Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to ask the House of Representatives to join me in honoring Ofield Dukes, an African American pioneer in the field of public relations, and a longtime influential champion of civil rights.

Before Ofield Dukes founded Ofield Dukes and Associates, he served as deputy director for public affairs for the President's Committee on Equal Employment Opportunity and Plans for Progress as well as deputy director for public affairs in the Lyndon B. Johnson Administration. He was a communications consultant for every Democratic presidential campaign since 1972. His work was instrumental in establishing the Congressional Black Caucus and in creating the national holiday for Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

Born in Ruthledge, Alabama in 1932 and raised in Detroit, Michigan, Dukes served in the Korean War as a member of the United States Army. He earned a degree in journalism from Wayne State University in Detroit, Michigan. After graduation, he spent several years crafting his skills at WCHB radio as the news director until and then got his break at the Michigan Chronicle, where he won several National Newspaper Publishers Association awards. His accomplishments caught the attention of President Lyndon B. Johnson, who tapped Dukes to become deputy director of the President's Committee on Equal Employment Opportunity and Plans for Progress, and a year later he became deputy director of public affairs. In 1969, Dukes started his own public relations firm in Washington, DC, Ofield Dukes and Associates. His first client was Motown Records, and he went on to represent multinational companies such as AT&T, Sony Music Entertainment, and RJR Nabisco. During this period, Dukes was a key figure in establishing the Congressional Black Caucus, including organizing the first Congressional Black Caucus Dinner in 1971. In the 1980s, Dukes joined forces with Stevie Wonder in organizing a march in Washington for a national holiday for Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.. He founded the Black Public Relations Society of Washington, DC., giving black public relations professionals a place to meet and cultivate ideas. Dukes was known to say, ``Public relations is synonymous with human communication.'' In a publication of the African American Public Relations Collective, he said, ``Even Jesus Christ was involved in communications. He had the disciples as advance persons and John the Baptist was sort of a PR agent.'' He said that public relations is more than just promoting an event or just engaging in an outpouring of publicity.

In addition to his stellar career, Ofield Dukes was an educator who gave selflessly of his time and talent. He was an adjunct professor at Howard University and later American University for nearly three decades.

Mr. Speaker, I ask the House to join me in honoring Ofield Dukes not only for his accomplishments in public relations but for his service to our Nation.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to ask the House of Representatives to join me in congratulating one of the Nation's great musical innovators, Chuck Brown, the ``Godfather of Go-Go,'' on receiving the Executive Director's Lifetime Achievement Award from the American Civil Liberties Union of the Nation's Capital (ACLU-NCA). Chuck will be presented with the award on January 7, 2012, at the historic and elegant Carnegie Institution for Science in Washington, DC. The ACLU-NCA has long fought for equal congressional representation for the citizens of the Nation's capital, the right of District residents to make their own laws and spend their own money and, above all, statehood. Last summer, Chuck performed at the ACLU-NCA's annual DC. Statehood Teach-In on the West Lawn of the U.S. Capitol. Despite temperatures in excess of 100 degrees, Chuck gave a spirited performance of the kind that has earned him legendary status. Chuck uplifted the DC statehood movement, and liberty itself.

Since the mid-1960s, when his musical career began, Chuck Brown has been the fundamental force behind ``Go-Go,'' the musical genre he invented in Washington, DC. Chuck's early hit ``Bustin' Loose'' has been adopted by the Washington Nationals baseball team as the official home-run celebration song. In addition to creating original music, Chuck has recorded a series of Go-Go covers of early jazz and blues songs. Chuck's remarkable music catalogue spans 22 studio albums over more than 30 years. Chuck's signature musical style recently proved its longevity when the song ``Love,'' from his album entitled We Got This, earned Chuck Grammy Award nomination 2010.

Chuck Brown has also been a devoted and loving father. When his son played football at Virginia Tech, Chuck scheduled performances and other appearances around the team's home football games, never missing a single game his son played at Lane Stadium. Following the Virginia Tech massacre in 2007, Chuck dedicated several shows to the memories of the victims.

Mr. Speaker, Chuck Brown has earned iconic status, especially in the District of Columbia where Go-Go music was invented and popularized. For decades, through his distinctive sound with its iconic beat, Chuck has pulled people out of their seats to dance nationwide. Whether in the depressing aftermath of the Virginia Tech massacre or on a hot summer day on Capitol Hill, Chuck has always used his music to uplift the human spirit. I, therefore, ask the House of Representatives to recognize Chuck Brown for his contributions to music in our country and to the District of Columbia, and to join me in commending him on receiving the ACLU-NCA's Executive Director's Lifetime Achievement Award.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to ask the House of Representatives to join me in honoring Patrick V. Murphy, an unheralded leader in law enforcement and an early advocate for community policing, for his distinguished service as the first public safety director for the District of Columbia overseeing both the police and fire departments during turbulent times, As well for his work in New York, Connecticut, and Detroit.

