[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 158 (2012), Part 1]
[House]
[Pages 1240-1247]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                        THE PROGRESSIVE MESSAGE

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 5, 2011, the gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Ellison) is 
recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the minority leader.
  Mr. ELLISON. Mr. Speaker, there are a lot of important issues facing 
the American people, none more important than their economic livelihood 
and viability. So we're going to be talking today during this Special 
Order about economic justice, economic opportunity, and the fight for 
the American middle class.

                              {time}  1220

  Mr. Speaker, I'm cochair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus. The 
Congressional Progressive Caucus is that caucus that comes to Congress 
to band together to stand up for the American Dream, the idea that all 
Americans, no matter which color they may be, whether they are disabled 
or not, whether they are straight or gay, or what their religion is, 
have a right to full participation and opportunity to grab that 
American Dream as one of our core beliefs. The Progressive Caucus 
believes in clean air and a clean environment, believes that all 
Americans, all people across the world have a right to clean air, clean 
water, and food free of pesticides and toxins.
  The Progressive Caucus is the organization that is four square for 
civil rights for all people. We believe that it's a national disgrace 
that women are paid 80 cents for every dollar a man makes. We think 
it's a national disgrace to not be able to love whomever you love and 
want to be with. We think it's a national problem that people in our 
society, which was founded on the idea of religious tolerance, 
sometimes find themselves the target of religious hate in this area.
  And we are four square dedicated to the idea that peace should be the 
guiding principle of our Nation and that diplomacy and development are 
good things, and that war is almost always a bad thing. Although 
sometimes it's necessary, diplomacy is always better. We don't send our 
people into harm's way. That's who the Progressive Caucus is. That is 
what we are about, and I'm going to offer time tonight, Mr. Speaker, 
for a progressive message.
  So let me begin with that progressive message. We are here to talk 
about the progressive message; and tonight, we're going to address the 
issue of economic viability. Working American families are getting 
crushed, and our middle class is shrinking every day. But here in 
Washington, our friends on the other side of the aisle, the Republican 
caucus, is in control of the House. And while millions of people are 
facing foreclosure and unemployment, sadly, we see Americans continuing 
to hurt, and their problems are not being addressed.
  This week in Congress, if I could just talk about what we did this 
week, the Republican majority did not bring up a single jobs bill. We 
didn't talk about jobs this week. Here we are at the close of the week, 
and we're not talking about jobs. They did not bring up a bill to keep 
Americans in their homes and address foreclosure, nor did we talk about 
cleaning up our air and our water, or building our economy or our 
Nation's crumbling infrastructure. No, we weren't doing that. We were 
doing something else, and it had to do with scoring points in an 
election.
  One of the things we did today, which I think was important, but it 
was an idea that came from the Democratic-majority Senate and 
originated with great Democrats Tim Walz and Louise Slaughter, is that 
we voted on a bill to stop trading on congressional knowledge, the 
STOCK Act. Today, we voted on a bill designed to stop Members of 
Congress from profiting on confidential information they receive while 
doing their jobs. You would think that this goes without saying. But, 
sadly, that is exactly what some politicians have been doing. We voted 
on the STOCK Act today, the Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge 
Act, and I was happy to support this bill.
  Although my colleagues, Louise Slaughter and Tim Walz, are pushing a 
bill which I think was a better version, we voted on the Senate version 
today. But the price for getting that bill in front of us, the price 
for fighting to get that bill in front of us was a carve-out for a 
special interest, and that is too bad.
  The bill came before us today, and I voted for it. But the public 
should know a few things about the legislation. Only after stripping 
out a provision to stop the so-called political intelligence would the 
majority even consider voting to stop Members from making bets on 
confidential information. We wonder why Congress has a 10 percent 
approval rate. After months of calls for action by House Democrats, 
House Republicans have finally relented; and the House took up the 
STOCK Act today, clarifying that Members of Congress and congressional 
staff, executive branch officials, and judicial officers are subject to 
the same insider trading rules as everyone else.
  Unfortunately, leadership in the majority House caucus took 
transparency and accountability measures and rewrote them in secret in 
the dark of night. And the majority caucus, the Republican caucus, 
weakened the bill,

[[Page 1241]]

dropping a provision that will require those who peddle political 
intelligence for profit to register and report, and eliminating the 
anti-corrupting provision added by the Senate and unanimously approved 
by the House Judiciary Committee in December. Regarding the political-
intelligence provisions, Senator Grassley, Republican of Iowa, 
responded, It's astonishing and extremely disappointing that the House 
would fulfill Wall Street's wishes by killing this provision.
  So Republican Senator Grassley even had to admonish the House to say, 
why would we weaken the bill, dropping a provision that would require 
those who peddle political intelligence for money to register and 
report their activities? That's too bad. If Congress delays action, the 
political-intelligence industry will stay in the shadows--just the way 
Wall Street likes it.
  It's time to act on this legislation and take a first step toward 
restoring trust in government. We must hold a swift House-Senate 
conference to strengthen this Republican-majority bill that passed 
through here that's a weakened piece of legislation.
  Last week, the Senate bill passed a stronger measure by a vote of 96-
3, and a stronger bipartisan House bill is cosponsored by 285 Members, 
including 99 Republicans. The so-called political-intelligence industry 
serves no one. All it does is really pad Wall Street profits off of a 
rigged game. This insider trading is nothing more than Wall Street 
insiders pumping Washington insiders for information so that they can 
place bets on stocks. Political-intelligence firms have grown 
drastically over the last few decades and are now a $100 million 
industry.
  Every day, these firms help hedge funds and Wall Street investors 
unfairly profit from nonpublic congressional information, and these 
firms have no oversight and can freely pass along information for 
investment purposes. A 2005 story on insiders profiting off of a last-
minute government bailout of companies embroiled in asbestos litigation 
was a catalyst to the STOCK Act. A recent Wall Street story on the 
prevalence of the intelligence industry reinforces the need for this 
bill. Without the STOCK Act, enforcement officials are left in the dark 
on who is paying and playing in the political-intelligence industry.
  This is why we need the whole STOCK Act. The Stop Trading on 
Congressional Knowledge Act, the STOCK Act, would shed necessary light 
on a lucrative industry that has been lurking in the shadows since the 
70s. H.R. 1148 establishes regulations for the political-intelligence 
industry by amending the Lobbying Disclosure Act to apply the 
registration, reporting, and disclosure requirements to all political-
intelligence activities just as they apply to lobbyists now. This is an 
important provision, and it's an essential piece to the STOCK Act's 
purpose of banning insider trading based on congressional knowledge.
  Regarding support for the STOCK Act, the STOCK Act has a lot of 
support, Mr. Speaker. The STOCK Act has a broad base of support from 
organizations dedicated to government reform, including Public Citizen, 
Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, Common Cause, 
Democracy 21, the League of Women Voters, Project on Government 
Oversight, the Sunlight Foundation and U.S. PIRG.
  Here is a summary of the STOCK Act, and this is a bill authored by 
Tim Walz and Louise Slaughter, of which I'm an original co-sponsor. 
It's a stronger version than what came through here today, and it's 
what our country needs. The STOCK Act requires firms that specialize in 
political intelligence who use information obtained from Congress to 
advise financial transactions to register with the House and Senate, 
just like lobbying firms are required to do.
  It prohibits Members, their staff, executive branch employees, and 
any other person from buying or selling security swaps or commodity 
futures based on congressional and executive branch nonpublic 
information. It requires a more timely disclosure of financial 
transactions above $1,000 for those Members and staff that are already 
required to file annual financial disclosures.

