Floor Statements

I thank the gentlewoman for yielding and for her strong work on this bill.

Madam Speaker, this bill is unprecedented in a number of ways. It is unprecedented in that it uniquely affects my district, and yet I was not allowed to testify at the hearing of the Judiciary Committee where it was considered. It is unprecedented in its attack on a woman's right to choose, going

well beyond the Hyde amendment. And it is unprecedented in seeking to federalize the local funds of the District of Columbia.

Section 309 of this bill would make permanent the ban in the recent 2011 spending bill that keeps the District from spending its own local funds on abortions for poor women. That's bad enough, but the party that came to power even to devolve Federal power back to the States is engaged in the reverse process in this bill, in federalizing what has always been understood in our Constitution to be local power and, worse, local money and deciding how it should be spent.

It is a dictatorship over local funds. It goes against every principle that the majority claims to support when it cites the Constitution. It goes against the accepted practice, a practice you can do nothing about in the States, where 17 States have, of course, spent their own local funds on abortions for poor women for decades, recognizing that this could not be done with Federal money.

The District of Columbia does not ask for 1 cent of Federal money. In the same way, the District of Columbia demands that its local funds be kept local for us as for every other jurisdiction of this body.

Congressional Black Caucus,

Washington, DC, May 3, 2011.

Dear Senators Boxer, Cantwell, Feinstein, Gillibrand,

Hagan, Klobuchar, Landrieu, McCaskill, Mikulski, Murray,

Shaheen, and Stabenow: We, the women of the Congressional

Black Caucus, write for two reasons. First, we want to

express our gratitude to you, the Democratic women of the

Senate, for successfully blocking the Planned Parenthood

rider from the final fiscal year 2011 continuing resolution

(CR). The rider was an attack on the health and lives of all

American women, especially women of modest means. The public

conditioning of your support for the CR on the exclusion of

the rider made the critical difference. We agreed with your

strong position, which showed the country that you would not

abandon women in a tough fight. Although our party is in the

minority in the House, we are ready to join with you to

defeat future Republican attacks on women's health.

However, we are deeply disappointed that low-income women

in the District of Columbia were sacrificed during the CR

negotiations. The Administration and Senate Democratic

Leadership agreed to re-impose a rider prohibiting the

District government from spending its own local taxpayer-

raised funds on abortions for low-income women. The poor

women in the District have already begun to feel the terrible

effects of the rider. Abortions are time-sensitive, and

scores of women scheduled for District-funded abortions at a

Planned Parenthood clinic immediately had their appointments

canceled. This paradox cannot be overlooked. Non- profits in

the District, including the DC Abortion Fund which helps D.C.

women pay for abortions, are desperately trying to raise

funds to mitigate the harm done by the rider.

Not only did this concession by Democrats violate our

party's long-standing support for reproductive choice and for

the District's right to self-government, it was unnecessary.

As House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi has noted, fifty-nine

House Republicans voted against the CR. This means 36

Democratic votes were needed to reach 218 votes for passage.

According to media reports, most House Republicans who voted

against the CR did so because it did not cut enough spending,

not because of the absence of the Planned Parenthood or of

any other rider. In fact, the CR was remarkably clean, with

only four riders. Only two were controversial, D.C. abortion

and a new private school voucher program in the District. It

is no wonder that the District felt abandoned.

The D.C. abortion rider, as well as every other anti-home-

rule rider, was removed during the last four years of

Democratic congressional control. This was a historic first

that could not have been achieved without your help. As the

fiscal year 2012 appropriations process begins, we believe it

would be invaluable if you stated, early and publicly, your

opposition to the inclusion of the D.C. abortion rider in the

fiscal year 2012 appropriations bill. This is perhaps the

only way to keep it out of the bill after Democrats agreed to

it in the CR. Such a statement would not only help in fiscal

year 2012, it would discourage House Republicans from

escalating their attacks on women in the District, which are

already underway.

