[Congressional Record Volume 154, Number 92 (Thursday, June 5, 2008)]
[House]
[Pages H5019-H5021]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                          HONORING HOUSE PAGES

  (Mr. KILDEE asked and was given permission to address the House for 1 
minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. KILDEE. Mr. Speaker, I would ask the pages to come up here and 
occupy the seats in the Chamber. Anywhere you want, either side. Maybe 
the next time you occupy that seat, you will be a Member of this body.
  Mr. Speaker, I would like to take this opportunity to express my 
personal gratitude and the gratitude of the entire House to all the 
pages who have served so diligently in the House of Representatives 
during the 110th Congress.
  This is the 16th Congress that I have served in. I have been Chairman 
of the Page Board or ranking member for about 20, 23, 24 years. I was 
appointed by Tip O'Neill. That is probably ancient history to you. That 
is very recent history to me.
  Mr. Speaker, I have attached a list of the fine young people who have 
served this House as pages and will include their names as part of the 
Congressional Record.

        U.S. House of Representatives Pages Spring Class of 2008

       Adriana Daniela Aguilar, TX; Claire Jumanna Ashcraft, CA; 
     Cole Salim Ashcraft, CA; Hannah Elizabeth Barkley, MS; 
     Maurice Patrick Barry, MA; Erika Lauren Bertrand, NE; Amber 
     E. Cassady, TX; Charles E. Coe, PA; John Cowart, FL; Maggie 
     Carlisle Cupit, MS; and Matt Cyr, TN.
       Carlos DeLaTorre, TX; Stephanie Diaz, HI; Brandon Estes, 
     FL; Kelly Jo Fuller, GA; Shara Guarnaccia, NJ; Philmon 
     Ghirmai Haile, WA; Jane Elizabeth Hamm, OK; Kathleen Shea 
     Howard, NC; Michael J. Janusa, TX; Evan R. Johnson, IA; and 
     Matt Jolley, UT.
       Tara Marie Kelly, MA; Esther Kofman, CA; Satchel Clay 
     Kornfeld, OR; Lauren LaVelle, CA; Thomas Lerum, CA; Brian 
     Licata. NJ; Victoria Linville, TN; Jessica L. Malekos-Smith, 
     CA; Jill E. Marshall, NY and Tara Mason, MO.
       Elizabeth Milner, MS; Elizabeth L. Monsma, CA; Tiana Moore, 
     CA; Jesse Mark Neugebauer, NE; Kaleigh Elizabeth Nolan, NY; 
     Courtney Shene Owens, SC; Daniel Pavlovic, CA; Emma Peel, TX; 
     Jacob William Peeples, MA; Ashley S. Pierce, DC; and Wylee M. 
     Price, NM.
       Miles Pulsford, KY; Andre Renaldo Fernandez, PR; Elizabeth 
     Ann Reynolds, WA; Yi Ping Caitlin Patricia Roberts, VA; Max 
     D. Robertson, NC; Jason Oliver Roman, NY; Jeffrey P. 
     Schumacher, OH; Lea Shipman, AK; Hannah Leigh Shuman, FL; and 
     Katie Smith, CA.
       Feddie Justin Strickland, SC; Lianna Stroster, MI; 
     Alexandria Christian Templeton, AL; Callie Sioux Tysdal, SD; 
     Timothy Wainwright, PA; Megan Walden, CA; Nicki Warner, WV; 
     Gabriel M. Weinstein, MD; Nicole M. Westergaard, IA; and 
     Kiyan H. Williams, NJ.
       To the Page Class of Spring 2008--Thank you and good luck!

