[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 35 (Wednesday, March 25, 1998)]
[House]
[Pages H1516-H1522]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                      TREATY OF GUADALUPE HIDALGO

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 7, 1997, the gentleman from Colorado (Mr. Bob Schaffer) is 
recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the majority leader.
  Mr. BOB SCHAFFER of Colorado. Mr. Speaker, this evening the freshmen 
Republican class takes to the floor to spend a little time during this 
special order to discuss various issues that we have been focusing on 
as individual Members and as a group, 34 Members strong.
  We spent a lot of time in our home districts holding town meetings, 
surveying our constituents and focusing on the topics that we believe 
our constituents have sent us here to represent. Joining me this 
evening is the gentleman from New Mexico (Mr. Redmond), who has been 
fighting very vigorously for some property rights issues in his 
district.
  At this point, Mr. Speaker, I would like to recognize and turn some 
of our time over to the gentleman from the State of New Mexico to talk 
about his legislation, House Resolution 2538, which would establish a 
presidential commission to determine the validity of certain land 
claims arising out the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo from 1848.
  Mr. REDMOND. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the time to share with the 
House of Representatives today a portion of history that many people 
have forgotten. This is a story, a story of a people who settled in the 
American Southwest many years before the pilgrims landed at Plymouth 
Rock.
  The story has been forgotten by most Americans, but it lives on. It 
is a story

[[Page H1517]]

that lives on in the daily lives of many hard-working people in New 
Mexico in my congressional district. It lives on in the daily 
traditions and the way of life. And it is a life-style that we are 
seeking to enhance and to preserve.
  And so tonight, Mr. Speaker, I stand here for my constituents to tell 
the story of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hildago, a story, as I stated 
earlier, Mr. Speaker, that most Americans are not aware of.
  In 1846 there was a war between the United States and Mexico. The 
United States won that war, the Mexican-American War, and at the end of 
the war, there was a treaty that was signed. The title of the treaty 
has a beautiful name to it. The name of the treaty is the Treaty of 
Peace, Friendship, Limits, and Settlement. It is called the Treaty of 
Guadalupe Hildago.
  It was signed on February 2, 1848. And in that treaty, the residents 
of the territory that became New Mexico and became the State of New 
Mexico in that treaty, the people that lived in that area, they had a 
choice, as in America we allow individuals a choice; and the choice 
that the residents had was the choice to move south of the border to 
old Mexico and to retain their citizenship as Mexican citizens or to 
remain north of the border and to embrace an American way of life of 
freedom and a Constitution that guaranteed those rights.
  So, with high hopes, the residents of New Mexico, many of them chose 
to stay behind to become citizens of the United States of America; and 
in the treaty, it stated very specifically certain rights that would be 
guaranteed to those who stayed behind. And so the hope of greater 
freedom, an opportunity, was embraced by those residents. And the 
treaty begins like this:

       In the name of Almighty God:
       The United States of America, and the United Mexican 
     States, animated by a sincere desire to put an end to the 
     calamities of war which unhappily exist between the two 
     Republics, and to establish upon a solid basis relations of 
     peace and friendship, which shall confer reciprocal benefits 
     upon the citizens of both and assure the concord, harmony, 
     and mutual confidence wherein the two peoples should live as 
     good neighbors, have for that purpose appointed

representatives and those representatives mutually came together with 
the stipulations of the treaty.
  This evening, Mr. Speaker, I am going to read two small articles that 
are very important for the legislation that will be considered in a 
short time here in the House of Representatives. But these two articles 
are very, very important because these were the polar stars on which 
the Hispanics in New Mexico stayed behind and they chose to become 
citizens of the United States.
  This is Article VIII I will begin with. Article VIII says,

       Mexicans now established in territories previously 
     belonging to Mexico, and which remain for future within the 
     limits of the United States, as defined by the present 
     treaty, shall be free to continue where they now reside, or 
     to remove at any time to the Mexican Republic, retaining the 
     property which they possess in the said territories, or 
     disposing thereof and removing the proceeds wherever they 
     please; without their being subjected, on this account, to 
     any contribution, tax, or charge whatever.
       Those who shall prefer to remain in the said territories 
     may either retain the title and rights of Mexican citizens or 
     acquire those of citizens of the rights of the United States, 
     but they shall be under the obligation to make their election 
     within one year from the time of the dates of exchange of 
     ratification of this treaty; and those who shall remain in 
     the said territories after the expiration of that year, 
     without having declared their intention to retain the 
     character of Mexicans, shall be considered to have elected to 
     become citizens of the United States. In the said 
     territories, property of every kind, now belonging to 
     Mexicans not established there, shall be inviolably 
     respected. The present owners, the heirs of these, and the 
     Mexicans who may hereafter acquire said property by contract, 
     shall enjoy with respect to it, guaranties equally ample as 
     if the same belonged to the citizens of the United States.

