[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 155 (2009), Part 18]
[House]
[Pages 24705-24711]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                              {time}  2115
                       RESTORING THE RULE OF LAW

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Maffei). Under the Speaker's announced 
policy of January 6, 2009, the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Carter) is 
recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the minority leader.
  Mr. CARTER. Mr. Speaker, it's the first day of a new work week here, 
and we're going to talk about restoring the rule of law.
  You know, we've talked about this now for about 14 weeks. It's so 
important that we talk about the rule of law because, quite frankly, 
it's what keeps our society together. It's what makes us different from 
anybody else and what makes America different from everybody else. And, 
you know, it's so simple that we take it for granted.
  Every American that--I'll bet you can stop anybody on the street and 
ask them about their rights and they all know what their rights are 
because they're Americans and they know they have rights. But what does 
it mean to have rights? Well, what it means is you have a place, you 
have a set of rules that establishes your rights.
  Now, our Constitution says certain rights are inalienable and given 
by your Creator. That means that all men are born with those rights. 
These are rights of liberty and freedom. When we had the Declaration of 
Independence from Great Britain, that's what we were talking about. 
You're born with these rights. These are the rights of free men 
everywhere. They are inalienable. They are given by the great Creator 
of the universe.
  But everybody also knows I've got a right to free speech, I've got a 
right to assembly, I've got a right to a lawyer. And at all ages you 
can say, That's my right. That's my right. It is your right, but it 
becomes your right because it is enforceable, and that means that we 
have established a set of rules that our society operates under. And 
under those rules, there's a set of rules that's usually in the courts 
that enforce your rights, protect your rights.
  You know, for 20 years I tried criminal cases and other cases, and we 
spend most of our time, at least the judges that sit in these court 
cases, we spend our time making sure people's rights are protected. And 
we have a whole series of cases that establish rights of criminal 
cases. Enough of you have watched television to know a lot about--we're 
some of the most educated, nonlawyers in the country, the folks who 
watch television in the United States, because we know about Miranda 
rights. So we know about other rights. In other countries maybe they 
don't know about them. Now, why wouldn't they know about them? Because 
they don't have them, okay. That's it. They don't have them.
  And there are places on this Earth, and most of them are in Third 
World countries, where the rule of law does not prevail, where the 
average citizen doesn't have a place to go get recourse, recourse for 
injury that's happened to them in some form or fashion, a way to 
enforce a contract.
  There are countries full of good people, but they haven't established 
the rule of law to the extent that the average citizen can protect 
their little plot of land or protect their little business or make a 
deal with somebody, a contract, and then when the other side doesn't do 
it, enforce that contract against them because the rule of law does not 
prevail. For whatever reason, whether it be history or culture, 
whatever it is, it doesn't prevail.
  And so if a rich person or a wealthy group of people who wanted to go 
invest in that place or maybe they have a dictatorial system or they 
have a socialist, communist system that hasn't established a rule of 
law, so you can't go enforce it.
  You know, when Russia first opened up and started working on 
capitalism, I had a friend who went over there and opened a clothing 
store. And if he's listening, he knows who I am talking about. And he 
said the problem was the clothing store was as popular as it could be 
and everybody wanted to buy American-cut suits, they wanted to look 
like Americans, prosperous Americans, and he had a booming business; 
but unfortunately he had to pay cash for everything.
  He couldn't make a contract with somebody based on a bill of lading 
or anything like that at the time because he wasn't sure he'd be able 
to enforce it if he had to take it to court. He was afraid he would be 
out on a limb. And, quite honestly, he pointed out the Russians were 
doing the very best to correct that, and maybe they have. I haven't 
kept up with it. But it was putting a real strain on his national 
clothing chain that he tried to take to Russia.
  I hope he fixed it. I don't know. I haven't talked to him in years
  But the point is at the beginning of the establishment of capitalism 
in the former Soviet Union, in Russia, the rule of law had not come 
down to where you could feel comfortable with making contracts with 
people and believe they could be enforced. And hopefully that's been 
fixed. I would assume it has because I had the good pleasure to go to 
Russia with the Homeland Security Department and, quite frankly, 
they're doing pretty well over there. Looked like to me, anyway. Lots 
of stores and lots of prosperous-looking people.
  But the glue that holds society together that allows you to trade 
both inside and outside your country is the rule of law; there are 
rules and regulations that everybody is a part of, everybody is 
protected by and required to abide by. That's a basic premise in 
American society.
  Now, we went through a time when there was sort of a 60s rebellion 
against the establishment, and people would say things like, It's okay 
to rob from ``the man,'' but you can't rob from the little guy. And 
``the man'' was the big guy. Now, nobody really defined who the big guy 
was. Of course, everybody knew that Coca-Cola was the big guy and Exxon 
was the big guy and U.S. Steel was the big guy. But was it the

