[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 10 (Wednesday, January 18, 1995)]
[House]
[Pages H310-H311]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                       FACTS AND THE NEW SPEAKER

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentlewoman from Colorado [Mrs. Schroeder] is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mrs. SCHROEDER. Mr. Speaker, I am delighted to be able to take the 
floor and review some of the things that I think have made this day so 
confusing to a lot of us.
  I am a historian, as is the new Speaker, and the new Speaker wears 
that button with great pride. I always thought that historians were 
very, very proud about the fact that what we dealt with were facts. We 
try to deal as much in facts as possible, and I think today we all got 
a little confused as to what became factual, what became image. Were 
the image police working on the floor today? Were there new rules? 
Where were we going with all of this?
  I know I was troubled when I read about yesterday's press conference 
when a reporter had asked the Speaker when he charged taxpayers' money 
had funded a PBS viewer opinion poll; the reporter asked, ``Well, show 
us proof,'' and he said, ``I don't have a clue, I don't have any 
proof.''
  Mr. Speaker, I ask my colleagues, ``What does that mean? Shouldn't 
you have to have facts if you make those kinds of allegations?''
  Many of us were troubled when the recommendation had been made by the 
new Speaker that Government economists who would not change statistics 
to their way of keeping statistics should be zeroed out. Well, again 
should we not be dealing in facts? And where do we go?
  But then today I picked up the paper, and I am even more troubled. I 
feel like I am taking the floor to defend men and women. I read in 
today's paper some new facts that I certainly did not know about, and I 
would love to have the basis for these. In today's paper they take 
direct quotes from the Speaker's text that he is teaching on different 
campuses, and he is talking about men and women in combat. He says, 
``If combat means being in a ditch, then females have biological 
problems being in a ditch for 30 days because they get infections.''
  Well, I do not know of any medical status for this, and I would be 
very interested in having those facts because I know this will be a 
very debated issue as we come forward.
  He says further, ``When it comes to men, men are like little piggies. 
You drop them in a ditch, and they will wallow and roll around in it. 
It doesn't matter, you know.''
  Well, I am standing here defending my husband, my son, my uncles, my 
father. I mean I have seen them in ditches, but they do not roll around 
like little piggies, and I do not know anything in the facts that are 
based on that. So, that I found very troubling.
  I read further in this lecture and found a statement that males do 
not do as well sitting as women, that women are maybe doing better 
with, as my colleagues know, laptop computers because supposedly he has 
some information that males get very, very frustrated sitting in a 
chair. I say to my colleagues, ``That's kind of hard if you're Speaker, 
because they got to sit in a chair a lot.'' But they got frustrated 
sitting in a chair because we all know that males are, quote, 
biologically driven to go out and hunt giraffes.
  Now I have been working in a male culture for a very long time, and I 
have not met the first one who wants to go out and hunt a giraffe. They 
can sit in chairs. They do not wiggle and so forth, and so I just must 
say I am very, very troubled by the new factual data that seems to be 
coming out of our new leader.

                              {time}  1330

  And then I must say I was terribly troubled by the proceedings that 
went on on the House floor today. I do not know exactly what to make of 
them. I thought what the gentlewoman from Florida was stating was a 
very factual statement about what she had read in the press, and she 
was pointing out that the publisher of the book, if they push the book 
sales, could make more money, which I think is factual. Royalties are 
based upon how many books are sold. The more books sold, the more money 
comes in in royalties.
  How that becomes an innuendo or how that becomes some kind of illegal 
utterance on the floor is way beyond my understanding. I have heard 
much worse things said on the floor. And I must say I am a little 
shocked that the rules of this House are being used by the image police 
to try to clean this up.
  Thank goodness for the newspapers, because the image police have not 
been able to get to the newspapers yet, and 
[[Page H311]] I think free speech is becoming more important every day.
  Thank goodness that we were able to read about women and men and 
their biological views, as viewed by the Speaker, but it does scare me 
to death.


                          ____________________