[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 153 (2007), Part 1]
[House]
[Pages 1016-1023]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                              {time}  2000
                         THE DEMOCRATIC AGENDA

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman from Iowa (Mr. King) is 
recognized for 60 minutes.
  Mr. KING of Iowa. Mr. Speaker, it is always a profound honor to come 
to the floor of the people's House and vent what is on my mind. I would 
point out that your organization and timing is impeccable. I thank the 
gentlelady from the District for ending exactly on the hour, so it is 
easy to keep track of the time as we unfold the next 60 minutes.
  I also appreciate her remarks with regard to Abraham Lincoln. He is a 
hero for America, for all people of all kinds, of all colors, of all 
places, and a man that demonstrated profound and tremendous leadership. 
As I listened to the gentlelady speak about Abraham Lincoln's 
leadership, I reflect upon a great example of leadership that I would 
like to share here this evening to start out this discussion.
  I will say that I have been assured that this is a matter of 
historical fact by a Washington D.C. historian, and that is as far as I 
verified it, but I liked the story so much, that I would just as soon 
not know if it shouldn't happen to be true. But I believe it to be 
true, and at least its consistent with the leadership in the spirit of 
Abraham Lincoln.
  That is, in 1863, as Abraham Lincoln was considering whether to sign 
the Emancipation Proclamation, it was not an issue that was totally in 
favor with the Republican Party at the time. But as he deliberated on 
this issue, he called his Cabinet in, and said, I want to hear from 
each of you on this Emancipation Proclamation that is here, and that I 
am considering signing.
  So he started his Cabinet on his left, and all around the table, and 
they were all men at that time, as we know, and the ones that had the 
right to vote back then. The first one, the Cabinet member said, Mr. 
President, my advice to you is, no, don't sign the Emancipation 
Proclamation, because after all, the blacks that are north of the 
Mason-Dixon line are free today, and it doesn't help them.
  So the next Cabinet member chimed in, and he said, Those south of the 
Mason-Dixon line, you can't free them because they are in the 
Confederacy, so your jurisdiction doesn't reach there today. It is a 
gesture and a gesture only.
  The third Cabinet Member said, But it is, it is an empty gesture, 
because on the north side of the line and on the south side of line 
there isn't anybody that you can free with the Emancipation 
Proclamation. It is simply a symbolic act. As this went around the 
table, around the Cabinet room table, and each Cabinet member said to 
President Lincoln, Mr. President, my advice to you is, no, don't sign 
it, because among other things, you will alienate some of the people in 
the north that are pro-slavery that are still fighting under the blue 
uniform, or the Union.
  There was reason after reason why President Lincoln shouldn't sign 
the Emancipation Proclamation and not a single reason given by any 
member of the Cabinet as to why he should sign the Emancipation 
Proclamation. So it was nay, nay, nay, nay, Mr. President, all the way 
around that table, his best advisors.
  President Lincoln took ahold of his lapels, and he said, Well, 
gentleman, the aye has it. That story is a story of leadership, and it 
is a story that I hope goes down in history for a long time. So I 
appreciate the remarks of the gentlelady from the District and the 
spirit with which you deliver them. I appreciate you being here 
tonight.
  I would like to take up the issue that we had a discussion on 
yesterday, and that would be the discussion of the minimum wage.
  Now, on January 11, which was yesterday, the House passed H.R. 2, the 
Fair Minimum Wage Act of 2007, Mr. Speaker. This bill would raise the 
Federal minimum wage from $5.15 an hour to $7.25 an hour, over about 
two or three increments in a period of 2 years and would arrive at 
$7.25 an hour. This bill specifically applies the minimum wage rate and 
hike to the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands.
  I bring this to the floor, because as I spoke here earlier on the 
embryonic stem cell research mandate that was passed out of this 
Congress this afternoon, there was a question and an inquiry, I was 
asked to yield by the gentleman from Florida, who asked if I knew if 
there were any geographical carveouts or any special political 
subdivision carveouts or any, perhaps, university or laboratory 
carveouts that would show preference that we should shine some sunlight 
on before the vote rather than after the vote.
  Of course, I know of none, asking out there if there are any, and we 
will be looking through the bill to see more closely, now that we have 
had a chance to scrutinize it, if there are any carveouts of that 
nature. But what prompted the gentleman from Florida's inquiry was, as 
I went back and dug in to find out, was that there is a carveout in the 
minimum wage legislation that was passed yesterday.
  So one of the things that is specific is the application of the 
minimum wage to the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, 
happens to be some islands that my father set foot on when he spent his 
2\1/2\ years in the South Pacific during World War II. So I paid a 
little bit of attention to that because that was part of the family 
lore as I grew up.
  But the bill does nothing to foresee American Samoa to submit to the 
Federal minimum wage or this new hike. In fact, it specifically exempts 
the American Samoans from minimum wage. Now why would that be? The vote 
on this bill was 315-116, all Democrats voting ``aye'' and 116 
Republicans voting ``no.''
  But as reported in the Washington Times today that although the 
legislation specifically extends for the first time the Federal minimum 
wage to the U.S. territory of the Northern Mariana Islands, it exempts 
American Samoa, which is another Pacific island territory that would 
become, the only U.S. territory not subjected to the Federal minimum 
wage laws. The only territory, the only location in the jurisdiction of 
the United States of America exempted from Federal minimum wage law 
would be American Samoans.
  This loophole pleases the tuna corporations that employ thousands of 
Samoans in canneries at a rate of $3.26 an hour. It is an industry-
specific rate that is set by the U.S. Department of Labor.
  But the tuna industry has lobbied Congress for years arguing that 
imposing the Federal minimum wage on Samoa would cripple the economy by 
driving the canneries to poor countries that don't require a minimum 
wage.
  Then one of the biggest opponents, though, of the U.S. minimum wage 
there is StarKist tuna, which owns one of the two packing plants that 
together employ more than 5,000 Samoans. Yet StarKist is about 75 
percent of that, about 3,750 employees perhaps at StarKist. Chicken of 
the Sea would be the other 1,250 employees, totaling the 5,000. Chicken 
of the Sea is also California based.
  But what is interesting, and I think what inspired the gentleman's 
inquiry this afternoon, was that StarKist's parent company, this 
company that has now an exemption from minimum wage law, their parent 
company is Del Monte Corporation, Del Monte Corporation, headquartered 
in San Francisco, which is the hometown, of course, of our new Speaker.
  Now, a spokeswoman for the Speaker said yesterday that the Speaker 
had not been lobbied in any way by StarKist or Del Monte. That is 
interesting. I don't know that I could say

