Well, I do not think that is true. We are leaders, and we should act like leaders and do the right thing by these very poor countries. Mr. Speaker, I ask for a ``no'' vote on this conference report.

Ms. WATERS

Ms. WATERS. Mr. Speaker, I join with the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Lee) and others who are attempting to work at doing something about the problem of HIV/AIDS in the black community. Mr. Speaker, we have spent over a year working in a very concentrated way on trying to garner the resources and redirect them to communities that are highly at risk but have not had the resources follow the crisis. Under my leadership as Chair of the Congressional Black Caucus last year, we organized an initiative where we were able to identify tremendous resources to begin to do what needed to be done. We discovered a number of things, Mr. Speaker. We discovered that the resources of government were not following the AIDS crisis because the face of the new AIDS had not been unveiled sufficiently in this Nation. Most people still think of AIDS as a white gay disease. It is not. It is not a white gay disease. If there is anything that I can share with you today, it is that the gay community has done a wonderful job in, number one, doing outreach, education and prevention and getting people involved in the new therapies that are causing them to have a better quality of life and being able to go back into the workplace. We need to follow that example. It certainly can be done. What do we find when we look at the African-American community? We find, of course, that it is the leading cause of death for African Americans between the ages of 25 and 44. What do we find when we look at African-American women? We find that in the new AIDS cases, we are 30 percent of that population. We also find that we are infected 16 times more than white women. And so we see this increase, we see this crisis, we see this emergency, and we are trying to get everyone to understand that it is indeed an emergency, it is indeed an emergency that we can do something about. And we need to continue to get the dollars to flow into outreach and education and research and therapy, all of those things that will help our community to do what can be done to stop the escalation of HIV and AIDS infection. And so we got the $156 million and the RFPs went out and the responses came back and now we have community groups accessing dollars to do the kind of work that they so desperately have wanted to do that we have not given them the support for. They are saying to us, we have got to build and expand capacity, we have got to get more providers, we have got to make sure that we are doing the kind of creative outreach and education to get with that young population out there who we still have not been able to infiltrate. And so they are beginning to see that they can do these things and they can do them better. Let us not stop now. Let us take the initiative that has been put together by the gentlewoman from the Virgin Islands (Mrs. Christensen) and others who are leading us in the Congressional Black Caucus to keep the resources moving. Let us take this opportunity to be on top of and in front of this funding so that we do not find ourselves having gotten $156 million, having the proposals responded to and people beginning to do the work and all of a sudden cut off because more money is not following. I think we can do that. I am here today to add my voice to the efforts of the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Lee) and the gentlewoman from the Virgin Islands (Mrs. Christensen) and others who are working so hard to garner these resources. Let me just say that the gentlewoman from Oakland, CA (Ms. Lee) got her county to declare the emergency that exists there. My county in Los Angeles was slow but they finally did it. They finally looked at the data, the statistics, and they finally understood that they should have done this a long time ago, that in Los Angeles County we have not done what could have been done. And so we have got a lot to straighten out in Los Angeles County. We have got to redo the entire process. We have got to make sure that our organization with its task forces and its RFP responsibilities, all of that, are done in such a way that the resources will get to where they must go. Mr. Speaker, we will be back to talk a lot more about what must be done.

Ms. WATERS

Ms. WATERS. Mr. Chairman, rather than legislation that would increase the number of judgeships, could the gentleman kindly say to the people he is supporting on this legislation to urge the Senate and the Republican leadership to simply do their job.

Ms. WATERS. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

Ms. WATERS. Mr. Chairman, we refer to the history of the court, the fact that it has never been overstaffed, that the vacancy problem has grown because we have the documentation that shows that we need more and more judges to take care of the case loads that they are now confronted with. So the idea of the legislation is not to legislate for the past, but certainly documentation and information that indicate the path that it has traveled in the past would be relevant to the legislation that we are attempting to pass today.

Ms. WATERS. Mr. Chairman, certainly the gentleman does not believe that we are attempting to pass legislation for the past.

Ms. WATERS. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield further?

Ms. WATERS. Mr. Chairman, the question was asked, but let me just frame it a little bit differently. Has there ever been a time in the history of this Nation that the gentleman from Virginia can identify when we were overstaffed in the Federal court?

