Shirley A. Chisholm United States-Caribbean Educational Exchange Act of 2008

Madam Speaker, I would like to thank my good friend, Mr. Cardoza, the gentleman from California, for the time; and I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Madam Speaker, on the opening day of this Congress, the distinguished chairwoman of the Rules Committee, Ms. Slaughter, came to the floor and said that the new majority would, `` . . . begin to return this Chamber to its rightful place as the home of democracy and deliberation in our great Nation.'' That pledge echoed a document by Speaker Pelosi titled A New Direction For America. That document said, ``bills should generally come to the floor under a procedure that allows open, full, and fair debate.''

Now as we approach the closing hours of the 110th Congress, I think it is appropriate for us to take a look at whether the majority has actually lived up to those promises.

Let us begin with closed rules. There really can be few, if any, parliamentary procedures that are more offensive to the essential spirit of democracy, the spirit of democracy, than a closed rule. A closed rule shuts off, blocks Members from both sides of the aisle from offering any amendments to legislation that is considered on the floor. As I said, no matter what their party affiliation, if and when Congress operates under a closed rule, all Members are shut out from the legislative process on the floor.

Even though the majority promised a more open Congress, as I referred to in the beginning of my remarks, they silenced the vote of every Member and thus all of every Member's constituents a record 63 times this Congress. Sixty-three times. No other Congress in the history of the Republic has ever brought forth so many closed rules. No other Congress in the history of the Republic has brought so many pieces of legislation to the floor under that legislative framework that prohibits every Member of this House from offering amendments to the legislation.

The consistent use of closed rules by the majority constitutes an affront to the democratic spirit as well as to their own promises. But that is not the only way that they have failed to live up to their promises. They have also systematically bypassed what is known as the conference process, effectively shutting out the minority from having a say on legislation that makes its way to the President's desk.

Madam Speaker, as you know, the conference process is the process by which the House and Senate work out differences, resolve their differences and achieve a final legislative product that is exact to be passed by the House and the Senate and sent to the President.

Now the majority has also used a technique known as ``ping-pong'' to avoid that conference process. They have used that technique in order to subvert the rights of the minority to offer motions to recommit and amendments. For comparison, in the 108th Congress and 109th Congress-- those Congresses combined--that technique known as ping-ponging was used three times during the 108th Congress and 109th Congress.

But that is not all. The majority has also considered 45 bills outside the regular order. They also blocked minority substitute amendments, allowing only 10 minority substitute amendments even though they promised a procedure that, and again I remind the majority of its own words, they promised that they would ``grant the minority the right to offer its alternatives, including a substitute.''

So here we are today with a rule that a distinguished senior member of the majority on the Rules Committee said, and I quote, is `` . . . outside the normal parameters of the way that the House should conduct its business . . . it effectively curtails our rights and responsibilities as serious legislators.''

Prior to becoming Speaker, Ms. Pelosi pledged, and I quote, ``to conduct our work with civility and bipartisanship and to act in partnership, not partisanship, with the President and the Republicans in Congress.''

Obviously, the record has been another story.

Now with regard to what the majority is doing today, the majority is bringing forth 44 bills for consideration under what is known as suspension of the rules. It's a process by which usually noncontroversial bills, as my friend described them, bills that generally have bipartisan support because they require two-thirds of the House in order to pass, under the rule being brought forth today, we will be authorizing under this rule 44 bills for consideration under suspension of the rules. At least they're telling us what the 44 bills are. That's why it took some time for the Clerk to read them, because there are 44 bills to read the titles. So at least I think the majority should be commended for telling us what the 44 bills are.

Now, unfortunately, we're informed that the Rules Committee is meeting at this time, as we speak, to pass a rule to authorize more suspensions, but not telling us what they are; in other words, a blanket authority. So, obviously everything has to be put in perspective.

Compared to what the Rules Committee is doing now for the rest of the session, this is a commendable rule because at least it is informing us and the American people what we will be considering. At least the titles have been brought forth. So that is something that, when we consider how the majority has acted procedurally in this Congress, we have to be grateful that we're being informed at least what bills are being authorized for consideration under the rule today.

Madam Speaker, as we look back at this 110th Congress that is nearing its end, I think it would be fair to say that when one considers the promises for openness and fairness and transparency made by the majority at the beginning of this Congress and in their campaign before this Congress began, when one compares that with their record of having broken all precedent in terms of the number, the number, having broken the record in terms of the number of pieces of legislation brought to this floor authorizing no amendments, in other words, closed rules, there is an extraordinary difference between the promise and the reality by our friends on the other side of the aisle.