[[Page 1017]]

that about any single company in my district, small company, large 
company. Trade associations represent multiple interests that might 
come into that. I am lobbied by individuals, I am lobbied by trade 
associations, I am lobbied by individual companies over and over again, 
hundreds and thousands of voices coming into my office.
  I welcome them all, but I could not take an oath that there is a 
single company in my district that has not lobbied me in any way, or, 
let me expand that, even if that were true, there is no way I could 
take the oath that not a single company has lobbied any of my staff. 
There are decisions made by my staff that I take responsibility for. 
That reflects upon me.
  So one could impute from this statement that the Speaker has not been 
lobbied in any way by StarKist or Del Monte. One can impute to that 
that also includes the Speaker's staff. I couldn't make that statement 
about a single company in my district, but this large company, larger 
than any company in my district, and domiciled in and headquartered in 
San Francisco, has had no contact with the Speaker's office or staff 
over any period of time, over, not just within the last week, but over 
the last 2 years, 4 years, 6 years or more? I think that deserves a 
little bit of scrutiny.
  But as reported in The Washington Post on January 9, aides to the 
chairman of the Education and Labor Committee, the gentleman from 
California, and the sponsor of the bill said, and I quote, ``The Samoan 
economy does not have the diversity and vibrancy to handle the 
mainland's minimum wage, nor does the island have anything like the 
labor rights abuses that the chairman found in the Marianas.''
  That is also interesting. It works good for a smokescreen for a short 
period of time, but here are the facts. In June of 2005, a U.S. court 
in Hawaii sentenced the owner of a sweatshop factory in American Samoa 
to 40 years in prison for what prosecutors called the biggest case ever 
of modern-day slavery. That isn't a small statement, and that is not a 
short sentence to prison, 40 years in prison for the biggest case ever 
of modern-day slavery in American Samoa.
  The chairman, who has been tracking this research on the labor 
problems within the Marianas and presumably American Samoa, contends 
that he didn't find anything going on in American Samoa that would be 
comparable to the labor rights abuses found in the Marianas.
  What would be worse than the biggest case ever of modern-day slavery 
of labor rights abuses? I don't know how you would define that. I will 
challenge the chairman, come up with those cases, explain to us how 
this one that was worthy of 40 years in prison, the biggest case ever 
of modern-day slavery, somehow or another pales in comparison to the 
transgressions of the Marianas, of which I don't have a single case 
before me.
  That is the argument made to the chairman and why he wrote into the 
bill the exemption for American Samoa where they are paid $3.26 an 
hour, but in the Marianas, of course, they want to include them.
  Well the difference is they have Republicans in the Marianas, and 
they have Democrats in American Samoa. But the individual in American 
Samoa, the labor right's abuser's name is Lee Soo-Kil, he held more 
than 300 victims as forced laborers in involuntary servitude at his 
garment factory in American Samoa.
  He is accused of using arrests, forced deportations and brutal 
physical beatings to keep workers under control. The court was told, 
this is in the record of the court, that he ordered a worker to gouge 
the eye of another worker who dared to complain about her living and 
working conditions in the garment factory. That abuse would not be 
sufficient, apparently, in the judgment of the chairman to consider 
that it was something that should be brought underneath the minimum 
wage law and under some more scrutiny in American Samoa.
  It is certainly an act that would exempt you from the minimum wage. 
Democrats said that their reign in the House would usher in a new era 
of transparency. Yet with the second bill they bring to the floor, 
eyebrows are raised at the thought of a lucrative carveout from a 
company with a parent company headquartered in the hometown of our new 
Speaker.
  It didn't take very long for these things to start to pop up. Over 
and over again Democrats claim that the minimum wage needed to be 
raised as a matter of fairness and human decency. Yet, yet, apparently 
workers in American Samoa don't count in the Democrats' view.
  Mr. Faleomavaega, who is a representative of American Samoa, has said 
he doesn't believe his island's economy could handle the Federal 
minimum wage because of competition in the tuna industry from South 
America and Asian canning interests, a place where they are paying as 
low as $.66 to $.67 cents an hour.
  We are going to cater to and let competition be affected by that kind 
of sweatshop labor that is taking place in South America and Asian 
canneries. But apparently the Democrats are under the impression that 
the laws of economic competition are only applicable to American Samoa 
and have no bearing on the goods and the countless business 
manufacturers elsewhere in the United States, and that also includes 
the Marianas, which are geographically close, similarly situated, but 
not specifically exempted like American Samoa.
  The United States needs to be competitive and be able to sell abroad. 
But while the small businesses in my district, who often pay more than 
the federally mandated minimum page, I would say almost always pay 
more, they provide employment to countless hardworking Americans, and 
some of them struggle each month to make their payrolls.
  Democrats have allowed employers in American Samoa to avoid this 
burdensome Federal mandate, but not those in the Marianas, not those 
anywhere else in the American territories, not anywhere under the 
jurisdiction of the United States of America, except American Samoa, 
where you have two large tuna companies, and one of them's parent 
company is domiciled in San Francisco.
  I don't understand how Democrats see their economic principles make 
the minimum wage a bad idea for American Samoa, but not a bad thing for 
Main Street in small town USA. They pledge to bring transparency to the 
legislative process, and yet they refuse to submit their 100-hours 
legislation to the regular committee process. I may take that issue up 
a little bit later.
  What I would very much like to do at this point in this conversation 
with you and the American people would be to yield to my friend, the 
gentleman from North Carolina, Mr. McHenry, for his remarks on whatever 
issue he might have come to the floor to address.