[[Page 24706]]

neighborhood grocery? Was he the big guy? Well, yeah, maybe if he was 
big enough, if he had more than two grocery stores.
  In other words, somebody was saying it was okay to break the law if 
somebody was really a lot better off than you were. That was insanity. 
That was when I was in law school. And we debated all of this in law 
school. And it was insanity. Because if you've got rules, you've got to 
abide by the rules; and if you're going to decide you don't like a 
rule, you're not going to abide by the rule, then you don't get the 
rule of law. You get anarchy.
  Well, the United States Congress has rules. We write those rules 
down. The first set of rules was written by Thomas Jefferson; and to a 
great extent, we still follow those rules of decorum and procedure in 
this House of Representatives by using Thomas Jefferson's manual on 
this place. Now some of it's been changed and altered. I think most of 
them are basic fairness, basic honesty, fair treatment for all 
concerned; and you're supposed to abide by those rules.
  We have rules that we run our government by, and those rules, they 
bind all of us. We have certain forms that we have to file; we have to 
tell people what our income is. You know, it's a funny world we live in 
because the American people are generally private about what they make, 
and it's kind of ``none of your business'' in most families to ask 
somebody what's your daddy--what kind of salary does your daddy make? 
What's your husband make? It's kind of a none-of-your-business 
question.
  Unless you're in the public eye. If you're in public life, it's 
everybody's business what you make. And you're required to report what 
you make. And if you don't report it, there are penalties for that.
  All of these things are some of the stuff we've been talking about.
  But I would argue that we have some certain subjects that are really 
of concern to the American people today, and we've been talking about 
one pretty consistently, talking about Chairman Rangel's issues. I am 
going to move past those for today. They may get mentioned a bit. We're 
going to talk about some things we talked about in the past, but I 
think there's a passion for these issues among the American people.
  Part of that passion is the man we elected President because he told 
us, ``I am campaigning on changing Washington and bottom-up politics. I 
don't want to send the message to the American people that there are 
two sets of standards: one for the powerful people and one for the 
ordinary folks who are working every day and paying their taxes.''
  So the President set the standard back in February, on February 3 on 
CNN, 2009. That standard is going to be out there right now. And that's 
just right. I don't think there's any American that's going to argue 
with that. That's right, nobody is above the law. Nobody gets to not 
abide by the rule of law, because the rule of law governs our society; 
and that's basically what the President is saying. Nobody because of 
who they are, what office they hold, how much money they've got in the 
bank should get any other privileges above and beyond what ordinary 
people get.
  Now, we've got some issues tonight. Let me say we're going to talk 
about a lot of stuff. But several people last week thought we were 
going to talk about some of that stuff, and one of the things that they 
wanted to talk about was the czars. Let me be real clear up front. 
We're going to get to the czars in just a minute. So if anybody's 
listening that wanted to talk about the czars but thought we weren't 
talking about it, come on down. We're looking for you.
  Just briefly, I'm going to tell you in my opinion one of the things 
that most people are most upset about is this outfit called ACORN. This 
outfit was supposed to be a do-good public service, the group that was 
out there organizing communities and organizing groups so that we could 
have a better country.
  So they got really involved in working on elections last time, and 
here's some of the results: in Colorado they were charged with voter 
fraud, multiple counts, with convictions; in Florida, vote fraud, cases 
are pending; in Michigan, voter fraud, multiple counts with 
convictions; Minnesota vote fraud, multiple counts with convictions; 
Missouri, vote and mail fraud, identity theft, multiple counts with 
convictions; Nevada, vote fraud, multiple counts pending; Ohio, vote 
fraud, multiple counts with convictions; Pennsylvania, vote fraud, 
multiple counts with convictions; and the same thing in Washington 
State.
  So this good group has not been doing good things, nor have they been 
abiding by the rule of law.
  Now, we have a bill that's been introduced by Minority Leader John 
Boehner to defund ACORN. And what he's basically saying in this is the 
American people have looked at this, they've listened to this stuff 
that's going on, they've watched these videos of these people advising 
folks about child prostitution and prostitution and so forth, and 
they've said we've had enough of these people and we darn sure don't 
want to pay for them. We don't want to pay them to go out and break the 
law.
  And so the fact that they received millions of dollars in Federal 
funding offends people because they're not following the law.
  So John Boehner has proposed that no Federal contract, grant, 
cooperative agreement or any other form of agreement will be awarded or 
entered into with the organization known as ACORN. No Federal funds 
will be given to ACORN; no Federal employees may promote ACORN; and 
that ACORN includes State chapters, organizations with financial stakes 
in ACORN, and organizations that share directors and employees with 
ACORN.
  And I think this bill is designed to do what the American public is 
asking for. They're saying it's bad enough these crooks are out there; 
it's bad enough that they've got these cases pending against them. Of 
course, they're innocent until proven guilty. But they've been proven 
guilty here, and here, and here, and here, and here, and here, and 
here.

