[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 152 (2006), Part 6]
[House]
[Pages 7479-7485]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                         SUBURBAN CAUCUS AGENDA

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 4, 2005, the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Kirk) is recognized 
for 60 minutes as the designee of the majority leader.
  Mr. KIRK. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the House and my colleague 
from Georgia for arranging for this time to talk about a new suburban 
agenda for the country, one that addresses key issues before families 
in America and reflects the new suburban reality of the way we live our 
lives.
  This Congress is well known for being home to a Rural Caucus and an 
Urban Affairs Caucus. But to date we have never had a Suburban Caucus 
addressing the needs of suburban families. For us at this time we 
should recognize not how Americans lived in the 20th century but how 
they live now in the 21st century.
  In the most recent election, over half of all voters were from 
suburban families, and suburban communities are under attack. They are 
under attack from gangs moving to the suburbs and taking on suburban 
police departments. They are under attack from Internet predators. Over 
50,000 of them online at any one time attempting to contact our kids. 
We see a growing wave, a disappearance of green and open space that 
need to be protected. And there is a general fear held by three-
quarters of the American public that it may be more difficult for their 
kids to enter the middle class than it was for them.
  Five dozen Members of Congress have gathered together to put together 
a suburban agenda to address these needs. And one of those Members is 
representing the Atlanta suburbs, Congressman Tom Price, and a member 
of Suburban Agenda Caucus, and I yield to him.
  Mr. PRICE of Georgia. I thank the gentleman for yielding. I thank the 
gentleman for his leadership. I appreciate the leadership allowing us 
to bring this agenda forward.
  When I go home, I am often times asked, How often do you get back? 
How do you get that touchstone? How do you make certain that you are 
staying in touch with your district? And most Members do go home every 
weekend and that is important because it is important that we keep in 
touch with our constituents and hear their views and their concerns. 
Like most Members, I go home every week, most of us go home every 
weekend, to my district which is the Sixth District of Georgia. It is a 
wonderful place to represent. It is the northern suburban Atlanta area. 
It is kind of the quintessential suburban district. It is full of 
active and productive families, patriotic Americans, hardworking folks.
  And when I am at home, yes, my constituents are concerned about the 
war on terror, and, yes, they are concerned about the crisis of illegal 
immigration; but, Mr. Speaker, they are also concerned about school 
safety; and they are also concerned about easing the difficulty of 
obtaining health care for themselves and their family and their 
parents. And they are also concerned about increasing conservation of 
our Nation's resources, and they are also concerned about being able to 
afford a college education for their children. So tonight I am honored 
to join the gentleman from Illinois. I appreciate his leadership in 
this area, for what has been coined the Suburban Agenda.
  I am pleased to support this agenda and this activity. I look forward 
to assisting the gentleman from Illinois and others in shepherding this 
legislation through the House. I am so honored to work with him in this 
endeavor. I look forward to the discussion this evening.
  Mr. KIRK. I thank the gentleman.
  One of the critical problems we have is from powerful social 
networking sites like MySpace.com and other sites that have given 
online predators powerful tools to reach children. Our leader, the 
author of the Delete Online Predators Act, is a Congressman from 
Pennsylvania, Mike Fitzpatrick and I want to yield to him.
  Mr. FITZPATRICK of Pennsylvania. Mr. Speaker, I am proud to join my 
colleagues tonight as we unveil the Suburban Caucus' agenda for 
America. Tonight we bring to the House floor strong forward-looking 
legislation that would help America's families in some of the fastest 
growing areas of our country.
  I, along with our fellow caucus members, understand the issues that 
suburban families face each day because each one of us lives in the 
suburbs. I grew up in a place called Levittown, Pennsylvania, which 
sits just a few miles north of Philadelphia. The majority of my 
district is situated only 2 hours from New York City. My district 
borders the Delaware River right across from Trenton, New Jersey, and I 
am proud to represent neighborhoods in Northeast Philadelphia.
  These are all suburban areas, places removed from cities, but 
impacted by them on a daily basis. The suburbs have held a sentimental 
sway in America since the fifties. Thousands of my constituents have 
migrated away from New York and Philadelphia to live in my district in 
search of a change of pace, the purchase of a new home, more space to 
raise a family, a new economic opportunity. However, increased 
urbanization has blurred the line between city and suburb, creating new 
challenges that were unheard of only a decade before.
  My constituents, like millions of other suburbanites, face 
transportation challenges, threats from increased crime, environmental 
concerns, financial worries, and concern over the state of their 
children's education. In many ways they share the same concerns their 
neighboring cities have, and those concerns need to be met with 
attention from Congress.
  The Suburban Caucus is dedicated to addressing these issues, and I am 
proud to be a member of the caucus and to take part in tonight's 
discussion.
  Mr. Speaker, my most important job is my role as a father of six 
children. In a world that moves and changes at a dizzying pace, being a 
father gets harder all the time. Technology is one of the key concerns 
I have as a parent, specifically the Internet and the sites my kids 
visit, register with, and use on a daily basis.
  The Internet is a wonderful invention. It has opened a window to the 
world right in our homes. However, with the limitless possibilities 
that window offers, we must be mindful of what we view and let into our 
homes. One of the most interest and worrying development of late has 
been the growth in what are called ``social networking sites.'' We have 
all heard of them in one way or another. Sites like MySpace, 
Friendster, and Face Book have literally exploded in popularity in just 
a few short years. MySpace alone has just over 76 million users and 
ranks as the sixth most popular English language Web site and the 
eighth most