  Article IX:

       The Mexicans who, in the territories aforesaid, shall not 
     preserve the character of citizens of the Mexican Republic, 
     conformably with what is stipulated in the preceding Article, 
     shall be incorporated into the Union of the United States 
     and admitted as soon as possible according to the 
     principles of the Federal Constitution, to the enjoyment 
     of all rights of citizens of the United States. In the 
     meantime, they shall be maintained and protected in the 
     enjoyment of their liberty, their property, and the civil 
     rights now vested in them according to the Mexican laws. 
     With respect to political rights their condition shall be 
     on an equality with that of the inhabitants of the other 
     territories of the United States and at least as good as 
     the inhabitants of Louisiana, the Floridas, when these 
     provinces, by transfer from the French Republic and the 
     Crown of Spain, became territories of the United States.
       The same most ample guaranty shall be enjoyed by all 
     ecclesiastic and religious corporations or communities, as 
     well in the discharge of the offices of their ministry, as in 
     the enjoyment of their property of every kind, whether 
     individuals or corporate. This guaranty shall embrace all 
     temples, houses and edifices dedicated to the Roman Catholic 
     worship; as well as all property destined to its support or 
     to that of schools, hospitals, and other foundations for 
     charitable or beneficent purposes. No property of this nature 
     shall be considered as having become the property of the 
     American Government, or as subject to be, by it, disposed of 
     or diverted to other uses.
       Finally, the relations and communication between the 
     Catholics living in the territories aforesaid and their 
     respective ecclesiastical authorities, shall be open, free, 
     and exempt from all hindrance whatever, even although such 
     authorities shall reside within the limits of the Mexican 
     Republic, as defined by this treaty; and this freedom shall 
     continue, so long as a new demarcation of ecclesiastical 
     districts shall not have been made, conformably with the laws 
     of the Roman Catholic Church.

  I ask, Mr. Speaker, all Americans to remember and to learn on this, 
the Quatrocentenario; and also the 150th anniversary of the signing of 
the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, I ask for all Americans to remember 
the solemnness of this treaty which we entered into with those who had 
hope of becoming American citizens and promised that they would 
maintain all of the rights of American citizens.
  So I encourage all Americans to learn and to remember the Treaty of 
Guadalupe Hidalgo and to do justice in accordance with the Treaty.
  Mr. BOB SCHAFFER of Colorado. Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time, I am 
curious just in terms of a 150-year-old treaty that has come up now, 
what happened to it in those 150 years? Why were we not talking about 
the treaty 10 years, 20 years, 30 years ago? Why has it now become an 
issue that has come to the floor and we are considering legislation 
which is supported by a great many members of the freshman class and 
other Members of the Congress, as well?
  Mr. REDMOND. If the gentleman would continue to yield, basically the 
treaty was put on the shelf. It collected a lot of dust. But, as I 
said, here in this city this treaty was forgotten, but it was never 
forgotten in the minds and hearts and in the daily lives of the 
citizens of the State of New Mexico.
  The treaty is very much alive. This treaty was the basis for the 
Native American Land Claims Commission during the 1940s and the 1950s 
and 1960s. There are times it has been pulled off the shelf and 
utilized. But at this particular time, what we are focusing on in this 
new piece of legislation are those pieces of lands that are known as 
land grants.
  Many people in the Midwest would have known them as homesteads. We 
have friends that live in the Midwest that are corn farmers and bean 
farmers and wheat farmers, and they came by their land through a 
document. Some documents were signed by President Martin Van Buren and 
other Presidents of the United States, and they received guaranties 
from the government that if they were to move into a particular area of 
land and build a house, build a barn, settling that area, that they 
could stake a claim and that land became their private land.
  Nobody would ever think of going into Iowa or Illinois or Indiana and 
telling farmers that they could keep their barns, that they could keep 
their house, their corral, their feedlots, but that their fields now 
become Federal property. But this is what happened in New Mexico.
  The law was just slightly different, because under Hispanic law, they 
recognized not only individual homesteads, or land grants, as they were 
called, but it also recognized the establishment of communities and 
municipalities. So, according to law under the Spanish Crown, it was 
required that 10 families move together to an area to create a village, 
to create a community on the frontier of the Hispanic Empire, and it 
was necessary to have 10 families to have what was called a community 
land grant.

[[Page H1518]]

  It was communal in the sense that they shared a common land, but it 
was private in the sense that only those 10 families and their heirs 
had title to that land. They were public lands, but they were public 
only for those immediate families. They were not public for people in 
the land grant next to them or further down the road or someplace else 
in the State of New Mexico. They were not public to other States. They 
were public and common only to the original families.
  Mr. BOB SCHAFFER of Colorado. And what happened over that period of 
time, the Federal Government, as I understand, has come to lay claim to 
most of that land and manages much of the land today either under the 
Bureau of Land Management or through the Forest Service or other 
various Federal, and sometimes, I suppose, State and local entities, as 
well, are in possession of those lands today.
  How was it that the Federal Government became the primary manager of 
those lands today?
  Mr. REDMOND. Well, the land grants that were lost to the Federal 
Government, to the inventory of government land, were lost in various 
ways. There is not a single way in which the land was lost. But let me 
give my colleague an example.
  When New Mexico became a territory, the economy of New Mexico was 
basically a barter economy. It did not operate on a cash basis like the 
States in the East. And so what happened was, when taxes were levied, 
quite often against the Hispanics, which, by the way, at the time that 
the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo was signed, many of the families had 
occupied the land almost 300 years. So if we can imagine a farmer in 
the Midwest owning a farm for 300 years and then all of a sudden the 
government coming and saying, ``You can no longer own this'' after you 
have many generations that have invested in that piece of real estate.