                              {time}  2130

  They have been found guilty. That's what ``conviction'' means.
  Now why in the world would the Federal Government want to fund people 
who are out committing voter fraud? And that's not just it. Why would 
we want to fund somebody that would advise people on how to open a 
house of prostitution using underage girls? Why would we want to fund 
those people with my taxpayer and your taxpayer dollars? I don't know. 
I think that Members of this House have a real question about that.
  I think this is a good idea and a good bill that has been offered by 
John Boehner. And I think that our leadership of this House, the 
Democrat leadership, should go forward on this bill. No matter how much 
these people worked to help their candidates in the last election, now 
they should say, whoa, wait a minute. And I presume that there was no 
knowledge that all this was going on. So they should be out front to 
stop this stuff because it's just not right. It's just not right.
  We talked before, and we are going to keep talking, about the fact 
that ACORN needs to be taken off the Federal Government's money list.
  Would the gentlelady from Wyoming like to join us?
  Mrs. LUMMIS. I thank the gentleman from Texas for a few moments in 
this discussion.
  We have a great country in that even when the law is absurd, we still 
obey the rule of law and spend our time working to change the law. A 
perfect example of that is a law, the Endangered Species Act, and its 
current application to a water situation in California where a small 
fish that is a nongame fish is preventing water from being used to 
irrigate and grow crops.
  Consequently, unemployment in the area where these crops are usually 
grown is dramatically higher than the rest of the Nation, dramatically 
higher. And people who normally are working there are in bread lines, 
the very same people who grow food in California for the rest of this 
Nation. Consequently, this winter, a lot of fruits

[[Page 24707]]

and vegetables will be more expensive for those of us all over the 
United States because we have instead deferred to the rule of law in 
allowing this water to flow by these fields that are laying fallow and 
not producing food and not allowing workers to work.
  This situation gives us an opportunity to point out the absurd 
applications of certain laws and the need for there to be exceptions 
for certain laws. At the same time, we obey those laws regardless of 
the absurdity. So I compliment the gentleman for pointing out the 
importance and the history in this country of obeying the rule of law.
  When Russia became post-Soviet Russia and was trying to establish 
institutions, as Iraq is trying to do today--among the most important 
institutions that they are trying to establish are courts with honest 
judges, which is something that is very rare around the world, 
especially in Second and Third World countries. How blessed we are in 
America to have an honest judiciary and the rule of law. That is to the 
compliment of many fine Members of this body, but also to the gentleman 
who is leading this conversation tonight, also a former judge. And I am 
grateful for the time you have given me to discuss this.
  Mr. CARTER. Reclaiming some of my time, I'm glad you brought up the 
smelt in the San Joaquin Valley, because it's kind of interesting. 
Until this came up, most people in America probably didn't even know 
that the San Joaquin Valley is considered the breadbasket of this 
country. Now here is something interesting. It rained cats and dogs in 
Texas this week. We were real happy for that rain. But it meant my wife 
and I stayed indoors one Sunday afternoon because there wasn't anything 
else to do. And the movie ``Treasure of the Sierra Madre'' with 
Humphrey Bogart was on television. That movie was made in 1948.
  One of the characters in the movie was reminiscing about what they 
were going to do with their share of the gold. And he said, and it 
struck me because I have been talking to Devin Nunes so much about this 
tragedy that is going on in the San Joaquin Valley and that whole 
valley region of California, and this character says, ``I grew up in 
the San Joaquin Valley, an agricultural region in California, growing 
fruit. And the happiest days I ever had was right after the harvest, 
when all the workers got together and celebrated the harvest. And if I 
get out of here, what I want to do is get me an orchard with my 
money.''
  It struck me, because he was talking about the fact that in 1948 that 
was a major production region. Now the only way that region could 
produce anything is with water. It is the desert. I live in the desert. 
If you look at an 1845 map of the United States, starting just west of 
Kansas, you will see a sign that says ``Great American Desert.'' It 
goes all the way across the Rocky Mountains to California. And Texas is 
within the Great American Desert. We used to joke about it when I was 
in school, let's drive across the Great American Desert to Dallas. But 
the truth is, those of us who live in a water shortage State, and 