Patrick Murphy served as the District's first public safety director, transforming both the police and fire departments during his tenure. He is most well-known here for how he handled the historic rioting that took place in April 1968 in the aftermath of the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. The rioting here was as destructive as anywhere in the county, but Patrick Murphy used sound judgment while our nation's capital was in turmoil. Murphy said violence begets violence, ordering his officers not to shoot looters and rioters during the riots. Murphy said that he would rather resign than order the shootings of looters. While our city was experiencing unfathomable chaos and wanted justice, Murphy dispersed the mobs of residents gently, and with as few arrests as possible. Because of his efforts and that decision, fewer people were killed in the District of Columbia than in cities that had less widespread riots.

In less trying times, Murphy transformed how his officers interacted with District residents, establishing the ``Cop on the Block'' program, which allowed police officers to get to know personally the residents they served. This program would serve as a model nationwide as many cities turned to (community policing) tactics.

Patrick Murphy, the son of a police officer, was born and raised in Brooklyn, New York. Before Patrick joined the Brooklyn Police Department in 1945, he was a Navy Bomber pilot in World War II. After the war, he came back home and decided to follow in his brothers' and father's footsteps and became a beat cop in the Red Hook District of Brooklyn. Patrick rose quickly through the ranks, becoming deputy inspector and later deputy chief, all while still attending college. Patrick moved to Washington, D.C., in 1965, during a time when race relations between police officers and residents were reaching a boiling point. He was first appointed by President Lyndon B. Johnson to the Office of Law Enforcement Assistance and later took the helm as the District's first public safety director, overseeing the local fire and police departments. He was a nationally recognized force in policing, and after serving the District, went on to become the police commissioner in Detroit and New York City.

In addition to his stellar career, Patrick Murphy was a wonderful husband to his wife, Martha E. Murphy; supportive father of eight, Gerard, Patrick Jr., Kevin, Paul, Mark, Sallie, Eileen, and Anne; and grandfather of 21.

Mr. Speaker, I ask the House to join me in honoring Patrick V. Murphy for his accomplishments in law enforcement and his dedication to justice. Law enforcement in the United States is better because of his service.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to ask the House of Representatives to recognize the extraordinary dedication of four young people who are engaged in a hunger strike for District of Columbia voting rights, budget autonomy and legislative autonomy, an unprecedented step in the District's 210-year struggle for equal citizenship. D.C. residents Kelly Mears, Adrian Parsons, and Sam Jewler, in the tradition of Mahatma Gandhi, began their hunger strike on December 8, and were joined the next day by Joe Gray, a Maryland resident. Unfortunately, this unusual journey ended for one of the strikers, twenty-four-year-old Kelly Mears, who was unable to continue with the three other strikers due to medical complications. The four visited members of Congress during the final days of negotiation on the fiscal year 2012 appropriations bills, and as the District government faced a possible shutdown over a federal spending bill and payroll tax fight. The hunger strikers have written a declaration of grievances. They are asking members of Congress to find ways to show solidarity with them. Representative Keith Ellison of Minnesota came to the floor during my special order on the shutdown threat and the spending bill's prohibition on the District's use of its local funds for abortions for low-income women. We are grateful to Representative Ellison for reading the declaration of the hunger strikers into the Congressional Record, and for his decision to abstain from food and water for 24 hours in solidarity with them. Since the fiscal year 2011 spending deal was announced in April 2011, which prohibited the District from spending its local funds on abortion services for low-income women, 72 people, including D.C. Mayor Vincent Gray and D.C. Council members, have been arrested for acts of civil disobedience in protest of the treatment of D.C. residents as second-class citizens. However, the D.C. hunger strikers will always be remembered as a special inspiration and for a special sacrifice. It is a sacrifice we had no right to ask for. Even now, we ask these young people not to endanger their health. They have been heard. We will never forget them. I ask the House to join me in honoring Kelly Mears, Adrian Parsons, Sam Jewler, and Joe Gray.

Mr. Speaker, I come to make a few remarks about the 2012 omnibus appropriations conference report

just passed and about one part of that report that has no place in any conference report or in any House appropriations bill. I refer, of course, to the part of that report called the D.C. appropriations bill.

First, for all of the contention in this Congress, as we look at the 2012 omnibus appropriations, there is certainly much for Democrats to be relieved about. There was a wholesale attack in the beginning of this Congress on everything from education to clean energy. But in the end, because Democrats know how to fight for what the American people tell them to fight for, health care reform was saved. Wall Street reform was saved. Clean energy was saved. Job training was saved. NPR, National Public Radio, was not defunded. Planned Parenthood, which offers reproductive services throughout our country, was not defunded. And Title X family planning was not defunded. The National Labor Relations Board can continue on with its rules concerning union elections. And these are only some of the many ingredients in this omnibus report that led Democrats to vote for it because it contained much for them to be proud of.

Yes, in the give and take of appropriations, the kind of give and take there should have been more of during this Congress, there were some things in this appropriations bill for the Nation that I do not support and that generally Democrats do not support. Still, this bill was far more bipartisan than any other bill that has come before the 112th Congress.