                              {time}  1230

  It amends the House ethics rules to prohibit Members and their 
employees from disclosing any nonpublic information about legislative 
action for investment purposes. My constituents don't have insider 
traders looking out for their bottom line.
  Now, let me just talk a little bit more about the STOCK Act.
  While the House voted this morning on the STOCK Act, making clear 
that rules against insider trading apply to Members of Congress, 
congressional staff, executive branch officials, and judicial officers 
and employees, the version brought to the floor by Leader Cantor was 
weakened by Republicans before it actually came to be voted on. The GOP 
rhetoric suggesting otherwise isn't fooling anybody.
  The Associated Press weighed in on this issue, and they said:

       The House passes Republican-written insider trading bill 
     that has heavy Wall Street influence. The House has passed a 
     bill to ban Members of Congress and executive branch 
     officials from insider trading, but critics from both parties 
     accuse House Republican leaders of caving in to investment 
     firms by eliminating a proposal to regulate people who try to 
     pry financial information from Congress.

  The New York Times had something to say, too. Here's what they said 
in an editorial:

       The House's Less Persuasive Ban on Insider Trading. House 
     Republican leaders appear ready to bow to election-year 
     pressure and pass a bill banning lawmakers from using 
     nonpublic information they hear on the job to make financial 
     investments. The House legislation, however, is missing two 
     vital provisions that are in the Senate bill that won 
     overwhelming approval last week. If the goal is to root out 
     corruption and raise the public's low opinion of Congress, 
     the House should approve the full range of reform in the 
     Senate bill.

  The Washington Post also had something to say about this, Mr. 
Speaker. What they had to say is:

       The House should take the opportunity to help crack down on 
     public corruption. The House of Representatives is expected 
     to take up, Thursday, a useful measure to prohibit insider 
     trading by Members of Congress and to beef up disclosure 
     of lawmakers' financial transactions. Unfortunately, the 
     version of the measure produced by the House majority 
     leader, Eric Cantor, omits one of the most important parts 
     of the bill passed by the Senate, a provision that would 
     restore prosecutors' ability to go after official 
     corruption.

  So, Politico, which is one of our local papers that talks about 
Congress, took up this issue and writes, ``Cantor under fire over STOCK 
Act.'' What the Politico writes is this, Mr. Speaker:

       House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) has released his 
     version of a congressional insider trading ban, and it strips 
     a provision that would require so-called ``political 
     intelligence'' consultants to disclose their activities, like 
     lobbyists already do. It also scraps a proposal that empowers 
     Federal prosecutors going after corruption by public 
     officials. That stoked backlash from Democrats--yes, it did--
     and even some Republicans, who are furious at Cantor and are 
     accusing the Virginia Republican of watering down the popular 
     legislation that easily passed the Senate last week.

  ``It's astonishing''--this is a quote from the Politico article:

       It's astonishing and extremely disappointing that the House 
     would fulfill Wall Street's wishes by killing the provision. 
     That's what Senator Chuck Grassley said in a statement. If 
     Congress delays action, the political intelligence industry 
     will stay in the shadows, just the way Wall Street likes it.

  Of course, Mr. Speaker, Roll Call had to weigh in on this issue as 
well. It sounds like there's a pretty strong consensus that the House 
version we passed was weakened and watered down and not what the public 
was expecting.
  Roll Call says:

       Grassley, others rip House STOCK Act. Senator Chuck 
     Grassley is ripping the House version of a major reform bill 
     passed last Tuesday, calling it ``astonishing'' that House 
     GOP leaders would drop a provision requiring political 
     intelligence consultants to register as lobbyists. Senator 
     Grassley joined a chorus of watchdog groups and Democrats 
     criticizing the House version.

  Melanie Sloan, President of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in 
Washington, said: ``The Cantor provision is a sham and aimed at 
tricking Americans into thinking he's dealing with the issue.'' That 
was a quote.

[[Page 1242]]

  So, whether you're talking about Politico, Washington Times, 
Washington Post, Associated Press, Roll Call, or whether you're just 
talking about members of the House Democratic Caucus or citizens across 
the Nation, we did pass a version of the STOCK Act today. It was 
aweakened version. It wasn't good enough. And, Mr. Speaker, if 
Americans across this country decided that they were going to demand 
that there be a conference committee in which the stronger provisions 
were adopted, I think that would be a very good thing.
  Americans across this country, I think they agree with what's written 
in this Washington Post article. They write:

       A scaled-back ethics bill headed toward likely passage in 
     the House Thursday despite complaints from Senators that 
     Republican leaders are jettisoning--that means getting rid 
     of--several key provisions that won overwhelming support in 
     the Senate last week.

  Of course Think Progress probably echos the sentiments of the 
American people, too, Mr. Speaker, as they wrote in their blog, ``House 
Republicans prepared to vote on watered-down congressional insider 
trading ban.'' Here's what they say:

       Since a ``60 Minutes'' report showed that Representative 
     Spencer Bachus (R-Al.) profited from information he obtained 
     in a private economic briefing in 2008, Congress has moved 
     quickly to pass a bill to ban insider trading by its Members. 
     House Majority Leader Eric Cantor has made several changes to 
     the legislation which appear intended to at least weaken the 
     final product, if not kill it outright.