Wyoming has to have underground water or it wouldn't be able to exist, 
we know the value of water. That's why a vast majority of our laws have 
something to do as far as our land with water.
  Taking away the water in the San Joaquin Valley is taking away a 
growing region, which I have evidence from the movie, that was 
prospering in 1948. Now how long ago was that? Sixty years ago. Now 
it's a shame that like you say, some laws that ought to have some 
exceptions don't. And we have unemployed people in literally entire 
counties.
  It's a great thing to talk about when you talk about the rule of law. 
That's the responsibility of legislators. That's the responsibility of 
Congress people. When you have a rule of law that has to be changed, 
you shouldn't take to the streets with guns unless you have got a 
tyrannical society, which is what we had when we had our revolution. 
You should take it to the legislature with votes and change the laws 
that need to be changed. Make the exceptions to make things work. And 
this body would decide what is best for everyone involved. That's what 
ought to be happening.
  Mrs. LUMMIS. Will the gentleman yield? I wonder if you might indulge 
a departure into health care for just one moment.
  Mr. CARTER. Certainly.
  Mrs. LUMMIS. Thank you. I want to compliment my fellow freshman 
members of the Democratic party who had an hour preceding this hour to 
discuss health care from a freshman perspective. A couple of issues 
came up. I was watching them from my office so I came over here to the 
floor to comment on some of the things that they had raised and to 
compliment them on their statements about health care.
  I want my Democratic colleagues to know that Republicans support 
health reform. We recognize that there are problems in our health care 
system, and that it needs reform. What we disagree about, and what we 
are here to debate and discuss, is how those changes should be 
implemented. It seems that my Democratic colleagues are more 
comfortable with government solutions and that my Republican colleagues 
are more comfortable with, by and large, private-sector solutions.
  I might comment specifically, if I could, on a couple of things that 
were brought up tonight. The gentleman from New York (Mr. Tonko) said 
that he wanted stability for Medicare. And I want to say that I too 
want stability for Medicare. But we have not seen any bills yet that 
provide that stability. The only bills we've seen are bills that would 
create a new health care system run by the government on the backs of 
health care that would cost health care through Medicare dollars that 
are supposedly being wasted or abused.
  Well I can tell you that one of my hospitals in Wyoming has told me 
they are only reimbursed 37 cents on the dollar of their actual costs 
for all of their Medicare-provided health care. So in other words, 
government is being subsidized right now for the health care it 
provides to seniors. And it is not meeting its obligations to provide 
the actual costs of Medicare and reimbursing them to doctors and 
hospitals, especially in rural areas around this country. And I would 
love to work with the gentleman from New York to solve that.
  I want my colleague from Colorado (Mr. Polis) to know that I, too, 
want lower costs. But all of the bills we've seen carry costs. And they 
range from $800 billion and more, which is what we are hearing is the 
cost of the Senate Finance Committee bill, to the $1 trillion-plus 
range for earlier bills that were introduced in this House. So these 
bills that would lower costs come at a cost. It's just that those costs 
are going to come through surcharges, penalties and taxes that do not 
exist now. So those costs are just being shifted to someone else.
  To the Member from Ohio, Representative Kilroy, who brought up a very 
powerful personal story, and to Mr. Kagen of Wisconsin, the physician, 
who both addressed preexisting conditions, Members of the Republican 
Party also know that preexisting conditions are a huge problem in this 
country. That is why we supported high-risk pools. And the creation of 
a high-risk pool passed this Congress before I was here. It was while 
you were here. The proposal that I am cosponsoring, House bill 3400, 
would add additional moneys to those high-risk pools that come from 
cutting off the stimulus funds that have not yet been spent and using 
them to create additional funding for these high-risk pools to support 
funding for those with preexisting conditions.
  A wonderful idea was discussed during their debate. It was raised by 
Representative Dahlkemper of Pennsylvania. It was something new that I 
heard for the first time today. After 4 months of constant debate, this 
was something absolutely brand new, the notion of young people, through 
age 26, being able to stay on their parents' coverage, which is a 
particularly great idea during this economy where young people are 
leaving college and taking jobs if they can find them in this tough 
economy, that frequently don't have health insurance or do not have as 
good a health insurance as the policies