                              {time}  1915

  Basically what happened in many cases is that because they did not 
understand the English language at the time, because they did not 
understand the English law because American law is based on British 
common law, which was different from Spanish common law, that many of 
the folks just did not understand what their obligations were to their 
new government and so taxes were levied and many times the notice of 
taxation was never sent or sent in a very incomplete way, or sent in 
English and they could not read it. You have to remember that this area 
was a conquered area. We gained this territory as a result of the 
Mexican-American War, so it was a conquered area, so there was no 
preparation in terms of engagement with Washington and the East Coast 
culturally, monetarily, economically, and so often people lost their 
land because they did not know that tax was due to the government. 
Often they lost their land because they did not adequately file claims 
and patents according to the American law because they were just 
unaware of it.
  Mr. BOB SCHAFFER of Colorado. Mr. Speaker, I would like the gentleman 
to talk if he would, if he would not mind answering more questions 
about the bill, because these are questions that I think occur to most 
folks who take a general look at the bill. Before I ask a couple of 
more, I would point out in my district in Colorado, Colorado State 
University is the largest higher ed institution in my congressional 
district. There is a professor there who has been holding seminars 
recently and giving public discussions about the Treaty of Guadalupe 
Hidalgo. We had contacted him recently and asked him just about your 
bill and about some of the events that are occurring, the Speaker of 
the House, for example, coming to the gentleman's district to talk with 
many of his constituents about this issue. The Speaker termed these 
events that the gentleman has initiated here in Congress as 
revolutionary, that was the word he had used, and spoke very clearly 
about the absolute validity of the treaty.
  Most of these lands are today managed by various public entities, 
primarily the Federal Government, sometimes other public entities. In 
some cases these lands are now owned by private landowners. That is the 
minority of cases, but that does exist on some of these lands. How 
might the treaty affect those who are private landowners today and 
maybe purchased the land or obtained it legally in some way? How are 
they going to be treated as this bill moves forward?
  Mr. REDMOND. It is important that we do not create two wrongs and 
believe that we are going to make a right out of this. It is very 
important that we honor the treaty and we also go beyond just honoring 
those passages that talk about the right to private property. But in 
the treaty it is very specific that those Hispanics that stayed behind 
to become American citizens, that they had full rights as American 
citizens, which includes the Fifth Amendment, the right to private 
property, and since it is the Federal Government that did not honor and 
protect that right, it is imperative that the Federal Government come 
in and restore that right to the fullest sense possible.
  I parallel this to, for instance, slavery. Some people are saying, 
why are you dealing with an issue that is 150 years old? If we still 
had slavery today, if the Civil War was not successful in eradicating 
slavery in America, I doubt there would be a single Member in this 
Chamber that would vote for the institution of slavery. Just because 
something has been on the table for a long time, you do not use the 
calendar and the clock to determine what is right and what is wrong. In 
this particular case, I believe that the Federal Government should step 
up to the plate, secure the justice for these individuals, and in the 
case for those lands that are now occupied by other individuals who 
have purchased those lands, what we believe should be done is that the 
Federal Government should identify some other land in the government 
inventory, because the government did not protect these rights and that 
that land be swapped out for equal value, not equal acreage, because 
many of the acres that were taken from the Hispanic families was very 
beautiful, mineral rich, timber rich, wildlife rich, and to trade off 
for an area that they could not graze their cattle would not be 
justice. That would be adding insult to injury. So if it is impossible, 
for instance, there are some cases where there are whole towns and 
communities that have grown up in the middle of these land rights, 
where we cannot just give a whole town and a city and community away.
  Mr. BOB SCHAFFER of Colorado. For the gentleman and I who reside out 
in the West, these issues of property rights and public lands, lands 
management in general, public or private, are routine discussions. For 
those who are not familiar with the claims made under the Treaty of 
Guadalupe Hidalgo and other debates and discussions that have ensued 
over the years, this may seem a new issue. It really is not as the 
gentleman has expressed. But it is a relatively new issue in recent 
years for this Congress. In fact, the people of his constituency have 
been discussing the issues, a terribly important one politically, 
culturally and so on in New Mexico and throughout the West, not just 
New Mexico. It really was the gentleman from New Mexico who brought 
this issue to the attention of the full Congress and really revived 
this topic here in Washington.
  Mr. Speaker, I just want to take a second or two here and commend the 
gentleman for having the courage to stand forward and bring an issue to 
Congress that his constituents have been talking about and been 
concerned about for many, many years and for the right and obvious 
reasons, his constituents decided to send him here to Congress. I 
commend them for that as well, and have really empowered him to raise 
their voice here on the House floor. It is an issue that has not been 
raised for quite a long time, he has done it, I think it is a wonderful 
statement on behalf of the people in New Mexico and those in his 
constituency.
  Mr. REDMOND. I appreciate that. But I think the bottom line, we need 
to recognize that this is not about land. This is about the integrity 
of the institution of the government of the United States that stands 
forward and very boldly says that we hold these truths to be self-
evident, that all men are created equal and they are endowed by their 
Creator with certain unalienable rights. In this case, the Federal 
Government did not stand up to the plate and bat on behalf of the 
citizens of the Territory of New Mexico and the citizens of the State 
of New Mexico. And

[[Page H1519]]

so this is not about land, this is about the integrity of our 
institution, of a free, democratic-republican form of government, a 
representative form of government where people have their voice heard. 
The voices of these people have been silenced for almost 150 years. I 
am determined to in this institution let their voices ring all the way 
from New Mexico to this institution. We will not rest until justice is 
done.
  This issue is about who we are as an American people, because many 
people sitting across the Nation, say from Washington State down to 
Florida and New York, Chicago, they might say that this does not deal 
with me. I am here to tell you that it does deal with you, because if 
the Federal Government at one point in the history of our great Nation 
can violate the right of private property for a minority of people, if 
it has been done once, that sets the precedent for this government to 
do it again. That is in direct violation of the Fifth Amendment.