  I am sure you will pick up several copies of that Record when you go 
home.
  We all recognize the important role that congressional pages play in 
helping the U.S. House of Representatives operate. This group of young 
people, who come from all across our Nation, represent what is really 
good about our country.
  To become a page, these young people have proven themselves to be 
academically qualified. They have ventured away from the security of 
their homes and families to spend time in an unfamiliar city. Through 
this experience, they have witnessed a new culture, made new friends 
and learned the details of how government operates.
  As we all know, the job of a congressional page is not an easy one. 
Along with being away from home, the pages must possess the maturity to 
balance competing demands for their time and for their energy. In 
addition, they must have the dedication to work long hours and the 
ability to interact with people at a personal level. At the same time, 
Mr. Speaker, they face a challenging academic schedule of classes in 
the House Page School.
  You pages have witnessed the House debate issues of war and peace, 
hunger and poverty, justice and civil rights. You served this House 
during a time of war. Many pages have never experienced that. You have 
seen the awesome responsibility Members of this House have when they 
vote on that question of war and when they vote on the funding of that 
war. You have witnessed a great deal of real history.
  You have seen Congress at moments of greatness, and you have seen 
Congress with all its human frailties. You have witnessed the workings 
of an institution that has endured well over 200 years. No one has seen 
Congress and Members of the Congress as close up as you have. I am sure 
that you will consider your time spent in Washington, D.C., to be one 
of the most valuable and exciting experiences of your lives, and that 
with this experience you will all move ahead to lead successful and 
productive lives.
  Mr. Speaker, as Chairman of the House Page Board, I ask my colleagues

[[Page H5020]]

to join me in honoring this group of distinguished young Americans. You 
certainly will be missed. Individually and collectively, you are great. 
I try to walk by the desk and say hello to you. I see you in the 
hallway carrying flags or whatever your mission may be. But 
individually and collectively, you are great.
  In closing, I would also like to thank the members of the House Page 
Board who provided such fantastic service to this institution. Myself 
as Chair; Congressman Rob Bishop, the Vice Chair; Congresswoman Diana 
DeGette; Congresswoman Virginia Foxx. One nice thing about the 
congressional members is we are not only members of the Page Board, but 
we like one another. We get along really well, and that is very 
helpful.
  We have also the Clerk of the House, Lorraine Miller; we have the 
Sergeant at Arms, Bill Livingood, as a member; and we have two members 
who are not directly attached to the House; Ms. Lynn Silversmith Klein, 
who is the parent of a page, and Mr. Adam Jones, a former page. I want 
to thank you for your service on the House Page Board. It has been 
really a great experience for me.
  And I want to thank our departing pages. I can really say this: You 
have influenced us. You have inspired us. We look at you and say most 
of what we do here is going to affect you more than it affects us. I 
really have great hope for the future when I look at you. This House I 
can say because of that is a better House, because of you. I thank you.
  I yield first to the Vice Chair of the Page Board, my friend from 
Utah.
  Rob, come forward here.
  Mr. BISHOP of Utah. I have to join with Representative Kildee in 
thanking you for being here and being part of the system and for the 
service that you have rendered. I hope it has been profitable for all 
of you as it has been profitable for us as we benefited from your 
particular system here, and I hope it also spurs you to have a 
continued interest in government and in politics. I realize that is not 
the norm.
  When I was born, my father was mayor of the community. I always saw 
him involved in politics. I thought every family did that. What I found 
out, quite frankly, is that it is atypical. But what I hope for you is 
it is not atypical, and this spurs you on to continue to want to study, 
to participate and be a part of government.
  The brilliance of our system of lay government is that common people 
can come together and you don't have to be trained to do this job. I 
know the way we do it, you think probably we should be trained. But, at 
the same time, common people can talk about issues and can make 
decisions for themselves.
  We are both old teachers. As a history teacher, I now get to talk 
about F-22s and F-35s and public land policy and can do that because 
that is the way the system is designed. And through all of the flaws 
and the bumps and the grinds, the bottom line is still our system 
works.
  I encourage you as you go back there to finish your education, become 
involved in your communities, become involved in your political 
parties, become involved in the system, and keep that encouragement, 
that interest alive. The future of this country depends upon you doing 
that.
  So thank you for being here.
  Mr. KILDEE. Thank you very much, Mr. Bishop.
  You know, it is interesting. We have friendships across the aisle and 
we do cooperative things across the aisle. I remember very early in 
your career here you came up to me and you said, I have an amendment I 
am going to offer in the Resources Committee, and could I talk to you 
about it and maybe get your help? I looked at it and it made good 
sense.
  We do that. We do that more than what people realize. I appreciate 
working with you.
  I yield now to the majority leader, Mr. Hoyer, the gentleman from 
Maryland, and a dear friend.
  Mr. HOYER. I am pleased to be here with all of you young people.
  About, well, 45 years ago I was about 5 years older than you are now 
and I started working on this Hill for a Member of Congress. His office 
was on the sixth floor of the Longworth Building. You know enough about 
our offices to know that he was a junior Member, being placed on the 
sixth floor of the Longworth Building, those spacious offices that you 
have visited with various different items from time to time.
  I had an opportunity, not as intimately as you have had because I did 
not have access to the floor as somebody working in an office, but I 
did have the opportunity to see the Members, to talk to some of the 
Members, to see what they were doing.
  You have had an opportunity that very, very few Americans will ever 
have. I presume most of you are 16 years of age. Maybe some have 
reached 17. Maybe some are late 15. In any event, you average 16 years 
of age. As Mr. Kildee pointed out, you have seen firsthand the best and 
the not-so-very best. To that extent, hopefully you have said, you 
know, they are a lot like us. Sometimes we are really good, and then 
sometimes not quite as good as we would like to be.
  Because you have had this special window on your democracy, we call 
this the people's House. It is the people's House because every 2 years 
we have to go back to the people and get their imprimatur. We call it a 
vote. We have to be rehired. The Founding Fathers established that so 
we would stay in close touch with the people and reflect their hopes, 
their aspirations, yes, even their fears, their angst and sometimes 
their prejudices.
  But we are a representative body. And there are too many people 
frankly around the country who don't have a lot of faith in this body 
and who don't think it works very well, and they see us on television 
largely in confrontation. You have seen us more at work and cooperation 
than sometimes happens on this floor.
  So, on behalf of both my friend Mr. Boehner and myself and Speaker 
Pelosi, I would urge you to go home to your respective schools, your 
respective communities, your respective families, and talk to your 
peers about your experience. Some of it will be perhaps not quite as 
positive as some of us would like.
  But my experience has been, as President of the Senate when I was in 
charge of the Page Program in the Maryland State Senate and here, that 
the overwhelming majority of you will go from this place with a very 
positive view of how our people work, the passion they bring to their 
commitment to representing their community, and the integrity they have 
with respect to the issues that they argue on behalf of.

