Lynn Woolsey

Ms. WOOLSEY

Ms. WOOLSEY. I thank the gentleman from New Jersey and I thank the gentlewoman from Connecticut for this day of standing up for the rights of the minority party. I was listening to the majority whip yammer along about the fact that blaming everybody else for this being a do- nothing Congress. Of course if he had anything to say about what they had achieved, they would have stood there and told us what they had done. Instead, they talked and talked and talked about why nothing had happened and pointed fingers and blamed others. If they had managed this Congress any better than the Soviets managed Chernobyl, they would have something to say. If they had been working on the American public's needs instead of trying to raid Social Security, trying to cut taxes so the wealthy could benefit, trying to give education tax breaks for private schools, cheating the public education funding and threatening our national resources with anti-environmental riders, maybe they would have achieved enough that they could have stood up there earlier and said, ``But this is what we did.'' But instead they had to say, ``Oh, it's everybody else's fault, not ours.'' I will quote the Vice President in his saying, ``The right hand does not know what the far right hand is doing,'' if they had their ranks together. They are the majority. And at what cost have they left this country without really anything except renaming National Airport to the Ronald Reagan Airport. They have not produced a managed care bill. There has been no bill to train and hire more teachers so we can reduce class size. They have no bill to modernize our schools, no safeguards for our Social Security, nothing to reduce teen smoking, no increase in minimum wage for working families, and the campaign finance bill that passed the House over their dead bodies, if Members can remember what Majority Whip DeLay said and what the Speaker said about campaign finance reform. And then when we did pass it, it could not get through the Republicans in the other body. They forget. They forget that children, 25 percent of our population are 100 percent of our future. Because of that, they are setting a record, a record that has not been broken for generations, for the least amount of days worked, the least number of bills enacted and the first time since the budget process was created, they have failed to pass a budget. This is not management. This is disaster. That is why they are complaining over there and trying to blame somebody else. But our families deserve better. It is time for a change. Let me tell you how this has affected our children. 71,682,000 of our population in the United States are children. 10,000,743 more American children have no health insurance, that is up over 10 million from the start of this Congress. This number has continued to rise during the 105th Congress. It continues. Five thousand schools in the United States are in desperate need of repair and many are unfit learning environments. Zero, none, of the 100,000 teachers needed to reduce class size and improve education quality have been approved; 14,113,000 children are living in poverty. This is in the richest Nation in the world. Despite a very strong economy, children continue to represent 40 percent of the impoverished while compromising only 20 percent of the Nation's population, and yet we have to remember 100 percent of the Nation's future. Seventy-three percent more children have taken up a daily smoking habit. Each day 3,000 kids become habitual smokers. Of these 1,000 will die of smoking-related illnesses. It is time that we turn the debate to the needs of our children, our seniors, our environment. Enough about politically inspired investigations, and excessive partisanship and wasteful spending on duplicative and wasteful Republican committee investigations that have ended in dead ends, costing millions of American dollars. Instead, we have to do something about managed care reform. We have to have campaign finance reform. We have to have bills that will reduce teen smoking. We have to have bills that will enhance environmental protections. And we must raise the minimum wage. Then our children will be considered our number one priority. But most of all, making them our number one priority, we must invest in their education. We cannot leave here without an agreement for 100,000 more teachers and new and improved classrooms. Twenty-five percent of our population are our children. One hundred percent of our future are those same children.

Ms. WOOLSEY. Mr. Speaker, I, for one, am embarrassed at how little this Congress has produced. I would think the leadership of this Congress, of this House, would be red in the face when they look at themselves in the mirror. I, too, voted for Social Security first and tax cuts afterward. But I want to tell the Members, I represent if not the, one of the best- educated districts in the Nation. They know about this stuff. They have been saying to me since the day I was elected in 1992, when is the Congress going to pay back what this country owes our Social Security Trust Fund? I have said, it is going to be paid back. We are on our way to a surplus. It will happen then. I am telling the Members, it had better happen, because if we do not, not only are we putting the Generation Xers and the baby boomers at risk, we are putting our national debt at risk, because a great percentage of that national debt is what we owe back to the Social Security trust. It is a win-win. It is a two-fer, if we take care of Social Security. We need to get Social Security off-budget. Social Security deserves to stand on its own. It must be secure. I will not fool around with privatizing Social Security, but I certainly would encourage people to have a base, and we have to find a way to encourage people to invest more. We cannot just depend on Social Security for our retirement, because that is not enough. It is not intended for that. It is intended for a safety net. So, Social Security first; tax cuts, yes, particularly for middle-income working families, next.