An odious anti-choice bill, H.R. 3 (the No Taxpayer Funding

for Abortion Act), is due on the House floor this week. It

would make the D.C. abortion rider permanent. Although we

know you will not allow H.R. 3 to pass in the Senate, House

Republicans may feel emboldened to bring up a permanent D.C.

abortion ban as a stand-alone bill or to attach it to another

bill. The consideration of H.R. 3 on the House floor could

provide you an occasion to speak out against it and to note

the D.C. provision as a special reason for your opposition.

You could also use this opportunity to indicate your

opposition to a D.C. abortion rider in the fiscal year 2012

appropriations bill.

District women have no vote in Congress and no

representation in the Senate. The city's low-income women

need the support of women in Congress who not only have a

vote, but who have also shown they will stand with women

everywhere.

Sincerely,

Barbara Lee, Karen Bass, Donna Christensen, Eddie Bernice

Johnson, Corrine Brown, Yvette Clarke, Donna Edwards,

Sheila Jackson Lee, Laura Richardson, Terri Sewell,

Marcia Fudge, Gwen Moore, Maxine Waters, Frederica

Wilson, Members of Congress.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to ask the House of Representatives to join me in honoring the Metropolitan Fire Sprinkler, LLC, as the 2011 District of Columbia Small Business of the Year, and its founder and president, District of Columbia native Walter ``Merrill'' Smith.

After working in the fire protection industry for over 30 years, Merrill Smith started his own business, Metropolitan Fire Sprinkler, in 2005, and in only a few years, has built one of the fastest growing and most successful small businesses in the District of Columbia. Metropolitan Fire Sprinkler, a minority-owned D.C. business, installs lire protection systems in buildings throughout the Washington metropolitan region. Most recently, Metropolitan Fire Sprinkler was successful in competing to install sprinkler systems in the vast Coast Guard building now under construction at the site of the future U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) headquarters, located on the old St. Elizabeths grounds. Metropolitan Fire Sprinkler had already established a stellar track record on large projects, including the National Naval Medical Center, Gaylord National Harbor, and the Washington Nationals Stadium garage.

Merrill Smith sought to establish his own business not only for entrepreneurial reasons, but also because he wanted to provide jobs for residents in his hometown. His initial sources for employees are the District's Department of Employment Services, which serves D.C. residents seeking jobs, and the Road Sprinkler Fitters Local Union 669. Merrill Smith has embraced union labor and is about to train his first female apprentice.

Merrill Smith first built his own skills, and then built a business based on his first-hand knowledge of the industry. In the process, he has become an inspiration for young people and unemployed residents, and a model for the community for what hard work, with high quality, can accomplish.

Metropolitan Fire Sprinkler is rendering outstanding service to the larger community, to the small business community, and to individuals in our community, all at the same time. Merrill Smith's company makes important contributions to the District of Columbia economy. In competing successfully for contracts, particularly high-quality federal contracts such as the DHS project, Merrill Smith has become a living example for local small businesses that aim high. In searching for minority and union laborers, Metropolitan Fire Sprinkler is both

training and employing a high-quality workforce.

I ask the House to join me in honoring the Metropolitan Fire Sprinkler, LLC for its outstanding accomplishments as the 2011 District of Columbia Small Business of the Year, and its founder and president, Walter ``Merrill'' Smith.

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

Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong support of H.R. 1423, a bill to rename the 4th Avenue post office in Ardmore, Oklahoma, after Army Specialist Micheal E. Phillips, who died at the young age of 19 while serving our country in Iraq.

Specialist Phillips was a member of the 101st Airborne Division based in Fort Campbell, Kentucky. He died on February 24, 2008, in Baghdad from wounds sustained when his vehicle encountered an improvised explosive device.

Specialist Phillips loved history and was a true student athlete who ran cross country and played football while attending Ardmore High School. He also excelled at drawing and had been offered admission to the San Francisco Art Institute.

But Specialist Phillips had other plans. He volunteered to serve his country before attending college and, by all accounts, was an excellent soldier, always willing to go the extra mile and constantly trying to improve himself.

Specialist Phillips made the ultimate sacrifice defending our freedom. We honor his sacrifice today by naming the Post Office on 4th Avenue in Ardmore, Oklahoma, the Specialist Micheal E. Phillips Post Office.

Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to support this bill.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I note that we are honoring Specialist Phillips the day after we learned that the Nation has met its commitment to kill or capture Osama bin Laden. We could not have known when this bill was placed on the calendar that it would come at a time like this when we honor men and women who have served in Iraq or Afghanistan. We cannot help but be grateful for their service, especially today.

I yield back the balance of my time.

I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of H.R. 362, a bill that honors the 41st and 43rd Presidents of the United States, President George H.W. Bush and President George W. Bush, by naming a United States courthouse located in Midland, Texas, after both of them. This honor is highly fitting, given their devotion to public service and their unique status as only the second father and son pair to serve in our Nation's highest office.

Former President George Herbert Walker Bush was the 41st President of the United States. He served our country in many capacities, first as the youngest naval aviator at the time in the United States Navy, and later as a Member of Congress representing the Seventh Congressional District of Texas. After leaving Congress, President Bush served in many prominent public service positions, including ambassador to the United Nations, Chief of the U.S. Liaison Office of the People's Republic of China and Director of the Central Intelligence Agency. In 1980, President Bush was elected Vice President of the United States under President Ronald Reagan. He was reelected Vice President in 1984. President Bush was then elected President of the United States in 1988.

Former President George Walker Bush was the 43rd President of the United States. President George W. Bush was a graduate of Yale University. After his service in the Texas Air National Guard, he graduated from Harvard Business School and began a career in the oil industry. President Bush became the principal owner of the Texas Rangers, a Major League Baseball team. In 1994, he was elected Governor of Texas, a position to which he was reelected in 1998. He was elected President of the United States in 2000 and again in 2004.

Upon passage of this legislation, what is now known as the George Mahon Federal Building will be renamed the George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush United States Courthouse and George Mahon Federal Building.

I urge my colleagues to support the passage of H.R. 362.

I reserve the balance of my time.

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

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to ask the House of Representatives to join me in recognizing the 41 District of Columbia elected officials and residents who stood up for the self-governing rights of the American citizens who reside in the nation's capital by sitting down in a peaceful act of civil disobedience on Constitution Avenue in front of the Dirksen Senate Office Building on Monday, April 15, 2011. The rally, organized by DC Vote, protested the final 2011 continuing resolution (CR) which contains two anti-home-rule riders. The CR prohibits the District from spending its local taxpayer-raised funds on abortions for low-income women, even though many state and local jurisdictions have done so for decades. Without consultation with any District of Columbia elected official, the CR also mandates a D.C.- only private school voucher program, while the House Republican majority refuses to bring a bill to the floor that would allow districts that desire this alternative to select it on a home-rule basis. The District of Columbia is almost alone in the nation in establishing a robust alternative to our local public schools, our public charter schools, which educate almost 40 percent of the city's children and have long waiting lists. The House voted to approve these riders while denying voting representation in this body to District of Columbia residents.

The D.C. elected officials who engaged in civil disobedience were D.C. Mayor Vincent Gray, Council Chair Kwame Brown, At-Large Council members Sekou Biddle and Michael Brown, Council members Yvette Alexander, Muriel Bowser, and Thomas Wells, and House Shadow Representative Michael Panetta. The District residents were Ann Aldrich, Lafayette Barnes, Peter Bishop, Robert Brannum, Jason Cross, Billie Day, Jack Evans, Marc Ferrara, Corryn Freeman, Mary Gosselink, Lawrence Hams, Karen Hixson, Anise Jenkins, Eugene Kinlow, John Klenert, Rachel Madelham, Adam Maier, George Marion, Jr., Nicholas McCoy, Martin Moulton, Brian Pate, Joseph Perta, Jeffrey Richardson, Deangelo Scott, Deborah Shore, Carly Skidmore, Daniel Solomon, Bruce Spiva, Jay Tamboli, Maceo Thomas, Ryan Velasco, Patricia Vrandenburg, and Ilir Zherka.