                              {time}  2015

  Mr. McHENRY. I thank my colleague from Iowa for his leadership, and I 
wanted to echo what you were speaking of earlier. And it is interesting 
what we are experiencing right now in Congress, an interesting time.
  The new Speaker comes to office with a new Democrat majority, and 
what the Speaker pledges is ``respect for every voice,'' and another 
quote, ``working for all of America.'' Well, all of America except 
American Samoa, a small island in the South Pacific where they have 
been exempted from the Federal minimum wage.
  Now, Nancy Pelosi during the campaign, then-Minority Leader Pelosi 
said, ``The Fair Minimum Wage Act of 2007 will increase the Federal 
minimum wage from $5.15 to $7.25 over the next 2 years, providing 
families with additional funds to cover the increasing costs of health 
insurance, gasoline, and home heating and attending college.''
  There actually was a press release just a few days ago when the 
Speaker of the House issued this press statement. That is good. That is 
a high honor which the new Speaker had of increasing the Federal 
minimum wage, and it is a high honor for some politicians in 
Washington, D.C. to use other

[[Page 1018]]

people's money to increase other people's wages. It is not coming from 
the pockets of D.C. politicians; it is coming from small business 
owners across the America who are going to be impacted and perhaps lose 
jobs over this.
  But the bad item in this is the Washington Times report from just 
today that ``the Democrats' minimum wage legislation exempts American 
Samoa, another Pacific Islands territory, that would become the only 
U.S. territory not subject to the Federal minimum wage.'' That is from 
the report from the Washington Times today.
  Now, it is peculiar. Why, I ask, would American Samoa be exempt from 
the Federal minimum wage? It seems an oddity, does it not, Congressman 
King? It seems an oddity that a small island of all of our territories 
in this great Nation, of all the States in the Nation, that an island 
is exempt. One island. Why, I ask, would that island be exempt? It just 
seems perplexing to me. I mean, it seems like good news that the new 
Democrat majority and the new Speaker want to raise the Federal minimum 
wage to help people, to help families with their health insurance, 
gasoline, home heating, as well as attending college.
  If it is not good for American Samoa, how could it be good for the 
United States to have an increase in the Federal minimum wage? And if 
it is good for the United States, if it is good for America, why is not 
American Samoa given the same benefits? It is America, too. Well, 
perhaps the new Democrat Speaker doesn't think so.
  The question I raise, Congressman King, is why could that be? We are 
just simply asking the question here tonight, why could that be the new 
Democrat Speaker would want to exempt a single island from a large 
piece of legislation? In fact, it is one of their six items in their 
100-hour program. It is an amazing question to me, Congressman King. It 
is an amazing question with perhaps a simple answer.
  Well, going back to the Washington Times article, if I may quote from 
there: ``The loopholes please the tuna corporations that employ 
thousands of Samoans in canneries there at $3.26 an hour. One of the 
biggest opponents of the U.S. minimum wage is StarKist Tuna, which owns 
one of the two packing plants that together employ more than 5,000 
Samoans or nearly 75 percent of the island's workforce. StarKist's 
parent company, Del Monte Corp., is headquartered in San Francisco, 
which is represented by--.'' Well, we will fill in the blank, that is, 
for someone else to fill in the blank.
  But certainly something is fishy. Something is indeed fishy when the 
Federal minimum wage is good for all Americans as espoused by the 
Democrat majority, yet we exempt a small, in many terms economically 
struggling, island.
  Now, I submit, Mr. Speaker, if it is good for us in this Chamber to 
vote to raise the Federal minimum wage, is it not good for all 
Americans, even in the territories? Is it not a matter of fairness to 
extend that to all the territories? It is an amazing happening, 
Congressman King, in these opening hours that I would ask you, why 
could this be? I mean, if we are going to work for all America as the 
new Speaker said, why not all of America, even the territories?
  Congressman King, there are many questions here, but I raise the 
question, how could this be in the most ethical Congress in history?
  Mr. KING of Iowa. As I am listening to this dialogue that we have 
going on here and I start to think about, you know, a lot of us see 
this broader economy, we see this multi-trillion GDP that we have, and 
we see the components of small businesses, large businesses, family 
farms, and these operations that are going on, the interrelationships 
of them. Some families run more than one business. And I have taken the 
position, and many of us have, that whenever you raise the minimum 
wage, ultimately you will lose jobs. We understand this, and we have 
made this argument and this debate, and we will continue to make this 
argument and this debate.
  But I am going to say the people who voted for this minimum wage, at 
least the people who supported the idea of exempting American Samoa 
from the minimum wage, can only understand this law of supply and 
demand and this argument that is a fundamental, basic economic 
principle that when you mandate an increase in wages, the employer will 
have to make a decision as to whether to keep those employees or not or 
to lay them off and maybe move their operations elsewhere, or bring 
some machinery in to replace the labor. The inevitable result of 
raising a minimum wage is the loss of jobs.
  But I am going to speculate this, Mr. McHenry. I am going to 
speculate that when it is addressed within the microcosm of a single 
business on a single island, then the chairman of the committee 
actually understood that equation and decided that he would draft in an 
exemption for American Samoa for that fishy business that you 
addressed. Because when it is a microcosm of a single island and a 
single company, maybe it was comprehensible the impact of a minimum 
wage there.
  Mr. McHENRY. It is also interesting that the parent company that 
employs 75 percent of Samoans, American Samoans, is headquartered in 
San Francisco. It is an interesting oddity in press reports that this 
is raised. And, like I said, Congressman King, I believe it is just 
fishy. It is very fishy that this would happen in the opening week of a 
new Congress that espouses really high ethical standards which we all 
hope for and we strive for as individuals and as a collective body. It 
is a very strange happening in the Democrats' 100-hour provisions that 
they even go back on their campaign pledge to have the Federal minimum 
wage across America, not exempting certain areas or certain islands or 
certain peoples, but actually have a uniform standard. It is very fishy 
that these things happen just at the beginning.
  Mr. KING of Iowa. I pose a question back, and that is a statement has 
been released by a spokeswoman for the Speaker with regard to this, 
because this has been something that has been published across the 
country. And it says that the Speaker has not been lobbied in any way 
by StarKist or Del Monte.
  Now, not lobbied in any way. That is a broad statement that a lawyer 
probably couldn't write it any more broadly than that. It may well have 
been a lawyer who said it. And I reflected moments ago about, I 
couldn't make that statement about a single company no matter how small 
in my district, because they either talk to me or my staff or maybe 
sent me a letter or called on the phone or sent me an e-mail, or maybe 
called in on a telephone while I was doing a talk radio show and I 
didn't know who they were. How could one make a statement that she 
hadn't been lobbied in any way? Could you make that statement about a 
single business in your district?
  Mr. McHENRY. I thank my colleague from Iowa for asking that question. 
It's an overly broad answer, it seems. Yet the other interesting avenue 
here on exempting a certain area of America with a certain business 
interest that is represented by a certain individual, well, it is 
interesting to me because in many ways what the Democrats promised was 
an end to earmarks. Earmarks, the American people know very well that 
earmarks are simply pork-barrel spending. Well, I will tell you 
something, this may be tuna, but it smells like pork. And this special 
provision, I would submit to you, should fall under this earmark reform 
that the new Democrat majority wants to pass on this House floor.
  I think it is a high goal for us to have, that is, to have 
fundamental earmark reform so we eliminate pork-barrel spending 
programs. But this bill in the first full week of the Democrat majority 
has an earmark.
  And my colleague from New Jersey has joined us, and Congressman 
Garrett is very involved in the fiscal conservative agenda, as my 
fellow colleague from Iowa is, Congressman King. Now, would you define 
this as an earmark, Congressman Garrett?
  Mr. GARRETT of New Jersey. I would definitely define it as an 
earmark. And I rise now to ask either one of the gentlemen to elaborate 
on the comment the gentleman from Iowa is