Ms. WOOLSEY. One thing I would like to call to everybody's attention is that these 10 million children that are not covered, more than 80 percent of them live in families with at least one working parent. That is a huge number. We are not talking about welfare recipients, we are talking about the working poor who work every day as hard as everybody else, or harder, at maybe more than one job, and they cannot afford health care for their children. One of the reasons that businesses do not provide it is that health care costs are going up again. One of the reasons we supported HMOs in the first place, and HMOs were going to be the savior for health care, is because the cost of health care leveled as the number of HMOs grew in this Nation. Now we have passed that nexus. Health care costs are going up in rapid, rapid numbers, and the quality of the HMO is going down, so we have to put that floor. That is what HMO reform would do, managed care reform. I thank the gentleman.

Ms. WOOLSEY. Taking my time back, it worked. Did it not work? We do not have managed care health reform in this Congress. Now we have to change it. The people of this country have to know what is happening, and I thank both of you for making this possible so we can speak to the issues and the people who are listening can hear the issues, and we can be moving forward. We need a Congress that cares about health care, our seniors, our children and our environment, and this Congress and its majority does not.

Ms. WOOLSEY. We should not be surprised, because a year ago, November 1997, let me read to you from the New York Times. Business and insurance lobbyists who helped kill President Clinton's health plan in 1994 are mobilizing a new campaign to block more modest proposals that would set Federal standards for quality of care. Republican leaders of Congress are urging the lobbyists to step up their activities against an array of managed care reform bills, backed by consumer advocates as a way to protect patients in a turbulent medical market. That was the first. Then the times reported on October 22, 1997 that Melody Harnad, a Federal Affairs Counsel at the Health Insurance Association of America, summarized the situation in a confidential memo to her supervisor, the vice president of the association, and she said, The message we are getting from the House and Senate GOP leadership is that we are in a war and need to start fighting like we are in a war. Republican leadership is now engaged on this issue and is issuing strong directives to all players in the insurance and employer community to get activated. Well, I would like to say that there was a lot of fear in 1993 when I was first sworn into the House of Representatives, a fear of a single payer national health care system. Well, I think we are going to get there sooner than we ever thought, because, with attitudes like this, the public has to be fearful that they will have health care in their future, a national health care system could protect them and will.

Ms. WOOLSEY. Well, you said that maybe some of our colleagues have never experienced the shortcomings of managed care because they are healthy. Well, oops, maybe it is because they can afford other coverage. It might have something to do with people being wealthy, and I think we have to remember that, and we have to continually remember that if an appeal process does not have real teeth, it is not an appeal process. There is some very good managed care providers in my district, the Sixth Congressional District in California. I mean they are models for the Nation. But I tell you we can be assured that even these good managed care providers are going to have to give up some of their quality, some of their standards if we do not have real reform because they will have to compete, and they will be competing against providers that do not do as well, do not do as much, do not have protections, and everybody is going to lose because we will be slipping sliding to the lowest rung of the ladder; there is no question about it. We have to have real managed care reform, and the doctors in my district want it. They want to be part of making the decision about health care with their patient. They do not want to have to be listening to what a clerk in an insurance company is telling them that they can to or not do for their patient. The patient and the doctor want to make those decisions, and the insurance company is responsible for paying for it.

Ms. WOOLSEY

Ms. WOOLSEY. Well, I have a comment. When our colleague, Mr. Pallone, talked about small one-room school houses, those schools were homogeneous. Everybody in that class looked the same, came from the same kind of background and environment. Now we are talking about classrooms with as many as 17 different languages in one classroom. Tell me that these young children do not need one-on-one attention from their instructor.

Ms. WOOLSEY. I would like to have a little dialogue with the gentleman about workers and H1-B visas, because something else that is totally missing is some incentive, an encouragement for businesses to retrain their current workforce. Technology is growing so fast and beyond the workforce. Employers are hesitating or refusing to train their existing workers. That must be something we do. That is why we need H-1B visas. One, we do not teach our young people, and, two, we do not retrain our existing workforce.

Ms. WOOLSEY. That is right. The other connect there is that person is being laid off because they are not trained, quite often is a very senior worker, needing Social Security. And what are we saying? We are raising the age of Social Security. That is the threat. In order to save it, privatize it, raise the age, give less. But certainly do not train workers so they can stay on the job. They need that Social Security at the time they will be laid off and it will not be available to them.