                              {time}  1615

  Do they all believe the same? No. Any more than all of you believe 
the same. I know there have been no debates in the dorms. I know that 
all of you have said, yes, we agree 100 percent. And if I thought that, 
I would think you were a strange group of people indeed.
  You have been here at an historic time. Young women, you must be 
extraordinarily proud of the fact that for the first time in history we 
have a woman leading this body. Now, we have a woman presiding officer 
right now, she is from Florida, Ms. Castor, but we have a Speaker of 
the House who is a woman. And African Americans, you must be 
extraordinarily proud that for the first time in history we have an 
African American who is the nominee, presumptive, but is going to be 
the nominee of one of the major parties. And you can also be proud of 
the fact that we have a gentleman, John McCain, who served his country 
in war, and served as a prisoner of war for 5 years experiencing very 
substantial physical abuse, and came back to America as a young man and 
rose now to be his party's presumptive nominee for President of the 
United States. What an historic time for you to have served here in the 
House.
  And I say served, because, frankly, the work of this House was 
facilitated by everything you have done. Sometimes the tasks may have 
seemed simple, but they were important to us accomplishing the people's 
business. And so on behalf of Mr. Boehner and myself and Mr. Blunt and 
Mr. Clyburn and Speaker Pelosi, I thank all of you for the work you 
have done, for the kindnesses that you have shown us; and I hope you in 
turn feel that you have received from us the courtesy and respect you 
deserve as outstanding representatives of your generation that may in 
time be referred to as well as one of the greatest generations.