[[Page 1019]]

making, and as the gentleman also raised, that this has already pressed 
accounts as to where this exemption is drafted for. But as the 
gentleman from Iowa said, there was no explanation as to why it came 
about. That is to say, the press accounts from the Speaker's office, I 
believe the gentleman from Iowa said that they have not been lobbied at 
all by the industry from their district. Is that correct? They were not 
lobbied at all by that particular industry from their district is what 
the press accounts say from the Speaker's office on this issue?
  Mr. KING of Iowa. I would ask the gentleman if he could repeat his 
question.
  Mr. GARRETT of New Jersey. I believe I am quoting you correctly that 
the press accounts from the Speaker's office on this is they have not 
been lobbied whatsoever from the respective industry in their State on 
this topic. And if that is the case, and it is hard to believe for the 
reason the gentleman from Iowa states that something that is so 
fundamentally important to that particular industry, you would think 
that the Speaker, if she is going to be responsive to their industry, 
would be hearing from them on these matters.
  My question is, and perhaps you know the answer, why then does either 
the chairman or the Speaker say that they put this provision into the 
particular bill if not to protect those industries?
  Mr. KING of Iowa. In response to the gentleman from New Jersey, I 
would have to say that there is no other way I can analyze that.
  There are actually only two arguments. One of them is the argument 
that is put forth by the representative from American Samoa who says 
that the tuna industry can't withstand the competition if they have to 
pay a minimum wage. So something more than $3.26 an hour would take 
those tuna companies out of business, and they would apparently leave 
the island. And they couldn't go to the Marianas because there is a 
minimum wage imposed there, so presumably they would go to South 
America or maybe Asia.
  The other argument of course is this exemption will let those tuna 
companies that are there continue to make a lot of money off of cheap 
labor that is imposed there in American Samoa where it is exempted 
from, the only location in all of American territories and 
jurisdictions that is exempted from Federal law. That is what is in 
this legislation that is before us.
  Mr. GARRETT of New Jersey. I appreciate that the gentleman is trying 
to conjecture what the potential answer is as to why this absurd 
language was put in the original bill. Neither one of them obviously 
stands on their own foot. The first one being that we are going to 
create such an exemption because we realize how dangerous imposing 
minimum wage on any particular industry can be. Well, if it is going to 
be dangerous for that particular industry, then the other side of the 
aisle should realize it can be harmful to others and they should 
broaden the exemption to others. That was the first explanation.
  The second explanation you conjectured was because they were doing it 
as an earmark specifically for one industry, to protect that industry. 
And in this area of ethics, I am sure that could not be the reason.
  So as we stand on the floor tonight, I am sure that while we are here 
to speak on this matter, the Members on the other side of the aisle are 
back at their offices listening to this debate, the Speaker is probably 
back in her office right now, the sponsor of the bill is back in their 
office right now.