Then, of course, there was the D.C. appropriations. From anywhere in America, the words ``D.C. appropriations'' do not sound right on the House floor. This is the place where we deal with the Nation's business, not the business of any local jurisdiction. But, of course, there are anachronisms here. There are intrusions here, and they go to matters affecting the District of Columbia.

To be sure, there is much to be relieved about in the D.C. bill. This was not a total loss for the District. The bill funded our top three priorities--the extraordinary D.C. Tuition Assistance Grant program; the Department of Homeland Security headquarters, now going up in Ward 8, a part of our city where there is great unemployment, and where this construction is doing a good deal of good; and funding for HIV/AIDS treatment in the District of Columbia.

I want to thank my good friends, Mrs. Emerson and Mr. Serrano, particularly for the funding for HIV/AIDS education and treatment. This funding was included in the President's budget, but it didn't have to be in our appropriations bill. And, indeed, it was in neither the initial House nor Senate appropriations bill.

I asked these two appropriators if they could possibly see to it that this funding was included because the District has the highest HIV/AIDS rate in the United States, in part because of the old needle exchange rider. Of course, this funding doesn't have to do with the needle exchange rider; this has to do with making sure that there is money for education and treatment. And so I want to thank Mrs. Emerson and Mr. Serrano because together they saw to it that this funding was in the bill, and I certainly want to thank Mrs. Emerson for the bipartisanship she has shown ever since she has been on the committee that handles the D.C. appropriations. Even on those occasions where she and I are in disagreement, she is always open to hearing from us.

I am equally glad that the D.C. TAG program was funded by her subcommittee. Thousands of our children are going to colleges throughout the United States with funding from the Federal Government to make up for the fact that the District of Columbia does not have a State university system. If this funding had been shut off, it would have been a catastrophe for those in college and for those preparing to go to college.

And of course I mentioned the Department of Homeland Security headquarters construction project. The headquarters is a priority for this administration, as it was for the last administration, and is also a priority for the District of Columbia because so many of the jobs will go to those in this region and, of course, in the District of Columbia.

At the same time, we are justifiably angry about the D.C. abortion rider that was placed on our appropriations for the second year in a row, despite an energetic campaign from many of our allies and District residents to eliminate this rider.

I see that my good friend, Mr. Hoyer, has come to the floor. While there is a great deal more I want to say about this bill and how it affects the District of Columbia, it is with pleasure to yield to my good friend, the Democratic whip.

Well, I thank you, Mr. Hoyer. It was a very special pleasure to yield to the man who is second in the Democratic leadership here in the House. And I think that it was particularly appropriate, as we close out this session, for our Democratic Whip, a Democratic leader, to come to the floor to remind us of unfinished business.

It was a great pleasure to be able, therefore, to give time to Mr. Hoyer, who speaks for us all. And I thank him for speaking not only to the Nation's business, but for speaking to the business of the District of Columbia. He never neglects the City. He has been a great champion of the District and for freedom for the people of the Nation's Capital.

Mr. Hoyer essentially spoke about the unfinished business of the 112th Congress. I was relieved at what the Democrats were able to accomplish in this conference report, when you consider that almost everything of great priority for us was under attack. So, yes, we are relieved.

But what Mr. Hoyer has reminded us about this evening is that there is unfinished business that should not allow Congress to go home to celebrate its own personal Christmas with a clear conscience until it deals with this part of the Nation's business--the payroll tax that will go up unless we extend it and unemployment benefits for 6 million people. These would have been routine ingredients, the payroll tax, for example, that economists tell us are ingredients essential to keep the economy from collapsing, because the money from the tax cut is going to be instantly spent by those who receive it.

And if the payroll tax goes up instead of staying put, there will be a full 1 percent decrease in the already shallow growth of the economy.

Unemployment benefits do precisely the same way. For every four people looking for a job, there's only one job available today. Who would want to deny unemployment benefits?

And as for Medicare physician reimbursements, we already have too many physicians unwilling to take Medicare patients. The last thing we want to do is to leave that situation, which would leave many of our seniors with nobody to go to.

Mr. Speaker, four D.C. residents were arrested this morning in front of the Longworth building to protest congressional action to keep the District from spending its own local funds as it sees fit--in this case, for abortion services for low-income women. No one asked these residents to be arrested. There was a picket line. I went to Longworth, there on Independence Avenue, joined the picket line, left, and then was informed that four people had decided to engage in civil disobedience in order to send the Congress the message that we will never go away quietly so long as you treat the residents of the District of Columbia as second-class citizens.

These four joined 72 people who were arrested when Congress re- imposed this very rider in April. Our residents have been successful in this sense: While there is one rider, the abortion rider, there are no others. And yet there were attempts to put on more riders, more attachments--at odds with what the residents of the District of Columbia themselves have enacted--but those were not added. There were riders that would have kept the District from using needle exchange programs, indispensable to eliminating the spread of HIV/AIDS. There were promises of riders on the District's marriage equality law. And there was a promise of a rider to eliminate all of the District's gun safety laws. Because the District residents did not go silently the last time, we have been able to beat back those riders.