I reserve the balance of my time.

No, I would inform my friend that we have no other speakers. So at this time I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, first let me just say today is a good day. I'm very delighted to be able to rise in support of H.R. 176, the Shirley Chisholm U.S.-Caribbean Educational Exchange Act of 2007.

I would like to thank Congressman Faleomavaega from the American Samoa, the distinguished chairman of the subcommittee on Asia, the Pacific and the Global Environment, for yielding to me, for managing this bill on the floor, and for your assistance and for your leadership.

Also, to our ranking member, Congresswoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, thank you so much for your diligence and hard work and understanding and clarity of what we wanted to do and making sure that this was done in a bipartisan way. We appreciate so much your leadership.

I am very pleased, as I said, that the House will have an opportunity to discuss this bill today. I want to thank everyone who has helped with this very important piece of legislation. I would also like to thank my good friend, Congressman Eliot Engel, who is the Chair of the Western Hemisphere Subcommittee, and my colleague, the distinguished chairman of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Congressman Tom Lantos.

Also, we couldn't have done with this without our staff, who have put in so many hours to ensure that this bill would have the most impact. Particularly, I would like to thank Jason Steinbaum of Mr. Engel's staff and Kristen Wells and Peter Quilter of Mr. Lantos' staff. And let me acknowledge Miguel Ayala from my office for his very, very excellent work on this bill, and Jamila Thompson, formerly of my staff, who really initially worked on this legislation as well as the designation of June as Caribbean-American Heritage Month.

This legislation is so important because our neighbors in the Caribbean, sometimes called the ``Third Border,'' they're often neglected when we consider matters that affect our hemisphere. My bill creates an educational exchange program whereby students in the Caribbean, including secondary school, undergraduate, graduate, postgraduate students and scholars can come abroad to study at United States institutions of higher education. These important programs will not only encourage diplomacy between our Nation and those in the Caribbean, but it will also prepare these students to return home to the Caribbean with the tools and the education they need to move their nations forward in the 21st century.

This legislation also encourages academic partnerships with Historically Black Colleges and Universities and Hispanic-serving institutions, when possible, and will ensure parity between males and females in the program. Furthermore, both merit and financial need will be considered for those exchange programs which we are authorizing today.

This bill also creates and provides educational development assistance for CARICOM nations. It will address the lack of access and the lack of quality education in some areas of the Caribbean by improving primary and secondary education through teacher training, strengthening curriculum, and improving administration and management of schools.

This bill is named after our former colleague, my dear friend, my mentor, the late Congresswoman Shirley Anita Chisholm, who I dearly loved and learned much from and who I deeply miss. She served in Congress from 1969 to 1983 and was of Caribbean descent. Her mother was from Barbados and her father was from Guyana. She represented the 12th District of New York, which to this day continues to have a significant Caribbean-American population.

Congresswoman Chisholm would have been so proud to know that this program will address the very disparities in education that the leaders of the CARICOM nations raised during the conference last month here in Washington, D.C. They met with the President, the Secretary of State, Speaker Pelosi, and also with our colleagues on the House Ways and Means Committee, the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, and the Congressional Black Caucus. And during those meetings with the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, many Members here in our own body heard about the lack of opportunities for students from the Caribbean to study in the United States.

It is clear to me that we need to do more to help our friends and neighbors in the Caribbean, and I hope this bill is just one step with regard to the many that we're looking at that will come forward to move us forward with closer ties to our regions.

Again, I would like to thank everyone who helped me make this bill come to fruition. It has taken a while. It has taken a long time, actually. I am delighted that we, today, will be sending a very clear message to our friends in the Caribbean that we are truly supportive.

You know, when you see other countries in the region providing scholarships for students from the Caribbean, such as Cuba, I think it is now up to the United States to step up to the plate and say we, too, can make sure that students from the Caribbean benefit from the wonderful educational opportunities present in the United States.

Thank you, again, Mr. Faleomavaega.

Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (H.R. 176) to authorize assistance to the countries of the Caribbean to fund educational development and exchange programs, as amended.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material on the bill under consideration.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong support of this resolution.

I would first like to thank my colleague, the distinguished gentlewoman from California (Ms. Lee), for introducing this important legislation and garnering the bipartisanship sponsors that it deserves. And certainly I want to thank the chairman of the Western Hemisphere Subcommittee, the gentleman from New York (Mr. Engel), for his tireless efforts in pushing forward this initiative.