[[Page 7480]]

popular site in the world. Everyone can use these sites. Companies and 
colleges, teachers and students, young and old all make use of 
networking sites to connect with people electronically, to share 
pictures, information, course work, and common interests. These sites 
have torn down the geographical divide that once prevented long 
distance social relationships from forming, allowing instant 
communication and connections to take place and a virtual second life 
to take hold.
  For adults, these sites are fairly benign. For children, they open 
the door to many dangers, including online bullying and exposure to 
child predators that have turned the Internet into a virtual hunting 
ground for children.
  Mr. Speaker, the dangers our children are exposed to by these sites 
are clear and compelling. A Department of Justice survey found that one 
in five children have received an unwanted sexual solicitation from 
online interests in the past year alone. Mr. Speaker, one in five 
children.
  The FBI reports that child pornography cases have increased more than 
2,000 percent over the past decade. And MySpace, which is self-
regulated, has removed an estimated 200,00 objectionable profiles since 
it started in 2003. Look closely at local and national news stories and 
you will see a troubling increase in cases of child sexual assault 
where sites like MySpace and Friendster were a key component in the 
crime.
  That is why just this evening I introduced the Deleting Online 
Predators Act, H.R. 5319, as part of the Suburban Caucus agenda. 
Parents have the ability to screen their children's Internet access at 
home, but this protection ends when their child leaves for school or 
for the library. The Deleting Online Predators Act requires schools and 
libraries to monitor the Internet activities and implement technology 
to protect children from accessing commercial networking sites like 
MySpace.com; and chat rooms which allow children to be preyed upon by 
individuals seeking to do harm to our children; and visual depictions 
that are obscene or child pornography.
  Additionally, the legislation would require the Federal Trade 
Commission to design and publish a unique Web site to serve as a 
clearinghouse and resource for parents, teachers, and children for 
information on the dangers of surfing the Internet. The Web site would 
include detailed information about commercial networking sites like 
MySpace. The FTC would also be responsible for issuing consumer alerts 
to parents, teachers, school officials, and others regarding the 
potential dangers of Internet child predators and others and their 
ability to contact children through MySpace.com and other social 
networking sites.
  In addition, the bill would require the Federal Communication 
Commission to establish an advisory board to review and report 
commercial social networking sites like MySpace.com and chat rooms that 
have shown to allow sexual predators easy access to personal 
information of and contact with our Nation's children.
  Make no mistake, our children on the Internet are at risk. Predators 
will look for any way to talk to children online, whether through sites 
like MySpace, instant messaging, or even online games. The best defense 
against these people is to educate parents and children of the dangers 
that come along with the Internet and by protecting our children during 
the school day. There may be no one silver bullet solution to this 
problem, Mr. Speaker, but this legislation takes a strong step forward 
in deleting the presence of child predators online.
  It is a step that must be taken and an action that families across 
the Nation expect and deserve from their United States Congress.
  Mr. KIRK. I thank the gentleman who has become the leader on 
protecting kids from these new powerful tools online.
  Suburban families have told us consistently that they want 
congressional action on education, health care, conservation and the 
economy; and one of our big reforms in the area of health care is 
accelerating health care information technology. I yield to my 
colleague from Georgia to talk about that major piece of legislation.
  Mr. PRICE of Georgia. I thank the gentleman from Illinois once again 
for his leadership and for yielding on this issue.
  As you mentioned, right below those top button issues for folks all 
across this Nation, but especially in the suburban area, if you ask 
them what is important to them, education and health care are truly 
right there. They are concerned about being able to have access to 
health care. They are concerned about being able to afford health care. 
They are concerned about health care for their parents, and they are 
concerned about the accuracy of the records that are kept regarding 
health care and the portability, moving those records around.
  As a physician, I practiced medicine for over 20 years; and so many 
things have changed in medicine, the different medications that we use, 
the different surgical procedures that we perform. The vast majority of 
those were not around 20 years ago, but what is around still, not just 
from 20 years ago but from 40 years ago and 60 years ago is the paper 
record of one's health care. Most of us go into the doctor and the 
paper chart shuffles through the office. That was not all bad in that 
time, but today we can cut down on the errors in health care. We can 
cut down on the cost of health care. We can improve health care access 
to folks, to go from a primary care physician to a special physician by 
the use of health information technology.
  Our colleague, Nancy Johnson from Connecticut, is introducing, along 
with the Suburban Caucus, the Health Information Technology Promotion 
Act. It will result in a remarkable incentive to fully promote 
electronic medical records that will cut the costs and reduce medical 
errors by over 80 percent is what the statistics will tell you. 
Civilian patient records in New Orleans were wiped out. One of the 
things that made it so was that there was not the portability of health 
care for those individuals. But the electronic records for veterans 
were fully protected and available at any VA hospital.
  This is just a case in point for how much advantage we could gain as 
a Nation having health records available in an electronic form. Over 60 
percent of Americans support this, and it is imperative that we move in 
this direction for safety reasons, for access reasons, and for ease of 
availability of health care for all citizens across this Nation, and 
especially in our suburban areas.
  So I look forward again to working with my colleague from Illinois 
and all members of the Suburban Caucus and the House to promote these 
positive, positive agenda items in the area of health and elsewhere.