  Mr. BOB SCHAFFER of Colorado. The gentleman has spoken in a very 
general and broad way about the whole issue, the history of the treaty 
and what has occurred since then. Let me go specifically to his bill, 
H.R. 2538. First, let me say the gentleman has worked tirelessly to 
describe the bill to Members of Congress, to make them familiar with 
it, make every Member of Congress familiar with the concerns of his 
constituents and the issue. This bill calls for more study. It does not 
answer the question on how to deal with the treaty just yet. It is 
obvious that it proposes some very perplexing problems in resolving 
many of these ownership and management issues, but his bill establishes 
a presidential commission to study the issue and make recommendations 
back to Congress on what to do next. Tell us a little bit more about 
just the process of what happens after your bill passes.
  Mr. REDMOND. Basically we are looking for a 5-year commission. We 
want to establish a research center north of the City of Espanola in 
Rio Arriba County in my congressional district at the de Onate Center, 
Don Juan de Onate. Basically what we will do is that individuals who 
believe that they have a valid claim can step forward with other 
individuals from their same land grant. They would present the 
documentation and we would work with them on the reconstruction of the 
documentation. Some of the documentation exists in the State of New 
Mexico. Some of the documentation exists in Mexico City. Some of the 
documentation exists in Spain. There is quite a bit of research that is 
going to have to go into this project. We want the heirs, according to 
the treaty, to receive their land, but we also do not want individuals 
filing fraudulent claims and acquiring land that does not rightly 
belong to them.
  The commission is a 5-year commission, it is going to take minimally 
5 years to do the research that is necessary to establish the 
documentation, and at that particular point we will be making a 
recommendation, the commission will be making a recommendation to the 
President of the United States and to this body, the House and the 
Senate, for a final solution for this particular situation.
  Mr. BOB SCHAFFER of Colorado. The Speaker was recently in your 
district talking about a number of issues and visiting town meetings 
and so on, but this issue came up quite a lot. What was the Speaker's 
visit like?
  Mr. REDMOND. Basically the Speaker met with maybe 100 to 200 of the 
heirs of the land grant, the original land grant. They presented to him 
approximately 3,000 signatures from the heirs of the land grants. The 
Speaker was very clear. Of course he is a historian, doctorate in 
history, so being a history buff, he was very intrigued with the 
injustice that was done and he mentioned it as such, he mentioned it 
was injustice. We have the full support of the leadership of the House 
of Representatives. He received the petitions, he has those petitions. 
Our office has a copy of those petitions. He is committed to working 
with myself, the rest of the New Mexico delegation and the cosponsors 
of this bill to see it passes as soon as possible.
  Mr. BOB SCHAFFER of Colorado. Earlier today at one of the freshman 
Republican meetings, you brought the issue up again and addressed the 
class on the topic and also brought some of your constituents with you 
as well who are here from your home State working on the legislation. I 
want you to remind me who they were and tell our colleagues about those 
individuals and their work here in Washington and what they are trying 
to accomplish.
  Mr. REDMOND. We have two distinguished guests with us here in 
Washington that will testify tomorrow before the subcommittee. The 
first is kind of the leader of the people of the land grants. He is a 
leader of the land grant farmers. He has put many, many years into the 
program, bringing the people and the land grants together. His name is 
Roberto Mondragon, former lieutenant governor of the State of New 
Mexico. He is here to testify on behalf of la gente, the people, de 
norte, the people of the north, which is our congressional district. He 
has brought with him Robert Torres, who is the State historian. We will 
be receiving testimony tomorrow not only from myself as their 
representative but also testimony from the people of New Mexico that 
deal directly with this issue and the State historian.
  Mr. BOB SCHAFFER of Colorado. They are going to testify tomorrow, as 
I understand?
  Mr. REDMOND. They will be testifying tomorrow. This bill is truly a 
people bill. We had a rough draft of the bill, we took it to the 
community. There were about 100, 150 land grant heirs that met at the 
de Onate Center north of Espanola. They looked at the bill, I asked 
them is this what you want, and there were some changes. They made the 
changes. We have a couple of changes we would still like to make and 
mark up, but this is truly a bill of the people, for the people, by the 
people. It is remarkable to see firsthand how our form of government 
works. I believe that it is very important that this needs to be 
grassroots, from the bottom up and not from the top down.
  Mr. BOB SCHAFFER of Colorado. That is a theme, if I can kind of move 
to a broader set of philosophical differences that separate you and I 
as Republicans from the other side as Democrats typically. What we see 
here in Washington as a Republican freshman class, we reflect often 
about the kinds of things we are hearing back home in our town 
meetings, we share information about the surveys that we send out to 
our constituents to get their opinions about issues, and share ideas on 
how we can be effective as Members of Congress by involving our 
constituencies in the law making process, in establishing an agenda for 
our districts and ultimately for the country.
  This is kind of a typical thing for us as a small group. It is not 
that typical in Washington in general. I think it really captures what 
he has done in bringing this bill to us, and the manner in which you 
have galvanized support for it back home really is remarkable. At least 
for me, you and our group inspire real confidence in this process and 
how well it can work if the right people are in charge and empowered to 
come back here and take the real role of representative democracy in a 
republican form of government to Washington. Because you are right. 
Seeing citizens, taxpayers, local leaders coming here to Congress, 
drafting their own bill, presenting their arguments, and empowering 
their Congressmen to introduce it and come to the floor here tonight 
and other days, as you have, to speak about it is an inspiring 
occasion. And I just want you to know I have been struck that way 
personally, and wish you very well on moving that legislation forward.