  That is what they said at Think Progress.
  Of course the New York Times, they're in this, too. This is an issue 
of serious public concern, and we would expect their editorial writers 
to weigh in. And what they said was this, Mr. Speaker:

       With the House poised to take up a major ethics bill, 
     Republican leaders have deleted a provision that would, for 
     the first time, regulate the collection of political 
     intelligence from political insiders for the use of hedge 
     funds, mutual funds, and other investors.
       Representative Louise Slaughter, Democrat of New York, said 
     lawmakers and the public need to know more about the 
     activities of these professionals, who she said ``glean 
     information from Members of Congress and staff and sell it to 
     clients who make a lot of money off it.''

  You know, Mr. Speaker, I'm betting that a lot of people across 
America don't even know that this practice even takes place. I'm 
betting that a lot of people across America don't realize that there 
are people who sort of scurry around in the shadows, looking for 
tidbits of information which they could use to make an investment 
decision, and that this is a multimillion-dollar industry.
  Let me also move back and just say that, Mr. Speaker, I doubt that 
the American people really realize that there is important information 
that can affect stock price that is thrown around around here. You 
would think that it would be just common sense, Mr. Speaker, that as we 
as Members of Congress are hired to pursue the public interest, that no 
one would ever use that information to advance their private commercial 
interests. There's nothing wrong with Members of Congress owning a 
business or something like that. I mean, this is America. But to say 
you're going to Congress to get information to try to trade stocks and 
then getting rich off that information seems, to me, a real problem.
  Now, I don't know what the facts are. All I know is what I saw on 
``60 Minutes.'' But it was alleged that a Member of Congress was in a 
meeting, pursuing his responsibility to promote the public interest, 
left that meeting, and using information from that meeting, purchased 
stock options and basically made a bet that the economy would go down.
  So I ask you, Mr. Speaker, can a person, charged with a public duty 
to uphold the public interest simultaneously pursue their private 
interests? And what happens, Mr. Speaker, when those two things are at 
odds?
  If your job is to keep the economy afloat, but it would make you 
money if the economy goes down because you have essentially bought 
stock options where you would financially gain from the loss of value, 
what is one to do? Well, if they're a public service employee, if 
they're a public official, they should pursue the public interest, and 
the law should forbid them from trying to pursue their private 
interests at the public's expense.

                              {time}  1240

  And yet, we do know that these things, that there's good evidence 
that these things may well have happened and that there needs to be 
accountability all around. And it is disappointing that when we 
finally, after these things finally get to the point where we're going 
to pass a bill, that we don't go all the way. We make carve-outs for 
the political intelligence industry. We make carve-outs for people here 
and there. This is not right.
  The Senate version, which has accountability, which has prosecution 
authority, and which bans this political intelligence industry from 
just operating in the shadows, that is what we should be doing, not 
making carve-outs for them and sweetheart deals.
  So I'm joined now by my good friend from the great State of Ohio, 
representing the northern Ohio area. There's really no one, Mr. 
Speaker, who has been a greater advocate for consumers than Marcy 
Kaptur.
  I yield to the gentlewoman from Ohio.
  Ms. KAPTUR. I thank my dear colleague from Minnesota, and thank you 
for your leadership on so many issues here.
  I listened with care to what you've been presenting today to give 
voice to the American people from coast to coast. And I want to thank 
you, in particular, for the work you've done on mortgage foreclosures, 
on holding Wall Street accountable, Congressman Ellison. No one has 
fought harder. Minnesota's been affected, your home city of Detroit, 
all across northern Ohio, Toledo to Sandusky to Lorain to Cleveland to 
Parma, all these communities struck so hard by Wall Street's 
malfeasance.
  And I wanted to join you today as you keep a focus on who the 
wrongdoers really have been, and how we help the Republic heal; to 
thank the Obama administration for the efforts they've made to date on 
a major settlement that's being announced during the same timeframe as 
we speak here, where individual States and five of the major Wall 
Street banks who are responsible, who used widespread fraudulent 
paperwork that precipitated the foreclosure crisis, that this 
settlement will actually bring some measure of justice.
  And we ought to claim a great deal of credit because the Progressive 
Caucus has been working so hard on this, and housing and the mortgage 
foreclosure crisis has been at the top of our agenda.
  The settlement, the initial settlement will reportedly impose a $26 
billion penalty against Wells Fargo, Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase, 
Allied Financial, and Citigroup that were at the heart of the schemes 
that led to the securitization and collateralized debt obligation risk-
taking. The total amount could grow to $30 billion or $45 billion if 
additional banks join the settlement. Given the extent of the damage 
they've caused, it's a start, and frankly, a very important one.
  We can't forget that millions of America's families lost their homes, 
and countless more are still dealing with foreclosure. And our cities 
have empty hulks of neighborhoods that are struggling as a result.
  If you come to places that I represent, as you've mentioned, in 
northern Ohio you can see the thousands of vacant structures that these 
banks left to decay. They didn't even manage them well once they 
possessed them. In neighborhood after neighborhood, the damage these 
banks inflicted is incalculable as they achieved the largest transfer 
of equity and wealth from Main Street to Wall Street. They've made 
every community more poor.
  This agreement is the largest joint Federal/State settlement ever 
obtained and the result of unprecedented coordination between the 
various corners of our government and the States. And it needs to be a 
major settlement.
  One in five American families with a mortgage today--this is an 
astounding

[[Page 1243]]

number--owe more than the house is actually worth by an average of over 
$50,000. The collective negative equity across the Nation is over $700 
billion.
  For years I've come to this floor urging Congress to do more, and one 
critical part of this agreement is that it does not provide blanket 
immunity to the banks for their misdeeds. While the ink is barely dry 
on this agreement, the press is reporting, and I quote, Officials will 
also be able to pursue any allegations of criminal wrongdoing.
  And I know the congressman and I want to go down that road, and I 
wish to place in the Record an article from The New York Times this 
week that talks about how African American New Yorkers making more than 
$68,000 are nearly five times as likely to hold high interest mortgages 
as Caucasians of similar income.