Ms. WATERS. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

Ms. WATERS. Mr. Chairman, would the gentleman from Virginia like to substitute the 3 percent for any number that he thinks is fair and reasonable?

Ms. WATERS. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

Ms. WATERS. Mr. Chairman, this amendment provides that this bill, H.R. 1875, would take effect only once the Judicial Conference of the United States has certified in writing that fewer than 3 percent of Federal judgeships remain unfilled. I remain firm in my opposition to H.R. 1875 because the bill as designed will dramatically increase the workload of the Federal judiciary. The bill's very purpose is to transfer to the Federal courts a large portion of class action lawsuits currently handled by State courts. The current workload of the Federal judiciary is already hampered by the backlog of cases, largely due in part because of low-level drug crimes prosecuted under the ill-conceived mandatory minimum drug sentence. The over-federalization of crimes, coupled with the judicial vacancies on the Federal bench, results in meritorious civil claims not being heard. I come from a people who are all too familiar with the maxim, ``Justice delayed is justice denied.'' On May 11, 1998, the conservative Supreme Court Chief Justice Rehnquist noted that the Senate is ``moving too slowly in filling the vacancies on the Federal bench.'' He also criticized the Congress and the President for ``their propensity to enact more and more legislation, which brings more cases into the Federal court system.'' He said, ``We need more vacancies to deal with the cases arising under existing laws, but if Congress enacts and the President signs new laws allowing more cases to be brought into Federal courts, just filling the vacancies will not be enough. We need additional judgeships.'' Mr. Chairman, allow me to detail the judicial vacancy crisis. Currently, there are 68 Federal judicial vacancies, or approximately 8.5 percent of the Federal judicial positions. On average, Federal District Court judges have 398 civil filings pending. The Senate in 1999 has confirmed only seven judges. Forty more await action, either on the floor or in the Committee on the Judiciary. Yet, Mr. Chairman, Senator Trent Lott has clearly indicated that filling judicial vacancies is not a priority. Last week, in regard to the nomination of a judiciary candidate, the Senator stated, ``There are not a lot of people saying, give us more Federal judges.'' He further said, ``I am trying to move this thing along, but getting more Federal judges is not what I came here to do.'' Meanwhile, 23 vacancies are categorized by the Judicial Conference as judicial emergencies, meaning either that the court in question is facing a burdensome caseload, or that the slot has been vacant for 18 months. As of June 1, fully one-fourth of the positions on the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals had not been filled. The Third Circuit has a whopping 20.3 percent judicial vacancy. Mr. Chairman, the failure of movement on the judicial nominations to the Federal court borders on malpractice. Clearly, the majority has decided to play political football with the President's nominees at the expense of the American people who have cases that are in need of resolution. I understand that this body does not have the power to order the other body to confirm the judicial nominees. However, this amendment would provide that the judiciary not undertake additional cases unless there are enough judges to address the suits before the courts. This amendment is reasonable and is one that should be supported. Mr. Chairman, these numbers speak for themselves. I urge my colleagues to support this amendment. Let me just conclude by saying I do not have to make a further case. We all know this. The gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Goodlatte) on the other side of the aisle is even smiling because the case is so clear. Here we are talking about putting an additional burden on our Federal courts, and we cannot fill the vacancies, and we have no movement from the very people who claim that this must be done in the interest of fairness. Well, I do not think they can make a case for this. I do not think anybody believes this. They do not even believe it. They know that the courts are backed up, and they know that even those in their own party have spoken about this terrible problem that we have with these vacancies. Do not try and overburden these courts even more and back up the cases. If they really want to do something, they will get in their conference, and they will urge Senator Lott and the others on the other side of the aisle to move these judgeships so we can take care of the cases that are already there.

Ms. WATERS. Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.