[[Page 24708]]

that their parents had them on when they were minors. What a great 
idea. New things come up here every day.
  In other words, Republicans are willing to work with Democrats. We 
want health care reform. We would love to work with Democrats on these 
ideas. The problem is the leadership of the Republican Party has been 
asking since April for a meeting with the President and has not 
received a response. The problem is that we want commitments. When the 
President says, If you like your current health care plan you can keep 
it, we try amendments that say exactly that, and those amendments are 
killed. We want 72 hours to read the bills. And when those amendments 
are killed, we have no assurance that we will have 72 hours to read the 
bill.
  I want to compliment a television program called ``On the Record'' 
with Greta Van Susteren. She has been a tireless advocate for Members 
of Congress reading the bills. And among the things she asked the 
President is, would you sit down with Members of Congress and go line 
by line through the bill? And the President said yes. So, members of 
the Republican Party in Congress have written to the President and 
said, please, we would love to take you up on this. Let's go through 
this line by line so if you really believe we Republicans are 
misrepresenting the ideas that are embodied in House bill 3200, we can 
see where we disagree, and maybe we can find an agreement. And yet, 
those requests to go through the bill with the President line by line 
have not been responded to by the White House.

                              {time}  2145

  So, in other words, I want to share the frustrations that we in the 
minority party have, and particularly that I, as a freshman member of 
the minority party, have. And I want to communicate with my majority 
party colleagues, my Democratic colleagues, that we want to reach out 
and have been reaching out to the Democratic Party, the majority party, 
trying to find a bipartisan bill, and yet I believe our overtures have 
not been reciprocated. And I want to once again extend my desire to do 
so. I would particularly like to work with my freshman colleagues who I 
respect and admire very much and rely on the expertise that we have 
come to gather as fledgling Members of this Congress.
  I note that the gentleman from Texas has now a chart on the board.
  Mr. CARTER. That's right. Reclaiming a portion of my time, Greg 
Walden, Culberson and Brian Baird have H. Res. 554, the 3-day reading 
rule, which just basically they want to put in writing and have this 
body adopt as a--agreed by both sides voting on, legislation must be 
available to Members and the public for 72 business hours before taking 
action, requires the full text of the legislation and each committee 
report to be posted continuously on the Internet. And by the way, this 
is what one of our Founding Fathers, Thomas Jefferson, thought was a 
good idea, and we're just basically redefining his rules and 
modernizing it a little bit with the Internet.
  But an interesting thing you said--we keep talking about this health 
care plan and I want to get on to other things, but it's an important 
thing, but there will be another health care debate later--and that is, 
it's important, but you need to look at history. I just saw on 
television the oldest health care plan in the world was created by Otto 
Von Bismarck in Germany when he united Germany, so it's the oldest one 
they've got. They tried all ways of funding it, but it comes down to 
coming out of your paycheck. And today, in Germany, 42 cents out of 
every dollar is taken out by the government to pay for the health care 
program, and they're having real problems with it in the modern world.
  So, there's lots to be talked about, and what you said is right; 
let's talk. And by the way, something else. The Senate supposedly 
passed something today, but they haven't got it in writing. In fact, 
they passed something which is a concept. I think this is a new thing. 
I have never quite heard anything like this. They passed a concept, 
which none of it has been reduced to writing the way I understand it. 
So it's just we've got a bunch of ideas and here's what they are, and 
we're not going to write them down because somebody might hold us to 
them. So we're just going to say we've got some great ideas and we pass 
it. What is that?
  Mrs. LUMMIS. And will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. CARTER. Yes, I will yield.
  Mrs. LUMMIS. And even those concepts should be at least posted for a 
3-day reading now that they've been actually voted on. But as the 
gentleman has pointed out, who now is going to take those concepts and 
draft them into a bill? And will the bill be the exact embodiment of 
what the Senate passed in concept or will additional concepts be added? 
We won't know unless the 3-day reading rule and the posting rule on the 
Internet is implemented. Only if 72 hours are given to those people who 
can compare those concepts that were voted on to the actual legislative 
language that comes out of a drafting group will we know that the 
legislation reads the way that the concepts were designed to implement.
  And I yield back. Thank you.
  Mr. CARTER. I see my friend Louis Gohmert from Texas is here, and I'm 
going to yield to him in just a moment. But that kind of reminds me of 
``Animal Farm,'' you know. They would say the rule is this, and the 
next day they would say, Oh, that's not what the rule is. The rule is 
this. Finally, they said, We're going to write them on the wall of the 
barn. So every night they wrote the rules on the wall, and then when 
they woke up the next morning, somebody had gone and erased the rules 
and added new rules. See, there is a reason why this body has the rules 
that it has, so that we and the American people can be educated about 
what we're doing. And concepts, that just doesn't get it done.
  I yield whatever time Mr. Gohmert would like to have.
  Mr. GOHMERT. Thank you for yielding.
  Let me just tell you about some of the problems with the rules that 
we in the minority have encountered here this year. It is amazing just 
how grossly unfair and closed and partisan the rule usage has been in 
this body.
  Now, for example, CBO, the Congressional Budget Office, has been 
hailed for years and years as one of the most fair and suprapartisan--
they're above being partisan--entities that there is in Washington, 
D.C. And many people will recall, I'm sure, that after a tough thumping 
that H.R. 3200 got as just how costly it was going to be, as CBO had 
estimated, the head of CBO was called over to the White House, to the 
White House woodshed, apparently. Behind closed doors and lots of 
guards, there was a discussion we weren't privy to. But lo and behold, 
CBO seems to be much more lenient now in looking the other way on some 
things and coming out with scoring that we wouldn't have thought was 
possible.
  But if you go back to early in the summer, as my friends here know, I 
have had a health care plan that is an alternative. It's a solution. It 
came from listening, you know, hundreds and hundreds of hours to people 
that knew exactly what they were talking about and putting it together 
in a plan. Then we were trying to get the plan into bill form. We were 
told that I was not on the committee of jurisdiction, and therefore 
there just wasn't much chance of getting that done.
  But we were also told you cannot get a bill scored unless it has been 
put in bill form by Legislative Counsel's office. And the Legislative 
Counsel's office is the one that said, Look, we've got so many 
submittals, there is no way we're going to get to that any time soon.
  So we kept pushing and pushing because we had to get it in bill form 
because we were told that unless you get your plan in bill form--not a 
concept like the Senate has done. How ridiculous is that? A concept. 
You vote on a concept? Excuse me. There needs to be language that you 
fight over. You can't have a staffer come in at the last minute or 
some--maybe ACORN is going to help them with that, too, but you can't 
do that.

[[Page 24709]]