We are relieved that the Federal Government didn't shut down because the District government would have shut down on Friday had the Federal Government shut down, although the District of Columbia is no part of this fight. The District passed its local budget months ago. However, the Congress treats the District paternalistically and makes it bring its budget to people who know nothing about its budget and have contributed nothing to its budget in order for the Congress--people from other districts--to sign off on the local budget of a city not their own. So because the District of Columbia budget was locked within one of the appropriations that had not been passed--the District faced a possible shutdown.

I have had a bill here pending for many months to the effect that if the government shuts down, the District can continue to spend its own local funds. That bill has not passed. It is amazing to even contemplate the possibility that the local government would have been shut down over issues having nothing to do with the local government. Well, there is only one way to avoid that problem, and it is a way that we are making at least some progress on, and that is to give the city the right to pass its own budget and be done with it.

We are pleased that there is some interest in this issue, especially the bill Mr. Issa of California has introduced to give the District budget autonomy, a bill that mirrors my own in many ways, with, of course, the deference his bill gives to the Congress. But it would go a long way toward avoiding shutdowns, toward allowing the District,

when it in fact passes its own budget, timely and balanced, to go forward, without coming to Congress, to have its budget done before school opens, to avoid having to pay a premium to Wall Street because the Congress forces the city to bring its budget to the Congress, thereby creating uncertainty for those who hold our bonds. So there is a way, and it is a way that we will never give up until we get that way.

May I ask how much time remains?

So as the residents of the District of Columbia look at the national appropriations, they will see the national conference report and they will have much to be grateful for because the wholesale attack on everything from education to health care reform did not succeed. Yes, there were also some extraordinary and important things in the D.C. appropriations, even as the city is in anguish that the Congress would dictate to the city how it must spend its own local funds. The city is justifiably angry that there was one rider, one amendment at odds with our own preferences, forced upon us in the way of authoritarian governments. At the same time, other riders that would have been terribly destructive, we were able to fight off.

The D.C. funding had in fact a salutary effect and we are mindful of the needs of the Nation and of the city, especially the funding for the Homeland Security headquarters in ward 8, a ward with a high unemployment rate. DC TAG, which is the program that allows our children to go to State colleges around the country because we do not have a State university system. And we are especially appreciative of the funding for HIV/AIDS, to engage in education and treatment in a city that has a high AIDS rate.

The Appropriations Committee has tried to overcome the partisanship of the 112th Congress. It did so to a fair extent in the general conference report, and it certainly did so on our appropriations, the D.C. appropriations, notwithstanding the issue that we will continue to take on with our appropriations until our appropriation is ours alone, our appropriation, our money.

My thanks to those who, in civil protest, civil disobedience were arrested this morning because of the abortion rider on the D.C. appropriations. And my thanks as well to the hunger strikers, who for the first time in the 210-year history of the District of Columbia made a very special sacrifice to indicate how intolerable it is for the 600,000 residents of the Nation's capital to be treated as second-class citizens.

Happy holidays to all Members of the House. May we have a bipartisan year next year.

I yield back.

Mr. Speaker, I move that the House do now adjourn.

The motion was agreed to; accordingly (at 4 o'clock and 30 minutes p.m.), under its previous order, the House adjourned until Monday, December 19, 2011, at 10 a.m.

Madam Speaker, I rise to speak about a possible set of events that will, I think, astound the American people. Most, by now, would agree that a shutdown of the government is a very bad idea. A shutdown of the government is a worse idea for the American people. But if you want to hear the worst of the worst, by far, it is shutting down a local government which is not involved in your national fight. That is what could happen as the first session of the 112th Congress closes out and leaves its signature on American history.

The District of Columbia's local budget, raised in the city, a budget larger than the budget of some States--thanks to the taxpayers of the city--nevertheless, has to be approved by the Congress. It was approved by the District of Columbia months ago, even approved by the Financial Services appropriations subcommittee months ago. But here it sits because most of the appropriations have not been approved by the Congress of the United States.

No wonder District of Columbia residents have informed our office that they will be here tomorrow to speak for themselves because, Madam Speaker, taxation without representation is

bad enough. In fact, it was considered so outrageous that our Forefathers went to war over this very notion.

Taxation without representation, followed by confiscation of a local government's judgment on how it ought to spend its own money, is un- American and should be unacceptable anywhere in the world except, of course, authoritarian governments.

So here I am again. I was on the floor just a few months ago on this very same issue, and doesn't it say everything about this Congress this year. The Republicans have had a year to learn since they took control of the House. They are very slow learners because for the third time we face a possible government shutdown, and we face the possible shutdown of a local government that is not in this fight and has passed its own local, balanced budget.

No forward movement. No forward movement for the District of Columbia and no forward movement for the country. We are embroiled in the same fights because one side, my friends on the other side of the aisle, have decided that a legislative body is one in which one side takes all. The whole notion that we come from diverse and different parts of the country and will have to find a meeting of the minds on issue after issue has fled from this Chamber.