                [From the New York Times, Feb. 7, 2012]

     That Comeback Trail for the Economy? Here, It's Littered With 
                              Foreclosures

                          (By Michael Powell)

       To walk 145th Street in South Jamaica, past red-brick homes 
     with metal awnings and chain-link fences, is to find a storm 
     of immense destructive power still raging.
       Three years ago, when I wandered this block south of Linden 
     Boulevard in Queens, banks had foreclosed on eight homes. In 
     the years since, banks have filed notice against a half-dozen 
     more owners. Some of those homes sit abandoned, plywood 
     boards nailed across doors and windows, as if to guard 
     against further spread of this plague.
       We are accustomed to hearing politicians talk of a halting 
     recovery from the recession. They detect heartbeats in the 
     job market and flickers of life in house sales. New York and 
     New Jersey, our governors proclaim, are on the comeback 
     trail.
       Not here.
       A dozen miles from Midtown Manhattan, the foreclosure belt 
     stretches across the heart of black homeownership in this 
     city, from Canarsie and East New York in Brooklyn, to 
     Springfield Gardens and St. Albans, Queens, where Fats 
     Waller, Count Basie and Ella Fitzgerald once owned handsome 
     Tudor-style homes.
       Black Americans came late to homeownership for reasons 
     deeply rooted in our tragic racial history. Black New Yorkers 
     making more than $68,000 are nearly five times as likely to 
     hold high-interest mortgages as whites of similar income, and 
     their default rates are much higher. Now a generation watches 
     as its housing wealth is vaporized.
       Organizers with the Neighborhood Economic Development 
     Advocacy Project pored over 2011 mortgage default data. They 
     found that 345,000 city mortgages were in default or 
     delinquent last year. In corners of southeast Queens, banks 
     filed as many as 150 delinquency notes for every 1,000 
     housing units.
       Attorney General Eric T. Schneiderman says that statewide 
     the number of New Yorkers at risk of losing homes exceeds the 
     population of Buffalo, Syracuse and Rochester combined.
       In Jamaica, ``for sale'' signs sit two, three and four to a 
     block. Real estate agents resemble fishermen who've kept 
     lines in the water too long. Of late, matters have grown 
     worse. The federal government has stopped paying counselors 
     and lawyers for those at risk of foreclosure, and Gov. Andrew 
     M. Cuomo, who takes pride in his reinvention as a fiscal 
     conservative, has declined to foot the bill.
       I stop Randy Ali, a Guyanese ironworker, as he tinkers with 
     his SUV on 145th Street. Which is his house? He nods at a 
     two-story brick home. ``I paid $360,000.'' He gives a 
     mournful nod. ``I just got a notice from the city that it's 
     valued at $215,000.''
       He looks embarrassed. How could he foresee a housing 
     collapse this huge? ``You have a family, you want a place to 
     live.'' Pause. ``Do I walk away?''
       Say this much: New Yorkers are better off than those who 
     live in the acres of foreclosed homes in the deserts around 
     Phoenix and Las Vegas. Our politicians are not always an 
     inspiring lot, but New York has a social democratic 
     tradition, and they wove a safety net.
       Banks must submit to months of mediation before 
     foreclosing, and lawyers must attest that the bank can prove 
     ownership. Judges here show waning patience for the three-
     card monte act of some banks.
       Just a few weeks ago, the Appellate Division of State 
     Supreme Court took the unusual step of ruling that Bank of 
     America could not foreclose on an Orange County home of a New 
     York City police officer. The judges upheld a lower court 
     ruling that the bank's ``conduct was nothing short of 
     appalling.''
       Still, the fevers rage on.
       On Friday, I stepped off the elevator in State Supreme 
     Court in Queens. Shafts of sun poured across the marble 
     floor, as dozens of men and women sat in shadow, awaiting 
     mediation.
       A computer list is taped to the wooden door frame. Every 
     foreclosure case has been adjourned 4, 5, 10 times. More 
     homeowners hold tight to their homes than a few years ago, 
     but the cost is weeks of missed work and legal bills piled 
     high.
       Freeman N. Hawes Sr. walks into the mediation room. He's a 
     husky, cheerful black man, from Rosedale. The bank agent nods 
     pleasantly. She thinks the bank might grant him a mortgage 
     modification. But she can't get the bank on the phone just 
     now.
       Perhaps next time?
       The mediator sets a new date. Mr. Hawes walks to a bench 
     and, from a brown plastic bag, pulls dog-eared letters from 
     Nationstar Mortgage. Nationstar, the letters show, agreed 
     that he had made his payments and promised to modify his 
     mortgage in 2010, and again in July 2011: It broke both 
     promises.
       He has lived in Rosedale, a black middle-class 
     neighborhood, for decades. He's edging toward 70 and holds 
     two jobs with no plans of retiring.
       ``I'm not one to hold grudges,'' he says. ``The Lord says I 
     can live 125 years, so I'll keep paying the bank. But why 
     can't I get to the finale?''
       That's a question that haunts thousands of homeowners.

  Madam Speaker, a major settlement was just reached between the 
individual states and 5 of the major Wall Street banks whose widespread 
use of fraudulent paperwork fueled the foreclosure crisis.
  This initial settlement will reportedly impose $26 billion in 
penalties against Wells Fargo, Bank of America, JP Morgan Chase, Ally 
Financial and Citigroup. The total amount could grow to $30 billion or 
$45 billion if additional banks join the settlement. Given the extent 
of the damage that they caused, it's a start, and an important one.
  We cannot forget that millions of American families lost their homes, 
and countless more are still dealing with foreclosure. If you come to 
places I represent in Northern Ohio, you can see the thousands of 
vacant structures that these banks left to decay throughout individual 
neighborhoods. The damage these banks inflicted is incalculable.
  This agreement is the largest joint federal-state settlement ever 
obtained, and it is the result of unprecedented coordination between 
various corners of the government. And, it needs to be. One in five 
American families with a mortgage owe more than the house is actually 
worth today, by an average of $50,000. The collective negative equity 
across the nation is $700 billion.
  For years, I have come to this floor urging Congress to do more. One 
critical part of this agreement is that it does not provide blanket 
immunity to the banks for their misdeeds. While the ink is barely dry 
on this agreement, the press is reporting that ``Officials will also be 
able to pursue any allegations of criminal wrong doing.'' And, this is 
very important. According to the Justice Department, ``the agreement 
does not prevent any claims by any individual borrowers who wish to 
bring their own lawsuits.''
  Yes this is an important step, but we must remember the scope of the 
damage and the magnitude of fraud that was committed. Much work still 
needs to be done.
  During the past decade, we as a country failed to take white collar 
crime seriously, and we as a country are still dealing with the damage 
that was done to our housing market. Already back during the Bush 
Administration, the FBI testified before Congress that they were seeing 
an epidemic in white collar crime and that we did not have anywhere 
near enough agents to deal with it. Well, history has shown that we 
never provided the FBI and other investigators and prosecutors with the 
full resources they needed. During the much smaller Savings and Loans 
crisis of the 1980s, we set up a series of strike forces based in 27 
cities, staffed with 1,000 FBI agents and forensic experts and dozens 
of Federal prosecutors. We did not do that this time around.
  I have a bill that I have been asking for my colleagues to support, 
week in and week out. It is H.R. 3050, ``The Financial Crisis Criminal 
Investigation Act.'' This bill would authorize an additional 1,000 FBI 
agents, a sufficient number of forensic experts, and additional 
employees by the Attorney General to prosecute violations of the law in 
the financial markets.
  Like today's announcement, we have seen some progress in getting more 
FBI agents, but more needs to be done. In last year's appropriation, 
Congress made a bipartisan decision to include funding for more than 
two hundred additional agents. It's good news, but we cannot be soft on 
this kind of crime. Families, neighborhoods, and whole communities were 
victims.
  Earlier this week, the New York Times reported on what it described 
as a foreclosure belt that runs through the heart of African American 
homeownership in New York City. I want to include this article in the 
record, because it details a very important element of the foreclosure 
crisis. According to the Times, black New Yorkers making more than 
$68,000 are nearly five times as likely to hold high-interest mortgages 
as whites of similar income,