                              {time}  2045

  Mr. KIRK. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman. We saw a dramatic 
testament to the value of fully electronic medical records when 
Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans. The many civilian hospitals had not 
yet upgraded to fully electronic medical records, and their record 
rooms were flooded out. Many of those patients then lost their medical 
histories, but the veterans in New Orleans did not have that problem. 
Their records were already fully digitized, and so a veteran reporting 
to a VA hospital in Houston or in Baton Rouge had their complete 
medical history protected.
  That is one key issue in the suburban agenda, but another is 
protecting kids from predators, especially in schools. We heard of the 
great tragedy of Jessica Lunsford, an example of inadequate screening 
for people who come in contact with kids, and one of our experts on 
this field is my colleague from the State of Florida, and I yield to 
her.
  Ms. GINNY BROWN-WAITE of Florida. Mr. Speaker, thank you very much. 
First of all, I apologize. I have a little bit of laryngitis here, but 
I wanted to join you to express my support for the suburban agenda. You 
have done a great job, and I know I heard Dr. Price say that he goes 
home every weekend, as most of us do.
  My district in Florida, the largest city I have is all of 21,000. I 
have a lot of suburban areas and areas that we call unincorporated 
areas, and the suburban agenda clearly is one that my

[[Page 7481]]

constituents who are not city folk, maybe they used to be but they are 
not anymore, can really relate to. One of the concepts clearly is 
protecting our children. Whether it is a grandmother who lives in 
Florida or whether it is a young family that lives in Florida, they all 
want to make sure that children are protected.
  February 23 marked the 1-year anniversary of Jessica Lunsford's 
death. Her dad, Mark, and her grandparents, Archie and Ruth Lunsford, 
live in Citrus County in my district. I actually lived less than 5 
miles from Jessica at the time that she was murdered.
  If she were still with us today, she would have been in the fifth 
grade, learning about decimals and fractions, the solar system and 
certainly American government. Instead, her life was taken by a sex 
offender who kidnapped, assaulted, and murdered her and then buried her 
in his backyard. This tragedy all of America grieved for.
  The irony of it is that the perpetrator actually worked at her 
school. He was hired by a company that was doing some construction work 
at her school.
  Congressman Porter introduced the School Safety Acquiring Faculty 
Excellence Act, which would permit school districts to access FBI 
criminal data before hiring new employees.
  My bill, the Jessica Lunsford Act, requires offenders to wear ankle 
monitoring devices if they fail to report when they move from area to 
area. In addition to the current fines and jail time under the Jessica 
Lunsford Act, offenders would have to wear the GPS monitoring device 
for 5 years and predators for 10 years.
  Probation officers right now are not provided with notification of a 
probationer's sex offender status from a previous crime. My legislation 
requires that that record be given to the probation officer. I am sure, 
Mr. Speaker, that if the probation officer knew of this record that he 
never ever would have allowed the predator to work in that school.
  We need to make sure that we have this information out there and 
available; and, certainly, protecting our children from those who would 
do them harm, those who really are the lowest of our society, is so 
very, very necessary; and I know that all of the members of the 
Suburban Caucus are very, very supportive of protecting our children.
  Like Dr. Price and many of you all here tonight, I, too, go home 
every weekend. People are surprised to see me, but I tell them that I 
do not ever want to start thinking like the Beltway mentality up here. 
For that reason, I was delighted to participate and was a bit 
encouraged that the Senate passed a version of the bill that we passed 
here, actually that we passed to protect children. Whether there is a 
conference committee or whether it is just something that is worked out 
between the two chairmen of the Judiciary Committees, the Senate 
chairman and our chairman here, certainly remains to be seen. But let 
us make no mistake: we want to make sure that we protect our children.
  I am so glad that you have included that issue in this suburban 
agenda. My hat is off to you, and I am sure that all of the suburban 
areas that we represent and yours will be very, very happy that we have 
taken these issues on.
  Mr. KIRK. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman who lost Jessica 