So we see it not only with respect to my district, which is caught in this fight, a fight not of its making, a fight from which it cannot extricate itself, a fight out of which it cannot negotiate itself. We see this happening as if there were no past history to inform us not to do this again.

We don't know if we'll be home for Christmas. We don't know if the government will be shut down. We don't know if there will be a payroll tax holiday, desperately needed by everybody who works in the District of Columbia and in the United States.

And we don't know whether there will be unemployment insurance for everybody who lost their jobs and can't find a job. And let me get this right because this is quite astounding. For every four people looking for a job today, there is one opening. That, of course, is because you have to do two things when you find yourself in the predicament that the President found himself in when he entered the White House. You've got to find a way to grow your economy with some spending in the short term, and you have to find a way to cut spending and tax yourself in the long term. Of course, the other side understands the cutting side. They don't care, apparently, if the economy goes down the drain because they are about to recess without ever having come before this Chamber with a jobs bill to grow the economy.

This Republican House has no major legislation to show for a year's worth of work. It has been off on side issues; and one of those side issues has been the District of Columbia, into whose business it has no business entering, taking the city's vote, the vote that the city had in the Committee of the Whole, on the very first day as the first item of business and then piling on with a set of amendments designed to intrudes on the city's right to govern itself and to spend its own local funds as every local government does, as those who elect it locally have insisted.

So I had to yesterday call the Mayor of the District of Columbia, once again, and say I don't see any way out of a possible close-down for the District of Columbia if the Federal Government closes down. And while he found it unbelievable after the Congress now has the lowest rating in memory that they would even consider a close-down, nevertheless he has got to take the preparations that the federal government takes and is now taking when a close-down becomes a possibility.

The Home Rule Act gave the District of Columbia control over its local laws and its local funds with the caveat that they were to pass through here and pass by. That's literally what it is, a pass-by in the Congress. This has become more than a pass-by. It has become an occasion to encumber the District of Columbia with the views and the laws of Members of Congress, not elected from the District of Columbia, not responsible to the District of Columbia.

So the do-nothing 112th House has no major bill to its credit, no signature to take home; but it does leave an infamous signature that it was able to bully a medium-sized city in America because of some leftover jurisdiction over its local affairs. No wonder that there is palpable harm to the residents of this city. If you have the right to bully, just like the bully in the school yard, they are going to bully.

But I come to the floor this evening to say that we will never let an occasion where Congress intrudes on our rights as American citizens go by without calling you on it. We may go down, but we will go down fighting. We will not go silently into the night.

Once again, on a controversial issue, the House has insisted that the District of Columbia be forbidden to spend its own local funds on abortion services for local women in the District of Columbia. The operative word here is ``local.'' Over and over again, I will say local: local money, local women. No business of the Congress.

I can understand the strong feelings on this issue. Indeed, I respect them. What I do not respect is your imposing your strong feelings on a jurisdiction not your own, on a jurisdiction over which you have no moral jurisdiction.

And so despite the District's own view that our most vulnerable women need the same access to all reproductive services as other jurisdictions have, even if they have to spend their own local money, and many do, even if you are willing to spend your own local money, Congress is not going to let the District spend its own local money. My colleagues on the other side of the aisle, these Tea Party Republicans who came here talking about federalism, have been the first to violate the first principle of federalism.

We are not here talking about local laws alone, my friends, we are talking about local money, money raised in the District of Columbia. Not a penny of it from this Chamber. By what right do you tell us anything about how to spend that money, particularly when that money is spent legally and constitutionally? How do you square that with your Tea Party principles?

They tried on another issue as well. We were able to stop that one. For 10 years this Congress kept the District from spending its own local funds on needle exchange programs used all over the country, albeit with local funds, even though over and over again in test after test, it has been found that well-run needle exchange programs keep people from spreading HIV and AIDS.

In big cities where there are drug addicts, you will find that as many as one-third of those who contract this virus do so through needles; someone who has the virus then has relations with someone who doesn't but doesn't know the other has the virus, and quickly the virus is spread. It is important to note that every health organization and every scientific organization has recommended needle exchange programs as a way to control AIDS, and they've done so based on the scientific evidence.

Down the road, our sister city, Baltimore, a much poorer city, has a better HIV/AIDS rate than the District of Columbia because Baltimore has been spending its own local funds, the way most big cities have, for needle exchange now for decades. Because we were a decade without the ability to do that--because some Members of this House decided they did not want us to do it, they took the lives of--they took the lives of--residents of the District of Columbia and actively participated in the spread of the virus.

Who are they to tell us in our jurisdiction how we must attend to the health of our own local residents? What do they know about it? By what rights do they come to their mandate, regardless of the consequences, to tell us or any other local jurisdiction what must be done or what we must do? Does the word ``democracy'' fall out of the English language when it comes to the people who live in the Nation's Capital? How do we put it back in? Does the mayor of the city, does the entire city council have to keep being arrested in order to make the point, with this picture sent all around the world showing what a lie ``democracy'' can be in our country?