[[Page 1244]]

and their default rates are much higher. Now a generation watches as 
its housing wealth is vaporized.''
  In Cleveland, we see neighborhoods struggling to survive as well. In 
Cuyahoga County alone, there now are an estimated 30,000 vacant 
structures. We see shocking pictures of homes stripped of everything 
from the siding to the kitchen sink, even the floor boards. We see 
homes that were once worth $100,000 stripped of their entire value. We 
see whole communities that were victimized by the actions of Wall 
Street.
  Just last month, the President announced during the State of the 
Union a new working group to look into mortgage fraud. It will 
coordinate efforts between the FBI, the Justice Department, and various 
states to go after those on Wall Street who have perpetuated fraud in 
the markets, using mortgage backed securities. Yet another good step, 
but we have a lot more work to do.
  It is well past time for Wall Street to accept responsibility for its 
role in the housing crisis. Big Wall Street banks and the secondary 
markets made obscene profits during the 1990s up to the market crash in 
2008. During that period, banks targeted communities, looking for 
individuals to take on mortgages the banks knew they could not afford. 
And then Wall Street went looking to make fast money on individual 
American dreams and local mortgage markets. Those responsible did not 
care what ultimately happened to families, communities, or whole 
cities. And when the market collapsed, the American taxpayer actually 
bailed them out. Today's settlement is big news, and it's well past 
time that Wall Street started to pay up. But, we cannot forget that 
this story is far from over, and our work is not over.
  I think the civil rights aspect of what has gone on is 
extraordinarily important. I don't want to overstep my time boundaries 
here, Congressman Ellison. Do I have a couple of extra minutes in this 
period or not?
  Mr. ELLISON. Well, yes you do. But may I ask a question before you 
continue on?
  Ms. KAPTUR. Please.
  Mr. ELLISON. We may see as many as 10 million homes go into 
foreclosure from the beginning of this crisis to the end. How important 
to the average home owner is this settlement? Is it going to help them?
  I yield back to the gentlelady.
  Ms. KAPTUR. I think what's going to happen with this is, even though 
over a million homeowners are likely to be helped and several hundred 
thousand get some recompense, maybe an average of $2,000 per household, 
what's going to happen is it's going to precipitate more foreclosures 
as the system continues to progress. And that is a deep concern of mine 
because these banks have not been noted for treating customers well.
  According to the Justice Department, however, the agreement does not 
prevent any claims by individual borrowers who wish to bring their own 
lawsuits. And I think it's incumbent upon lawyers across this country, 
our Progressive Caucus, to look for legal remedies to continue to gain 
sweet justice for those who have been so harmed.
  Mr. ELLISON. Reclaiming my time, now here's the other thing. So we 
know that there may be 10 million people who lost their homes in 
foreclosure. Maybe a million will get help. That's good. I hope they 
get it.
  But has anybody gone to prison for mortgage fraud schemes? I mean, 
here's why, I want you to address this question, but let me lay it out 
just a tad for you.
  So what we have here, we know, is that people were drawn in with high 
pressure tactics to get in a mortgage that they didn't understand, and 
sometimes were even misstating the income. There are people who would 
say, look, I didn't borrow that much money. I have no idea where that 
amount came from.
  And then was a bunch of signing stuff that happened that people were 
not aware of. And that sort of skirted the reality.
  Ms. KAPTUR. If the gentleman would yield, the robo-signing.
  Mr. ELLISON. The robo-signing. That's right.
  And then another kind of amazing thing that happened was that people 
would underwrite mortgages, not based on the ability of the borrower to 
pay, but based on their ability to sell that mortgage into the 
secondary market. And then it would get repackaged into a mortgage-
backed security which, somehow miraculously, you know, these things 
that were stated income, no income, no job loans, falsified income for 
these things, made it into a mortgage-backed security which then was 
rated as triple A in many cases.
  There's got to be some fraud and misrepresentation there. And so it 
just seems like the system was full of misrepresentation, fraud and all 
that. Have we investigated this thing to the point where there are 
people to hold accountable before we're settling this case?
  Ms. KAPTUR. Well, you know what's important to point out. You asked a 
critical question because this settlement does not deal with those that 
originated mortgages. It only deals with those mortgages that were held 
in the secondary market. And so it doesn't claw black to the 
perpetrators of the scheme, and that's why I'm saying this is an 
important first step.
  We also need, in every city, as we had during the savings and loan 
crisis, strike forces of FBI agents. There were maybe 55 agents working 
on this. We tried to boost that number to 200. During the S&L crisis we 
had 1,000. We need accounting and forensic experts to piece together 
what happened in community after community.
  Congressman, in my area there were liars loans that were targeted to 
senior citizens and the disabled.
  Mr. ELLISON. Liar loans?
  Ms. KAPTUR. Liars loans. They would go up to a senior citizen, a 
woman after she'd lost her husband and they would say, ma'am, you know, 
we feel very sorry for you, but we want you to know we have a deal. 
You'll never have to worry about your financial future again. And they 
got her to cash out her equity, and they put one of these balloon 
payments on there, so she ended up having to pay more than she could 
afford 10 years out.
  This is what happened to people. There's so much crime inside of what 
was done in community after community. And what's been happening at the 
FBI is they have not been able to beef up their Financial Fraud 
Division, and they've been held--that's why you haven't had the people 
arrested.
  Mr. ELLISON. Reclaiming my time, I want to ask you a question about 
that.
  So over the course of the last several months, our friends on the 
Republican side of the aisle--I'm just being honest, and I don't think 
even they would disagree with this--have been trumpeting this idea, the 
government's too big. We've got to cut. We've got to cut. We just have 
to cut. Cut, cut, cut, cut, cut, just cut. Scale it back, shrink it 
down, make it smaller. Get rid of government.
  One iconic conservative figure said we've got to shrink government to 
the size where you can drown it in a bathtub.