Ms. WOOLSEY. You know in California, our very conservative Republican Governor put into place the decrease in class sizes for grades K through 3. Well, guess what we found out? We did not have enough certified teachers, we did not have classrooms, and good that the idea was, yes, reduce the class size. We did not have the infrastructure or the trained teachers to support even what this very conservative Republican Governor wanted.

Ms. WOOLSEY. The gentleman is right on target. If the school needs upgrading and wiring, that is what they need. If a school needs roofs, paint, that is what they need, and, if we do not invest in those children, in their schools, what are we saying to them? We are telling those children you do not matter. We want you to get an education, but we do not want it to be the best it could be. And we are not saying, take our Federal tax dollars and wire that plug or that particular room; we are just saying, use those tax dollars to benefit our children because we know they all need a good education. And public education makes that possible, and we want to invest in them.

Ms. WOOLSEY. If you will yield, I will tell you my story.

Ms. WOOLSEY

Ms. WOOLSEY. Mr. Speaker, I doubt that I will use 5 minutes. Mr. Speaker, it gives me such great pleasure to rise in support of H.R. 3874, the William F. Goodling Child Nutrition Reauthorization Act of 1998. That is a lot to say, Mr. Speaker. One has to be awake to do that. This legislation will benefit children in schools and child care facilities across our Nation. Our teens will be safer because it will be easier for schools and community organizations to offer them after- school programs. Elementary students are going to enter the classroom ready to learn and able to do better work in school because this legislation takes an important first step towards making breakfast available at school for all elementary school children. H.R. 3874 will allow 5 states to provide school breakfasts to all their students free of charge. Two studies have proven that kids who eat breakfast improve both their grades and their school behavior. In today's world, where two working parents are the norm and long commutes common, more and more families are out the door, on the road, early in the morning, with no time to sit down for breakfast. Whether we like it or not, children, even when they have food at home, leave their home and arrive at school hungry. Unless we want to pass a law requiring every family to feed their kids breakfast before school and then hire a bunch of breakfast police to enforce it, we need to start looking at school breakfast programs in a different way, and this bill does just that. This bill also makes it easier for schools and community organizations to offer after-school programs to teenagers by making it easier to pay for their snacks. We know that the vast majority of juvenile crime and teen pregnancies occur after the school bell and before the dinner bell. We desperately need more after-school programs for adolescents, but feeding adolescents, even when it is just a snack, can be expensive. H.R. 3874 will open the child and adult care food programs to low income teens and to more after-school programs. This is not Twinkies for teens. The Police Athletic League and other law enforcement organizations have strongly endorsed the benefits of after-school programs for adolescents. This legislation will make more of these programs possible and give teens a place to be after school. H.R. 3874 will benefit millions of children and I would say to the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Goodling) that he can be proud to have this bill carry his name. Children are only 25 percent of this country's population but they are 100 percent of our future. The William F. Goodling Child Nutrition Reauthorization Act is a sound investment in America's most precious resource: Our children. I urge my colleagues to support it.

Ms. WOOLSEY

Ms. WOOLSEY. Mr. Speaker, this Labor-HHS appropriations bill makes me believe that some of my colleagues in the majority party would benefit from spending time back in the classroom. The numbers in this appropriations bill simply do not add up. From Head Start through higher education and into the workplace, this bill shortchanges the vast majority of Americans. I am most concerned about the damage done to American school children in this bill. The funds for education do not make the grade. Those of us who have done our homework know that overcrowded classrooms are one of the biggest obstacles to improving education for our children. What parents and teachers already know is that smaller class size makes for better learning experiences and results in better grades. In fact, even the very Republican governor of my home State of California has made smaller classes a priority in our State. But it costs money, Mr. Speaker. It costs money to reduce class size, because smaller classes mean more training and more teachers that need to be hired. Smaller classes mean building more classrooms. This bill does nothing to help schools reduce class size. It cheats our students out of funds they need to get a good education. It deserves to fail. This bill particularly fails teenagers. This Republican effort, Mr. Speaker, is designed to give the right wing ``score card'' information before the November 3 election and, in doing so, force young women to risk unwanted pregnancy and sexually transmitted disease.

