[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 146 (Wednesday, October 14, 1998)]
[House]
[Pages H10878-H10879]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




         MANY ISSUES FOR THE WANING HOURS OF THE 105TH CONGRESS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentlewoman from Texas (Ms. Jackson-Lee) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Ms. JACKSON-LEE of Texas. Mr. Speaker, if I might just take a moment? 
I see my good friend, Joe Kennedy, is on the floor of the House, and

[[Page H10879]]

I was not able to pay tribute to him along with my colleague, 
Representative Henry Gonzalez, and I just wanted them both to know, and 
I hope to extend my remarks in the Record, how much I appreciate their 
leadership for the Nation. Mr. Kennedy has been long known as an 
advocate for the least of those and particularly as he has helped in 
dollars to assist those seniors without the resources to give them good 
heating in the winter and air conditioning in the summer, and that is a 
tough place to be in. So I thank him for his leadership, his kindness, 
his recognition that the voiceless need a voice.
  And then there is nothing more to be said about our senior leader in 
the Texas delegation, Henry Gonzalez, who has for years been a fighter 
on equal opportunity and home buying in America. He, too, has lifted up 
those who are voiceless. He is a giant of a person with kindness and 
dignity, and we wish him well, and we wish my good friend, Joe Kennedy, 
well as they retire from this body.
  Mr. Speaker, I want to talk about what we can do in these last waning 
hours, and that is why I am here today, because certainly there are 
many issues in my district. We have just faced flooding about a month 
or so ago, and many of my constituents are trying to rebuild their 
homes. There is a great need for modernization of our schools, and so 
there is a lot that we, as Members of Congress, could be doing in our 
local communities. But I would like to assure you, Mr. Speaker, that we 
can actually do some good here.
  There is no reason, Mr. Speaker, why we cannot pass the school 
modernization legislation that allows us to rebuild our crumbling 
schools so that schools like those in my district whose roofs are 
falling in, the wiring is not good, we can actually bring tax relief 
locally by providing tax credits for those constituents who are putting 
in bonds in order to rebuild their schools. We can do that.
  Mr. Speaker, we can have a real actual collaboration on the census. 
We understand that sampling is documented by the National Academy of 
Sciences, the National Foundation of Sciences, which indicate that 
sampling is the best and accurate way to count the 2000 census. We can 
still do that, Mr. Speaker.
  And frankly I think that we can answer our constituents on the 
question of a good Patient Bill of Rights. We can do that. We can 
balance the rights of physicians and patients. We can overcome the 
burden of HMOs who tell you that you cannot get the service at this 
emergency room or you cannot continue with this doctor. We can do that, 
Mr. Speaker.
  We can help the home health care agencies. We can tell them that the 
interim payment system that is brutalizing them, keeping them from 
keeping our seniors in their homes with their children and protecting 
them a way from the hospital system or the nursing home, we can get a 
better system for those small agencies, and I am determined to do so.
  And finally, Mr. Speaker, something I would like to talk about that I 
know America can do because America is a land of equality and good 
conscience and good-faith. We can pass the Hate Crimes Protection Act. 
Matthew Shepard should not die in vain, and neither should James Baird, 
and I believe that we who believe, who are believers, as well as those 
who want to offer the secular reasons for doing so, even if you may 
disagree with the beliefs that you think Matthew Shepard represented, 
he is a human being, and he was killed because of his sexual 
orientation and because of his difference.

                              {time}  1530

  James Baird was killed and dismembered, beheaded in Texas, because he 
was black. There is no reason why we cannot pass a Hate Crimes 
Protection Act of 1998 that protects the disabled, it protects you if 
your religion is different, if your race is different, if your gender 
is different, if your sexual orientation is different.
  We have had some 21 members of the gay lesbian community killed in 
this Nation because of their difference, and 10,000 hate crimes in this 
Nation. One person who testified in our hearings in the Committee on 
the Judiciary said very clearly, ``I am not gay, but because it was 
perceived that I was gay, I was brutally beaten.''
  Do we want to have a Nation that fights China on human rights 
grounds, that fights countries in Africa on human rights ground, and 
yet not stand up and be counted here on the basic human decency of not 
beating somebody so brutally, hitting them over the head that you crush 
their skull, leaving like a scarecrow on a fence?
  This is not about Wyoming. This is not about the good people of 
Wyoming or the good people in Texas or the good people in Ohio or the 
good people in Washington, DC. It is about a Federal standard that 
insists on human decency. It is about the fact that we have only 40 
states that have passed their laws, that Wyoming has defeated hate 
crimes laws three times, that Texas hate crimes laws were so weak that 
we could not even prosecute those who dismembered Mr. Baird, and we may 
have a problem prosecuting those in Wyoming.
  Let us do the right thing and pass the hate crimes protection act and 
all the other good initiatives that the American people want.

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