                              {time}  1250

  Now, if we were to shrink government to the size where we can drown 
it in a bathtub, where are we going to get these lawyers and 
investigators to investigate mortgage fraud?
  Ms. KAPTUR. There will be no justice.
  The Congressman has pointed out something that is extraordinarily 
important. There are those who seek to harm the American people, 
whether it's through financial crimes or those who are true enemies of 
our Republic; and we have to be strong on all fronts. In this arena of 
prosecution, we have been very weak.
  Mr. ELLISON. Have we really investigated the extent of the wrongdoing 
before we settled the case? I mean, I'm glad there has been a 
settlement. I hope that it brings justice to everyone. I suspect it 
will bring justice to some people. I hope so. But my question is, Do we 
know the extent of the harm of the bad actors?
  Here's the thing. The originators might not be part of this, but 
these secondary-market actors, in my view, are culpable, too, because 
they had to know if they read the mortgages, if they read the 
documentation, they had to say, Wait a minute, something's funny here. 
We've got a 72-year-old retired widow with a stated income of $160,000 
a year or $500,000 a year. It just

[[Page 1245]]

doesn't make sense that there would be that many widows earning that 
kind of income. Now, there might be some who have that kind of wealth, 
but that kind of income when they're in their retirement years? There's 
got to be something fishy here.
  Ms. KAPTUR. It reminds me of baseball. You've got some players who 
are out on the field. They're saying, Well, you've got to hold the 
shortstop accountable for a little bit of what he did when he's out 
there on the field. But you've got the team coach sitting in the 
dugout. Right? They haven't touched the coach. They haven't even 
touched all the players yet, and they sure haven't seen the one who's 
calling all the plays.
  So what they're dealing with here are some of the mortgages in the 
secondary market; they haven't touched the coaches. They haven't 
touched the originators on the mortgages in this particular settlement.
  Now, in terms of you said how much does it help, the hole to our 
economy is several trillion dollars, counting unemployment and lost 
revenues and so forth. Overall, the TARP was $700 billion. I didn't 
support it. This settlement is maybe $25 billion. Ohio alone had a gap 
about that large. So when you look at the settlement, it's important, 
it's a victory. But we've got to take the next step. We've got to get 
the first baseman, the third baseman, the catcher, the batter, and then 
we've got to go after the coaches in the dugout.
  Mr. ELLISON. You mentioned the S&L crisis. In the S&L crisis, we had 
a thousand Justice Department lawyers going after this thing. We've got 
50,000 Justice Department lawyers going after this recent housing 
foreclosure crisis. Can we even compete with some of these titans who 
the Justice Department has to deal with with that small number?
  Ms. KAPTUR. I'll tell you, Congressman, one thing we need to do is 
look at some of the people that sit over at the Justice Department and 
where they used to work before they got there, because I think one of 
the reasons that prosecution isn't occurring at the level that it 
should is there is some paralysis in some places because of those who 
are able to block a play. They're able to block prosecution.
  We have a bill, H.R. 3050, the Financial Crisis Criminal 
Investigation Act, that would authorize an additional 1,000 FBI agents. 
That's just as many as we had during the S&L crisis, which is much 
smaller than what we have today.
  But across our cities, across our regions, we don't have the agents 
in place to go after the crimes we've been talking about.
  Mr. ELLISON. I would like to ask the gentlelady from Ohio, we've 
talked about who lost. Homeowners lost, even homeowners who never lost 
their home in foreclosure and never missed a payment, their home value 
dropped; a lot of people lost. But did some people really make a lot of 
money off of this crisis?
  Ms. KAPTUR. They made the highest salaries in the country, bonuses. 
We didn't take a penny away. I had a bill to take 100 percent of the 
bonuses away. Guess what? They never bring it on the floor. We couldn't 
even take the bonuses away, much less their yachts, their seven houses, 
all the fancy cars. They're living a great life, and they believe they 
are immune from prosecution.
  Mr. ELLISON. So far they're right.
  Ms. KAPTUR. It's not a pretty picture.
  Mr. ELLISON. Many, many people suffered in this foreclosure crisis. 
It's also that cities suffered as cities were required--they used to 
have a taxpaying citizen in the home. Now, after the foreclosure with 
all of this stated income and the dishonesty and everything, they have 
no one living there, they have weeds growing, dead dogs there, they 
have an attractive nuisance where, you know, sometimes awful things 
happen in those abandoned houses. So cities have seen their coffers 
drained. They went from a plus-property taxpaying person to now an 
expense on the tax rolls.
  We've seen a reduction in the overall property tax revenue of cities 
which they need to put on vital services for residents of cities, 
streets, cops, fire, all of that stuff.
  Ms. KAPTUR. And the school districts, Congressman Ellison. When you 
look at the revenues that are bleeding away from school districts, the 
harm these big banks did--and they used to be speculation houses--and 
then they changed their name to banks. They got to be holding banks 
then.
  But if you look at the harm that they caused across America, it's 
still not over; and they're not being held accountable. Actually, they 
got richer. As a result of this crisis, six banks now control two-
thirds of the finances of this country.
  Before the crisis, they controlled about 40 percent. So they just got 
bigger and more powerful while community after community has been 
struck with more homelessness, with declining revenues to school 
systems, declining revenues into coffers so they can't hire police. The 
drug trade has just locked down in some of these communities as people 
struggle to earn their way forward in the most unfortunate way.
  You look at the harm this has caused around the country, it's 
profound.
  I gave a Special Order the other day, and I said I think what we 
ought to do with these big bankers, places like Goldman Sachs and 
Citigroup, they ought to come to our homeless shelters and scrub the 
floors. Once we get them prosecuted, and I wait for that day, wouldn't 
it be great if the CEO of Goldman Sachs had to come to a homeless 
shelter in Minneapolis and scrub the floors and join Habitat for 
Humanity for a couple of years and go try to fix up some of these 
houses in these communities?
  They haven't confronted their damage. They feel they're being held 
harmless, and you know what, they are.
  Mr. ELLISON. What happens is they profit from this mortgage fraud. 
They make exorbitant monies as they securitize these bad mortgages. 
They make exorbitant money as they collected on these credit default 
swaps as these mortgage-backed securities went bad. Various people made 
gobs of money, bonuses that just boggle the mind how big they are.
  But then, see, your point is interesting because they don't see the 
damage that they caused because they have--some of them even helicopter 
from their homes to their offices. Others of them are in limousines 
just flying down the highway back to their country villa from their 
downtown Manhattan skyscraper, so they don't see the damage. They don't 
drive through Cleveland and Detroit and Minneapolis and other places 
where whole neighborhoods have been sucked out because of the damaging 
behavior that they engaged in.
  I think that it would be important after they served their jail time 
to come and be with the people who they harmed and have to explain the 
reason that we have created and exacerbated homelessness is because we 
just love money that much. Having two or three yachts and a couple of 
boats wasn't good enough. We needed more and more and more; and that's 
why we wrecked your city, damaged your neighborhood, and put you out of 
your home.
  Ms. KAPTUR. What they have done are capital crimes. They have harmed 
our Republic so much with this massive transfer of wealth. I think the 
best thing the American people can do is if they are paying a mortgage 
loan or a car loan or a student loan to any one of these big 
institutions that harmed America, take it out, renegotiate that loan 
with a local institution, credit union, community bank that didn't do 
this harm to the Republic. That's something every American family can 
do.
  Then when you think about it, what this group of bankers did--and I 
call them speculators because they really weren't prudent bankers.
  Mr. ELLISON. Bankers collect deposits and loan money to the 
communities they represent and help people do what they need to do.
  Ms. KAPTUR. What this group did was they actually have threatened the 
entire system of capital formation in this country because they have 
disrupted the measurement of value at

