[Congressional Record Volume 143, Number 80 (Tuesday, June 10, 1997)]
[House]
[Page H3641]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                       DISASTERS ARE NOT PARTISAN

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Arkansas [Mr. Snyder] is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. SNYDER. Mr. Speaker, I thank you and the staff who are putting in 
long hours here once again. We appreciate you very much.
  Mr. Speaker, on March 1, we had a 260-mile squawk of tornadoes come 
through Arkansas. By the weatherman's count, there were approximately 
24 different tornadoes that came out of the same storm front and caused 
tremendous damage through that 260 miles. There were over 20 deaths; 
the majority of them were in my district. For those that did not die 
and did not lose family members, their life too was severely affected 
by the storm, and as many of us do who are elected officials in those 
type of events, we go out there and try and learn and walk with our 
constituents through their tragedies.
  I do not need to go into great detail about those stories. I have 
talked with policemen who found bodies, I have talked with family 
members who found family members. I cannot describe house after house 
after house of damage.
  Any of us who have seen those kinds of storms, we know that those 
storms are not partisan issues. We know that those victims were not 
only Democrats or only Republicans or only Independents or only black 
or only white; we know that they were Americans undergoing great 
tragedy.

                              {time}  2030

  I do not see this issue of the supplemental appropriations being a 
partisan one. I know that Republicans and Democrats together care about 
the tornado victims in Arkansas, they care about the flood victims in 
the northern United States.
  The issue is not about who cares the most. We all care about what 
happens to our fellow Americans. The issue is really to me a more 
mundane one: How do we do the people's business; how do we in this 
Chamber, how do we freshmen, just completing our first term, just a few 
months into our first term, how do we do the people's business?
  Frankly, my constituents back home are confused by how we are doing 
the people's business when it comes to this storm. They see in the 
paper the words ``supplemental appropriations''; and I am a freshman, I 
hear that phrase, and it sounds like some new type of nutritional drink 
for athletes: supplemental appropriations.
  Then I explain to them that is emergency, emergency money for troops 
overseas, emergency money for storm victims. Then they want to know, 
why is there such controversy over emergency dollars that we all agree 
on? And I do not have a good answer. As a new Member, I am still 
learning.
  Let me tell the Members one of my observations here in the last few 
months. To me it seems there is a difference between compromise and 
common ground. We elected officials, we always talk about politics 
being the art of compromise. Let me suggest, Mr. Speaker, that perhaps 
in emergencies we ought not to be looking for the compromise. 
Compromises can take weeks and months to achieve. Perhaps we should be 
looking for the common ground: Find those things that we all agree on, 
whether we are Democrat or Republican, whether we are in Congress or in 
the executive branch and are the President. Find those things we all 
agree on and let us pass those cleanly without this extraneous 
material.
  Mr. Speaker, I ask support tonight that we pass a clean 
appropriations bill, take out things on which we are having fights, 
take out those things that have nothing to do with emergencies, such as 
how to conduct the census. It does not make sense to the people of 
Arkansas that we are dealing with a very controversial issue, how do we 
do the census, when we are trying to provide emergency dollars for our 
troops in Bosnia, when we are trying to provide emergency dollars for 
storm victims throughout this country.
  Tomorrow I hope we will vote on a clean supplemental appropriations 
bill. I hope we will vote for one without extraneous material. I hope 
we will conduct the people's business and find the common ground that 
the people of Arkansas and the people of this country want.

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