Mr. Speaker, nearly four decades ago, history was made in the voting booths of New York City. A young lady by the name of Shirley Chisholm became the first African American woman elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in the history of our great land. With her election, Congresswoman Shirley Chisholm broke the ground for African Americans, to be sure. Congresswoman Chisholm was also the child of immigrants from the Caribbean area, and today she remains a great heroine for Caribbean Americans throughout our Nation.

During her tenure in Congress, Congresswoman Chisholm was a staunch advocate for educational opportunity and access. She increased support for Historically Black Colleges and Universities and other institutions in the United States that serve minorities.

It is, therefore, entirely appropriate and fitting that the legislation before the House today is named after the late Congresswoman Shirley Chisholm from the great City of New York. This bill establishes a new and important educational exchange program between the United States and our friends in the Caribbean region.

This effort builds on a priority I have long promoted: fostering better educational and cultural ties between the United States and different regions of the world. Today's bill follows our recent historic passage of the Senator Paul Simon Study Abroad Foundation Act of 2007, a bill to vastly expand study abroad programs that overwhelmingly passed this House in a great example of bipartisan cooperation.

The United States and nations of the Caribbean have long enjoyed friendly relations. As an important regional partner for trade and a bastion of democratic values, our friends in the Caribbean region have been called the ``third border'' of the United States.

In talks with Members of Congress, Caribbean leaders have highlighted the need for educational opportunities for Caribbean students in fields that will allow them to contribute to an increasingly competitive regional economy. We aim to deliver on that request today.

Enhancing our cultural and educational exchange programs in the Caribbean will promote economic growth, improve regional security, and expand opportunities for the hardworking citizens of this region. This educational exchange program will enable secondary school, undergraduate, graduate, and post-graduate scholars from the Caribbean to attend schools, colleges, and universities in the United States. It will allow them to participate in activities designed to promote a greater understanding of the values and culture of the United States. And it will grant them the option either to live in the United States with a host family, enriching them with community and town life here, or to live in an on-campus housing environment.

Mr. Speaker, the late Congresswoman Shirley Chisholm was a great American leader who has inspired generations of African Americans and Caribbean Americans. With passage of this legislation, we honor her memory and ensure that a new generation of Caribbeans can play an even more constructive role in the political and economic developments not only of this region but to continue our friendly relations with this region.

I urge my colleagues to support this legislation.

Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 30 seconds just to offer my compliments to my dear friend, the senior ranking member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Ms. Ros-Lehtinen, for her support and leadership in bringing this legislation to the floor

Mr. Speaker, it is my honor now to give 5 minutes to my good friend and colleague, the prime sponsor of this legislation, the gentlelady from California (Ms. Lee) for her statement.

I thank the gentlelady for a most eloquent statement.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentlelady from Texas (Ms. Jackson-Lee)

Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, I offer a motion to recommit.

In its current form, I am.

Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Utah for his hard work on this issue. I thank the chairman of the subcommittee. We're good friends. And all three of us come from the West, where we are very familiar with public ownership of land.

One of the things that really concerns us most about the threat of condemnation and about the way that home owners, private property owners would be affected is shown in this chart that I have here. The management plan would put a cap on impervious services, and those services could not be paved. If the road to your house washes out, then you simply can't do it.

Now, there are all sorts of takings that the Federal Government can do, and this is one, where they simply won't allow you to fix your property up or fix the roads leading to your property.

So you would lose value because you could not own a house and sell a house that has a road leading to it that has washed out. You cannot add a room to your home; so feasibly we could say that we are limiting procreation. If you have another kid, you can't build a room in the back to accommodate them. You can't go build on your property if you have not already built there. You can't go in and build. The private land is impacted seriously.

But beyond that is there a real concern? Do we have a concern for the public taking of private lands and making it theirs? Are there examples in our history as a Nation where we maybe have extended the power of a Federal Government, a central government that is too strong, a central government that begins to overburden and outweigh and out muscle the citizens? If so, then it is imperative that we give voice to those citizens who have no other voice, who have been left out completely, who are going to be marginalized by these management plans.

I think that we do have a Federal Government that will extend too far, and I think that we have a concern here. Now, it is unfortunate that we have come to this point because the underlying bill, the one that says we would like to preserve a wild and scenic river, is one that there is almost no discussion about. The entire discussion is about private property rights, that constitutional right that gives us each our place to retreat to in the evening without the government's coming in and taking either part of its value or simply confiscating the whole thing.

Now, confiscation is a language that seems abrupt, that seems too harsh, that we really do not face that sort of circumstance today in this country. I would tell you that, as chairman of the National Parks Subcommittee last year, we heard testimony from the Franciscan Friars of Atonement in New York. That group had fought the National Park Service for decades, saying don't take our land. But through eminent domain, the Federal Park Service had continued to put pressure. Again, it was the threat of what they could do that was used as the hammer.