The city has long advocated its rights through the usual channels and official responses. However, from the day the 112th Congress convened, the House Republican majority has repeatedly introduced bills to violate the rights of our citizens, beginning with the approval of new rules that summarily stripped the District of the only vote on the House floor it has achieved, the House Committee of the Whole vote, approved by the federal courts.

The DC 41, as they are called, recognized that the House Republican majority intends to return with more anti-home-rule riders. An additional anti-home-rule rider was included in the original Republican spending bill, H.R. 1, but failed this time to become a part of the final agreement. The message of the DC 41 was that DC elected officials and residents will not walk away from the infringement of their rights to govern themselves and to spend their taxpayer-raised local funds as they choose.

I ask the House to join me in saluting the DC 41, who acted in the long American tradition of incurring arrests during peaceful civil disobedience to protect and to further their right to full equality with the residents of the 50 states.

Mr. Speaker, today I introduce the National Patriots Memorial Act. The

bill will authorize the establishment of a memorial on federal land in the District of Columbia to honor the patriots of the Revolutionary War and the War of 1812, as well as our international allies that fought in support of gaining and then preserving our nation's freedom during these wars. Funding for the memorial will come entirely from private funds.

The National Patriots Memorial will be an important addition to the nation and to the District of Columbia alike. The memorial will preserve the history of the Revolutionary War and the War of 1812, and celebrate the patriots and allies who fought in them. The National Patriots Memorial also will remind the nation that DC residents fought in the Revolutionary War, the war that created the nation itself, and the War of 1812, just as our residents have served in all of the nation's wars, and are doing so today. The memorial also will serve to educate visitors to the nation's capital about the early years of our country's issues, conflicts, and growth.

I urge my colleagues to support the bill.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to ask the House of Representatives to join me in celebrating the third annual DC Tap Festival, taking place in Washington, DC from April 15-April 17, 2011. I also ask the House to recognize its founders, Chloe and Maud Arnold, both of whom are natives of the District of Columbia, for their contributions to our great city and to the art form, tap dance.

The third annual DC Tap Festival will attract over four generations of tap dancers from around the world, and will heighten global respect and appreciation for a rich American art form, tap dance. The mission of the DC Tap Festival is to unite the global tap community, bringing people together from around the world to celebrate dance, while bridging the gap between the hip-hop and jazz generations through the classic, timeless art form of tap dance. The DC Tap Festival is a forum for the creative and artistic processes.

We acknowledge the founders, sisters Chloe and Maud Arnold, for their commitment to this city. They have received international acclaim for tap dancing, after studying at two Washington-based dance companies, DC Dance Collective and Duke Ellington School of the Arts, and performing at highly acclaimed D.C. venues such as Dance Place and the Kennedy Center. The Arnold sisters have returned to their hometown, every year for the past three years, to celebrate tap dance and to encourage the next generation of tappers to pursue their dreams. This year, the DC Tap Festival welcomes groups from as far away as Taiwan, and will showcase a fabulous array of tap-dance techniques and styles in a variety of musical genres through workshops, jam sessions, cutting contests, and an all-star concert performance.

Chloe and Maud Arnold were fortunate to grow up in D.C. during a time when funding for arts programs was available. They have trained with tap-dance legends such as Harold Nicholas of the Nicholas Brothers, Pegleg Bates, Buster Brown, Gregory Hines, Savion Glover, and with dancer and arts patron extraordinaire Debbie Allen. Both sisters are graduates of Columbia University's Film School, and performers, choreographers, and teachers worldwide.

In addition to being an art form, dance can be an aerobic activity that helps to improve heart health, strengthen muscles, increase flexibility, and burn calories. As I work to celebrate dance as an art form and to promote the health benefits of dancing, I will reintroduce a resolution to recognize July 31st as National Dance Day, both in the nation's capital and throughout the United States.

On July 31, 2010, with a few thousand District residents and tourists, we gathered on the National Mall to watch, learn from and dance with Fluria Flamenco, Step Afrika, Beat Ya Feet Kings, Capitol Movement Project, DCypher, Banneker Ball Room Dancing Club, and many more. I was joined on the Mall by ``So You Think You Can Dance'' co- creator, executive producer, and judge Nigel Lythgoe, by Dominique Dawes, the U.S. Olympic gymnast and a member of the President's Council on Fitness, Sports & Nutrition, and by the Dizzy Feet Foundation to promote dance as an avenue for physical fitness and artistic expression. Our country has an adult and childhood overweight and obesity epidemic, and we need to promote physical activity among children and adults, especially dancing, the exercise that many of us most enjoy!