                              {time}  2030

  I would extend an invitation to any or all of them to come and join 
us to give us a logical explanation. Was it the first reason that they 
were just creating one exemption because they realized how harmful 
minimum wage can be, or was it that they were crafting something 
specifically as an earmark to protect one of their own industries 
outside of all others?
  Mr. McHENRY. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman will yield, I thank 
Congressman Garrett for proffering that. I think it is a wonderful 
thing because we know that our colleagues perhaps, Mr. Speaker, would 
be watching this debate and perhaps they could join us and answer some 
of these questions that we are trying to wrestle with on this important 
piece of legislation that the House took up just yesterday and passed 
under a closed rule, under martial law, not allowing any dissenting 
voices to offer any amendments to perfect it, perhaps extending the 
Federal minimum wage to even American Samoans or, in fact, change the 
bill so that it helps small businesses transition with this increase in 
the Federal minimum wage.
  We have many questions, and I would love for our colleagues to join 
us here on the floor to answer these questions because we need the 
answers from the Democrat majority who control this place. And I would 
dare say, if the Madam Speaker would like to come before us here 
tonight, we would be happy to yield plenty of time for her to explain 
these actions of this new Democrat majority. We would love to have some 
input from our other colleagues on the other side of the aisle. In an 
air of bipartisanship, let's share our time, Congressman King, during 
this leadership hour and make sure that we have an open dialogue and we 
answer questions.
  Mr. GARRETT of New Jersey. Will the gentleman from Iowa yield?
  Mr. KING of Iowa. I yield to the gentleman.
  Mr. GARRETT of New Jersey. I just wish to take this moment to commend 
you, Mr. McHenry, on this issue because just as the other side of the 
aisle has said that they want to have input from the other side of the 
aisle, and as you know, we have been precluded from giving that input 
in the form of amendments on this and just about every other bill that 
has come before us, I commend you for taking the time now to open up 
the floor to the other side of the aisle and give to them what they 
will not give to us. You were giving to them the opportunity to give 
input to our side of the aisle.
  And when I say, our side of the aisle, this is not just a partisan 
issue. This is not just something just for us here in this room or 
Republicans or what have you. We are really extending a hand to the 
other side. We are offering them to give input to the American public 
to explain themselves. Was it an issue of them trying to carve out 
something for one particular industry in their home State, or was this 
something even less nefarious than that, simply that they realized that 
raising the minimum wage can have the harmful impacts that it does?
  Mr. KING of Iowa. Reclaiming my time, I would take a stab at that and 
submit off of Mr. McHenry's remarks as well that when you have a closed 
process and in fact it is not necessarily a closed process; it is a no 
process, no process for hearings, no process for subcommittee, no 
process for full committee, no process for Rules Committee and no 
process on the floor that allows for any amendments, then there is no 
way to go back and really identify who is going to get the credit for 
this brilliant exemption that has been drafted into the minimum wage 
bill. So we can only then rely on the open press, the press accounts, 
and I am grateful that we do have a first amendment because they have 
gone back and reported and have publicly not been refuted remarks made 
by the chairman of the committee, who has gone to the Pacific and 
examined the labor circumstances there and found that the labor 
circumstances in American Samoa justify exemptions, but those in the 
Marianas do not justify exemptions, just to draw a real close 
comparison there, even though the worst example of a sweat shop that 
prosecutors had ever seen was the perpetrator that was sentenced to 40 
years for abusing 300 employees in American Samoa. And so the 
exemption, then, is admitted publicly by the chairman of the committee 
as being drafted into the bill under his advice and his request, and 
that is the closest thing we have, but there is no opportunity to amend 
it in or out or to add to or detract from.
  And the people I feel the most sorry for are not Mr. Garrett from New 
Jersey or Mr. McHenry from North Carolina. My sympathy lies with the 
large

[[Page 1020]]

number of freshmen Democrats who have arrived here in this Congress 
under the belief and having committed to their constituents that they 
are going to add to this cause, that they are going to add to this 
process, that their voice will be heard, that they will be bring 
representation from their district to Washington, D.C., where a lot of 
them allege they did not have representation, and they are the ones 
shut out of the process without a voice, without an opinion, without a 
forum, without an amendment, without any opportunity for amendment, 
after having made all those promises, shut out of this. All that wisdom 
shut out. A handful of people, maybe not even a handful of people, 
makes a decision like this. It is a closed process, and this is what 
you get with a closed process is an earmark, as Mr. McHenry said.
  And if the gentleman from New Jersey has more to say, I would be 
happy to yield.
  Mr. GARRETT of New Jersey. I appreciate the gentleman's yielding. I 
would like to just step back for just a moment from this overall issue 
that we are narrowly focussing on, this exemption, perhaps nefarious, 
that was in the legislation, and commend the gentleman from Iowa for 
your comments just yesterday when the overall bill of minimum wage was 
being discussed and you waxed eloquent as to the problems that the 
legislation that the other side of the aisle presented as far as what a 
raise in the minimum wage can do to the people that they suggest that 
they are going to help. And I commend the gentleman for the comments 
that you make on that.
  And if I could just maybe elaborate and give one other example. 
Perhaps the most difficult part of understanding from whence they come 
on this issue of raising the minimum wage in the manner that they did 
is that they, in fact, hurt the very same people that they claim they 
are going to try to help by raising the minimum wage. That is, they are 
going to hurt the very people who are low skilled and lack experience 
because, generally speaking, it is the low skilled and the people 
lacking experience who are entering into the entry level type jobs out 
there. And it does a disservice to them for them to report a bill such 
as we had yesterday of raising the minimum wage, which we know 
statistically will shut out so many people who are seeking to enter the 
workforce.
  Just as we did a moment ago where we asked others to take a look at 
this issue that we were speaking about a moment ago and come down here 
to explain themselves, perhaps, if they are not going to come down 
here, the constituents at home can call the Members and ask, can they 
explain themselves on the exemption of the bill? But also maybe people 
listening to this program at home right now can also call the Members 
on the other side of the aisle who purported to support this raise in 
the minimum wage and ask this: Have any of them on the other side of 
the aisle ever while a Member of Congress had people working for them 
right down here on Capitol Hill, working for them in a legislative 
capacity basically, alongside other members of their staff, and not 
paid them the full minimum wage? That would be a curious question.