So we find ourselves now with this bill, which the ranking member adequately points out that there is an underlying bill that contains language that nothing contained in this section shall preclude the use of condemnation. It is a process that has been used frequently.

I was recently in Shenandoah National Park, and you would think that Shenandoah is just a great location, and it is. But the underlying story is one that is told right now in the Visitors Center in Shenandoah, and it is about the confiscation, about moving, it seems to me, about 4,000 families out of their homes so that that could be a big park area. We did not want those inconvenient people living there; so we simply moved them out for their own good. We moved them to much better places regardless if they wanted to move or not.

In my own State of New Mexico, the White Sands Missile Range exists there. It is 100 miles north and south and it is 40 miles east and west, 100 miles by 40 miles, and almost all of that land was taken by condemnation.

Condemnation occurs when a too strong central Federal Government just wants to go ahead and move. Forget those pesky citizens.

The Supreme Court recently in the Kelo decision said that governments can, in fact, take private property and redistribute it to another private firm. That is what is at stake both left and right. Both agreed in this circumstance. Liberal and conservative, Democrats and Republicans, said the Kelo decision was one of the most atrocious in taking private property rights away from people.

Madam Speaker, I would simply point out that private property rights are the foundation of our rights. I would urge all Members to vote for the motion to recommit.

Madam Speaker, by direction of the Committee on Rules, I call up House Resolution 1491 and ask for its immediate consideration.

Madam Speaker, for the purpose of debate only, I yield the customary 30 minutes to the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Lincoln Diaz-Balart). All time yielded during consideration of the rule is for debate only.

General Leave

Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks on House Resolution 1491.

Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Madam Speaker, H. Res. 1491 authorizes the Speaker to entertain motions that the House suspend the rules at any time on the legislative day of Thursday, September 25, 2008, on 44 separate measures. This rule is necessary because under clause 1(a) of rule XV, the Speaker may entertain motions to suspend the rules only on Monday, Tuesday or Wednesday of each week. In order for suspensions to be considered on other days, the Rules Committee must authorize consideration of these motions.

This is not unusual. In fact, in the 109th Congress, my friends on the other side of the aisle reported at least six rules that provided for additional suspension days. This bill limits the suspension of rules only to those measures listed in the rule itself so Members on both sides of the aisle are aware of exactly what bills may be considered under this suspension of the rules.

This is standard procedure at the end of the legislative session and includes both House bills that we will send to the Senate for consideration and Senate-passed bills that are ready to become law once they pass the House.

I would remind my colleagues on both sides of the aisle that bills considered under suspension of the rules must receive strong bipartisan support in order to pass the House.

I urge my colleagues to join me in supporting this rule which will simply help us move important, noncontroversial legislation before we adjourn that is important to our constituents and

that will receive overwhelmingly bipartisan support and that will hopefully become law.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, I would like to inquire of the gentleman from Florida if he has any additional speakers. I am the last speaker on my side.

Madam Speaker, my friend from Florida has raised several issues with regard to the procedures of the House for the last 2 years. The gentleman is correct that there have been a number of closed rules this year. But I would like to just say, in response to that, that we have had to try and manage this House with a very obstinate Republican minority in the Senate.

There has been a record number of filibusters that have been put forward this year to try and stop everything that we have tried to accomplish in this body. In fact, there has been an absolute stonewalling on the number of conference committees, breaking down the bipartisan process, breaking down the comity that engages both Houses, so that we can get something done for the American people. By refusing to go to conference, this has gummed up the arteries of this body, and it, frankly, is the Republican minority in the other body that has really made this a very difficult House and institution to manage.

Madam Speaker, I would also say that the gentleman mentioned that this is--well, first of all, he acknowledged that we are telling everyone today the 44 bills that we are, in fact, bringing forward in this rule. Six times the gentleman's party, in the last Congress, did not tell us what they were bringing forward in a rule. And I can cite the dates. We have the information.

The reality is that this is not an uncommon practice at the end of the session. We would like to, as we are doing in this rule, do it every time, but sometimes it's possible at the end of the session we're simply running out of time.

So, Madam Speaker, as I said, this is a standard procedure at the end of the legislative session that will simply

help us move important, noncontroversial legislation before we adjourn that will receive overwhelming bipartisan support.

I urge a ``yes'' vote on the rule and on the previous question, Madam Speaker.

I yield back the balance of my time, and I move the previous question on the resolution.

The previous question was ordered.