Lunsford in her own district.
  Our leader on this issue is Congressman Jon Porter from Nevada, the 
author of the School Safety Acquiring Faculty Excellence Act, and I 
want to yield to him.
  Mr. PORTER. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my colleague and friend from 
Illinois (Mr. Kirk) for bringing us to together as a caucus that is 
focused on, I think, issues that are impacting a lot of moms and dads 
across this country, especially in a part of the country, suburbia, 
where a lot of these folks are busy taking their kids to school, 
getting off to work and do not necessarily have a lot of time to show 
up for congressional hearings.
  If we look back through the history, our leadership has been very 
supportive. I appreciate Mr. Hastert and Mr. Boehner for allowing us 
this time tonight on these key issues.
  If we look back in time, about 40-some years ago, when I was a young 
man in a small Catholic grade school in the Midwest, in the community 
of Humbolt, Ohio, a number of challenges for teachers and challenges 
for parents and students had a lot to do with spitwads. Maybe showing 
up on time for class, making sure we are on time and making sure we got 
good grades, of course, was a priority; but think how things have 
changed. In those days, in my little Catholic grade school, we could 
not wear blue jeans with rivets because we were afraid we would scratch 
the desks.
  Let us fast forward today into suburbia. Today, we have children in 
the classroom that are trying to deal with drive-by shooting drills. 
They have drive-by shooting drills in certain schools across the 
country. We have children that need our special help more than ever, 
with an environment that is ever-changing, and it is not about rivets 
and blue jeans. It is about worrying about the Internet, worrying about 
predators, worrying about predators that stalk our students, that hang 
around the playgrounds.
  If you look at suburbia and inner city and communities around the 
country, if you look at police files, you will see that on maps they 
put dots and marks where sexual predators live and they frequent 
schools and hang around classrooms and hang around the ball fields.
  Well, being a parent myself, and having two children that graduated 
from the public school system in the community of Nevada and southern 
Nevada, I trust that when our schools open and when our schools hire 
teachers, that they are going to have the best tools available to 
screen teachers, to make sure that we hire the best and the brightest 
to take care of our children.
  We are very fortunate that the bulk of all of our teachers across 
this country are absolutely some of the finest. They care about their 
children, they care about the school, and they care about educating our 
precious resource, that is, our kids.
  I cannot imagine the pain of a parent or a child that has been 
molested or taken advantage of by a teacher or a faculty member at a 
school somewhere across the country. We pick up the paper every day, 
and there is a story about someone that slipped through the system, a 
teacher or a faculty member somewhere that has applied and has found a 
job and is employed with our children and teaching our children. I will 
be honest with you, I cannot imagine the pain if my child or a friend 
of mine's child was molested or assaulted.
  In the late 1990s, 1998, this Congress in its wisdom passed 
legislation to allow for complete background checks on teachers. That 
was in 1998. Unfortunately, as we fast forward, that bill which was to 
provide, again, complete knowledge, complete background checks to make 
sure that our teachers are safe, to date, to 2006, only 26 States are 
able to use the law that we passed in 1998. Again, that law was passed 
as a reason to make sure our principals, our administrators have the 
right tools to check the backgrounds of teachers. Like I said, 
fortunately, 26 States today are using it; 24 are not. So almost half 
are not using this tool that is available.
  We use Nevada as an example. Clark County School District in southern 
Nevada hires around 2,000 new teachers a year, another 3,000 or 4,000 
faculty members, close to 6,000, 7,000 people a year. You go across the 
State, you look at our growth, we are one of the fastest growing States 
in the country. We need to build 2\1/2\ new schools each month. We also 
need about 2,500 new teachers, but we have run into some problems.
  Unfortunately, since 1998 only 26 States are using the background 
check that is available due to constitutional challenges within their 
States, due to bureaucratic challenges in their States. We want to make 
sure in Nevada that when we check the background of a teacher that we 
have the most up-to-date, up-to-the-minute information without 
barriers.