  Any final thoughts or comments on the bill?

                              {time}  1930

  Mr. REDMOND. Well I would just say, I would just encourage as many 
Members as possible to cosign on to the bill. It is a bill 2538; it is 
called the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo Land Grant Claims Commission, 
and it indeed is a bill written by the people, for the people. And we 
are looking forward to having that come before this body, hopefully 
within the next 30 to 60 days, for final passage, and then we can send 
it to the other body and they can consider it and hopefully get it on 
the President's desk as soon as possible. I would like to see this 
become a reality for the people of New Mexico.
  One hundred fifty years is a long time to wait for justice to be 
done, and

[[Page H1520]]

I believe that the Members of this body are committed to seeing that 
justice is done. And so I call upon all my colleagues to not only vote 
for the bill, but to be proactive and to sign on to the bill, and as we 
say in New Mexico, taking off of the first line of the Treaty of 
Guadalupe Hidalgo again, for those that might be joining us, the Treaty 
of Peace, Friendship, Limits and Settlement, signed between the 
Government of the United States of America and the United Mexican 
States on February 2, 1848.
  The treaty begins, ``In the name of Almighty God:'' And I would just 
like to end my portion today, as we would in New Mexico, saying thanks 
to God: Gracias a Dios.
  Mr. BOB SCHAFFER of Colorado. Also joining us tonight is the 
Congressman from the State of Florida (Mr. Weldon), and Mr. Weldon is 
not a member of the freshman class, but we will make him an honorary 
one tonight. He has 2 years' advantage on the rest of us in terms of 
seniority.
  But you know, Mr. Weldon, before I yield time to you, I just want to 
say that we view our role as a freshman class as one of raising a 
number of issues and providing a number of opportunities and actually 
exercising a certain amount of leadership in the Congress as a whole. 
And when we see people who have come here at different times than we 
have, that are doing great things and moving forward on issues that are 
important to the whole country, our goal is not to reinvent the wheel; 
we want to help where we can help and place the greatest amount of 
effort to move our great country forward and exert the kind of 
leadership that I think the American people expect of us.
  And with that, let me turn some time over to you to explain the 
legislation which you have just introduced today, as I understand it.
  Mr. WELDON of Florida. Yes, that is right, and I want to thank you 
for yielding to me, and I certainly want to commend you and the other 
Members of the freshman class of the 105th Congress for the leadership 
roles you have been taking. And in listening to the discussion tonight, 
the gentleman from New Mexico, I think, is representing his district 
very well, and likewise I think the people of Colorado have been well 
served by many of the initiatives that you have been putting forward. 
And I think freshmen, they are fresh, and we always need a fresh look 
around here. This place can get pretty stale at times, and getting 
people coming in from the marketplace, from the outside world coming 
in, I think is a very good thing.
  I thank you for yielding. I wanted to talk a little bit about a piece 
of legislation that I introduced today, along with my good friend and 
colleague, the gentleman from Ohio (Sherrod Brown), the Patient Choice 
and Access to Quality Health Care Act of 1998, H.R. 3547. As most of my 
colleagues know, prior to coming to the United States Congress, I was a 
practicing physician. I practiced internal medicine, specifically 
general internal medicine. I took care of a lot of senior citizens, 
people on Medicare. I took care of a lot of people with chronic 
illnesses, diabetes, arthritis. I practiced for 8 years in private 
practice. Prior to that, I had practiced in the army. And in private 
practice, I had the opportunity to do some managed care, and I have to 
say that I have seen the good side and the bad side of managed care, I 
have seen the good side and the bad side of standard fee-for-service 
medical care, and there really is no perfect system. Any system has its 
good points and its bad points, but clearly today in America we are 
seeing a trend that I think is very dangerous. It is a trend within the 
managed care industry to compromise quality for the sake of saving the 
bottom line; in other words, putting dollars ahead of patients, and I 
think that is wrong.
  In particular, there are some managed care entities that are 
compromising quality so much for the sake of profits that it is putting 
pressure on some of the honest and well-run managed care entities. And 
this country has many things about it that makes it great, and I cannot 
within the confines of the time yielded, describe all of those things. 
But one of those things, as we all know, is that we have the best 
health care system in the world, the best quality health care, the most 
innovative care. So this piece of legislation, the Patient Choice and 
Access to Quality Health Care Act, is a reasonable proposal, I think, 
to rein in some of the excesses of the managed care industry.
  Specifically, the bill has provisions that assures adequate access to 
specialty care for in-network care; also some provisions for grievance 
for enrollees. Also, there are provisions required of the plan to 
notify the enrollees when they are enrolling of what restrictions they 
may have on access to various types of specialists. Importantly, there 
is a provision that places restrictions on health care providers being 
provided financial incentives not to refer patients. We have provisions 
in existing Medicare law prohibiting plans from allowing doctors to get 
extra money for referring patients, but we do not have any provisions 
that prevent plans from giving doctors money for not referring 
patients, and in this legislation we limit that or we prohibit that 
specifically.
  We also have a provision in here, a so-called gag prohibition against 
gag clauses that would allow doctors to freely communicate with their 
patients. There is also an out-of-network provision, where if patients 
choose to, they can exercise that option and the plans will be allowed 
to charge patients extra for going outside the plan.
  This is a very, very reasonable piece of legislation. It is a 
bipartisan piece of legislation. It does not require the creation of 
vast new bureaucracies that would have to monitor the entire industry. 
It will allow managed care to continue, but it places reasonable 
restrictions on managed care restrictions that I would like to point 
out will serve well to maintain quality.
  Most of the provisions in my legislation are provisions that were 
voted on in this body previously and passed overwhelmingly by this 
body, by the Senate, and signed by the President. Specifically, these 
are all provisions that we already placed on the Medicare plan, and 
some of the provisions as well are already preexisting within Kennedy-
Kassebaum legislation that was passed last year.