I ask the House to join me in celebrating the third annual DC Tap Festival, taking place in Washington, DC from April 15-April 17, 2011, and to recognize Chloe and Maud Arnold's lifetime of passion for tap dancing and hard and productive work and service to the community.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to ask the House of Representatives to join me in celebrating the 40th anniversary of the Gay and Lesbian Activists Alliance of Washington, DC (GLAA), a valued organization that has become a local leader in the struggle for equal rights for the gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender (GLBT) community.

Since its founding in April 1971, GLAA has been a respected and tireless advocate for full and equal rights for the District of Columbia, and has been at the forefront of efforts to strengthen enforcement of the landmark D.C. Human Rights Act of 1977. One of GLAA's most significant achievements, on which it worked with coalition partners, D.C. elected officials, and District residents, was the enactment of the District of Columbia Religious Freedom and Civil Rights Equality Amendment, which permits same-sex couples to marry in the District of Columbia.

In addition to its leadership on GLBT rights in the District, GLAA has always provided leadership on a wide range of civil rights issues, such as family rights, police accountability, and access to condoms in prisons and D.C. public schools. GLAA also emphasizes effective public health strategies and accountability in the fight against HIV/AIDS in the District.

At GLAA's 40th anniversary reception on April 20, 2011, the recipients of its 2011 Distinguished Service Awards will be recognized, including The Right Reverend John Bryson Chane, an Episcopal Bishop of Washington since 2002, a leader on issues of faith, politics and religion, an advocate for seniors, homeless and GLBT citizens, and a leader on interfaith dialogue and study; Sharon Farmer, a native of the District of Columbia and the first African American and woman to serve as Director of White House Photography, where she shot news stories, political campaigns, cultural events, conferences and portraits, including of President Bill Clinton and First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton; David Friedman, Director of the D.C. Regional Office of the Anti-Defamation League of B'nai B'rith, a co-founder of the Bias Crimes Task Force, and a longstanding ally of the GLBT community who advocates for victims of hate crimes and legislation to address bullying and harassment of GLBT students in D.C. public schools; Theodore ``Teddy'' Guerrant, the longest serving accompanist in the gay and lesbian choral movement, including with the Gay Men's Chorus of Washington, DC since 1983, an accompanist for the Central Maryland Chorale for eleven years, a member of the National Philharmonic Chorale at Strathmore Music Center for twenty-nine years, and an Organist-Choirmaster at St. Margaret's Episcopal Church in Washington, DC for thirteen years; Ronald King, a longtime public servant in the District of Columbia who served as a Director of Prevention and Intervention Services for the HIV/AIDS Administration, a Government Co-Chair of the D.C. HIV Prevention Community Planning Group, a manager of the first Centers for Disease Control & Prevention-funded outreach program in the District of Columbia for Black and Latino sexual minorities and of several HIV/AIDS programs, and co-founder of the DC Needle Exchange Coalition and the award-winning AIDS Program of the National Basketball Players Association; and David C. Ward, co-curator, with Jonathan Katz, of the National Portrait Gallery's landmark ``Hide/Seek'' exhibition who defended the integrity of the show in the face of censorship and controversy, an author, poet, and literary critic, as well as an historian at the Smithsonian's National Portrait Gallery.

I ask the House to join me in honoring the recipients of GLAA's 2011 Distinguished Service Award and celebrating GLAA's 40th anniversary of contributions to the GLBT community in the District of Columbia.

I thank the gentleman from Colorado for yielding to me and for his work on this bill.

Madam Speaker, the District of Columbia has no vote on the rule or the bill under consideration. Yet the only controversial attachments in this bill involve only the District of Columbia.