[[Page 7482]]

  Well, again, unfortunately, that tool has not been available to all 
the States. So I proposed legislation, and it is H.R. 4894, the School 
Safety Acquiring Faculty Excellence Act, and what it does is allows 
every State to have access to information, both Federal and State 
information, on criminal background checks on teachers. Again, 
unfortunately, some of the States that we checked with, and we are 
trying to hire new teachers, due to different reasons are not able to 
provide the information that we need. So I encourage that we pass H.R. 
4894.
  It does a couple of things. One, it gives the tools to all the States 
to check backgrounds through the Federal Bureau of Investigation, 
through all that information so they can feel comfortable that they are 
getting the latest up-to-date information. Number two, it streamlines 
the process. Some States now, although they are doing background 
checks, it could take weeks or months to get information on hiring a 
new teacher.
  So the bill really does two things. It provides immediate access so 
there are fewer barriers so our administrators can have the proper 
information to make sure our students are safe, and it provides for 
those States that cannot currently follow the act of 1998 to gather 
that information.
  Mr. Speaker, I appreciate this opportunity. There is no more precious 
resource than our children. We want to make sure that our parents, our 
administrators and our teachers and, most certainly, our children have 
the best available to them through the teachers that we are hiring; and 
with that, again, I appreciate the time.
  Mr. KIRK. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Nevada because he 
is the author of the lead bill of the suburban agenda, and that will be 
coming up shortly in the Congress here.
  We know that, for example, in the State of Michigan, schools 
unwittingly hired 2,500 people convicted of sexual assault, murder and 
other felonies, exactly because these predators fell between the cracks 
of the various State registries which have been established and were 
not brought together in a single Federal register.
  One of the great problems that we have is also the emergence of 
international drug gangs moving into suburban communities. There are 
over 800,000 members of drug gangs now in America. It would be the 
seventh largest army in the world, and we need action to make sure that 
these gangs, sometimes suppressed inside large urban cores by capable 
police departments like the Chicago Police Department, are now moving 
into the suburbs. This is a phenomenon that we are not immune to in 
Chicagoland. It is happening all over the country, and I yield to my 
colleague from Atlanta to talk about the law enforcement situation that 
they face with gangs in that community.
  Mr. PRICE of Georgia. Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for yielding. 
I tell you, one of the things that excites me so about this suburban 
agenda is that it addresses real issues of real people, in real life, 
in real-time. Oftentimes, we deal with issues and they seem kind of out 
there. They are far away, and they are issues that are difficult to get 
your arms around; but I tell you, in my community, the issue of gangs 
and gang violence has reared its head.

                              {time}  2100

  When we have neighborhood meetings or you get together with PTA 
groups and you talk about this, folks just shake their head. They say, 
It doesn't make any sense. How can this be going on?
  That is why I am so excited about the suburban agenda because what it 
does is bring issues that people are talking about every single day in 
our districts back at home and saying, Why can't we do something about 
that? That is what Congressman Reichert has brought forward. H.R. 5291 
is the Gang Elimination Act of 2006.
  Will it eliminate gangs? No, but it will go a long, long way because 
what it does is charge the Attorney General with identifying those 
gangs that are the most egregious, that are the most violent, that are 
the most threatening to our communities all across this Nation, a lot 
of suburban areas, but all across this Nation and says, Let's get a 
strategy down to make certain that we address these and start knocking 
these gangs down, start making it so that these gangs are not able to 
function in the way that they are able to function right now and not 
able to threaten our families and our children.
  Mr. KIRK. One of the critical problems we have, we have heard of 
gangs like the Latin Kings and the Vice Lords and the Gangster 
Disciples, but we have a new gang emerging called MS-13 that may have 
reported, we don't know, links to international terror groups coming 
out of drug activity south of the border that seem to have no 
compunction with killing police officers, both on the West and East 
coasts. This is not just a threat to kids in school, it is a homeland 
defense issue.
  Mr. PRICE of Georgia. You are absolutely right. Apparently, so many 
of these gangs have a rite of passage that they institute for their 
members. That rite of passage is often very violent. Sometimes it is 
the murder of a member of the police force or a member of the 
community.
  And so this again is real-time issues, real issues that face our 
communities all across this Nation each day. I am proud again to stand 
with my colleagues here and I am so proud of Congressman Reichert for 
his leadership on this issue. We look forward to having it passed.
  Mr. KIRK. We all know Dave Reichert from Washington, who was the 
national hero who tracked down the Green River killer and is someone 
who understands well law enforcement challenges east of the Cascades in 
Seattle.
  One of the big issues we are also dealing with is a fear among 
families in America that it may be more difficult for their children to 
reach the middle class than it was for them. Another key item of the 
suburban agenda would establish 401-kids, a tax-deferred savings 
account for each child.
  I want to yield to my colleague who shares Florida with the author of 
that legislation, Clay Shaw.
  Ms. GINNY BROWN-WAITE of Florida. I thank the gentleman for yielding.
  Clay Shaw has introduced a bill called 401-kids. What it does is it 
gives young families the opportunity to save for college for the 
education expenses of their children tax-free. It is an awfully good 
idea and one that many, many people are looking forward to taking 
advantage of.
  You know, when children are first born, you tend to think, Oh, it's 
going to be so long, but as those of us whose children have grown now, 
the time does fly by. So the best way to save, certainly whether it is 
a parent or a grandparent, is by using a system similar to that which 
many working people use, a 401(k) program.
  Mr. Shaw's bill is one that allows you to set aside money tax-free so 
it can grow, so it can help to pay for the education of our children. 
And it is one that I have heard a lot of support for in my district. We 
want to make sure that not only parents, but grandparents also can 
participate in setting aside some money for the future education of the 
generation who will be in college 18 years from now, or sooner.
  One of the things that I wanted to also comment on, if you would 
allow me, is if you put in the word ``gangs'' and your State into a 
search engine, it is absolutely astonishing. Coming from Florida, 
people may think that AARP is the only gang in town. I can assure you 
that it is not. When we put this information in, we got three-and-a-
half pages of gangs that were listed. This is a problem for local law 
enforcement.
  Yesterday, I actually spoke to a man whose son was killed by a gang 
in Pasco County. I assured him, and he hasn't heard anything from law 
enforcement, this happened within the last month, that law enforcement 
is not sitting by idly. Certainly they are involved with it, because it 
also goes over into the hate crimes area. And the sheriff and the FBI 
were all involved in this.
  Unfortunately, these gangs have no morals, they have no respect for 
life,