If the 112th House didn't learn that you don't raise taxes on the middle class, if they didn't learn that those

who are unemployed should have unemployment insurance, I don't know why I expect them to learn how they should treat the 600,000 residents who live in the District of Columbia.

I see that I've been joined on the floor by a good friend and colleague, and I want to thank Mr. Ellison for coming to the floor and yield time to him at this time.

Well, I can't thank the gentleman enough for coming to the floor, first of all, in solidarity with the residents of the District of Columbia to read the statement in solidarity with the hunger strikers themselves. It's very important to us, and I think Mr. Ellison's coming to the floor does say to the District of Columbia that I'm not alone here, that there are hundreds of Members, like Mr. Ellison, for whom the issue of full democracy for the District of Columbia is a priority.

So here is a Member who is from the Midwest, from Minnesota, who takes the time because the hunger strikers have visited his office. They have visited my office, as well. They are young people doing something on their own. No one would have said to anyone else, you ought to go on a hunger strike. But it does show you the desperation that many in our city feel that among us are some who, in order to call attention to this injustice in our country, have now taken to something beyond civil disobedience, to the ultimate kind of sacrifice, when they have given up food now for 8 days.

Again, I want you to know that this is nothing that they have been asked to do, not because I asked them to do it any more than I asked the residents of the District of Columbia, the mayor and members of the city council, to be arrested in April on Capitol Hill.

There is an answer to this, and I thank Mr. Issa for proposing a budget autonomy bill himself that mirrors my own budget autonomy bill--with some differences to be sure, in deference to the Congress. But this is a chairman of a committee who listened to the District, listened to witnesses, understood the harm imposed on the District--not only the shutdown, not only, of course, the amendments, but he was particularly impressed by the harm it does to the finances of a city that has done the right thing by its own finances.

As we contemplate what will happen in the next few hours, we ought to find a way to do two things if we do nothing else: Make sure that the District budget passes as the District would have it--not as any Member of this House would have it--and that the abortion amendment is gone; and, finally, that under no circumstances, whatever happens to the Federal Government, under no circumstances should the government of a local jurisdiction, your Nation's capital, be shut down.

Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material on the subject of the Special Order by Mr. Terry of Nebraska, as well as on the subject of the Special Order by Ms. Norton of the District of Columbia.

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

I appreciate Speaker Boehner, Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee Chair Lieberman, and Oversight and Government Reform Chair Issa, as well as my good colleague on the other side of the aisle, the subcommittee chairman, Mr. Gowdy, I appreciate that all of them have worked with us and have consulted with us on these technical changes, and I do not oppose this bill.

I yield back the balance of my time.

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

I want to thank the chairman of the full committee, Mr. Issa and my good friend on the other side who is managing the bill for the committee, the chair of the subcommittee, Mr. Gowdy, for working closely with us on this bill so that we could get it to the floor today. I also thank the ranking member of the full committee and Mr. Davis, the subcommittee ranking member, for their very important consultation.

H.R. 2297 will allow development of the waterfront area in Southwest Washington, D.C., by making technical changes concerning land owned by the District of Columbia. The District has owned the Southwest waterfront since the early 1960s, but the legislation that transferred the land to the District contained restraints typical of the pre-home- rule period.

H.R. 2297 updates that outdated legislation to allow for the highest and best use of the land. The limitations serve no Federal purpose, but the unintended effect was to make a wasted asset of land that could be productive and revenue- and jobs-producing. Federal agencies have been consulted on H.R. 2297 and raised no objections.

The bill will allow mixed-use development on the waterfront for the first time and will create jobs and raise local and Federal revenue at a time when they are needed most. The Federal Government has no interest in the Southwest waterfront other than the Maine Lobsterman Memorial and the Titanic Memorial, which the District and the National Park Service have worked together to preserve.

The bill also expands the types of goods that can be sold at the fish market on the waterfront--a market well known in the region. The bill includes language that we developed with Senator Susan Collins of Maine to ensure the protection of the Maine Lobsterman Memorial, which is located at the Southwest waterfront near Maine Avenue.

Mr. Speaker, this is a noncontroversial bill that passed committee by voice vote that removes out-of-date restrictions. It involves no cost to the Federal Government.

I urge passage of the bill.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to ask my colleagues in the House of Representatives to join me in recognizing Loretta King, a champion for civil rights, a loving wife and mother, and a dedicated public servant.

Today, Loretta is celebrating her retirement most recently as the career Deputy Assistant Attorney General in the United States Department of Justice, Civil Rights Division. In total, Loretta has dedicated more than 32 years of her life in defense of our Nation and the public at large.

Loretta's career is one self-sacrifice and commitment to protecting the rights of all Americans, without regard to race, gender, or political affiliation.

As a career-track civil servant, Loretta epitomizes a Justice Department lawyer; Loretta did so without seeking the limelight, year after year, day in and day out, for all her career. Starting as a law clerk while completing her studies, Loretta literally rose up the ranks at the Justice Department to become the Acting Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights, the government's chief civil rights advocate.

