[Congressional Record Volume 154, Number 52 (Thursday, April 3, 2008)]
[Senate]
[Pages S2589-S2590]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
RECOGNIZING AND HONORING 40TH ANNIVERSARY OF FAIR HOUSING ACT AND 20TH
ANNIVERSARY OF FAIR HOUSING AMENDMENTS ACT OF 1988
Mr. DODD. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate
proceed to the immediate consideration of S. Res. 503, submitted
earlier today by Senator Durbin.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report the resolution by title.
The legislative clerk read as follows:
A resolution (S. Res. 503) recognizing and honoring the
40th anniversary of the Fair Housing Act and the 20th
anniversary of the Fair Housing Amendments Act of 1988.
There being no objection, the Senate proceeded to consider the
resolution.
Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, today I rise to support this resolution
honoring the 40th anniversary of the Fair Housing Act and the 20th
anniversary of the Fair Housing Amendments Act.
But first I want to honor a man whose work helped pave the way for
this landmark civil rights legislation. Forty years ago, the Reverend
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. lost his life to a sniper's bullet. Today,
we remember him as one of the greatest civil rights leaders of our
country. We know his dream. We are intimately familiar with it. It is a
dream conceived in the founding of our country and enshrined in the
words of the Declaration of Independence and in the Constitution, a
dream that lives today in our values, our identities, our highest
ideals as Americans.
This is the dream: that all men are created equal, and that in a just
society all are afforded the same opportunities.
A week after Dr. King's assassination, and in a step closer to the
fulfillment of this dream, Congress passed the Fair Housing Act as part
of the Civil Rights Act of 1968. The Fair Housing Act prohibits
discrimination in housing on the basis of race, color, national origin,
and religion. In 1974, Congress added protection on the basis of sex.
In 1988, thanks to the leadership of Senator Kennedy and Senator
Specter, Congress included protection on the basis of familial status
and disability.
We have made a lot of progress since the summer of 1966, when Dr.
King led a movement to protest housing discrimination and slum
conditions for African Americans in Chicago. But if he were alive
today, he would be the first to say--we aren't there yet. Segregation
persists in our schools and neighborhoods. We are in the middle of a
housing crisis that is hitting African-American and Hispanic families
and communities particularly hard. In Chicago, African-American
borrowers were 14 times more likely to have a higher cost loan from
Wells Fargo than were White borrowers. This is a pattern that repeats
all across the country. African-American and Latino families were
dramatically more likely to have subprime loans than White families.
Right now, millions face the possibility of foreclosure. And when they
lose their homes, they lose their assets. They lose their plans for
financing their kids' education, for building a better life for
themselves in the future, for closing the income and education gaps.
For too many Americans, the dream is still just that--a dream, with
little chance of becoming reality. We may have all been created equal,
but since then we have been treated very differently. We are treated
differently because of the color of our skin, the faith we practice,
whether we are a man or a woman, single or with children, or use a
wheelchair and a ramp to enter our apartment.
The irony is that we have fair housing laws that make this kind of
treatment not only unfair but illegal--and we have had them for 40
years. Yet 3.7 million violations of these laws occur each year against
African Americans, Latinos, Asian Americans, and Indian Americans. This
doesn't even include the number of violations that occur on the basis
of other protected classes. Only 1 percent of people who believe they
are victims of fair housing violations report it to the Government.
Testing on the enforcement of fair housing laws shows a high rate of
discrimination in the rental, sales, mortgage lending, and insurance
markets. More than four decades after Dr. King and his supporters
marched through the streets of Chicago to fight housing discrimination,
African Americans and Latinos in Cook County report substantial levels
of unfair--and illegal--treatment in the housing industry.
The intent of the Fair Housing Act was broad and inclusive: to
advance equal opportunity in housing and achieve racial integration for
the benefit of all Americans. But enforcement of this law has been
narrow and incomplete. Where you live profoundly affects where you
work, what you do, where you send your kids to school, whether they
grow up healthy and safe. As long as our commitment to fair housing
laws--to civil rights--remains timid, we will never end segregation. We
will never declare victory over poverty. We will never build a truly
just society.
As we honor Dr. King, former Senator Walter Mondale and former
Senator Edward Brooke, who cosponsored the original Fair Housing Act,
and others who made possible fair housing laws, we need to remember
that it is not enough to pass laws. We have to enforce them. The dream
of equality is our Nation's moral compass. Our duty as legislators and
as citizens is to make sure the needle points in the right direction.
