[Congressional Record Volume 150, Number 101 (Tuesday, July 20, 2004)]
[House]
[Pages H5998-H6001]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
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PROVIDING FOR CONSIDERATION OF H.R. 4850, DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA
APPROPRIATIONS ACT, 2005
Mr. LINDER. Mr. Speaker, by direction of the Committee on Rules, I
call up House Resolution 724 and ask for its immediate consideration.
The Clerk read the resolution, as follows:
H. Res. 724
Resolved, That at any time after the adoption of this
resolution the Speaker may, pursuant to clause 2(b) of rule
XVIII, declare the House resolved into the Committee of the
Whole House on the state of the Union for consideration of
the bill (H.R. 4850) making appropriations for the government
of the District of Columbia and other activities chargeable
in whole or in part against the revenues of said District for
the fiscal year ending September 30, 2005, and for other
purposes. The first reading of the bill shall be dispensed
with. All points of order against consideration of the bill
are waived. General debate shall be confined to the bill and
shall not exceed one hour equally divided and controlled by
the chairman and ranking minority member of the Committee on
Appropriations. After general debate the bill shall be
considered for amendment under the five-minute rule. Points
of order against provisions in the bill for failure to comply
with clause 2 of rule XXI are waived except: sections 116,
126, 130, and 131. During consideration of the bill for
amendment, the Chairman of the Committee of the Whole may
accord priority in recognition on the basis of whether the
Member offering an amendment has caused it to be printed in
the portion of the Congressional Record designated for that
purpose in clause 8 of rule XVIII. Amendments so printed
shall be considered as read. At the conclusion of
consideration of the bill for amendment the Committee shall
rise and report the bill to the House with such amendments as
may have been adopted. The previous question shall be
considered as ordered on the bill and amendments thereto to
final passage without intervening motion except one motion to
recommit with or without instructions.
The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Bonilla). The gentleman from Georgia
(Mr. Linder) is recognized for 1 hour.
Mr. LINDER. Mr. Speaker, for the purpose of debate only, I yield the
customary 30 minutes to the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Hastings),
pending which I yield myself such time as I may consume. During
consideration of this resolution, all time yielded is for the purpose
of debate only.
H. Res. 724 provides for consideration of H.R. 4850, the District of
Columbia Appropriations Act of 2005, under an open rule, as is
customary with most annual appropriations measures.
I am very pleased that the normal, open amendment process outlined in
H. Res. 724 will allow a Member to offer any amendment to the bill, as
long as it complies with the standing rules of the House.
The rule provides 1 hour of debate in the House on the bill equally
divided and controlled by the chairman and ranking minority member of
the Committee on Appropriations. The resolution waives all points of
order against consideration of the bill.
H. Res. 724 waives points of order against provisions in the bill for
failure to comply with clause 2 of rule XXI, which prohibits
unauthorized appropriations or legislative provisions in an
appropriations bill, except as specified in the resolution.
H. Res. 724 also authorizes the Chair to accord priority in
recognition to Members who have preprinted their amendments in the
Congressional Record. This procedure will help the House in considering
amendments in a more orderly manner. Finally, H. Res. 724 provides for
one motion to recommit with or without instructions.
Mr. Speaker, with respect to the underlying legislation, I want to
begin by commending the chairman of the Subcommittee on the District of
Columbia of the Committee on Appropriations, the gentleman from New
Jersey (Mr. Frelinghuysen). He has done a good job in working with the
gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Fattah) in crafting H.R. 4850, and the
bill deserves the support of the House today.
This provides the District of Columbia with a $560 million Federal
payment, and it provides $8.2 billion in
[[Page H5999]]
funds for the District of Columbia's governmental activities. Both of
these figures match the President's budget request.
On a parenthetical note, I would note that the county in which I
live, Gwinnett County, Georgia, has 50 percent more citizens than the
District of Columbia and provides all the same services with the
exception of welfare, and it does it for $1 billion a year.
Mr. Speaker, this rule provides for an open amendment process for
consideration of the FY 2005 District of Columbia appropriations bill.
I urge my colleagues to support this fair rule.
Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. HASTINGS of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I
may consume.
Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Linder) for the
time.