  So, anyway, we fought for a couple of months. We finally, with the 
help of Ranking Member Joe Barton and others in our party saying please 
get this into a bill form, the last week of July the Legislative 
Counsel's office was able to get it in bill form. We were able to get 
it worked on and then get it filed on July 31st.
  Well, in August, we started requesting that, now that it was in bill 
form, please, CBO, would you score our bill because we were told you 
couldn't get it scored until it was a bill, so we got it into bill 
form. And then we were told, Well, you know what? You're not on the 
committee of jurisdiction, so we may not be able to get to that. So 
again Ranking Member Joe Barton made a request, and we were told it was 
in the queue back in August.
  Then in September I was told, Well, you don't have a request from the 
Joint Tax Committee. Our ranking member on that is Dave Camp, so I 
talked to Dave. Wonderful guy. Dave made the request as the ranking 
member of the Joint Tax Committee, so then we got that request in in 
September.
  So imagine my surprise when Senator Baucus comes up with a concept--
not a bill, a concept--and lo and behold they're able to score his 
concept even though there is no language there, and they go through 
these mock hearings over a concept without having the actual language 
and vote on a concept. It's my understanding that the definitive 
language is still not there yet.
  So, anyway, we know that CBO, the way they've been able to phrase it, 
the media has been able to come out and say, Wow, this is going to cost 
hundreds of billions of dollars, but it's really not going to hurt us 
financially. Man, that woodshedding at the White House must have really 
done a lot of good for the White House. That's all I can figure.
  But let me also say this to anyone who has ears. Anyone who comes to 
this House floor and says, The Republicans, we've reached out to them, 
but they have no solutions, they have no proposal, is either a very, 
very ignorant person who will not avail themselves of the vast amount 
of information around on our proposals and our solutions or they are 
misrepresenting the truth. That's just the way it is. And we hear that 
over and over. Gee, we have reached out to the Republicans. They've got 
no solutions. They've got no proposals.
  The President himself said that on Monday before he came in here to 
this joint session. He said, You've heard all the lies, and what are 
their proposals, what are their plans? I'll tell you, they don't have 
any. Well, he was either being very ignorant or he was misrepresenting 
the facts. And it may be that he really didn't know, that whoever put 
that information in the teleprompter, he was just dutifully reading it 
and he really didn't know one way or the other. So I want to be fair 
about that.
  In any event, when we hear all of this stuff about the fairness and 
reaching out, it was my understanding that the President has not 
invited a Republican since March to come to the White House and talk 
about health care. If that's different, I would love to know the facts.
  I know the President stood right up here and said, you know, If you 
have solutions, my door is open. And apparently, you know, I don't have 
any way to dispel that. I'm sure he was being honest, if that is true, 
his door is open, but the problem is they have so many massive gates 
and so many heavily armed guards between us and that open door at the 
Oval Office that we can't get to the open door, and so that makes it 
problematic.
  But anyway, these are some of the frustrations we've been dealing 
with lately. And I'm hoping maybe CBO will end up being able to score 
my bill sometime before the end of the session, a year and a half from 
now. It's just hard to know. But it is amazing how they were able to 
find time to score something that wasn't even a bill after I was told 
we can't score it unless it is. But anyway, apparently there's a lot of 
flexibility there after you go to the woodshed at the White House.
  And with that, I will yield back to my friend.
  Mr. CARTER. I thank my friend for yielding.
  My good friend from Iowa is here, which brings up another rule of law 
issue that we've been discussing. I know he wants to talk about it, so 
I'm going to shift gears here.
  I am first going to talk about Marsha Blackburn's H. Con. Res. 185, 
reining in the czars. And she is proposing that the President will 
report on the responsibilities, qualifications, and authorities of his 
special assistants, known as czars. She is saying the President will 
certify that czars will not assert powers beyond those granted by law 
to a commissioned officer on the President's staff, and that Congress 
will hold hearings on the President's report and certification within 
30 days, I assume, after the receipt of those reports. All of this is a 
part of multiple pieces of legislation that are out there now talking 
about czars.
  I'm going to yield to my friend, Congressman King from Iowa, as much 
time as he needs to consume. And I've got some kind of interesting 
stuff he might want to use here.
  Mr. KING of Iowa. Oh, yes. I hadn't actually forgotten about that. I 
thank the gentleman from Texas for yielding.
  When we look at the list of czars that started out with none and 
quickly became 32, and some say grew to 47 czars, Mr. Speaker, a number 
of these czars have gotten fairly notorious in the public eye. And this 
particular czar I will go to in a moment, but one that comes to mind is 
the green jobs czar, Van Jones--the former green jobs czar, Van Jones. 
We can't forget about him. He had a lot of things going against him. He 
seemed to be very active in the streets, a self-avowed Communist. And 
of all of the things that he did and said, he despised Republicans 
terribly to the extent that I can't quote him here on the floor or my 
words would be taken down. But he is no longer the green jobs czar, Van 
Jones. It was mysterious that he disappeared from the scene about 12:01 
a.m. on a Saturday morning.

                              {time}  2200

  It's also mysterious that the President could bring his focus on a 
small little law enforcement altercation that took place up near 
Harvard University, and we all know the name of Officer Crowley because 
of that, the Beer Summit. The President had a beer summit to deal with 
that, the Presidential illumination of a minor, a very, very minor, law 
enforcement issue; but he didn't have, couldn't take the trouble to say 
a few kind words on the departure of Van Jones, self-avowed communist, 
former czar for green jobs czar.
  Now we have another czar that comes into this same category, in fact 
a category that is more objectionable, I believe, and that's Kevin 
Jennings. Kevin Jennings is the President's appointment to be the safe 
schools and drug free schools czar.
  Now, as I noticed how President Obama dealt with Van Jones, and it 
was ignore him, and he went away in the middle of the night--I mean, 
literally in the middle of the night, Mr. Speaker, I am calling upon 
the President to simply fire Kevin Jennings. Kevin Jennings, the 
totality of his life has been the advocacy for his homosexual agenda.
  He has written a number of books. I have a list of them here, four or 
five. He has been fairly notorious for writing the foreword in the book 
titled ``Querying Elementary Education.'' Now, a statement that I put 
out here, as we all know, that what is really promoted in our schools--
this is a statement from Van Jones, We all know what is really promoted 
in our schools. Heterosexuality is primarily promoted in our schools. 
Every time kids read ``Romeo and Juliet,'' kids are aggressively 
recruited to be heterosexual in this country.
  That's Kevin Jennings. I mean, he takes offense at ``Romeo and 
Juliet'' and claims that it is an aggressive recruitment to 
heterosexuality. But 20 years, seeking the affirmation of 
homosexuality, four or five books, the foreword in the book, ``Querying 
Elementary Education,'' the way he has written in his book titled 
``Momma's