[[Page 7483]]

and they are taking the lives and terrorizing many, many communities. 
That is an area that the Suburban Caucus is also focusing on and one 
that is very, very long overdue.
  As I say, if you put in your State and the word ``gangs,'' you would 
be absolutely amazed. Who would have thought that this would happen in 
Florida?
  Mr. KIRK. I thank the gentlelady.
  We have seen a number of gangs morph from the view that we had of 
them in the 1950s coming out of cartoon images like West Side Story of 
the Jets and the Sharks, a group of local toughs that no longer exist. 
These gangs are all connected to international drug cartels, many times 
having weapons and contacts far exceeding local law enforcement, 
especially suburban law enforcement.
  And now the view that they have is that they merely need to move 
outside of cities where they take on smaller police departments or high 
school officials and security officials that are not well experienced 
with these groups to continue their operations.
  Congressman Reichert's Gang Elimination Act of 2006 makes common 
sense. It simply says to the Attorney General, identify the top three 
national drug threat gangs and put forward a plan to the Congress to 
take them down within 4 years. It sets an example of those gangs that 
if you represent a near and present danger to kids and to the homeland 
security of the United States, that the U.S. Government is going to 
take effective action.
  The suburban agenda is very much about the security of families from 
gang violence. It is also about financial security. It is building a 
nest egg for each child with 401-kids family savings accounts. The 
Congress should build success upon success. The creation of the 401(k) 
program transformed the culture of the country to promote much greater 
savings and investment for people's retirement. In 2001, the Congress 
created 529 college savings plans, and over 7 million Americans have 
saved over $75 billion in these accounts.
  The 401-kids accounts expands the tax-free savings for each child's 
college education to also allow the first-time purchase of a home. This 
is something that much more greatly ensures access of our children into 
the middle class. That opportunity is not just to build a nest egg for 
the child, it also gives an opportunity for each parent to sit down 
with that child and review how their account is being built, what is 
the difference between a stock and a bond and a regular savings 
account, how they did this year, to build a culture of savings and 
investment for the rest of the child's life.
  I yield to my colleague from Georgia.
  Mr. PRICE of Georgia. Thank you so much. So much of what you have 
just said makes sense. You talked about common sense. We could call 
this suburban agenda the common-sense agenda really, because when moms 
and dads sit at home and they try to figure out how to take care of 
their health or their child's safety or their child's college 
education, they want to know whether or not they are going to be able 
to make that happen. One of the ways to do that is obviously through 
increased savings.
  When Congress finds something that works, we ought to do it, we ought 
to do more of it, especially when it results in greater savings and 
greater prosperity for so many individuals across our land. So with the 
success of retirement security and the 401(k) plans and the success of 
the 529 plans that you mentioned, we ought to build on that success.
  That is exactly what the 401-kids family savings account does. I 
think it is important. Education really is a key to advancing in 
society.
  But a college education isn't right for every single person. What the 
401-kids family savings account recognizes is that that money may be 
best used for purchasing a first home, or for starting a new business 
for a child or with a child. That is expanding the success that we have 
had with the 529 plans, common-sense kinds of solutions that I think 
will be embraced by this entire House and, frankly, by all of America.
  Mr. KIRK. I would say that we welcome Republicans, Democrats, 
everyone, to join this agenda, because while this is popular, while 
people want this to happen, it hasn't happened yet. This is an 
incomplete agenda, where we have not set a national strategy to 
eliminate gangs; we have not established 401-kids programs; we have not 
interlinked the Federal databases on sexual predators; we have not 
taken sufficient action on social networking sites like myspace.com to 
protect kids.
  All of this, then, builds up to a set of unfinished work which the 
Congress should now finish in order to protect the lives of Americans.
  One of the other issues that we hear about very often from suburban 
families is that we need to take greater action for conservation, that 
we support the national park system, we want it to be healthy and we 
want it to grow, but we also want to protect green and open space right 
near home. Without action by the Federal and State governments, there 
might come a day when we would drive to work or school and see an 
unending series of strip malls and no green or open space taken to 
protect the environment in our local communities.
  The suburban agenda also contains two pieces of legislation, one by 
Jim Gerlach and the other by Mike Fitzpatrick, both of Pennsylvania, 
that encourages donations of open space for conservation purposes and 
also protects farmland from being gobbled up in suburban communities. I 
think it is critical that we embrace a future in this country of 
rapidly expanding suburban communities in which families 10 and 20 
years from now also see green and open space and that they do not let 
inaction by the government or a climate which does not encourage the 
donation of these areas, to let these key properties go.
  I yield to my colleague from Georgia.
  Mr. PRICE of Georgia. I thank the gentleman for yielding.
  You are absolutely right. As the suburban areas expand, they often 
eat up the green land and the open space that is available. Before you 
know it, there is not enough parkland or open space that is left. And 
you can't get it back. It doesn't come back.
  I, like so many of my colleagues here in Congress, had the privilege 
of serving in the State legislature. One of the bills that I was so 
very proud of in the State legislature in Georgia was called the Green 
Space bill. What it does is provide State resources to set aside on 
future developments a certain percentage of land for open space, green 
space.
  I am so proud and privileged to be able to join my colleagues here in 
the Suburban Caucus and my two colleagues from Pennsylvania, Mr. 
Gerlach and Mr. Fitzpatrick, for promoting these bills that will 
provide encouragement for the purchase of conservation easements, as it 
does with Mr. Gerlach's bill, and increase tax easements to encourage 
charitable contributions of real property for conservation and open 
space purposes, which is Mr. Fitzpatrick's bill.
  These are common-sense solutions. They are not mandates. They aren't 
requirements. They aren't the heavy hand of the law. But what they are 
are conservative principles being used for conservation.
  I am so pleased to be able to stand with my colleagues and support 
these positive steps forward.
  Mr. KIRK. I thank the gentleman.
  It was decisive action of this kind that saved the Wagner Farm in 
Glenview, Illinois. We still celebrate the cows in that suburban 
community, now intensely built up, but because of foresighted action by 
the local community, that farm was preserved and it is helping educate 
a number of kids in the area about different ways to live and to 
preserve green space in their community.
  I want to speak for a second about another bill, a bill that is later 
on in the suburban agenda that defends the rights of teachers to be 
able to search a child to make sure that their classroom is gun and 
drug free.
  A number of us, me included, hesitated seeing a child using our 
training and our instinct as teachers, knowing that we probably have an 
issue with a