Ms. WATERS

Ms. WATERS. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word. Mr. Chairman, the debate that has been going on for the last 2 days on VA HUD appropriations bill has been an interesting and engaging one, and I could not allow this debate to be ended without making some observations about what has taken place here. Mr. Chairman, at a time when the economy is doing well and many people are benefiting from the well-performing economy, there is still many people who are left behind, and they need and deserve the support of their government. Too many farmers and seniors wait for years to receive HUD rental assistance because they have nowhere else to turn. In the city of Los Angeles, over 160,000 persons are on the waiting lists for section 8 housing. The elderly, veterans, persons with disabilities, and the working poor make up the group on the section 8 waiting list. Unless we provide additional resources to fund section 8 and elderly housing, this number will continue to grow. Two disturbing practices are becoming common place among those without affordable housing. One is referred to as must-share units. In a must-share unit several families share one housing unit. It is not uncommon to walk into one of these units and see three families living in a three bedroom home each with a padlock on the door to their bedroom and sharing kitchen and bathroom facilities. Second are illegal garage conversions. Here people run a water line and possibly some electricity into a garage and moves in a family. Tens of thousands of these make-shift homes are cropping up all over California. It should be noted that persons living in must-share units, as well as illegal garage conversions are the working poor, people who go to work every day and are doing things that the government asks of American citizens. This bill negatively affects the most vulnerable American citizens. Of the 12.5 million very low-income rented households living in severely substandard housing are paying more than one half of their income for rent 1.5 million are elderly, and 4.5 million are children. The number of adults with disabilities living in such circumstances is between 1.1 and 1.4 million. In the face of record need for affordable housing for our seniors, children, veterans and the working poor, Congress is set to worsen an already difficult predicament. This VA-HUD bill cuts $515 million in public housing programs alone, 250 million from the community development block grants, 10 million from the housing opportunities for people with AIDS program, 3.5 million from grants to historically black colleges and universities, and 1.9 million from the economic development initiatives. As a result of these cuts, my home State of California will receive $151 million less than the amount requested by HUD. Specifically, the 35th District of California that I represent will receive $4.6 million less than the amount requested by HUD. There is no fat to trim from the Department of Housing and Urban Development's budget. Every penny is needed. Mr. Chairman, I would ask for a ``no'' vote on this appropriations bill. I ask for a ``no'' vote because it is absolutely shameful and unconscionable that we would be putting at risk the most vulnerable of our society, at a time when this economy is functioning so well. We have a need for housing out there and help for people who simply will be on the streets without our assistance. It is unconscionable that we would have the waiting list for Section 8 that we have. I want to tell you, even though it may be California, that space, with people living in garages, some without running water, it is your area next. We have growth in this population. Of course, we are in the Sun Belt and we may have more growth than some other areas, but you will witness it too. If you but go around your districts, even those districts that are high-income districts, you have low-income areas in your districts. Many of you have poor areas that you do not even recognize in your districts. Even if you do not see it in your districts, you are still stepping over the homeless on some of the major thoroughfares in America. I ask for a ``no'' vote on this bill. It is the wrong thing for us to do. Sequential Votes Postponed in the Committee of the Whole

Ms. WATERS

Ms. WATERS. Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to this rule. The cuts that the Republicans have made in the VA-HUD appropriations bill really define who they are and what they care about. Let me just list a few of the cuts for my colleagues. A $515 million cut in public housing programs, a $250 million cut in Community Development Block Grants, a $10 million cut in housing opportunities for People With AIDS Program; a $3.5 million cut in grants to historically black colleges and universities, a $195 million cut in economic development initiatives. As a result of these cuts, my own home State of California will receive $151 million less than the amount requested by HUD. Specifically, my own district that I represent will receive $4.6 million less than the amount requested by HUD. Why are the Republicans doing this? I will tell my colleagues why. These cuts are calculated to provide a $792 billion tax giveaway that favors the wealthiest 1 percent, who would get an average tax cut of $46,000 a year. This is at the expense of 60 percent of taxpayers in the middle income bracket and below who would receive less than 8 percent of the total tax cuts.