Ms. WOOLSEY

Ms. WOOLSEY. Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong support of H.Res. 557. This resolution reflects the growing consensus that real justice must be obtained for the victims and survivors of the Nazi Holocaust. Mr. Speaker, the world has an obligation to provide justice and dignity to all Holocaust victims and their survivors. I commend the gentleman from California (Mr. Lantos) and the gentleman from New York (Chairman Gilman) for bringing the House resolution before us so we can begin to address this need for justice. I am particularly pleased that this resolution urges all countries to continue aggressive investigation and prosecution of individuals who have been involved in Nazi-era war crimes, because we must bring these individuals to justice and never forget their horrible crimes. One individual that we must bring to justice is Dr. Hans Severing. Today, in 1998, Dr. Severing practices medicine in Germany, just as he has for the last 55 years. In 1943, Dr. Severing was engaged in a different kind of medical practice. He was a staff physician and the director of the SS at the Schoenbrunn Sanitarium. This sanitarium was meant to treat children with special needs, but it was just a brief stop before a more terrible fate for these children. The stop was brief because during World War II, Dr. Severing participated in the Nazi euthanasia program. Under Dr. Severing's orders, over 900 mentally and physically disabled children were sent to a so-called ``healing center'' where physicians starved and drugged these children until their death. Over 900 innocent children. After the war, Dr. Severing was not punished. He was not even exposed. He was not charged with any crime. He thought that the world would forget the children he sent to death. In fact, until recently it appeared that the world had forgotten. Since the war, Dr. Severing enjoyed a full and rewarding medical career in Bavaria. In 1993, he became the President-elect of the World Medical Association, until controversy stemming from his crimes forced him to resign. It was at this time that four Franciscan nuns who were witness to these atrocities broke their vows of silence in order to bring Dr. Severing to justice. After this, the U.S. Department of Justice placed Dr. Severing on our watch list, preventing his entry into the United States. But the Bavarian government refuses to investigate this matter. They refuse to press charges. Thanks to the Anti-Defamation League, along with the leading pursuer of Dr. Severing, Dr. Michael Franzblau, the world does not forget these crimes that have gone unpunished. Dr. Hans Severing and every other Nazi war criminal must be investigated and exposed for what they really are and they must be brought to justice for their crimes. Today, along with Michael Franzblau and my colleagues, I demand justice for 900 children who died at the hand of Dr. Severing and for every other individual and family that has suffered as a result of the Holocaust. It is not too late to provide the remaining survivors of the Holocaust with justice and dignity. Today by passing this resolution we can begin the process. I support H.Res. 557 because we can begin that process.

Ms. WOOLSEY

Ms. WOOLSEY. Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of the Human Services Reauthorization Act. The programs reauthorized by this legislation, Head Start, Community Service Block Grants, and LIHEAP, help our neediest Americans to live learn and grow. I am particulary pleased that the Community Services Block Grants include reauthorization for a demonstration project to test the effectiveness of Individual Development Accounts, IDAs. IDAs are dedicated savings accounts that can be used for education. They can be used for first home purchase or to start a business. Each deposit made by the low-income account holder is matched by the community organization which sponsors the IDA. I was able to leave welfare when I was in trouble at one point because I invested in myself. IDAs allow individuals in the same kind of circumstance I was in to invest in themselves. IDAs give low-income individuals a needed chance to invest in themselves and in their futures. Because their deposits are matched, IDA accounts grow and lives are changed for the better. This country has been helping middle- and upper-income families invest in themselves and their future for years. For example, there are tax deductions for home mortgage. There are tax break for IRAs and tax breaks for other pension accounts. There are no breaks for low-income individuals who try to save. In fact, in some cases there are actually penalties if a low-income person accumulates assets. So, Mr. Speaker, the Human Services Reauthorization Act will help millions of low-income Americans change their lives and I am proud to join my colleagues on both sides of the aisle in supporting it.