I thank Senators Specter, Kennedy, Dodd, Brown, and Voinovich for
joining me today in honoring the 40th anniversary of the Fair Housing
Act and the 20th anniversary of the Fair Housing Amendments Act, and I
urge my colleagues in Congress to renew their dedication to upholding
these laws. These laws may be 40 years old, but the dream they seek to
make real is as old as our country.
Mr. DODD. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the resolution
be agreed to, the preamble be agreed to, the motions to reconsider be
laid upon the table, with no intervening action or debate, and any
statements related to the resolution be printed in the Record.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
The resolution (S. Res. 503) was agreed to.
The preamble was agreed to.
The resolution, with its preamble, reads as follows:
S. Res. 503
Whereas 2008 marks the 40th anniversary of the enactment of
the Fair Housing Act (42 U.S.C. 3601 et seq.);
Whereas 2008 also marks the 20th anniversary of the
enactment of the Fair Housing Amendments Act of 1988 (Public
Law 100-430; 102 Stat. 1619);
Whereas the Chicago Freedom Movement, which took place from
1965 to 1967 and was led by the Reverend Doctor Martin Luther
King, Jr., raised the national consciousness about housing
discrimination and shaped the debate that led to landmark
fair housing legislation;
Whereas the National Advisory Commission on Civil
Disorders, appointed by President Lyndon B. Johnson and
commonly
[[Page S2590]]
known as the Kerner Commission, found in 1968 that ``[o]ur
nation is moving toward two societies, one black, one white--
separate and unequal'';
Whereas Congress passed the Fair Housing Act as part of the
Civil Rights Act of 1968 (Public Law 90-284; 82 Stat. 73),
and President Johnson signed the Act into law on April 11,
1968, one week after the assassination of Dr. King;
Whereas the Fair Housing Act prohibits discrimination in
housing and housing-related transactions on the basis of
race, color, national origin, and religion;
Whereas, in section 808 of the Housing and Community
Development Act of 1974 (Public Law 93-383; 88 Stat. 728),
Congress amended the Fair Housing Act to include protection
on the basis of sex;
Whereas the Fair Housing Amendments Act of 1988 (Public Law
100-430; 102 Stat. 1619), passed by overwhelming margins in
Congress, included protection on the basis of familial status
and disability and expanded the definition of
``discriminatory housing practices'' to include interference
and intimidation;
Whereas Congress's intent in passing the Fair Housing Act
was broad and inclusive, to advance equal opportunity in
housing and achieve racial integration for the benefit of all
people in the United States;
Whereas housing integration affects other dimensions of
life, including educational attainment, employment
opportunities, access to health care, and home equity;
Whereas the majority of people in the United States support
neighborhood integration and numerous studies have shown the
universal benefits of residential integration;
Whereas the National Fair Housing Alliance estimates that
3,700,000 violations of fair housing laws still occur each
year against African Americans, Latinos, Asian Americans, and
American Indians, and that number does not include violations
that occur on the basis of other national origins, religion,
sex, or familial status or against persons with disabilities;
Whereas the Department of Housing and Urban Development
estimates that only 1 percent of individuals who believe they
are victims of housing discrimination report those violations
of fair housing laws to the government, and this
underreporting is a major obstacle to achieving equal
opportunity in housing;
Whereas testing of the enforcement of fair housing laws
continues to uncover a high rate of discrimination in the
rental, sales, mortgage lending, and insurance markets; and
Whereas the Fair Housing Act is an essential component of
our Nation's civil rights legislation: Now, therefore, be it
Resolved, That the Senate--
(1) recognizes and honors the 40th anniversary of the
enactment of the Fair Housing Act (42 U.S.C. 3601 et seq.)
and the 20th anniversary of the enactment of the Fair Housing
Amendments Act of 1988 (Public Law 100-430; 102 Stat. 1619);
(2) supports activities to recognize and celebrate the
historical milestone represented by the anniversaries of the
enactment of the Fair Housing Act and the enactment of the
Fair Housing Amendments Act of 1988; and
(3) encourages all levels of government to rededicate
themselves to the enforcement and the ideals of fair housing
laws.
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