[[Page 7484]]

child, but under Federal law and current Supreme Court decisions, we 
have to show a specific suspicion toward that child before we can 
execute a search of their book bag, their clothes or their locker.
  I think that the country is ready to trust teachers, especially 
people that are long-experienced, certified, full-time teachers, to use 
their intuition and experience to defend a fundamental value, which is 
that Americans have a right to a safe and drug-free school and that the 
teachers and the administrators in that school know best how to 
appreciate danger and handle it immediately.

                              {time}  2115

  I recently talked with two teachers at Stevenson High School in 
Lincolnshire, Illinois, where they said that they knew the children, 
where they had a problem of a weapon potentially coming into the 
school, but they hesitated. They hesitated because many families in the 
neighborhood were lawyers, and they would worry about a big lawsuit and 
jeopardizing their jobs. That hesitation so far in Lincolnshire, 
Illinois, has not led to a tragedy.
  But we have seen other tragedies, like at Columbine High School or in 
my own district in Winnetka, Illinois, where Laurie Dann led an attack 
against school kids with a gun.
  Defending the rights of teachers to ensure the safety of their 
classroom is what the Teacher Safety Act is all about from Congressman 
Geoff Davis, and I think this once again represents commonsense action.
  Why do we need to take Federal action on what should be a local 
issue? Because the Federal courts have continually ruled on this issue, 
and it is only by action of the Federal legislature that we can define 
the rights of teachers to protect their classroom.
  I yield to my colleague from Georgia.
  Mr. PRICE of Georgia. Thank you so much. This is another one of those 
items, as you mention, it is just common sense. When moms and dads at 
home wonder why their kids are subjected to the kinds of threats that 
they are at school, when a teacher stepping in at an appropriate time 
could have solved that problem, it just doesn't make any sense to them.
  And you mention why it needs to be done at the Federal level. When 
individuals have access to Federal courts for these kinds of issues, 
then it is imperative that Congress step in and act because the threat 
of liability of a teacher ought not get in the way of the safety of our 
children.
  When you and I were going to school, our parents would say, look, I 
don't care what you do, but you ought not upset the teacher. The 
teacher is right. The teacher is, in essence, your parent while at 
school, in loco parentis. I am not an attorney, but what that means is 
that the teacher can act as the parent while the child is at school. 
When the child is at home, the parent certainly is able to search the 
child. So that ought to be the case at school as well. And it is 
important because of the day and time that we live in. Our children are 
subjected to risks that you and I never dreamed about, and so it is 
imperative that adults that are on the scene, the teachers in the 
classroom, administrators in the school, be trusted to make the right 
decisions in these areas and not be exposed to liability, not have to 
think in the back of their mind, if I do that, will I get sued. That's 
just foolishness, and it threatens our children.
  So I am proud once again that you brought that forward.
  Mr. KIRK. What we want is to give a message to the country's teachers 
that when it comes to an issue of the safety and security of kids in 
the classroom, do not hesitate. Do not worry about some impending 
lawsuit. Make sure that your classroom is secure. We are going to trust 
your judgement as a certified teacher, as a full-time employee of the 
school, to make that call and to make sure the classroom is secure.
  When you look at all of this, we know that the House has long been a 
forum for issues on rural issues, and those are very important issues. 
We have also been a forum for issues on urban communities, and those 
are vital to the future of the country.
  But there is a reality in the 21st century and it is that Americans, 
a majority of them, live in suburbs. Suburban families face a number of 