After graduating in 1990 from American University, Washington College of Law, Loretta was chosen by the Justice Department's Legal Honors Program. From 1980 to 1990, Loretta served as a line attorney in the Civil Rights Division's Employment Litigation Section, tasked with enforcing Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. In this post, Loretta led and settled the Justice Department's first sexual harassment case as well as its first paternity leave case. Over the next 20 years, Loretta worked in both the Justice Department's Civil and Civil Rights Divisions. In 1992, Loretta was tapped to serve as the Deputy Chief of the Civil Rights Division's Voting Section. In 1994, Loretta was elevated to her current role as the Civil Rights Division's Deputy Assistant Attorney General, where she has served continuously for 17 years, except during temporary assignments to other senior roles in the Division. Specifically, in 2009, Loretta served as her Division's Acting Assistant Attorney General, pending confirmation to that post of Thomas Perez. From August 2010 through June 2011, Loretta led the Civil Rights Division's Employment Litigation Section as its Acting Chief.

A civil rights legal pioneer, Loretta became one of the highest ranking women and persons of color to serve in the Justice Department, and the first African-American woman to hold the positions in the Civil Rights Division of Acting Assistant Attorney General and Deputy Assistant Attorney General.

As a Member of Congress representing Americans who know all too well the sting of injustice, I am here to salute Loretta's tireless work and long service upholding the civil and constitutional rights of all Americans. As Robert F. Kennedy once said, ``few will have the greatness to bend history itself; but each of us can work to change a small portion of events, and in the total; of all those acts will be written the history of this generation.'' Loretta has done just that.

Again, I ask the House to celebrate Loretta as a servant to her family and country as well as defender of the civil rights of all people, including the residents of the Nation's capital.

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

I want to commend Representative Wasserman Schultz and the 367 bipartisan cosponsors of House Resolution 364.

I recognize, Madam Speaker, that this is an unprecedented bill, but the bill commemorates an unprecedented act, the sacrifice of the life of a staffer of the one of our Members who, herself, is still recovering from that tragedy, Representative Gabrielle Giffords.

We do not often have opportunities to speak on the floor of the House of our staff, whose duties are performed almost entirely behind the scenes. The tragedy in Arizona, however, does remind us that staffers are often exposed as much as Members to harm and are in harm's way.

Therefore, I think it entirely appropriate that we commemorate this loss of life, first in the history of the Congress, by naming a room after Gabriel Zimmerman in our Visitors Center.

I rise in support of House Resolution 364 and am pleased today to speak in support of a bill that designates a room in the Capitol Visitor Center as the ``Gabriel Zimmerman Meeting Room''.

Gabriel ``Gabe'' Zimmerman was a Congressional staffer who was killed along with five others, at a community meeting at a local grocery store sponsored by Representative Gabrielle Giffords on January 8th, 2011 while 13 other individuals were wounded, including Representative Giffords and two other Congressional staffers. Gabe Zimmerman was a dedicated Congressional staffer who had worked for Representative Giffords since 2006, first as an aide to her first congressional campaign, next as a Constituent Services Supervisor in Tucson, and eventually rising to the position of Director of Community Outreach where his duties included managing the logistics for all of Representative Giffords' public District events and helping her constituents with the day to day details of navigating various federal agencies.

Gabe Zimmerman, a Tucson, Arizona native, was a 2002 honors sociology graduate of the University of California at Santa Cruz, and a 2006 graduate of Arizona State University, where he received a Masters in Social Work. Before he went to work for Representative Giffords, Gabe Zimmerman worked as a social worker assisting troubled youth. He had a strong reputation of being dedicated to providing services to Representative Giffords' constituents. Gabe also served on the boards of several organizations including the local YWCA, the Comstock Foundation, and the Child and Family Resources organization. At the time of his death, Gabe Zimmerman was 30 years old and engaged to be married.

Gabe Zimmerman was a respected Congressional aide serving on the front lines of providing services to the Arizonians that Representative Giffords represented. There are nearly 15,000 Congressional aides that stream into House Office buildings and District offices across the nation, assisting Members of Congress in conducting the business of the American people. In many ways Gabe Zimmerman represents some of the best aspects of these men and women, with his colleagues describing him as ``fiercely loyal to his boss'' and ``dedicated to providing services to the constituents of the 8th Congressional District of Arizona''.

It is important to note that Gabe Zimmerman is the first staffer in U.S. history to be killed while in the performance of his official duties. Sadly, Gabe Zimmerman had been responsible for organizing Representative Giffords' ``Congress on Your Corner'' event and was staffing the event when he was killed. This dedication should also be seen as a tribute to not only Gabe Zimmerman but to all staff members who work behind the scenes to assist Members of Congress. Given Gabe Zimmerman's dedication to public service and in honor of his death while in service to the U.S. Congress, I believe it is appropriate to designate room HVC 215 in the Capitol Visitor Center as the ``Gabriel Zimmerman Meeting Room.''