Mr. Speaker, this rule is typical for most appropriations bills, and
I would support it. I rise today, albeit reluctantly, in support of the
District of Columbia appropriations bill for fiscal year 2005.
Mr. Speaker, as there is no perfect legislation and certainly not
when it comes to funding matters, I would be remiss if I did not say
that the bill includes provisions that are controversial and
detrimental, in my view, to the District's residents and the country as
a whole. I do not have to tell any of my colleagues about the
uniqueness of the District of Columbia as a Federal city.
It is the only place in the Nation where constitutionally Congress
can exercise micromanagement at the highest and lowest levels. It is
the petri dish of the country where the ideological differences of
those in this body wreak havoc on the lives of some 560,000-plus
District of Columbia residents.
Taking into consideration the fact that the District of Columbia has
no voting representation in Congress, we should be mindful of the
privileged duties and be careful not to put our own parochial agendas
on the table when considering this legislation. The underlying
legislation includes a direct Federal funding increase for the District
of $18 million over last year. A large part of the increase will go
towards paying the cost of the District's court system as well as
related criminal justice programs.
The bill also provides for direct appropriations for the Resident
Tuition Support program and $13 million for District of Columbia
charter schools. It also includes $14 million for school vouchers,
despite the fact that a significant portion of the funds appropriated
last year for this controversial program went unused.
The underlying legislation also includes legislative riders that
prohibit the use of funds for abortions, registering same-sex couples.
And for the distribution of clean needles and syringes. This bill has
quickly become a smorgasbord of controversy.
Hot-button social issues should not enter into play when considering
the needs and lives of the residents of the Nation's capital. It is
high time that we as lawmakers in this great body stop playing
political chess games with our responsibility to this process. We
should allow the people of Washington, D.C. to govern themselves.
Funding for the education of the Nation's children and the overall
healthy well-being of its citizens should be our primary focus and
goal. The District of Columbia appropriations bill is not the stage to
act out experimental projects that will not necessarily prove
beneficial in the end. We must be mindful of the District's citizens
that we have been given charge of. They are silenced in this process by
the Constitution, and we must be responsible in our actions on their
behalf.
I urge my colleagues to consider this responsibility when voting on
the underlying legislation.
Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. LINDER. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. HASTINGS of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as she may
consume to the gentlewoman from the District of Columbia (Ms. Norton),
who knows more about this appropriations measure and about the things
of which I just spoke.
Ms. NORTON. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me time.
I thank the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Linder) and the gentleman from
Florida (Mr. Hastings) for their work in the Committee on Rules on this
bill.
Everything is relative in the Congress and, I appreciate the bill
that has been brought forward this year, particularly when I compare
the time that this body has had to take up on the smallest
appropriations in prior years, and so I thank both of the gentlemen for
their work. I want to thank and congratulate the full committee
chairman, the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Young), and the full
committee ranking member, the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey), for
the way in which they urge and guide our appropriations bill through,
because of their concern for the process and their respect for self-
government in the District of Columbia. And their guidance has been, I
think, heard and felt this year.
I am particularly grateful to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr.
Frelinghuysen) and the ranking member, the gentleman from Pennsylvania
(Mr. Fattah), who did all the heavy lifting on this work. I am grateful
for their bipartisan efficiencies and cooperation in handling this
appropriations. They have been mindful of the fact that Members are
here appropriating funds for a city, not a Federal agency; and that
makes all the difference in the world.
First, most of the money comes from the taxpayers of the District of
Columbia. This is one of the great anomalies that the Congress has
thrust on itself to force taxpayer funds from the District of Columbia
to come here and be blessed. And by the way, I thank the committee that
from time immemorial the committee does not, in fact, go into the body
of the District of Columbia budget. Everybody understands that that
would be treacherous. So mostly it comes here for oversight and for
attachments that the ranking member spoke of, attachments that would
never be abided in Members' own districts. But I am very pleased to
simply have this money get out of here with the kind of rule that the
Committee on Rules has come forward with this year.
There are huge hardships in any delay in the District of Columbia
appropriations, hardships, chaos in city operations, hardships on
District of Columbia residents. When our appropriations do not go
smoothly and it has to go back and forth, the biggest hit is taken by
school children and the schools of the District of Columbia. All manner
of problem breaks out with ordering school books, with having to send
supplies back because the appropriations is not out yet. I will not
regale you with those problems this year, particularly since the
Committee on Rules and the Committee on Appropriations have worked so
hard to bring this forward.