critical problems. There are drug gangs moving into suburbs that are 
seeking to take on suburban law enforcement communities that do not 
have the experience of big-city departments.
  There are thousands of online predators who are trying to contact our 
kids using powerful engines like MySpace.com.
  We are watching as green and open space disappear in the suburbs. And 
millions of Americans worry that it may be tougher for their children 
to enter the middle class than it was for us.
  Suburban families are under attack, and they need a voice in the 
Congress; and that is why this agenda is coming forward.
  These are critical issues in my district of Libertyville, Illinois. 
They represent commonsense, practical, grass-roots solutions coming 
from the communities to the Congress in a way that we welcome 
Republicans and Democrats coming together to move this agenda forward.
  We will be outlining all of this in detail tomorrow: a School Safety 
Acquiring Faculty Excellence Act, which helps us screen and make sure 
that everyone coming into contact with kids is safe and appropriate; a 
Delete OnLine Predators Act to make sure that these powerful search 
engines are not put in the service of online predators; a Gang 
Elimination Act, making the commonsense step forward of identifying the 
top gangs that are a threat to kids and the Homeland Security of the 
country and to take them down; a Health Information Technology 
Promotion Act to accelerate high technology, health information 
technology to make sure that your medical record, when appropriately 
available, is appropriate to every doctor that you see and is in a 
survivable form in case there is a fire or other catastrophe. And, 
last, a 401-Kids Tax Deferred Savings Account to have more guaranteed 
access of children, not just in the suburbs, but also in cities and in 
rural communities into the middle class with tax deferred savings from 
the day a child is born.
  I yield to my colleague from Georgia to wrap up.
  Mr. PRICE of Georgia. I thank you so much for yielding and for your 
leadership on this issue. I want to also thank once again our 
leadership, the Speaker and majority leader, majority whip, conference 
Chair, for allowing us to share with the House and with the American 
people tonight this exciting, commonsense suburban agenda. And it's not 
just for the suburban area, but the problems and challenges that we 
have in suburban America oftentimes precede those that we see 
elsewhere. And so it is so very important that we move this forward, 
the commonsense suburban agenda.
  As I mentioned before, folks in our districts are concerned about all 
the big issues, the huge issues, the war on terror, the crisis of 
illegal immigration; but they are also concerned about the issues of 
school safety. They are also concerned about the issues of making 
certain that their children are safe when they go on the Internet. They 
are also concerned about the importance of having private personal 
medical records and the ease of being able to take them from one doctor 
to another. They are terribly concerned about making certain that we 
preserve our Nation's open space and green space. And they are 
concerned about the ability that they have to assist their children in 
succeeding, whether it be through starting a business or providing a 
college education for them.
  So I commend the gentleman from Illinois so highly for his leadership 
on this issue. He has been a champion for the entire length of time, 
short time, that I have been in the United States Congress. It is a 
privilege to stand with you this evening, and I look forward to 
shepherding with you these issues through the United States House and 
Congress.
  Mr. KIRK. I thank the gentleman. Tomorrow, then, five dozen Members 
of Congress come together to unveil the suburban agenda, many of these 
pieces

[[Page 7485]]

of legislation already with bipartisan support, and it represents 
commonsense solutions addressing real issues before the country, 
important issues for all families, and it represents a critical agenda 
of key items of legislation addressing problems before American 
families that can be done in this session of Congress.

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