[[Page 24710]]

Boy, Preacher's Son'' about his drug abuse, his cavalier use of drugs, 
the message that kids would get on the drug-free school component would 
be that, well, I guess, drugs aren't so bad, you can become the drug-
free school czar even though you have abused drugs and written about it 
in your book--not taking the responsibility, not advocating to avoid 
drugs but simply writing about it in a way that it is fascinating to be 
off the end of the runway watching the planes come in and out.
  This is what we get with Kevin Jennings. Kevin Jennings has said, of 
the individual whose name is Harry Hay, one of the strong advocates for 
the North American Man Boy Love Association, Kevin Jennings said of 
him, he always inspires me, always inspired by the person who was on 
the cover of the magazine for NAMBLA, the North American Man Boy Love 
Association.
  Now, I have just gone through some of these things that we know about 
Kevin Jennings, certainly not all of them. But we can see that the 
totality of his professional life as advocated, has advocated 
nationally against religion, again heterosexuality, at least resentful 
towards it, and in the discussion and promotion of homosexuality in our 
schools.
  Now, whatever a person's particular inclination may be, our preschool 
kids, our kindergartners, our first, second, third, fourth and fifth 
graders don't need to have that discussion. They don't understand it. 
They don't need that pressure on them. They need to be left alone to 
focus on their academics and their social adjustment. But this man is 
engaged in the single promotion, the promotion and the advocacy, I will 
say of--well, by the way, that is the record of Kevin Jennings.
  So I will ask the question. If he is going to be the safe schools 
czar, the safe schools and drug free schools czar, then he has to have 
something more to offer than simply, I will say, the promotion of 
safety for some kids that might be self-alleged homosexuals in our 
schools. That would be the only narrow part that you could say he has 
to offer. The balance of it across the spectrum of his job is simply 
nonexistent from his professional career.
  If he were teaching in elementary schools, and he had a record like 
he has with these books that he has written, the foreword that he has 
written in ``Querying Elementary Education,'' he has the endorsement of 
Harry Hay, one of the lead North American Man Boy Love Association 
people in the country, who is also a self-professed communist, by the 
way, this man would not be working in many of the elementary schools in 
America as a teacher.
  Yet he has been elevated to be the safe schools and drug-free schools 
czar for America. I call upon President Obama to simply dismiss Kevin 
Jennings. Go find somebody that stood up for kids and families and 
education, drug-free and safe schools all together. Surely there's 
somebody out there that's lived an example.
  I urge the President to remove Kevin Jennings. Put somebody in who 
can do the job.
  Mr. CARTER. I yield to the gentlelady from Wyoming again.
  Mrs. LUMMIS. Because of the conversation we have just had, I want to 
further remind people that there is a bill entitled Sunset All Czars, 
H.R. 3569, the primary sponsor, Representative Scalise, in addition to 
the Blackburn bill, which I also support.
  Before we adjourn this evening, I would like to bring up one more 
bill, and that is the audit of the Federal Reserve. It is the subject 
that also, I think, is consistent with our desire as a Congress to 
fulfill our obligations under the Constitution.
  The reason that this bill is so important to the people in the United 
States--and I preface my remarks by saying I supported Mr. Greenspan 
and I support Mr. Bernanke. I applaud them for all the efforts that 
they make on behalf of the Federal Reserve.
  I, nevertheless, support a bill to audit the Federal Reserve. It is 
based on personal experience. I was my State's treasurer. I was audited 
annually. The auditors came into my office in August, and they didn't 
leave until after Christmas. One-third of the year, every year, for the 
8 years that I was State treasurer, I was being audited. It was for 
good reason; it was because I managed all of the money in the State of 
Wyoming.
  The auditor and the treasurer were the two people with whom the 
auditors who are contracted to audit the State spent the most time. It 
was appropriate. It was a pain in the neck to have the auditors in my 
office for 4 months every year taking time away from our regular 
duties.
  But, in fact, it protected me, as the State treasurer. Had any of the 
employees in the office been able to misdirect monies, it protected me. 
It protected their coworkers. It protected the taxpayers of the State 
knowing that their money was being appropriately audited, that there 
was someone looking over my shoulder, our shoulder, in the office of 
the State treasurer. It was good for me, it was good for my office, it 
was good for the State. It was good for the taxpayers whose money I was 
managing.
  The same is true with the Federal Reserve. This is not an attack on 
Ben Bernanke or his predecessors. This is good, sound money management.
  Mr. CARTER. I, too, and I think Brother King also supports the 
auditing of the Federal Reserve. It's our money. We want to know what's 
going on. We want to make sure we know that things are right. We are 
not questioning anybody's honesty; we just want to know what's going 
on. We are at a point in our society right now where it's pretty 
desperately needed to know.
  I want to say one more thing: Mr. King's comment on the safe schools 
czar, what he is proposing is against the law, this man boy sex thing. 
Aggravated sexual assault of a child is the number one sexual offense 
in America today, at least by my experience. In 20, almost 21, years on 
bench, I tried--that used to be called rape. I tried lots of aggravated 
sexual assault cases. One out of probably a thousand was two adults and 
all the rest were children.
  Now that will tell you, at least in my experience, in an active trial 
court, where I was--in fact, the one adult I was sitting as a visiting 
judge in Travis County, it wasn't even my county. As far as I know, 
over all my side, where I was trying my cases, we had three courts. I 
only saw aggravated sexual assault of the child cases and that means 
it's just rampant because the victim is unable to be a very good 
witness sometimes because they are so young.