Ms. WOOLSEY

Ms. WOOLSEY. Mr. Speaker, I stand in opposition to the Hyde resolution and in support of the Democratic alternative. As a woman and a Democrat, I am embarrassed by the President's conduct. What he did was wrong. The very idea of considering impeaching a duly-elected President and removing him from office is one of the most serious and weighty tasks of the U.S. Congress. Since the Independent Counsel's report was delivered to the steps of Capitol Hill, I have thoroughly and carefully reviewed the allegations. But since that day, I have also seen important constitutional questions answered with partisanship, compromise destroyed by politics, and legal discussions replaced by political attacks. The Republican leadership has allowed desire for political gain to distort this investigation, with little regard for the harm done to American families. The mudslinging and dirt digging has gone too far and lasted too long. It has hurt our country, damaged this Congress, and harmed our families. We should be focusing on education, Social Security, and health care. Our nation cannot endure an inquiry that goes on month after month with no direction and no end in sight. Before we jump in head first, we need an exit strategy. That is why I will vote against the Republican resolution. With no limits and no guidelines, the Republican resolution gives the majority party carte-blanche to do still more dirt digging, more snooping, and more probing into personal lives and intimate details. Quite simply, the Republican investigation risks careening out-of-control and dragging our kids and our families down with it. I will vote for the Democratic alternative proposal because it is fair, focused, and finite. While it does allow Congress to expand its investigation should new facts come to light, it first defines an impeachable offense, specifies the scope of the investigation, and establishes a concrete time frame. Without these guidelines and the time limit, we will never be able to get this ordeal behind us. (Ms. BROWN of Florida asked and was given permission to revise and extend her remarks.)

Ms. WOOLSEY

Ms. WOOLSEY. Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong opposition to the Treasury-Postal Appropriations conference report because it strips out the contraceptive prescription coverage, strips out language that both the House and the other body passed, Mr. Speaker, language that was passed. It seems like, in this Congress, the appropriations process immediately signals the beginning of hunting season on a woman's reproductive rights. Figure it out. Unwanted pregnancy and abortion rates drop when women have access to preventative reproductive health care, the health care they need. I ask Members, look at your female staff, those women who work so hard to serve your districts. Look at them and tell them that you do not care about their reproductive health and their choices. Then look at the millions of Federal employees who, day in and day out, serve the people of this country. Go ahead. Tell them that you want to deny them the rights made accessible to other women but not to them. Voluntary family planning services give our women and their families new choices and new hope. These services increase child survival and save motherhood. Prohibiting Federal workers from using their health care coverage for prescription contraceptive coverage discriminates against women, women that work for the Federal Government. This is a disgrace. Government workers should not be treated so poorly. The democratic process deserves more respect. The appropriations process should not signal to women in this Nation that their rights are at risk. Vote against this conference.

Ms. WOOLSEY

Ms. WOOLSEY. Mr. Chairman, I rise today in opposition to H.R. 4570, the omnibus parks bill. I would like to see a park bill. I would like to see one that we can support across party lines and across environmental and nonenvironmental lines, because our parks are absolutely the treasures of our Nation. These are the lands that we as individuals have to protect and treasure so that our children will have lands that they can appreciate also. And this bill would threaten these treasures, threaten them by putting the Channel Island National Park, the Cumberland Island National Seashore, and the C&O Canal up for sale. H.R. 4570 would also accelerate timber harvesting on Federal land and provide a $150 million subsidy to the timber industry for logging on what the Republicans call overgrown forestlands. This bill would also build a road without environmental review through the wetlands of Alaska's Chugach National Forest. I would like to see an omnibus parks bill, I would like to see one passed this year, but I want to see one that has significant bipartisan input and fair representation. Sixteen Democratic issues or measures out of almost 100 is not fair representation, no matter how one adds it up. I urge my colleagues to oppose this bill, and I urge the majority on the Committee on Resources to work with the Democrats and with the environmentalists in their caucus so that we can have a bill that we can pass.

Ms. WOOLSEY

Ms. WOOLSEY. Mr. Speaker, I too am a proud member of the Subcommittee on Postsecondary Education, Training and Life-Long Learning, which crafted this reauthorization. And I can assure my colleagues that the Higher Education Amendments of 1998 make higher education more affordable for all students. The amendments also make education safer, particularly for women, because we have included grants to combat violent crimes against women on campuses. Mr. Speaker, 20 percent of college women will be victims of sexual assault at some time during their years on campus. These are our daughters, our sisters, our mothers. They should not have to learn in fear, and this bill invests in their safety. This conference report also includes a provision on prepaid college tuition plans. These plans let families lock in the cost of tomorrow's college tuition at today's prices. We need to get the word out so that families across the country can benefit from these well-thought-out plans. I am also pleased that we are supporting teacher training partnerships in this conference report. Partnerships for Professional Renewal, based on a successful program at Sonoma State University in my district, funds partnerships between teachers' training programs and local schools. I thank the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Clay), I thank the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Kildee), I thank the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Goodling) and the gentleman from California (Mr. McKeon), for their bipartisan leadership on this reauthorization. They put the interests of students and families first. We can be proud to vote for the Higher Education Amendments of 1998. The gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Goodling) is perfectly correct, this is a good-news day and it should be reported.