[[Page 1246]]

the local parcel level. So our normal system of recording deeds and 
value in Minnesota, in Ohio, was thrown out the window as they went to 
the MERS system, the electric registration system.
  Mr. ELLISON. Right.

                              {time}  1300

  Ms. KAPTUR. They went over the heads of all of our local property 
recording offices, our titling offices. That is at the heart of 
capitalism, itself. You would think there would be a roar out of other 
economic interests in this country, saying, Hey, you fellows, you 
almost brought down capitalism. You almost brought down the whole 
market economy.
  And they actually did if you see the damage still rippling through 
this country. Yet they're not being prosecuted? Think about that.
  Mr. ELLISON. I'll tell you, it's all sort of an interlocking mess. I 
mean, we've been told since the days that Milton Friedman first hit the 
scene that regulations were a problem in our economy and that having 
rules to protect health and safety and fairness simply were disrupting 
the market and that we needed to get rid of these job-killing 
regulations--what our Republican friends called them all the time--
rather than commonsense protections to protect people.
  So we got rid of those things. We didn't enforce the laws that we 
already did have. We shrank government to the point where, because we 
didn't want to pay any taxes, government couldn't even afford itself, 
so we didn't have the people to make sure that consumers were being 
treated fairly, that mortgages were fair and that rules were being 
abided by. Then, as the technology and everything changed, we weren't 
able to change regulation so that it would keep up to date with the 
necessity of the market.
  What I have in mind now is an heroic figure named Brooksley Born, who 
tried to tell them that this OPEC ``insurance'' market--I put 
``insurance'' in quotes--this credit default swap market, needed to be 
regulated. Instead of regulating it, we actually passed a bill in 1999 
that it would not be regulated. Then as a result, when the music 
stopped in 2008, we were at the mercy of--what?--$54 trillion.
  Ms. KAPTUR. When that bill was passed, I would venture to say 99 
percent of the Members of Congress didn't even know it was in there 
because it was buried in an omnibus appropriations bill. Nobody even 
knew it was in there. So that was sort of the final straw that broke 
the camel's back. I wanted to say to the gentleman that I'm sure in 
Minnesota--and you can verify this for me--just like in Ohio, business 
after business tells me, Marcy, we can't get a loan.
  Mr. ELLISON. Oh, yes. That's right.
  Ms. KAPTUR. The normal banking system isn't working, and what they're 
trying to do at the Federal level is to focus attention just on the 
secondary market activity rather than on the loan originators. So 
they're saying, Oh, the problem was at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
  Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were the second in line.
  Mr. ELLISON. Right.
  Ms. KAPTUR. The first in line were the originators, the very 
institutions we're talking about here: Citicorp; Bank of America; 
Goldman Sachs is now involved in that; Wells Fargo; HSBC; UBS. It's all 
these institutions, and they originated through their intermediaries, 
like Countrywide, which was involved. When the bad loan was made, they 
then sold it to the secondary market. So now most of the prosecution 
has been of the secondary market activities, which really soured in 
about 2007, 2008, but the real perpetrators started well over a decade 
earlier. That's where we need to go----
  Mr. ELLISON. Yes.
  Ms. KAPTUR. Which is to the originators who created the schemes that 
allowed, as you say, the lid to be blown off the regulation of 
derivatives and of these fancy schemes.
  Right now, yes, we're trying to get ahold of the secondary market 
activity, but they only received the ball from the original passer--I 
call them the ``coach''--the ones who were actually developing the game 
plan, and you have to go back a decade. That's why we need robust 
prosecution at the FBI.
  Mr. ELLISON. Absolutely.
  Does the gentlelady have any more news to report about the 
settlement?
  Ms. KAPTUR. All I know is that it's big news and that we're receiving 
it well. It's an important first step. I think it's like somebody just 
hit a solid first base hit, and we've got some other bases to go around 
until we get to home plate.
  I really want to thank the gentleman very much for allowing me time 
today as we try to repair the Republic. This is a very helpful step. I 
want to thank the Obama administration and wish them on to do even 
better. Let's get those agents hired. I hope the President's budget, 
when it comes up here, will allow us to hire 1,000 agents at the FBI in 
order to get this job done, not just in the secondary market, but to go 
after the originators.
  Mr. ELLISON. If the gentlelady has just a few moreminutes, if I may, 
I would like to pose one more question.
  Ms. KAPTUR. Please.
  Mr. ELLISON. We've heard that we've had about 23 months of private 
sector job growth. In January, the job growth numbers were very good, 
and we're happy to receive those. Unemployment has ticked down to about 
8.3 percent, so it looks like the trajectory of the economy is going in 
the right direction.
  But, until we address this housing problem, will we still have a drag 
on the economy?
  Ms. KAPTUR. I am so happy the gentleman has asked that question.
  I have served on the Housing committees for my entire career in 
Congress. There has been no modern recovery in our country that has not 
been led by housing development. If you talk to Realtors, if you talk 
to homebuilders, you'll see how poor that market is right now. We have 
to fix the housing sector.
  On the part of the majority here, there haven't been any serious 
hearings on this. Have we gone out to the country? We used to go out to 
the country. When there is a crisis, you go out to the country. If 
Louisiana loses part of its southern edge, we go down there. We try to 
help. We try to figure out what's going on. On this housing problem, 
there has been such timid action, almost no action, by this Congress. 
We've just let it fester and hemorrhage across the country.
  History will show this was one of the most irresponsible periods that 
damaged our housing stock from coast to coast, and we will be paying 
for it for years to come--in shattered lives, in shattered communities. 
If I chaired the committee, we'd be all over the country. We wouldn't 
be sitting here in Washington doing nothing. We would be going out to 
these communities.
  Mr. ELLISON. Our Republican friends, who are in the majority, they 
tell us: Let laissez-faire capitalism take over. Let the housing market 
bottom out. Government shouldn't do anything. Just let all home value 
go down to nothing, and eventually somebody will buy those houses that 
are just sitting there, idle, after people have been unemployed and 
can't afford them and have to be foreclosed on. They tell us we should 
just be laissez-faire with that. They also tell us that we should not 
put any regulations in place and that we should cut taxes so that the 
government doesn't have enough revenue to protect the people.
  To me, this crisis seems like the product of a philosophy--that the 
rich people don't have enough money and that the poor have too much. 
This seems like a culmination of a philosophy that for the people, 
through their democratic institutions to hold business accountable, to 
play fairly and by the rules, has seen its full manifestation. The full 
manifestation of this Ayn Rand-type philosophy has brought us to 
financial ruin, and they won't even admit that.
  We haven't seen any hearings on how to address the foreclosure 
crisis, because they believe in just letting the market bottom out. I 
mean, even though there have been 23 months of private sector job 
growth, you never hear them say anything good about that; and while 
we're adding private sector jobs, they're trying to cut public sector 
jobs.
  What is really going on here? Why isn't our majority addressing the 
jobs

