Daniel B. Maffei

Mr. Speaker, in this Nation's great history, the life of Harriet Ross Tubman is certainly a life worth recognition by this Congress and this country.

Harriet Tubman, born Araminta Ross in 1822, dedicated her life to the emancipation movement as a leader of the Underground Railroad that provided enslaved African Americans a pathway to freedom in the North. She served for the Union Army during the Civil War and as a caregiver for the elderly by establishing the Tubman Home for the Aged in Auburn, New York, where she lived out her life.

She suffered from traumatic brain injury throughout her life after she was hit as a teenager with a heavy weight by a slave overseer who was trying to subdue another enslaved person. She was an advocate for women's rights and worked to get women the vote. After settling in Auburn, she dedicated much of her life and effort to the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church there.

In 2008, the National Park Service completed a special resource study to determine the most appropriate way to recognize the life of Harriet Tubman. The Park Service eventually came to the conclusion that a park should include two geographically separate units. One would be a tightly clustered set of buildings in Auburn, New York, and the other would include large sections of landscape that are evocative of Tubman's life both as a slave and as a conductor of the Underground Railroad on the Eastern Shore of Maryland.

The Harriet Tubman National Historical Parks Act, which I introduced, aims to further commemorate the life of Harriet Tubman by establishing the Harriet Tubman National Historical Park in Auburn and the Harriet Tubman Underground Railroad National Historical Park in Dorchester County, Maryland.

Harriet Tubman Historical Park is located in Auburn, New York, and the part of that that includes historical structures like the Tubman home, the Tubman Home for the Aged, the AME Zion Church that she went to, and the Fort Hill Cemetery where she is buried.

Mr. Speaker, last week this House passed legislation as part of the armed services authorization bill to establish a park in Tubman's honor. This week I hope the Senate will also pass this legislation and send it to President Obama for his signature.

It is completely appropriate that this provision should be included, for, though not as well known as her activity on the Underground Railroad, Harriet Tubman was one of our first African American women military veterans. She volunteered her time and efforts, traveling to the South to help the Union war effort by helping fugitives and serving as a nurse to Union soldiers in Port Royal, South Carolina.

Eventually she was leading bands of scouts through the land around Port Royal, where her ability to travel unseen and fool her adversaries made her an ideal spy. Her group, working under the orders of the Secretary of War, made maps and collected important intelligence that aided the Union capture of Jacksonville, Florida.

Subsequently, Tubman became the first woman to lead an armed assault during the Civil War. When Union Colonel James Montgomery and his troops attacked plantations along the Combahee River, Tubman went with them and guided three steamboats around confederate mines in the waters leading to the shore. More than 750 enslaved African Americans were rescued in the Combahee River raid and, according to the newspapers at the time, most of those newly liberated men went on to join the Union Army, largely due to Tubman's recruiting efforts.

Mr. Speaker, Harriet Tubman lived for freedom and worked hard to extend freedom to hundreds of others. In doing so, she earned the Nation's respect and honor. A century after her death, I am proud to have worked so hard to establish a fitting memorial to her.

I truly believe that Harriet Tubman's example of inner strength, persistence, her love of freedom, and her dedication to the Nation based on the principles of freedom makes her as relevant today as she was in her own time.

Mr. Speaker, our time is filled with too much cynicism and people feeling powerless to do much to better our society. We should look to the example of Harriet Tubman, a true American patriot. She was someone for whom liberty and freedom were not just concepts but were principles worth working for and fighting for.

According to Tubman's authorized biographer, Sarah Bradford, when Tubman had escaped from slavery in the Northern States, she said, ``I looked at my hands to see if I was the same person. There was such a glory over everything. The Sun came up like gold through the trees and over the fields, and I felt like I was in Heaven.''

We, Mr. Speaker, should look to Harriet Tubman, an enslaved African American woman of slight physical stature and suffering from head trauma, and realize that the glory and heaven that is American freedom is there for us all if we are willing to work for it and to fight for it and to believe in it, as Harriet Tubman did.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to recognize Thomas McNabb on his completion of 30 years as the National Secretary of the Ancient Order of Hibernians of America (AOH).