  I think this bill will go a long way to deal with many of the 
problems and the frustrations that we see today in the health care 
marketplace. We all know that there are many excesses within the 
managed care plans that exist out there.
  I was reminded recently, as a physician I still practice 
occasionally, and I spoke to a nurse not too long ago who was 
complaining to me that her mother, elderly mother who lived in another 
State, not in Florida, who was enrolled in a managed care plan, had 
fallen and broken her nose. She could not breathe through her nose when 
lying down, so she had to sleep sitting up. And the managed care entity 
was refusing to pay for fixing this problem, it is called a 
rhinoplasty, claiming that it was cosmetic surgery on an elderly lady. 
Clearly, this was totally inappropriate. Fortunately, the managed care 
entity relented and finally paid for the rhinoplasty.
  Now this is a minor incident, and I can tell you that I have heard 
much, much worse cases. Indeed, there are cases out there where people 
have suffered severe harm as a consequence of denial of appropriate 
medical care within managed care entities, including cases where there 
have been deaths.
  So in my opinion, legislation is long overdue, and this piece of 
legislation that I am putting forward is a reasonable proposal, it is a 
bipartisan proposal, and I would encourage all my colleagues to look at 
this legislation, and I encourage all my colleagues to sign on to it.
  Mr. BOB SCHAFFER of Colorado. As my colleague knows, he mentioned at 
the outset of his comments that there are good HMOs and there are those 
that seem to be prone on occasion to various abuses and failure to 
comply with the contractual agreements that they have established for 
themselves and their clients.
  With respect to the bill and this grievance process and complaint 
process, there are good examples out in the free market right now, 
there are good examples of HMOs that have a good grievance process. 
This bill moves us toward allowing those kinds of questions and 
concerns to be aired in a timely manner.
  Mr. WELDON of Florida. The bill requires that all managed care 
entities

[[Page H1521]]

set up a grievance committee, and it should be, it can be made up of 
people, doctors that are in the plan, administrators that are in the 
plan, but it also calls for patients to be enrolled or patients in the 
grievance committee and, as well, people who are outside the plan.
  And you know, I have an aunt and uncle up in New York who have been 
in a managed care plan all their adult life. They love it, they think 
it is wonderful. It is a well-run plan, the best that I can determine. 
So when you say there are good managed care plans, there are.
  But I will tell you that some of the good managed care plans are 
being squeezed by the unscrupulous managed care plans who will 
frequently come into a community, low-ball prices, sign people up, put 
pressure on those good plans to reduce their prices or they will go out 
of business. And how do they do that? Well, how do those unscrupulous 
plans do that? Well, they deny services, is typically what they do. 
They deny access to specialists.
  And might I also add, I am a primary care provider. I still see 
patients about once a month, and I used to refer. When I was practicing 
medicine, I used to refer probably, maybe 10 times a day I would refer 
somebody do a specialist. But I saw 30 to 40 people a day, and I prided 
myself in taking care of my patients and not referring them all out to 
specialists.
  This piece of legislation is not to protect specialists, but when I 
needed to, I referred those patients to specialists for one and only 
one reason: because it was in the best interests of those patients, 
because they had a problem, they had a condition that I as a general 
internist could not handle.
  What is wrong is when we provide financial incentives, which is what 
some of these plans are doing, to doctors to not refer because that 
compromises the doctor-patient relationship. The patient comes in to 
see the doctor; there should only be one thing on that doctor's mind: 
What is best for that patient? And if there is a financial incentive 
for him not to refer, then that is wrong, and we correct that in this 
legislation.
  And might I also add, when I used to make those referrals, the best 
thing for those patients, and I was happy to do that even though in 
many cases, you know, in particular the cancer cases, I will say, I 
frequently did not see much of them anymore. They would go to the 
cancer specialist, they would get their chemotherapy, and in terms of, 
you know, income off of that, it was not for me. They were off to see a 
specialist. But you know, I was very comfortable with that. I felt 
nothing was more important than making sure that the patients got to 
see the specialist they needed to see.