                Announcement by the Speaker Pro Tempore

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair would remind the Members to direct 
their remarks to the Chair and not to the television audience.
  Mr. GARRETT of New Jersey. Sure. I appreciate that. Have any of them 
had anyone working on their staffs and not paid the full current 
minimum wage? That is an interesting question. I bet the answer to that 
question would be yes. And we know those people in those offices are 
entry level people, many of them in college right now, who come to 
Washington to try to get their first job.
  Now, the Members on the other side of the aisle will say, wait a 
minute, the reason we are not paying them the full minimum wage right 
now and we have done so for the last several years despite the Federal 
minimum wage is because these are entry level people. They are young 
people. They don't have a full education yet. They don't have all the 
experience they need as other people on the staff. And yet the people 
sitting right next to them on the staff are being paid the minimum 
wage, and you have to ask them, why are they doing that? The other 
reason they would give to you, and they do it in perhaps a dismissive 
sort of way, is to say these people whom we are not paying minimum wage 
to are interns.
  Wait a minute now. This young person sitting over here doing the 
exact same thing as this person sitting over here, the exact same sort 
of job; this person is being paid a full salary, and this one is not 
getting a full minimum wage salary doing the exact same thing. Is it 
right that they do not meet that level? And yet they were the ones who 
sponsored this legislation to raise the overall standard of pay for 
everyone else in this country. So I think it is important that we ask 
them why, on the one hand, they speak out of the mouth of raising the 
standards for everyone, but at the same time, in their own offices, 
they have people working for them who are not making the full minimum 
wage.
  Mr. KING of Iowa. I thank the gentleman from New Jersey. And it 
occurs to me that perhaps one's own house is not in order before the 
presentation of the legislation that seeks to put everyone else's house 
in order, and I am confident this will not be the last time that these 
circumstances are created here nor that they will exist when one finds 
themselves in a position of conflict of judgment. And these are the 
kinds of things that can be debated and discussed and deliberated if we 
have an open process.
  But I would point out to the gentleman from New Jersey that we are 
closing in perhaps, perhaps, on an open process. When we gaveled in 
here this morning, this 100 hours pledge was that this legislation, 
about six pieces of legislation, was to be passed in the first 100 
hours, and that became the promise that trumped all other promises. The 
promises of an open system, bipartisanship, dialogue, the most open and 
the most ethical Congress in history, all of these things, many of them 
have been compromised already because you can't have an open Congress 
and get these things done, apparently, in the first 100 hours. So the 
100-hour promise is the one that is sacrosanct, and the rest of their 
promises are being broken in an attempt to try to pass this legislation 
in the first 100 hours.
  Well, my report tonight, Mr. Speaker, is to bring everyone up to date 
on how far we are. And we have tried objectively to produce a 
legitimate 100-hour clock. And I know there is from, the other side of 
the aisle, a stopwatch put on that. Well, we don't want to count, after 
we gavel in for the 110th Congress, the time that it takes to swear in 
because that is not really legislative time, and we don't want to count 
the time it takes to vote for the Speaker, Mr. Speaker, because that 
takes also away from our legislative time. We really only want to start 
this 100-hour clock when it is convenient to do so, and we are going to 
count time in our own way, and the 100 hours is not going to be up 
until we get this legislation that we promised we would do in the 100 
hours. That is the measure. So keep changing the definition on what the 
100 hours is until you get things accomplished. Then you say, yes, we 
did. We kept our promise.
  Well, this was a promise that was purely a political promise. The 
American people have waited for this legislation for over 200 years. To 
hurry up and rush it through and set aside an open dialogue, set aside 
the amendment process, shut down and not allow subcommittee, committee 
or Rules Committee or floor amendments, do all of that so you can keep 
a 100-hours promise. So, anyway, the least we can do is have a 
legitimate clock on the 100 hours. I produced this legitimate clock, 
Mr. Speaker, and this morning when we gaveled in with an opening prayer 
and a pledge, when we did so this morning, we were sitting at 42 real 
hours. This is the hours here on the floor from the time we gavel in 
until the time we gavel out. How could anyone argue that that is not 
legitimate? We are not counting 24 hours a day. We are counting the 
real time that there is someone sitting in the Speaker's chair and the 
clock is ticking.

[[Page 1021]]

  So to bring you up to date, we are now at 52 hours when this began. 
It will be 53 hours here in about 18 minutes. Now we are halfway. We 
have been further than we have to go, and my recommendation would be 
just throw this idea away. Suspend this idea of 100 hours because it is 
what is usurping the open dialogue, the appropriate process, the most 
ethical Congress in history, the most sunlight on everything we are 
doing.
  As I listened to the news over the weekend, the gentleman from 
Tennessee, when asked the question, Mr. Speaker, about the 100 hours, 
he said: Well, no, we really can't comply with the open bipartisanship. 
Just give us a little break on that. Let us get our 100 hours done, and 
when the 100 hours is over, I believe we are going to go to this open 
process, this bipartisanship, and actually use the committees and the 
expertise of the Members here, hopefully the freshmen, especially the 
Democrat freshmen, giving them a chance, Mr. Speaker. So that was his 
plea. Give us a break and let us go ahead, and we will go, not in 
regular order, but we will go in a special order so that we can get 
done in the first 100 hours.
  Well, I do not agree with that. I think we ought to set this argument 
aside. But at least we can suspend, then, this suspension of open 
dialogue when the 100 hours is up. We are at 52. We will soon be at 53. 
It also says the cost to the country. Well, I have not done very well, 
Mr. Speaker, because I do not have a staff that can keep up with the 
cost to the country or maybe I do not have an adding machine that 
allows for that. And as I look at the legislation that has passed 
through piece after piece, some of it just can't be calculated. I 
didn't have a symbol on the word processor to go to infinity, so we 
just kind of stuck a bunch of dollar signs in here because the cost to 
the country is impossible to calculate.
  It is impossible to calculate when you pass legislation, for example, 
to inspect every piece of cargo that comes into our ports and the 
authorization becomes, and I quote from the legislation, ``such sums as 
may be necessary.'' Well, when we are doing legislation with 
authorization of ``such sums as may be necessary,'' that is more money 
than we can calculate. We can't put a dollar figure on that. That goes 
on piece after piece. How much does it cost to raise the minimum wage? 
How many jobs are lost? How much of our production goes oversees? What 
is the real effect on the American economy when and if that happens, 
when and if the Senate takes it up? It can't be calculated, but it is a 
lot of money. We will soon be at 53 hours and counting. That will take 
us down to 47. We have been further than we have to go. We are over the 
top. We are going to narrow this thing down. And when we get to the 100 
hours, the real 100 hours, I am hopeful that this Congress will then 
wake up and say, we have another promise we want to keep rather than 
one we want to break, and that is going to be to bring the freshmen 
into this process.

