[Congressional Record Volume 145, Number 146 (Monday, October 25, 1999)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E2167-E2168]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




 IN RECOGNITION OF ALLEN I. POLSBY, OUTGOING ASSOCIATE GENERAL COUNSEL 
FOR LEGISLATION AND REGULATIONS OF THE DEPARTMENT OF HOUSING AND URBAN 
                              DEVELOPMENT

                                 ______
                                 

                           HON. SAM GEJDENSON

                             of connecticut

                    in the house of representatives

                        Monday, October 25, 1999

  Mr. GEJDENSON. Mr. Speaker, in one of the many transitions that are 
taking place at the Department of Housing and Urban Development, Allen 
I. Polsby, a mainstay of the Office of General Counsel as Associate 
General Counsel for Legislation and Regulations, has moved to new 
duties. Al Polsby grew up in my district, on a farm in Norwichtown, and 
attended Samuel Huntington Elementary School in the 1940's. Many 
members of his family, starting in the 1890's, have been prominent in 
the civic, commercial, educational, medical, and religious affairs of 
New London County. He has maintained his personal ties to the area 
through, for example, his membership on the board of directors of the 
New England Hebrew Farmers Society of Chesterfield, of which his great-
grandfather was an original incorporator. But he has made his 
professional contributions nationally, as a lawyer and Federal civil 
servant.
  For the past 25 years and more, Mr. Polsby has had a hand in the 
technical, legal aspects of virtually every appropriations measure that 
has affected HUD and funding for assisted housing and community 
development nationally. On the basis of his technical mastery, legal 
erudition, and a singular fair-mindedness that permitted him to 
generate and keep the trust of every political and technical 
participant in the appropriations process during his tenure, his views 
have also often resulted in affecting how the policies of 
appropriations were made.
  The best example of Mr. Polsby's impact on policy is in the now-
accepted practices relating to the permitted uses of various classes of 
unexpended funds carried over from one fiscal year to the next. The 
legal theories on which these practices have been based, and which have 
in turn been one of the impetuses for the

[[Page E2168]]

custom of reprogramming notifications, have to a large extent been 
created and developed by Mr. Polsby. Historically, based on these legal 
theories, many billions of dollars, particularly for assisted housing, 
have been made available that would not otherwise have been used.
  On a technical level, one needs only to compare an appropriation law 
of 25 years ago with a current one to see Mr. Polsby's impact, along 
with that of many other people, on the modernization of the 
appropriations laws. Among the features of current appropriations laws, 
not found 25 years ago, that Mr. Polsby contributed are serially 
numbered administrative provisions, and cross-citations for 
appropriations laws, which are in general not codified, to the U.S. 
Statutes at Large. These and many other basic technical innovations 
were a result of Mr. Polsby's application of a personal standard to the 
drafts of appropriations bill texts. The standard is in this question: 
Can an able lawyer far from a Federal Depository Library, such as in 
Norwichtown, decipher the text? Any time the answer to this question 
was ``no,'' another innovation has soon followed.

  Mr. Polsby has carried responsibility for many other legislative 
duties, in addition to appropriations. These have included the drafting 
of such bills as the Federal Housing Corporation Charter Act, largely 
in H.R. 2975, 105th Cong., 1st Sess., which is a conceptual and 
technical landmark despite the fact that it was not enacted. He is also 
the draftsman of the America's Private Investment Companies Act bill, 
H.R. 2764 and S. 1565, 106th Cong., 1st Sess., which is part of the 
Clinton administration's New Markets Initiative. Mr. Polsby has also 
been one of the participants in the drafting of almost all HUD 
legislation during the past 20 years, and more recently, as Associate 
General Counsel, has supervised the legislation and regulations 
functions within the Office of General Counsel at HUD.
  In transition to new duties, Mr. Polsby served briefly, for the 
second time in his career, as acting General Counsel of HUD. He became 
HUD's Associate General Counsel for Appeals in September.
  After a few years in private practice, Allen I. Polsby started his 
civil service career in 1963 as a trial lawyer at the Civil Aeronautics 
Board. While there, he tried several formal cases and argued appeals to 
the 5-member Board, but his most lasting impact has come from an 
informal matter before the Board. The matter was whether to approve a 
senior citizens discount fare tariff. Eighty years of consistent 
precedent made by Federal transportation regulatory agencies, including 
the CAB, supported disapproval. Mr. Polsby proposed a reinterpretation 
of the Federal Aviation Act of 1958 that supplied a sound legal basis 
for approving the discount fares tariff. The CAB approved the fares on 
that basis, and other regulatory agencies soon followed in approving 
senior citizen discounts under their jurisdictions.
  Mr. Polsby first came to HUD in 1966, and served his apprenticeship 
as a legislative draftsman under the tutelage of the established 
master, Hilbert Fefferman. Mr. Polsby also worked in the office of 
program counsel for the Model Cities Program and the Government 
National Mortgage Association, and in many other capacities at HUD over 
the years.
  Allen I. Polsby is a graduate of Brown University and the George 
Washington University Law School. He is married to Gail K. Polsby, a 
private psychotherapist and long-time faculty member at the Washington 
School of Psychiatry. The now live in Bethesda, MD. Their two children 
are adutls--Dan, a lawyer named for his long-deceased grandfather, and 
Abigail, a professional wilderness guide.
  Mr. Speaker, Allen Polsby has had significant opportunities in his 
career to contribute to the development of public and legal policy. He 
has made the most of these opportunities to improve housing policy and 
develop innovative legal doctrine. I wish him all the best in his 
future endeavors.

                          ____________________