Ms. WOOLSEY

Ms. WOOLSEY. Mr. Speaker, Social Security is one of our very successful programs here in the United States. It has well served more than 160 million workers and their families for nearly 60 years. But recently the majority leadership has put together a hasty proposal to spend a portion of our budget surplus on tax cuts, rather than invest it in the Social Security system. I am a very strong supporter of needed tax relief for our families, but Mr. Speaker, robbing the Social Security system to pay for tax cuts would make it more difficult and painful, and in fact impossible, to deal with the serious problems facing our Social Security system. Spending the surplus now will suck security right out of the system. We have a responsibility to future generations. Our responsibility is to ensure that our parents, our children, and their children have the base security of Social Security.

Ms. WOOLSEY

Ms. WOOLSEY. Mr. Speaker, I would like to take this opportunity to pay tribute to the gentleman from California (Mr. Vic Fazio), who has been a very effective Member of this institution, both as a leader and as a member of the Committee on Appropriations, and as a great Californian. We have been very lucky in California to work with the gentleman from California (Mr. Fazio), someone who has always been helpful in securing funding for our State, particularly for water projects. I know, because I have called on him for assistance many times in his role on the Committee on Appropriations. I thank the gentleman from California for being so respectful to all of our needs, for being receptive, hardworking, dedicated and fair in making sure our requests are fulfilled. I thank him, too, for his hard work in fighting for women's rights. He has been a staunch defender on many fronts, supporting the Equal Rights Amendment, arguing for women's reproductive rights, and opposing discrimination against women in the work force, the military and the courts. As a member of the Democratic leadership, the gentleman's outspoken activism has brought needed attention to these causes. I do not know what we will do without the gentleman from California (Mr. Vic Fazio). He will be missed.

Ms. WOOLSEY

Ms. WOOLSEY. Madam Chairman, I am amazed that my colleagues on the other side of the aisle support the Dollars to the Classroom Act. And I am amazed that we hear that the majority of districts will receive more money when the Congressional Research Service has estimated that 27 out of the 50 States will receive less money in fiscal year 1999 under this legislation than they would have under the existing 31 programs that were funded in fiscal year 1998. In fact, some States will lose as much as 68 percent of their fiscal year 1998 funding. Now, of course I am delighted that California will receive more in this round of appropriations if this is passed. But we cannot count, with the priorities of this Congress on block granting, supporting increased funding when appropriations is cutting education by 20 percent in this year alone. It truly appears to me that the majority party, not the minority party--the Republicans, not the Democrats--would tell communities how they should spend their education dollars. Education in America has always been a local issue. We know that. I for one think that is the way it should be. But in the communities that I represent, Marin and Sonoma counties, the two counties just north of San Francisco across the Golden Gate Bridge, it is the parents, the educators and the students who join together with local elected school boards to decide how to spend their education dollars. They do not need Washington, D.C., and they do not need Sacramento to tell them what they need. In my district, the majority of educators and the majority of education funding is spent in the classroom. But sometimes a community needs to spend funds in other ways, such as teacher training activities, educational technology, coordinated services. It will not matter how much money we spend in the classroom, Madam Chairman, unless we have world class teachers and our children come to school ready to learn. We have always relied on parents, educators, and the local community leaders to make local education decisions. I urge my colleagues to show their trust in the folks back home by voting against the Dollars to the Classroom Act.

Ms. WOOLSEY. Mr. Speaker, I demand a recorded vote.

Ms. WOOLSEY. Madam Chairman, I rise in strong support of the Clay amendment to reduce class size. We know that the size of the class and the quality of education go hand in hand and that overcrowded classrooms are one of the biggest obstacles to improving education for our children. We now have studies to confirm what parents and teachers have known for years. The smaller the class size, the better the learning experience. Even the very Republican governor of my home State of California has made smaller class size a priority for our State. But it costs money to reduce class size. Smaller classes mean training and hiring more teachers and building more classrooms. The Clay amendment will give school districts a good start toward smaller classes. Matching Federal and local funds could be used to recruit, to train, to pay the salaries of new teachers. Unlike the Dollars to the Classroom block grant, the Clay amendment holds schools accountable for the use of these funds. It requires school districts to show how reduced class size results in increased student achievement. I urge my colleagues, vote for the Clay amendment. Turn H.R. 3248 from a bill that takes dollars from the classroom into a bill that improves education for all of our kids.