Ms. WATERS

Ms. WATERS. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of words. Mr. Chairman, today I want to speak in support of the Serrano- Ramstad-Delahunt amendment to restore funding to Legal Services Corporation. If this amendment is not accepted, the Legal Services Corporation will suffer yet another devastating blow. As currently written, this bill provides only $141 million for Legal Services Corporation. This proposal is $159 million less than the current appropriation and $199 million less than the administration's request. Such a reduction would crush an already vulnerable Legal Services, thereby rendering it even more difficult to provide Legal Services for those who most need it. Let us be clear: Legal Services has already been cut to the bone. This worthy program cannot survive another massive reduction in funds. We have cut Legal Services from a budget of $415 million in fiscal year 1995 to $283 million in fiscal year 1998. I know that there are people who just do not like legal aid, so they have decided to devastate it by attacking it every year with cuts, cutting it to the bone so it cannot operate. It is not fair. The effects of these cuts are already being felt by those low-income clients that depend on Legal Services organizations. In California, the Legal Services Corporation provided Legal Services to 217,015 clients in 1997. Those represented included our most vulnerable citizens, including the elderly, battered women, and families who are barely surviving poverty. However, if the Serrano-Ramstad-Delahunt amendment is not accepted, we, as legislators, would effectively be abandoning the longstanding commitment to legal services for the poor. Let us put a face on it. Who are we talking about? We are talking about renters. Do my colleagues know that still in America there are unscrupulous landlords who turn off the water, who put padlocks on the doors, who set people out on the sidewalk. They would rather do this than go through the expense of going through the courts, and if they went to the courts, many times, the renters would be found to be within their rights to refuse payment. In California, we have Deduct and Repair. If one is living in run-down rental units, if the water is not working, the electricity is not working, one can repair it and deduct it from the rent. Some landlords do not like that. So we have people who depend on Legal Services. We have the elderly, as just described, who are oftentimes tricked into signing contracts, and they cannot get out of them alone. They cannot get to the courts. They do not have any money. We have people who are tricked into signing contracts that my colleagues and I, if we saw them, would be outraged by them, but it is legal services who is there to help. The more we cut them, the more exposed these very vulnerable populations are. To make matters worse, in my own State, the State of California, many of the poor are already without service because of Governor Pete Wilson's veto of the State Bar Fee Authorization in 1997. The poor in California have been failed by their governor, and this amendment is their last hope. Moreover, the deep cuts in Legal Services will mean that whole sectors of our society will be left without access to Legal Services Corporations. In many poor and rural regions of the country, there will be no publicly-funded legal assistance available to the poor. We must not forget that 40 percent of the 23 million people over 18 who live in poverty in this country are the working poor, and they also depend on Legal Services, organizations for legal assistance. Now, I know there are some who do not know a lot about this, and they may think that the poor are just in these inner cities depending on these services. I am amazed at how many legislators are representing poor districts that are not cities, that are in suburban communities, in rural communities, and they act as if they do not have the poor. They are simply not getting their representation. There are many poor farmers who need legal services, who have lost everything, who have nowhere to turn. And the legal services are there for them in some areas, but with these kinds of cuts, we are not going to have them in those poor, rural communities. The American public supports a federally funded Legal Services Corporation for those individuals who would not otherwise be able to afford an attorney's services in certain civil matters. The provision of adequate Federal funding for legal services cannot be provided elsewhere. Mr. Chairman, I would ask for support for this very important amendment.

Ms. WATERS

Ms. WATERS. Mr. Speaker, despite the rosy picture of unprecedented wealth on Wall Street and the strong performing economy for some Americans, many Americans still face social and economic problems. As conferees prepare to negotiate H.R. 10, the Financial Services Act of 1999, there are two ways that the conferees can help to eliminate the unfortunate predicament of America's less fortunate persons. First, conferees must take an uncompromising position on strong Community Reinvestment Act language. The Community Reinvestment Act was enacted in 1977 to cure the lingering effects of past discrimination and to revitalize decaying American neighborhoods, to help Americans realize the dream of home ownership. CRA has led to over $1 trillion in loans to low- and moderate-income communities. However, language in the Senate's financial services modernization bill, S. 900, threatens to undermine the progress of community revitalization. The Senate bill undermines the Community Reinvestment Act by weakening the CRA enforcement provisions in H.R. 10, eliminating the ability of community groups to participate in the CRA review process, and by providing unconscionable small bank exemptions that would cause harm to rural communities. Conferees must be strong on CRA. Americans deserve nothing less. Second, we must understand that lifeline banking provides banking services to low-income persons, and I had in the last bank modernization bill an amendment for lifeline banking. This time we were not able to get it in on the House side, but it is extremely important. It is necessary because over 30 million Americans do not have bank accounts with a traditional financial institution. Lifeline banking is good commonsense public policy that will help to bring America's poor into the banking mainstream. Additionally, the conferees must address the important issue of financial privacy. So I would submit for the conferees that they should include this information.