                              {time}  2045

  We will give the freshmen an opportunity to go to a subcommittee and 
sit down at a hearing and begin to get informed so they can make 
informed decisions on behalf of their constituents. We need that kind 
of process. The Constitution envisions that kind of process. In fact, 
it requires it.
  I am for an open system, and I am for sunlight on all of this. I am 
for sunlight even on StarKist, and even on Chicken of the Sea and even 
on San Francisco and even on American Samoa. And I am for sunlight on 
the Marianas as well. I am for sunlight on everything that we can 
provide, and I am for real-time reporting.
  Every American has access to the Internet today. Whether they own a 
computer at home or go to the library, they can sit down to a computer. 
And I believe all of the records, the records of the lobbyists' 
contributions to Members of Congress, maybe contributions that came 
from Del Monte or StarKist or Chicken of the Sea, we can look where 
those contributions went and be able to track that.
  If we had an open system here, if those Federal election campaign 
dollars were real-time reported and available on the Internet so that 
they were downloadable in a searchable and sortable format, we would 
have somebody right now sitting at home in America who would have 
flicked those keys and zeroed in on that and they would have by now 
probably e-mailed my office a summary of, a detailed list of all those 
campaign contributions. Probably the bloggers out there would have 
sleuthed out why it is that American Samoa is exempted from this 
minimum wage law. We know if you track the money, you can find a pretty 
good motivation.
  I didn't hear from Mr. McHenry that he could name a business in his 
district that had not lobbied him during his time here. I know that Mr. 
Garrett has been here a good 4 years and starting on the fifth year. I 
didn't ask that specific question, but I would ask you to respond.
  Mr. Garrett, is there a single business in your district that you 
could swear an oath had not lobbied you or your staff in any way, any 
form of communication that might have influenced your judgment or 
decision?
  Mr. GARRETT of New Jersey. I would say no. I would say we are a 
responsive office, as is your office, to the constituents' needs in our 
district. So, no. That is why the statement released by the Speaker on 
this is difficult to comprehend.
  Mr. KING of Iowa. I thank the gentleman from New Jersey.
  I wanted to make a few remarks about the minimum wage itself and just 
to go on record. We need to understand something. This is a free 
enterprise economy. What has made America great is because if you go 
back 150 years, we had a dream called manifest destiny. We had a 
continent that needed to be settled and developed. Individual personal 
capital was invested. Banks grew because they could make money off 
loaning, and entrepreneurs could borrow money.
  They were going into an environment within the continent, within the 
borders of the United States, in a low-tax and sometimes a no-tax 
environment and often no regulation, but certainly a low-regulation 
environment. So they invested their money.
  This country was settled and developed in lightning speed by 
historical standards because we had a very positive environment here 
for economic growth.
  Then as this society began to get a little older and began to 
develop, they began to take protection. So the older we get, someone 
would decide that they needed to have some influence and so they would 
want to advocate in Congress and in the State legislatures for taxes 
and more taxes and regulation and more regulations. That is how this 
has grown into this situation. But a prosperous, dynamic economy has 
got to be one with the least amount of regulations possible and the 
lowest amount of taxation necessary to keep a government functioning to 
provide the necessary services.
  Mr. GARRETT of New Jersey. Mr. Speaker, one other point that the 
gentleman from Iowa did not raise but I think would concur with is what 
is the underpinning of this Nation. The other side of the aisle would 
probably agree with this if we were speaking on another topic, that led 
to the great formation of the wealth and the value of this Nation, from 
our moral upbringing as well as the development of this Nation, is in 
fact the diversity of this Nation. The fact that living in New England 
is different demographically than living in the far west. That living 
in New Jersey where I come from is different from where the gentleman 
from Iowa lives. Whether we are talking about the weather or the price 
of housing or the energy costs that we may have in New England and New 
Jersey as far as heating versus the energy costs in the southern 
portions of the country, and the transportation costs, and the 
educational level.
  New Jersey is proud of the fact that we are a highly educated State, 
and for that reason we have a number of biotech firms and 
pharmaceutical firms in our area. Other portions of the country may 
have more farming. Or in

[[Page 1022]]