                              {time}  1945

  It was part of the Hippocratic oath, as far as I was concerned, that 
I took when I graduated from medical school. We have seen a corruption 
of those basic fundamental principles in the health care marketplace.
  I think this legislation is something that you would want to support. 
I encourage you to look at it, and I would encourage you to sign on.
  Mr. BOB SCHAFFER of Colorado. Well, purchasing these insurance 
products, being enrolled in an HMO is something that consumers need to 
spend a lot of time on, because you can make bad choices. The appeal of 
low premiums often comes at the expense of, as you mentioned, reduced 
service.
  Just from a business perspective in managing a cash flow, if you are 
operating on fewer revenues and fewer dollars and doing so to maintain 
that competitive edge, frequently that comes at the expense, of from a 
consumer's perspective, of strategies of delay. They see nontreatment 
of various ailments that they thought might have been covered.
  You really need to read those policies very, very closely. There is 
nothing wrong with buying a cheap policy if that is what you want, if 
you are willing to deal with the consequences of inadequate care.
  I do not think your bill prohibits that, but it certainly says that 
the patients and customers ought to be fully knowledgeable about and 
fully apprised of what they are purchasing, the exact terms, the exact 
limitations that may occur, so that they know that the policy that they 
hold is exactly what they pay for.
  Mr. WELDON of Florida. Well, in the legislation, we have a provision 
that requires that before they enroll, they have to be counseled 
regarding any limitations on access to specialists, any out-of-pocket 
expenses that are associated with going outside the plan. There is a 
whole list of requirements.
  This is basically informed consent, as far as I am concerned. I was 
not a surgeon. I was a general internist, so I did not do a lot of 
procedures, but I did a few. I would take some skin lesions off, and I 
do do some other procedures. Whenever I would do anything like that, I 
would always say to somebody, like if they had a skin lesion on their 
face and I had to remove it, I would explain to them, you might have a 
scar. We call that informed consent. You inform them.
  What my bill requires is basically that sort of thing when the health 
care plan enrolls the person in the HMO; that if you are going to be 
restricted, that you can only see certain primary care providers, they 
need to be counseled on that. If there are restrictions on specialists 
they can see, they need to be made aware of that.
  A perfect example of how people are not aware of these sorts of 
things, in my community, I had an oral surgeon complain to me. This is 
a typical scenario that he has occur to him. Somebody comes to his 
office at 5 o'clock on a Friday afternoon, with a big infected tooth 
that requires surgery and antibiotics. He gets them all ready to be 
admitted to the hospital. He gets them all ready to be admitted to the 
hospital. He gets them prepped and everything, and they discover the 
managed care plan that that person signed onto requires that they 
travel to another city 60 miles away to see another doctor who they 
have never seen before.
  What my bill says, they can still do that. The managed care plan can 
do that. They just have to inform the enrollees. I call them patients, 
but in insurance language, you call them enrollees. Inform the 
enrollees that those are the prohibitions, the restrictions on them in 
this plan so that they know.
  I think that will be better, actually, for the managed care plans. I 
think that they will get fewer complaints. I think they will have 
enrollees who are better understanding of the plan and hopefully better 
satisfied.
  I think my bill is not only good for patients, it is good for the 
managed care industry as well. It is going to place good, reasonable 
restrictions. It is going to help the managed care industry to clean up 
its act.
  Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman very much for yielding me the 
time.
  Mr. BOB SCHAFFER of Colorado. The gentleman from Florida's expertise 
as a physician is very valuable to all Members of Congress, and we seek 
that wisdom and guidance routinely. I appreciate your leadership here 
tonight.
  We have got less than 10 minutes left, and I want to change subjects 
real quick, because another great leader of the Congress is with us 
tonight, also not a freshman, but an honorary one at the moment, and we 
will make him so. That is the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Smith), who 
has been providing a lot of leadership and guidance with respect to 
balancing our budget, one of our key themes and objectives that we are 
trying to achieve as a Republican Congress.
  It is quite a difficult balance when we have a number of programs 
that we need to manage. We want to save Social Security, Medicare, and 
so on, and guarantee the strongest and safest, most secure retirement 
system in the world and, at the same time, balance our budget. I 
believe we can do both. But we have not achieved that just yet, in 
spite of the celebration and claims you might see over at the White 
House.
  Mr. SMITH of Michigan. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman would yield, 
first off, I want to tell everybody that might be watching this special 
order that we thank the gentleman from Colorado (Mr. Bob Schaffer) for 
providing this leadership. And anybody that does not know, the 
gentleman from Colorado, president of the freshman class, has really 
spearheaded this legislation through.
  I am just starting my sixth year in Congress. And what is great about 
the new freshman class is they bring in

[[Page H1522]]

new energy and new ideas. So I commend the gentleman from Colorado on 
that.
  In terms of balancing the budget, I think this country needs to start 
making decisions of how big do we want government to be, how much of 
the money that we earn do we want to pay out in taxes?
  Of course, if you are an average American, you pay about 40 cents out 
of every dollar you earn in taxes at the local, State, and national 
level. Of course, taxes are especially appropriate at this time of year 
because most Americans, by the April 15 date, are going to be required 
to shell out of their pockets and pay money into the Federal Government 
in taxes.
  So I would just urge everybody as they look at their taxes, make sure 
that you look at your W-2 form. How much has already been deducted from 
your paycheck to send to the Federal Government, and how much has been 
deducted from your paycheck in the so-called FICA taxes, the amount 
that is deducted for Social Security and Medicare, because it is 
getting larger and larger.
  We have had a system of government where so often, the Members 
elected to the Congress, and even the President of the United States, 
they say, look, we are going to do more things for more people, and 
they do not say we are going to tax you more, or we are going to borrow 
you more so you have to pay more in interest. But it has become sort of 
a system where, if you come with more spending and more programs and 
more pork barrel projects, then you take these home to your districts 
and get on the front page of the paper, cutting the ribbon, or on 
television.