I do note for Members, particularly those Members who have not had to
go through this ordeal before, who are scratching their heads saying,
what am I doing here considering the appropriations of a city, that
this appropriations has had the oversight of the authorizing committee,
the Committee on Government Reform, whose chairman is the gentleman
from Virginia (Mr. Tom Davis) and the ranking member is the gentleman
from California (Henry Waxman).
It has had the oversight of, of course, the Committee on Rules, and I
thank them for the way they have done the rule this year. And, of
course, it has gone through the subcommittee and the full Committee on
Appropriations.
Let us look and see what these three committees have come forward to
recommend to this body. I will call it a clean bill because everything
is relative, and this is a clean dirty bill; but it is the kind of
bill, perhaps the best bill, that one could get from this House.
Now, all the old attachments are there, and the ranking member has
spelled out some of them. I cannot say enough about how much those
attachments are resented in the District of Columbia. I cannot say
enough about the price residents pay for them. Perhaps the worst price
is paid for the needle exchange attachment where none of our own money,
there is some private money, but none of our own money can be used to
save the lives of men, women, and children with AIDS now
[[Page H6000]]
being spread in the District of Columbia faster than in any other
jurisdiction in the United States, most of it intravenously; and we
cannot do what I must tell you dozens and dozens of jurisdictions do
and have done with great effect in halting AIDS, and that is to
professionally use needle exchange programs now recommended by
literally all the great scientific authorities.
The attachment forbidding abortions for poor women when hundreds of
jurisdictions all over the United States, in fact, fund abortions for
poor women speaks for itself. Why should one jurisdiction be the
exception in the United States of America?
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Of course, I suppose the House should really think about how to hang
its head in shame, that there is an attachment that bars the District
of Columbia from using its own money to lobby for its own rights.
George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, try not to turn over in your
graves. In the year 2004, we have the Congress saying that American
citizens cannot use their own tax money to lobby their own Congress
where they have no vote for their own rights.
My colleagues heard me. I hope they will not hear me have to say this
again. I do not think that anyone in this House has anything to fear
from hearing from elected officials and from the residents of the
District of Columbia using their own money to petition their government
for their basic rights. It is one of the great shames of this bill, and
one that I cannot believe today enjoys majority support of Members of
this House.
So I am asking, in short, the House to respect the work of the
Committee on Rules, the work of the Committee on Appropriations, and
yes, by direction the work of the Committee on Government Reform, and
in doing so, I am going to lead by example.
I am asking Members not to come forward with amendments. I am going
to lead by example because there is an amendment that I feel strongly
about. Again, the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Hastings) spoke of that
amendment as well, and that is an amendment I fought in this House with
a lot of Republican support last year, when I sought to keep the House
from imposing vouchers against the will of a supermajority of the
elected officials, the great majority of the people of the District of
Columbia, and yet, this was done to the District what has not been done
to any other district.
I intended to come forward with an amendment, even if I had to
withdraw it, and I would have had to withdraw it because it would have
been out of order, to take the $4 million that is lying on the table,
that cannot be used for vouchers because not enough residents came
forward in the grades that the bill calls for in order to take up the
vouchers. All along we had said that what District residents want is
charter schools if there is to be an alternative. They have our D.C.
public schools. We have the largest number of charter schools per
capita in the United States, and I think that is shown by the fact that
the waiting lists continue to grow in charter schools. Yet there is $4
million left on the table that has not been used for school vouchers.
So I intended to come forward and say, Pick that money up off of the
table, and let it be used by the children of the District of Columbia;
but I am going to respect the work of the Committee on Rules, I am
going to respect the work of the Committee on Appropriations because
they have come forward with a bill without additional attachments, and
I am not going to offer that amendment. It particularly would have been
subject to a point of order or would have drawn people down here to
talk about it.
But if the point is to compliment the Committee on Rules and the
Committee on Appropriations for the efficiency with which they have
handled this committee, then I think I ought to get in line with what
they have done, and I will, therefore, not come forward with such an
amendment during the debate.
The matter never passed in the Senate. It passed here by one vote.