Ms. WATERS

Ms. WATERS. Mr. Chairman, I would like to thank the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Pelosi) for her tremendous efforts on behalf of all the peoples of the world. She really does do a great job serving as ranking member on the Committee on Appropriations, and let me just say I have appreciation for everything that I have heard today about the bipartisan efforts, and I understand the limitations that my colleagues were working within. However, that does not ease my pain nor satisfies my criticism of what is not happening for Africa. This bill completely eliminates funding for the highly indebted poor countries, the initiative that provides debt relief to countries that desperately need it. The governments of heavily indebted poor countries have been forced to make drastic cuts in basic services such as health and education in order to make payments on their debts. This administration requested $120 million. This bill allocates $33 million and zero for PIP pick. As the ranking member of the Subcommittee on Domestic and International Monetary Policy of the House Committee on Banking and Financial Services, I am working to improve the HIPC initiative. I have introduced H.R. 2232, the Debt Relief and Development in Africa Act of 1999. This bill would relieve the debts of sub-Saharan African countries and target the savings from debt relief to HIV/AIDS treatment and prevention, health care, education and poverty reduction programs. I am also a cosponsor of H.R. 1095, the Debt Relief for Poverty Reduction Act of 1999 which would expand the HIPC initiative. Also, the Foreign Operations Appropriations bill also cuts funding for the African Development Fund which provides low-interest loans to poor countries in Africa and completely eliminates funding for the African Development Bank, which provides market-rate loans to qualifying African countries. Furthermore, the bill cuts refugee assistance by $266 million below this year's budget. Well, I guess if we take out the money for Kosovo, we cut it by $20 million below this year's level. There are 6 million refugees and internally displaced people in Africa today. Sadako Ogata, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, is complaining. So if I was the gentleman from California (Mr. Berman), I would be happy because Israel and Egypt got its funding. Africa still lags far behind, and every year I must get up and do this until Africa is treated fairly.

Ms. WATERS

Ms. WATERS. Mr. Speaker, it is my pleasure to bring to the attention of my colleagues the recognition of Mr. Raydell Moore of Long Beach, California by the American Postal Union (APWU), AFL-CIO, as one of their longest serving national officers. Mr. Moore has served APWU proudly for 35 years as a national officer in the western region. Mr. Moore was born in Austin, Texas and received has formal education there. While in high school, he played football and was a teammate of Dick (Night-Train) Layne who later played for the Detroit Lions. Mr. Moore graduated from Tillitson College with a B.A. Degree in Chemistry. Mr. Moore served in the U.S. Air Force beginning in 1945. After his discharge, he began his employment with the Postal Service in June 1952 and later became active with the Union in Long Beach, California. He was the Executive Vice President of the Long Beach Local in 1963 and became Executive Vice President of the California National Postal Union in 1964. In 1964, Mr. Moore became the National Postal Union Regional Representative and held that position until 1971, while also serving as the Long Beach Local President between 1965 and 1971. In 1971, the American Postal Workers Union, AFL-CIO was formed and Mr. Moore was the APWU National Representative between 1971 and 1977. His position was to represent the union at regional level labor-management meetings and resolve disputes with the region on both contract interpretation and employee discipline. In 1977, Mr. Moore was elected Western Regional Coordinator for the entire Western Region of APWU, the largest geographic area in the United States, representing 13 states and Pacific territories. Mr. Moore has been reelected every election since then and is one of only 12 officers to serve on APWU's National Executive Board, the highest ranking authority of the APWU. Mr. Moore has served APWU and its former unions for 35 years with distinction; one of the longest consecutive tenures in labor history. I am proud to salute him for his generous service to the union and the people of the western region of the United States.

Ms. WATERS

Ms. WATERS. Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.

Ms. WATERS. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from Georgia (Ms. McKinney), ranking member of the Subcommittee on International Operations and Human Rights of the Committee on International Relations.

Ms. WATERS

Ms. WATERS. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Smith) articulate where we differ? We have agreed that there should be a fair trial. We agree on that. Where do we differ? We have said that if they do not give her a fair trial within a year, then that would be what would trigger release. We do not say release without a fair trial. Now, where do we differ?