[[Page H5021]]

  Thank you for your service. God bless and good luck.
  Mr. KILDEE. Thank you, Mr. Hoyer.
  Mr. BISHOP of Utah. Could I also ask that Representative Foxx from 
North Carolina, who is a member of the board, come and express her 
opinion as well.
  Ms. FOXX. I want to thank my distinguished colleagues for the 
comments they have made. I agree with them, and I will not repeat the 
points that they have made in their comments to you.
  I often like to look back at what our Founders of this country said 
about different issues and remind us of the things they brought, 
because our founders were remarkable people and we are a truly blessed 
country that they came together at the time that they did.
  I want to give you a quote from John Adams who was writing about the 
importance of civic education in 1787. He encapsulated the idea behind 
the page program in a very simple but profound sentence on the 
importance of learning about freedom. He said, ``Children should be 
educated and instructed in the principles of freedom.''
  Now, I know you all don't consider yourselves children, but I am sure 
if John Adams had been here, he would say, ``Young people should be 
educated and instructed in the principles of freedom.''
  The experience of being a page has given you the opportunity to be 
instructed in the principles of freedom with firsthand experience in 
the halls of the world's greatest democracy. And that is what the page 
program is all about. That is one of the reasons I am so honored to 
serve on the Page Board. Having the fantastic opportunity to interact 
with you is another reason that I am so honored to serve on the Page 
Board.
  You are an excellent group of young people who, in completing this 
year's program, are embarking on a lifetime of building on your 
experiences, learning and working in the Nation's Capital. You have 
performed extremely important functions for us; but I think one of the 
most important functions that you perform is simply being here and 
reminding us every day of the people we are serving, and reminding us 
that the actions we take are going to affect people like you, young 
people like you who are growing up in this country.
  I do want to mention that I have had the privilege this semester of 
having a page here, Max Robertson, who is from the Fifth District of 
North Carolina. And the only reason I call attention to Max is because 
I think he is a great example of all of you. You are all model 
citizens, I think, of our country. You are all civic achievers, like 
Max.
  I know that many of you will not want to serve in elective office, 
but I think all of you will want to be citizens and voters after this 
experience. I hope that many of you will want to serve in the military, 
as I know Max has expressed an interest in doing, because that is one 
of the most sacrificial ways you can serve this country.
  All of you, your lives and character are examples of the high caliber 
of students who serve as House pages. It really has been a delight for 
me to get to know all of you, to answer questions, to share my opinion 
with you, and to hear your concerns and your issues about things, 
because we certainly need to get the feedback that we get from you, 
too.
  I want to congratulate all of you on successfully completing this 
program, and I want to wish you all the best in all your future 
endeavors. And I hope that you will not forget your experience here, 
and that you will stay in touch with us and let us know other successes 
that you are having and ways that the page program has impacted your 
life, particularly in positive ways.
  I want to thank the chairman, Mr. Kildee, for his leadership on the 
Page Board and Mr. Bishop and all the other folks who are serving on 
the Page Board for their wisdom and insights, and the opportunity to 
serve and lend my few talents to that endeavor.
  Mr. KILDEE. Much of the joy that I get from serving on the Page Board 
through the years is the pages. But you have heard the two Republican 
Members speak, and we indeed are friends and I really enjoy meeting 
with them. Our meetings, none are bipartisan, they are nonpartisan. The 
bottom line is you, and they are really friends of mine.
  If you will make your concluding remarks, and then I will wrap it up.
  Mr. BISHOP of Utah. Just stay involved, stay active, and stay the 
overachievers you are. Thank you for your service here. We have 
appreciated you.
  Mr. KILDEE. Thank you again for all you have done for us, for 
enriching this body, for, as I say, making myself a better person, 
making this body a better body. May the riches of God's blessings go 
with you as you return home. Thank you very much. God bless you.

                          ____________________