                              {time}  2210

  It is a very tragic situation. It just shocks me that somebody that 
would be advocating those things would be put by a responsible 
administration in charge of safety in our schools. It is shocking.
  I yield to Mr. King from Iowa.
  Mr. KING of Iowa. I thank the gentleman from Texas.
  Mr. Speaker, I can only reflect back upon the experience that Judge 
Carter has talked about. It would be interesting to see the actual 
numbers and data from across this country. This right now is the best 
cross-section I know of. I have not heard of another. In some 
jurisdictions it is called statutory rape.
  Mr. CARTER. That is right.
  Mr. KING of Iowa. The record that Kevin Jennings has put out is that 
as a teacher he counseled a young boy, whom he said was 15 years old, 
who had been having sexual relations with one or more men at the 
bathroom in the bus stop, and that makes him a mandatory reporter as a 
teacher. He didn't report until he wrote his book and talked about it 
in his speeches.
  So, that is a violation of the law and it is a responsibility that he 
shirked. And, yes, he said he could have handled it differently. Well, 
anybody could have handled anything differently. But he didn't.
  I can only question, if he hadn't focused his mind so much and his 
professional career so much on the homosexual side of this, wouldn't he 
have been appalled by the statutory rape of a young boy if it had been 
a young girl perhaps? Would he have then been the actual mandatory 
reporter and followed the law, if it didn't fit within his

[[Page 24711]]

bias? I suspect he would have, if it had been a girl and a man rather 
and boy and a man.
  But this is intergenerational sex, and it is advocating for safe sex, 
not safe from sexual predators. So the school situation with the czar, 
the responsibility is to provide safe and drug-free schools. There is 
not very much at all in his history that would advocate for that. It is 
not very broad. It is very narrow.
  Many of these things that come out in his record are anathema to the 
mainstream of the American people, and the President should have had 
better advice when he made this appointment. Now he needs to take 
responsibility for his appointment, and that is why I have called for 
the President to fire Kevin Jennings, and let's find somebody that 
actually maybe is a parent and a teacher and somebody who has a life 
career advocating for the safety of all children and the drug-free 
nature of all children.
  If I could roll this back to a brief comment in the little bit of 
time that we have, about 5 minutes I see, there is another piece. Since 
we have that much time, I want to also point out that because of Kevin 
Jennings saying that he is always inspired by Harry Hay, let me say the 
icon of the North American Man-Boy Love Association, that doesn't 
necessarily mean he aspires to all the things that NAMBLA aspires to.
  But this icon also is a self-alleged Communist. So it doesn't mean 
also that he is a Communist, but it means as a fellow traveler, as a 
consistent commentator, as a writer and author and an individual who 
has written a forward on the queering of elementary education, he has 
traveled on that path consistently, and it has been the exclusive 
activity of his, the nearly exclusive activity of his entire 
professional life. And we can find somebody better, and we can find 
somebody that is not there with an agenda that he is seeking to drive, 
aside from safety for kids in school.
  I wanted to make a comment also that the CBO score on the Senate's 
health care bill, it includes 10 years worth of revenue and 7 years 
worth of expenses. When I listened to the gentlelady from Wyoming talk 
about being audited for a third of every year or a fourth of every 
year, none of us could get by with that.
  If I look back on my business career, if I could have had 10 months 
in every year worth of revenue and only 7 months worth of expenses, or 
10 years worth of revenue and 7 years worth of expenses, I would have 
made millions and millions of dollars with that kind of bookkeeping.
  This is billions and hundreds of billions of dollars. They need to be 
held accountable. It has got to be 10 years of revenue, 10 years of 
expenses, and it has got to be legitimate expectations on how people 
will react when you fine them $700 a year as opposed to requiring them 
to buy insurance.
  I thank the gentleman from Texas. I yield back.
  Mr. CARTER. I thank my friend for coming down here and talking about 
a new subject, but a subject that is important. These czars, when we 
have got individual issues on the rule of law, we ought to talk about 
them. And I encourage all my colleagues, if they have issues about laws 
that they don't think are being enforced right or that they are 
concerned about the enforcement of, that is what this hour is about. It 
is about the rule of law.
  I thank you for bringing up that issue. I hope everyone will be very 
concerned about the issues that you raised today.
  Mr. Speaker, we thank you for the hour, and we will yield back the 
balance of our time.

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