[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 146 (Wednesday, October 14, 1998)]
[House]
[Pages H10882-H10883]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




  THE STATUS OF LEGISLATION RECOMMENDED BY THE WOMEN'S CONGRESSIONAL 
                                 CAUCUS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentlewoman from the District of Columbia (Ms. Norton) is recognized 
for 5 minutes.
  Ms. NORTON. Mr. Speaker, I come to the floor this afternoon in 
sincere gratitude and sincere regret, in my capacity as chair of this 
session of the Women's Congressional Caucus. In that capacity I have 
worked most productively with the cochair, the gentlewoman from 
Connecticut (Mrs. Nancy Johnson). The work we have produced I think 
indicates what happens when Members work together.
  I want to say a word about my gratitude, and then how what we have 
achieved has been quite overwhelmed by what women have been denied. I 
want to acknowledge the innovations that we designed this year, and the 
must-pass agenda. It had the help of the Speaker, gentleman from 
Georgia (Mr. Gingrich) and the minority leader, the gentleman from 
Missouri (Mr. Gephardt).
  Three of our seven priorities were passed. Two were vital to women: 
the reauthorization of the Mammography Quality Standards Act, which 
assures women that both the equipment and personnel involved in 
mammograms are up to standards; and sections of the Violence Against 
Women Act. There was a third important bill on our must-pass agenda, 
the Commission on Women, Minorities, and People with Disabilities in 
Science, Engineering, and Technology Jobs.

                              {time}  1600

  Two more bills of great importance to women I want to acknowledge. We 
beat back an attempt to take women out of basic training and separate 
them from men, and we passed an Innocent Spouse Tax Relief Act. These 
are very important, and I do not want to denigrate what they are.
  But, Mr. Speaker, these are overwhelmed by the regret that I bring to 
the floor this afternoon and that regret boils down to the three Cs: 
Choice, Contraception and Child Care.
  Mr. Speaker, if we were to ask women how they would rate this 
Congress, I think the three Cs would give us an F. Choice, because 
since the majority took control, we have had a hundred votes on choice, 
which should be a

[[Page H10883]]

settled vote in this body, 23 of them in the 105th Congress. We 
continue to be obsessed with choice, though the American people have 
laid this issue to rest. In this Congress, the Hyde amendment is no 
longer an appropriation rider, but became law. Shame on us.
  Perhaps the greatest disappointment was in contraception, where we 
had a case study on how victory can be stolen from women. Because both 
the House and the Senate voted to include the full range of 
contraceptive coverage for Federal employees in Federal employees' 
health plans. This, which had the support of this body, majority 
support of this body, passed by voice vote in the Senate and was 
stripped out in conference in a move that deserves remark for its 
profound anti-democratic tactics.
  Then there is the one issue we hoped would be passed this year. This 
should have been the year of the child. Child care would have made it 
the year of the child. The Women's Caucus put together what we thought 
was a bipartisan set of principles that would produce child care in 
this session. Something for each side of the aisle. For Democrats who 
tend to be concerned about working families, more low-income 
certificates. Particularly, because the welfare to work is absorbing 
all of the child care, leaving little for women who want to go to work, 
for them, for low-income families. And then for stay-at-home spouses, 
we said we would accept a bill for tax relief for stay-at-home spouses, 
and then we would accept quality that was State imposed and the Federal 
Government would assist the States to bring up the quality of child 
care.
  Mr. Speaker, anybody who cannot get a bipartisan bill for our 
children out of that is not trying hard enough, and we have not tried 
hard enough in the 105th Congress as long as mainstream issues like 
choice, contraception, like child care are not done by this Congress.
  Whatever we do, including the must-pass victories of the Women's 
Caucus, will be overwhelmed when the gavel goes down on this Congress. 
As delighted as I am by the passage of three of our four priorities, we 
of the Women's Caucus of the 105th Congress will have to answer the 
question: ``What did you do for women in the 105th?'' The answer from 
American women will be: Not much.

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