[[Page 1247]]

crisis? Their jobs program seems to be to attack the EPA. They're 
basically making the case that Americans who want to breathe and drink 
clean water are the problem of our economy. What is this laissez-faire 
get the government out? no taxes for the rich? What has this philosophy 
brought us to?
  Ms. KAPTUR. I would say to the gentleman that I think what it has 
brought us to is of only being for the 1 percent because, if you look 
at what is going on, they have the big banks confiscating private 
property. In other words, where people had equity, they took it away; 
right? People walked away from their homes. They didn't get legal 
advice. They had a leg to stand on, but they were so afraid that 
ordinary families just walked away from their homes, and many of them 
could still be in their homes. So they're confiscating private 
property. Then, at the Federal level, they want to take and cash out 
public property that belongs to the American people: in our parks--
right?--and in our lands. Think about what they're talking about.

                              {time}  1310

  So a few want it all. And we're saying, that's not what America's 
about. America is about everyone--we, the people, all of us. Not just 
the few, but about the 99 percent, not just the 1 percent.
  But when six banks control two-thirds of the wealth of this country, 
that's something to be worried about because it's too much power in too 
few hands.
  Mr. ELLISON. I thank the gentlelady.
  Madam Speaker, may I inquire how much time remains?
  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Ms. Buerkle). The gentleman from Minnesota 
has 7 minutes remaining.
  Mr. ELLISON. Well, let me wrap up.
  All I would like to say, Madam Speaker, is that the Progressive 
Caucus looks at an America where the American Dream was of liberty and 
justice for all. And when those words were written, we had a society 
where only part of our society was legally allowed to fully 
participate. Women couldn't vote. Blacks couldn't vote. But people who 
believed in the dream of America wanted to make progress and fought to 
make sure that women and people of color could vote in this country. 
And people looked at that American Dream and said, You know what, we 
have a dream of a big middle class, broadly shared prosperity. And even 
though the society may not have quite been that way at that time, they 
worked to fulfill that promise, that dream, the American Dream, an idea 
that good Americans pursued and helped to bring into fruition.
  We are trying to make progress on the dream, the progress of full 
inclusion, full employment, respecting our environment, believing in 
science. This is what the Progressive Caucus is all about. We're not 
trying to conserve the old way where only some people had privilege and 
opportunity. We're trying to make progress. So this is what the 
Progressive Caucus is all about.
  The Progressive Caucus believes, of course, there should be a free 
market in America; but there also needs to be a public sector that will 
watch out for the health, safety, and fairness of our country. Yet some 
people in Congress are hostile to the idea of any government role, but 
we're not. We believe that government is how we come together in ways 
that we can't do it alone, for the best benefit of everybody.
  And we urge the Republican majority--they've got the power; this is a 
winner-take-all-type system--to go out across American and do something 
and hear people about the issue of foreclosure, to get some jobs going. 
Pass the American Jobs Act. Pass the infrastructure bank bill. Do 
something to get this country together. Address the foreclosure crisis. 
Stop whipping up Americans versus Americans, using loaded terms like 
``food stamp President,'' which is racial code. Stop blaming the gay 
community for failures in people's marriages. It's not their fault. 
Stop heaping hate and scorn on new Americans, and stop trying to 
relegate women to second-class citizenship.
  Let's embrace the fullness of what it means to be an American. Let's 
make progress on the American Dream. Let's embrace the progressive 
message.
  And I just want to say, Madam Speaker, I yield back the balance of my 
time.

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