[Congressional Record Volume 151, Number 32 (Wednesday, March 16, 2005)]
[House]
[Pages H1606-H1607]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                   NO DEMOCRACY IN THE PEOPLE'S HOUSE

  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. Madam Speaker, we have just concluded our 
legislative day. A number of incidences and legislative initiatives 
have been addressed that I would like to comment on in this opportunity 
that I have during this special order.
  We just completed our discussion dealing with incapacitated persons. 
I do want to remind my colleagues that the issue is not to ignore the 
tragedy of the case in Florida, it is to recognize the broadness of the 
responsibility of the Members of the United States Congress. The point 
that I made earlier, that I wish to clarify, is that I too would not 
like to see this loss of life if there is some alternative. But I did 
suggest that because this legislation that has just passed the floor of 
the House would have had a better approach, which is to have a full 
hearing before the Committee on the Judiciary and other committees of 
jurisdiction, that the same relief could have been given to this 
distressed situation by offering a private relief bill.
  The opposition noted that a private relief bill would take a long 
time through the legislative process. Let me remind my Republican 
colleagues who are in the majority that rules could have been waived to 
move a private relief bill forward expeditiously as quickly as any bill 
that we have just put on the floor. So it is certainly a misstatement 
for anyone to rise to the floor of the House and suggest that an action 
of a private relief bill could not have brought relief and that the 
party in question in Florida might be dead before that occurred when 
they know full well that this House is controlled by Republicans and if 
they desired to move a private relief bill forward quickly, it could 
have been done.
  And then, Madam Speaker, I want to quickly comment on a bill that 
appeared before us in the Committee on the Judiciary where not one 
single Democratic amendment was accepted.
  In fact, the Republican majority made it very clear that they had a 
perfect bill from the Senate and they really did not want to do 
anything in the Committee on the Judiciary. So when amendments were 
offered by Democrats to protect veterans, it was denied. When 
amendments were offered

[[Page H1607]]

by Democrats to increase the allowance for private and parochial 
schools that might be exempted when someone filed for bankruptcy, it 
was disallowed. When we asked to protect those who are paying the 
tuition of their children, it was disallowed. When we asked for relief 
dealing with identity theft debts, when someone would steal your credit 
cards, debt would pile up and all of a sudden you might have to pay 
that for some ridiculous reason, we asked for relief in that instance, 
it was denied.
  When we asked for relief for those who were sexually assaulted and 
therefore we did not want the liability to be extinguished when someone 
went into the bankruptcy court, it was denied. It was denied that if 
you received dollars through a natural disaster such as the terrible 
flooding and hurricanes in Florida and you wanted to protect those 
dollars that you got from a natural disaster against a bankruptcy 
filing, it was denied.
  Frankly, the democracy in this body has simply been denied. Democracy 
has shut down. This is a one-party government, one party in the 
administration, one party in the House, one party in the Senate, and 
there is no room for democracy. What a shame on us that we would push 
democracy in Afghanistan and Iraq and around the world, places that I 
have been, and we simply cannot have democracy in this body on behalf 
of the American people.
  Let me also suggest that I am looking forward to responding to the 
request by Supreme Court Justice Rehnquist by offering a court security 
act for 2005 which responds to Justice Rehnquist and other Supreme 
Court Justices asking for more protection of judges and courthouses in 
America. It is a travesty that we would have the terrible, tragic act 
in Atlanta and the killing of the relatives of a judge in Illinois. It 
is time now to provide resources, training and, of course, security 
mechanisms to ensure that justice does occur, justice by way of 
protecting our courts and our court systems and all the parties who go 
into our court system for fairness and justice. I hope my colleagues 
will join me when I file the Securing American Courts Act of 2005. We 
owe our justice system that.

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