I ask unanimous consent that the resolution be managed by its sponsor, Representative Wasserman Schultz.

Mr. Speaker, before he died, Frank Kameny had already won a place reserved for Americans who make personal sacrifices for human rights. There can be no doubt that Frank's pioneering sacrifices for the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, LGBT, community place him alongside the nation's human rights heroes. What exactly did Frank do? At a time when it was unthinkable, Frank refused to suppress who he was to keep his job with the Federal Government. A World War II veteran with a Harvard Ph.D., Frank had everything going for him except, of course, his identity and, thus, his legitimacy. It was being forced out, not coming out, that was the issue, and Frank took his dismissal from the federal service (for which he later received an apology) as a badge of honor. As we in the Civil Rights Movement began wearing our hair natural, i.e., nappy, to show that ``black is beautiful,'' Frank coined ``gay is good.''

But it was Frank's lonely act of defiance, without reward, that sets him apart. Frank no

more set out to sacrifice his livelihood when he refused to deny his sexual orientation to federal authorities than Rosa Parks intended to give up her work as a seamstress when she refused to move to the back of the bus. Rosa Parks got tired of suppressing her full identity and dignity, and so did Frank. Frank did not put in those years of hard work for his Ph.D. in order to come out as a gay man. Like Rosa Parks, Frank wanted the same kind of life as the rest of us. But at a moment of reckoning, Frank summoned something few of us have: raw, pure courage. It is a brand of courage that is the opposite of self- preservation.

Long before there was a LGBT movement, Frank lost his job and his livelihood for the rest of his life. Yet Frank lived to see historic advances that bear his signature, including security clearances for gays in the Federal Government and the admission of gays into the United States armed services.

We honor those who fight for human rights. We revere those who make sacrifices for human rights. Martin Luther King, Jr., whose memorial we dedicated in October after he sacrificed his life. Anita Hill, whose fearless testimony 20 years ago brought her controversy, while she brought record numbers of women to the House and Senate.

As we honor Frank, in a place that is part of the government that dishonored him, we remember that it is one thing to join a movement; it is quite another to start one. We revere Frank because his life tells us that great human rights victories often begin with the courage of a single individual like Rosa Parks and, yes, Frank Kameny.

Mr. Speaker, today, I am introducing the Universal Prekindergarten and Early Childhood Education Act of 2011, Universal Pre-K, to begin the process of providing universal public prekindergarten. The bill is meant to fill a gaping hole in the ``No Child Left Behind Act'' which requires elementary and secondary schools to meet more rigorous standards yet ignores the prekindergarten years, among the most critical years for children's brain development. My bill is particularly necessary today because legislation pending to reauthorize the No Child Left Behind Act solely targets K-12. My bill makes a breakthrough in elementary school education by providing the initial funding for states to encourage local school districts to add prekindergarten for children four years of age and younger, so that every child can excel. We cannot afford to continue to allow the most fertile years for childhood development to pass, only to later wonder why we cannot teach Johnny to read.

The bill responds both to the great needs, which are still growing, of parents who seek early childhood education, as well as new science, which shows that a child's brain development begins much earlier than previously believed. However, many parents are unable to afford the stimulating educational environment necessary to ensure optimal brain development. The bill would add prekindergarten for children four years of age or younger, similar to kindergarten programs for five-year-olds, that are now routinely available in public schools. The bill would eliminate some of the major shortcomings of unevenly available commercial day care and, importantly, would ensure children access to qualified teachers and the safe facilities of public schools.

This bill reflects what jurisdictions increasingly are trying to accomplish, but lack the leadership and the start-up funds to see through. The District of Columbia, for example, is attempting to achieve more extensive integration of early childhood education as part of a larger effort to improve the D.C. public schools. A recent report highlighted the economic benefits of early childhood education, emphasizing its role in expanding job opportunities and in decreasing the amount of money spent on programs to address teen pregnancy, crime, and the like.

The bill encourages school districts across the country to apply to the U.S. Department of Education for grants to establish prekindergarten. Grants under Title IV of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act would be available for educational activities for children four years of age or younger to public school systems that agree to phase in, where possible, a prekindergarten program that is taught by teachers who possess equivalent or similar guidelines to those in other grades in the school system.

The success of Head Start and other prekindergarten programs, combined with new scientific evidence concerning the importance of brain development in early childhood, virtually mandates the expansion of early childhood education to all children. Traditionally, early learning programs have been available only to the affluent, who can afford them, and to low-income families in programs such as Head Start. My bill provides a practical way to gradually move to universal public preschool education. The goal of the bill is to afford the great majority of the American working poor, lower-middle-class, and middle- class families, most of whom have been left out, with the benefits of early childhood education.

Considering the staggering cost of daycare, the inaccessibility of early childhood education, and the opportunity that early education offers to improve a child's chances in life, schooling for three- and four-year-olds is overdue. The absence of viable options for working families demands our immediate attention.

I strongly urge my colleagues to support this legislation.