the New York area where it is the financial services mecca for this 
country. Or western portions where it is high tech on the West Coast. 
That is where we are today, but that is also where we came from. We 
were a diverse Nation. It was because of that diversity and the 
freedoms and liberties that we had at that time that this Nation was 
able to grow economically, as the gentleman said.
  The problem with the legislation that we passed yesterday, however, 
it does not realize nor appreciate nor value that diversity of this 
Nation that we have. What that legislation says is that we are going to 
treat everyone alike uniformly. When you do that, you treat certain 
people unfairly.
  How does that come about? In the examples I gave yesterday, you can 
come up with a list of these things. If you treat an individual who is 
a teenager who is in school right now and trying to get a job after 
school and make some money, maybe he wants to work in the fields 
bringing in hay in the Midwest, we are going to treat him the same as 
we might treat the parent of some children who has some experience in 
the tech field and has an entry-level position in the Northeast where 
they have high-tech industry. We are going to treat that person the 
same as perhaps a second-career individual, perhaps in the financial 
service markets just over the river, the Hudson River in New York City.
  Perhaps we are going to treat them the same as someone in Florida in 
the citrus crop industry. So whether it is the fields of Iowa or 
Florida, the high-tech industries on the west coast or the financial 
industry on the east coast, the legislation we had yesterday setting a 
uniform minimum wage says they are all going to be treated exactly the 
right, regardless of the person's age, experience, regardless of the 
person's skills, regardless of their attributes that they bring to that 
employer who is looking for somebody to add to the value of the product 
that they are producing, and regardless of the demography of the 
particular area, traveling costs, housing costs, or the cost of living.
  Coming down to Washington, D.C., we realize this is an extremely 
expensive place to live versus other places in the country where you 
can buy a house for maybe $100,000. Regardless of all those variables, 
they are going to mandate and say we are going to treat everybody in 
all of these situations the same. That is unfair because the 
demographics and the situations differ.
  The result is this: those individual in these other high-cost areas 
are going to be put at a greater disadvantage in certain circumstances. 
In other circumstances, that individual in Iowa trying to get a job 
after school, they are going to be put at a disadvantage because the 
employer is not going to see the value added to the product exactly the 
same. And so some of those individuals who may need those jobs will not 
be able to get the jobs that they actually have to have to support 
their family.
  Mr. KING of Iowa. I thank the gentleman.
  As I listened to that discussion, it brings to mind some of my 
history. I recall I started back working for 75 cents an hour helping a 
farmer in the neighborhood. I think he would have paid me a dollar, but 
I didn't think I was worth more than 75 cents an hour. If you were to 
ask him today, he would probably say that would be right, you were not, 
Steve.
  I did that and I learned about machinery and the work that we were 
doing that was different from my home. After that I went to work in a 
grocery store, and there the wage was $1.20. And I stocked shelves and 
carried out groceries and learned about the grocery trade. So I worked 
there when school was out, and then it was summertime. I realized that 
the butcher was making pretty good money. That was before we had the 
kind of packing plants that we have today. So there was more demand for 
people who could cut meat.
  I thought I might as well learn a trade. First I talked to the 
butcher, and he said he would take me on. And then I went to the 
manager and asked the manager. The manager said, yes, you can work in 
the meat department but that is not where I need you, so I can't pay 
you. Well, I want to learn a trade. Fine, you can go back there and 
work. And so I agreed to work in the meat department for nothing. So I 
would work 40 hours a week in the grocery store, and then I would work 
20 to 40 hours a week in the meat department with no pay.
  It would have been in violation of this minimum wage law, but I did 
it for no pay because I wanted to learn a trade. And I did learn a 
trade. It is not one I have ever been paid a dollar to do. In fact, it 
puts me into the business sometimes of being the one who does cut up 
the meat at whatever family gathering we have.
  But that is the kind of thing that used to happen on a regular basis. 
I am not an odd thing. I am not an anomaly when it comes to that.
  But it is a subject that each time the government interferes, 
whenever the government passes some of these child labor laws that say 
that, well, if you are 17 years and 364 days old and you would like to 
work in the gas station, you can run the cash register, but you cannot 
cut the grass on the riding lawn mower until you are 18. That is an 
example of a child labor law.
  Another example is you cannot wash the pizza dough maker or you can't 
make french fries. All of these things you can do at home, a lot of 
these things we allow younger people to do at home, a 17-year-364-day-
old person cannot because of our child labor laws.
  You couple that with minimum wage laws and ask the question is there 
any place in your community where, let's just say an older lady who 
doesn't get around very well can pull her car into the gas station and 
be confident that the windshield will be washed and the oil will be 
checked and her gas tank will be filled, and somebody will bring her 
credit card in and out and make sure that all she has to do is sit 
there and wait for that service. Where does that happen in America? 
Some places, not many. And the biggest reasons are minimum wage laws 
and child labor laws.
  So instead, we give them the keys to a car that goes 140 miles an 
hour and they can drive on the highway. It is safe enough for them to 
drive a car at 16, 14 with an adult with them, but not safe enough for 
them to ride a riding lawn mower around a gas station.
  This is what happens when decisions don't get opened up to public 
scrutiny, and not opened up for debate and opportunity for amendments 
to be offered.
  So here we are with this fishy thing going on in American Samoa where 
they are the only territory in all of the territories of the United 
States of America by this legislation that has passed the House that 
would be exempted from minimum wage laws. And I have to believe that is 
not for the people of American Samoa; it is for the people making 
profit off the sweat of their brows.
  And if it is good enough for the goose for the rest of America, it is 
good enough for the gander in American Samoa.
  I yield to the gentleman.
  Mr. GARRETT of New Jersey. First of all, I commend the gentleman for 
coming to the floor to raise this important issue.
  As we conclude this hour worth of discussion and debate on this very 
important topic, I would just remind the gentleman that it has been an 
hour that we have been debating and discussing this issue. We have 
extended our hand to the other side of the aisle. We have extended our 
hand to the Speaker and to the sponsor of the legislation to come 
forward and to engage with us here on the floor and with the American 
public, as well, to explain whether there is a nefarious reason behind 
this inexplicable reason for treating certain people in the country 
different than other people in the country.
  We will welcome an opportunity in future times for them to join us to 
explain themselves.
  Mr. KING of Iowa. As I conclude here, Mr. Speaker, no one has come to 
the floor to defend a position like that. It was not part of the 
dialogue, the debate and the discussion.

[[Page 1023]]

  While we have taken the floor here an hour ago, there were 52 hours 
used up of the 110th Congress of the 100. Now 53 hours. So 47 hours are 
left, Mr. Speaker.
  And when that time comes, it will be time to open up so that we don't 
have these kinds of circumstances. It needs to be open to the public.
  I appreciate the privilege to address you tonight, Mr. Speaker.

                          ____________________