  So in the past, it has increased the propensity that you are going to 
get reelected if you do more things and spend more money and tax the 
Americans more. I think the Americans are starting to wise up to these 
pork barrel projects.
  I would just encourage everybody, as we go through the election 
process for this fall's election, that everybody start going to those 
debate meetings. Everybody start asking those Members that are running 
for Congress, look, when are you going to stop taxing us so much? Let 
us start keeping some of that money so that we can spend it the way we 
want to, or we can start saving it and investing it to help secure our 
retirement future.
  Mr. BOB SCHAFFER of Colorado. There really is a need for nationwide 
study or review or recollection of the concept of federalism in the 
United States, because I think every single day, we in the Congress, 
and this is what we fight for as a Republican Party, fight for forcing 
this institution to come to grips with what is the appropriate role of 
the Federal Government.
  There are many functions of government that are appropriate, that are 
public endeavors that need to be undertaken at one level or another, 
but that is the key phrase right there.
  Mr. SMITH of Michigan. Yes.
  Mr. BOB SCHAFFER of Colorado. One level or another.
  Mr. SMITH of Michigan. Should all good causes be implemented into 
Federal law? And I think what I hear you saying is no.
  Mr. BOB SCHAFFER of Colorado. I frequently look to the U.S. 
Department of Education, for example. Now, all of us in this Congress 
would agree, the most conservative and most liberal Members alike, that 
a strong public education system is absolutely essential, and it is 
central to maintaining the Republic.
  The second question, though, that begins to divide us is at what 
level do we best deliver a public education system. Is it Federal, 
State, or local? The first place we ought to look is the United States 
Constitution.
  I would defy anyone in this Congress to find where it is in this 
Constitution that the Federal Government has been empowered to manage 
local school districts. It is not there. We have never been empowered 
here yet.
  Just as you said a moment ago, there are Members of Congress who, at 
election time, cannot resist the opportunity to get on the front page 
of the local newspaper or cut the ribbon at some institution and spend 
other people's money on a function of government that is important but 
probably is better situated at the State level, as the Constitution 
suggests.
  Mr. SMITH of Michigan. So often what happens is, though we are not 
authorized under the Constitution to pass laws, what we do is a 
combination of bribery and blackmail in trying to impose the will of 
the Federal government on local jurisdictions.
  So we say, look, if you do it the way we in Washington think you 
should do it, if you do it the Washington bureaucratic way, then you 
can have some of the money back that you paid us in the first place in 
taxes.
  In the transportation bills in the past, we said, look, you cannot 
have the transportation dollars that you sent us in the first place 
unless you do such things as lower your speed limit. You cannot have 
the education money the President is suggesting unless you use it to 
build a building or unless you use it to do this or unless you use it 
for the things that we say. The propensity of Washington is that they 
are elitist. They think they can make the decisions better than the 
people at the State and local level.
  I think it is important that we start looking at reducing the tax 
burdens so the American workers can start experiencing the creation of 
wealth. If we would tax a little bit less, then they would have the 
opportunity to start saving and investing and see the magic of compound 
interest where, at some of the interest rate, some of the returns that 
we have experienced, for example, has been very astonishing. We need to 
give that opportunity for the creation of wealth to more people.
  Mr. BOB SCHAFFER of Colorado. Well said. Our Republican vision here 
as the majority party in Congress is to lower the effective tax rate on 
the American people from over 40 percent, where it is today, 40 percent 
of income down to 25 percent at a maximum. It could possibly even go 
lower than that. But I think as a general goal that we ought to shoot 
for, this is the target that we have set for ourselves.
  It is not going to happen overnight, certainly. But as far as 
establishing a direction and a goal for the American people, it is this 
side of the aisle, the Republican Party, led in many respects by our 
freshman class and with the leadership and encouragement of you and 
other Members of Congress to get us toward a 25 percent overall 
effective tax rate. That is at Federal, State, and local levels of 
government. The cost of being a free citizen in America should not be 
more than one-quarter of your annual family income.
  Mr. SMITH of Michigan. That has got to be an ultimate goal. The other 
goal that the gentleman from Colorado and I both agree with is we have 
got to start paying down the Federal debt. Right now, the interest on 
that $5\1/2\ trillion that the Federal Government has borrowed 
represents 15 percent of the total Federal budget. So we are going to 
use a lot of this extra money that it looks like it is coming in in 
surplus and, to be sure, it is not a real surplus, because we are 
borrowing from the Social Security trust fund.
  I thank the gentleman from Colorado very much for participating in 
this hour.
  Mr. BOB SCHAFFER of Colorado. These are great topics that we will 
pick up at another time. Our hour is about to expire.
  Mr. Speaker, the freshman class will be back in 1 week.

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