This was the test vote for the prescription drug vote. This was the
vote that was kept open over 40 minutes while they flipped somebody in
order to let vouchers go through. It never did get through in the
Senate. It was simply attached to an omnibus bill.
This is the great hall of democracy, great Congress of democracy. So
I feel strongly about it, but I also feel strongly about the way in
which the Committee on Appropriations and the Committee on Rules have
accommodated the District of Columbia during this appropriations
process, and I am not going to waste the time of this body, and I ask
other Members not to waste the time of this body.
I understand a letter went around concerned that a Council member had
put a bill in to allow noncitizens to vote in local elections. I do
want Members to know that that was put in on the last day of the
Council. Everybody went home, taking no action on it, and this is an
election year.
One of the things we ought not to do is rise to every bait.
Obviously, this is not a bill that was considered serious, certainly
not at the moment, because it would have been introduced earlier and
there would have been some action on it. If we really feel so moved to
come to the floor, it seems to me we ought to wait and see if the
District of Columbia, in fact, is going to act on the matter or if
there, in their own Council, they can dispose of the matter. At least
give us that respect.
Just like there were Members who were concerned about slots. Boy,
they could not have been more concerned about slots, as I am. I am with
my good friend, the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Wolf), when it comes
to gambling. I am kind of an extremist on the question of gambling. I
consider the kind of gambling that goes on, in slots especially, a kind
of tax on the poor.
They tell people it is going to be used for their schools. Fine,
well, let people who can afford in a progressive fashion to pay for
schools do it. It is a real game played on the poor. I could not hate
it more. The people who bring it forward in this city are playing a
game on the city, particularly on the poor people of the city.
This is basically a class matter. Better-educated people look at the
odds and tend not to play these slots. Poor people who, after all, do
not have the same opportunities, who cannot see any other way for their
ship to come in, are most vulnerable to certain kinds of gambling
measures.
So this matter has come forward in the District. Guess what, the
majority of the City Council has already said they are going to
overturn it.
Suppose we had jumped up here and run to the Committee on Rules and
run to the Committee on Appropriations without giving the sensible
Council of the District of Columbia the right to say, Slots is not
economic development, and we do not want that sleazy stuff in the
District of Columbia. We do not want it even if we were not the capital
of the United States, but we certainly do not want it, not in the
capital of the United States.
We understand who we are, and I am saying to other Members, who would
be inclined to come down and offer amendments, to give us the
opportunity to consider these matters. My colleagues can always have
their opportunity because there is always another appropriation, so
they can always come forward with the very same matter. At least give
us the respect of dealing with the matter ourselves, particularly if it
is a bill that has only been introduced at the end of the session, then
everybody went home.
Note that all of the committees I have cited have come to the same
conclusions, have come forward with a cleaner bill than I have seen in
some time. These are only the committees that spend any time on the
District of Columbia, and I apologize to all Members that we are having
to spend any time whatsoever on an appropriation that, if it means
anything to them, they are in trouble because when the people back home
find out they are spending any but the time that they are committed to
spend by law on somebody else's money, and almost all of this is our
money, I do not think they would be very pleased.
Anything that would be, shall we say, ``untoward'' had opportunity to
come to the attention of the Committee on Appropriations, the
authorization committee, and the Committee on Rules, and they have put
forward the bill that we see before us; and I ask my colleagues to pass
the bill we see before us.
[[Page H6001]]
Finally, Mr. Speaker, I have to certainly say that while I have
apologized that Members are having to consider this matter at all, and
I do apologize for it, at the same time I want to say this is a burden
that they could relieve themselves of. This entire process violates the
most basic American idea, that is, the idea of Federalism. It is the
idea of local control on local matters.
The gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Frelinghuysen) and the gentleman
from Pennsylvania (Mr. Fattah) have worked very hard to make this
process no worse than it already is by doing it as the law requires. I
ask my colleagues to respect their work. I ask them to respect the
people of the District of Columbia. I ask my colleagues to pass this
rule so that we can get the District's own taxpayer-raised money to the
District of Columbia.
Mr. HASTINGS of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I have no further requests for
time, and I yield back the balance of my time.
Mr. LINDER. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time, and I
move the previous question on the resolution.
The previous question was ordered.
The resolution was agreed to.
A motion to reconsider was laid on the table.
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