Thomas McNabb was born and raised in Auburn, New York, where he joined the Auburn Hibernian Division in 1955. Known as ``Mr. Hibernian'' around town, Tom has served his division in every capacity. He started many local Irish-American traditions such as the Friends of Ireland Annual St. Patrick's Day Luncheon; he was also the founder of Auburn's Irish Festival.

Thomas McNabb also served on the AOH New York State Board as Secretary, Treasurer, Organizer, State Director, and Vice President. Tom rose through the ranks to become the youngest AOH state President in 1975.

Tom's unwavering commitment to the AOH was recognized nationally when he was elected National Vice President in 1976 and then later became the second youngest National President in 1978.

Thomas McNabb was elected to his current position of AOH National Secretary in 1984.

During his years in National Hibernian leadership, Tom met with numerous elected officials and prominent figures to promote and support Irish causes. Notable meetings included President Jimmy Carter, Members of Congress, as well as Catholic Bishops, Cardinals and Archbishops.

In addition to Tom's great work in the United States, he has traveled to Ireland numerous times in support of the nation's causes. Tom was instrumental in the funding, building, and dedication of the Great Hunger Memorial in County Clare in 1995. This monument was the first memorial in Ireland to honor those who suffered and were lost during The Potato Famine, now renamed The Great Hunger.

On top of his distinguished and devoted work for the AOH, Tom had worked as the Safety Inspector for the City of Auburn and served as an Auburn City Council member from 1995 to 2011.

Throughout his life, Thomas McNabb has fully embodied the AOH Motto--``Friendship, Unity, and Christian Charity''.

Mr. Speaker, it is with great pride that I recognize Thomas McNabb on his completion of 30 years as the National Secretary of the Ancient Order of Hibernians of America (AOH). May he continue to be a leading force for good in an ever-changing world.

Thank you, Ranking Member Jose Serrano.

Mr. Chairman, I am here because, on March 14, 2013, in my upstate New York district, a school librarian named Lori Bresnahan and a 10-year- old child were attacked in a mall parking lot.

The attacker was facing Federal child pornography charges and was out on bail and ordered to wear an electronic monitoring bracelet. He disabled the bracelet, left his home, stabbed Mrs. Bresnahan to death, and sexually assaulted the young girl.

In the days following the attack, it was revealed that the attacker had been removing and reassembling the GPS monitoring bracelet. The device sent out tamper alerts every time he disabled the device, but the Federal probation office responsible for monitoring this defendant before his trial failed to respond to 46 total tamper alerts.

On the day of the attack, he again disabled his bracelet, and the office again ignored the alert. If they had investigated any of these 46 tamper alerts, maybe this tragedy could have been avoided.

This appropriations bill funds the Administrative Office of the United States Courts, the organization tasked with overseeing the system of Federal probation offices all over this country.

After this case, I wrote to the Administrative Office of the United States Courts, asking them to investigate this gross negligence. In their response was, ``Nothing can excuse the deficiencies in the supervision of this case,'' but it also said, ``Reduced resources due to the sequester is harming the efforts to keep it from happening again.''

Mr. Chairman, we have addressed the sequester for now, but serious funding issues remain. The administrative office is continuing to use their funding to backfill cuts they have had to make in previous years.

We cannot allow funding issues to hamper efforts to prevent cases like this from happening again, and to be clear, this has happened again around the country.

I ask that the committee take note of the serious problem and ensure that the administrative office gets the funds it needs to enact real reform and protect our communities.

I want to thank particularly the ranking member's willingness to work with me, Chairman Crenshaw and your staff and the minority staff, your willingness to work with me on this.

Tragedies do happen, but this one could have, should have been avoided, and I am dedicated to help Congress do anything in our power to make sure it never happens again in central New York or anywhere in this great country.