The bill is remarkably clean. Only four out of 50 or so attachments survived: one on gray wolves, one on Guantanamo prisoners, and, yes, there is the District of Columbia. These two, the only controversial amendments, violate the District's most basic right to self-government. One has to do with private school vouchers--only for the District of Columbia. A bill we didn't ask for, a bill we weren't consulted about, and a bill we don't want.

The Rules Committee refused to recognize my amendment, which would redirect the private school voucher money to the D.C. public schools and to our own public charter schools--40 percent of our children go to this alternative and our charter schools have long waiting lists--to our choice, not the Republicans' choice. My second amendment would strike a second rider that keeps the District from spending our own local taxpayer-raised funds on reproductive choice for our low-income women. Local money, local choice.

The majority proposed to close down the District government last week rather than pass my amendment to allow D.C. to spend its own local funds. Now the majority wants a closed rule for a bill with attachments that profoundly affect only the District of Columbia.

I will have no vote on this floor on the Rule or on any part of this bill.

I appreciate the gentleman yielding.

The majority will allow a vote of every other Member on what affects only my district. No wonder the D.C. mayor, the council and residents have taken to civil disobedience.

Mr. Speaker, the 1963 Equal Pay Act (EPA), the first of the great civil rights statutes of the 1960s, was successful for close to 20 years, but it is too creaky with age to be useful today. It is long past time to amend the EPA to reflect the new workforce in which women work almost as much as men. Every year, Representative Rosa DeLauro (D-CT) and I, along with scores of other Members of Congress, introduce the Paycheck Fairness Act, to amend the EPA to make its basic procedures equal to those used in other anti-discrimination statutes. I was an original co-sponsor of, and attended the signing ceremony at the White House for, the 2009 Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, which further strengthens the EPA by restoring its original interpretation. However, the Fair Pay Act of 2011 (FPA), which Senator Tom Harkin and I have introduced in prior sessions of Congress, picks up where the EPA and the Ledbetter Act leave off, by taking on workplace gender discrimination in which gender-influenced wages leave the average female worker without any remedy. I have long pressed for passage of the Paycheck Fairness Act and the FPA, based on my own experience as the first female chair of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), when President Jimmy Carter moved the EPA and other civil rights statutes under the EEOC' s jurisdiction, as part of a historic reorganization.

Along with my indispensable Senate partner, Tom Harkin, I again introduce the FPA on behalf of the average female worker, who is often first steered to, and then locked into, jobs with wages that are deeply influenced by the gender of those who have traditionally held such jobs. Much of the wage inequality women experience today is because of employer-steering and because of deeply rooted wage stereotypes, which result in wages being

paid by gender and not according to the skills and efforts necessary to do the job. I introduce the FPA because the pay problems today of most women stem mainly from the segregating of women and men in different jobs. Two-thirds of white women and three quarters of African-American women work in just three areas: sales/clerical, service, and factories. We need more aggressive strategies to break through the societal habits present throughout history, the world over, as well as employer- steering of jobs based on gender, which is as old as paid employment itself.

The FPA requires that, if men and women are doing comparable work, they be paid comparable wages. If a woman is an emergency services operator, for example, a female-dominated profession, she should be paid no less than a fire dispatcher, a male-dominated profession, simply because each of these jobs has been dominated by one sex. If a woman is a social worker, a traditionally female occupation, she should earn no less than a probation officer, a traditionally male job, simply because of the gender associated with each of these jobs.

The FPA, like the EPA, will not tamper with the market system. As with the EPA, the burden will be on the plaintiff to prove discrimination. The plaintiff must show that the reason for the disparate treatment is gender discrimination, not legitimate market factors. Corrections to achieve comparable pay for men and women are not radical or unprecedented. State employees in almost half of the state governments, in red and blue states alike, have already demonstrated that you can eliminate the part of the pay gap that is due to discrimination. Twenty states have adjusted wages for female state employees, raising pay for teachers, nurses, clerical workers, librarians, and other female-dominated jobs that paid less than men with comparable jobs. Minnesota, for example, implemented a pay equity plan when they found that similarly skilled female jobs paid 20 percent less than male jobs. There may be some portion of a gender wage gap that is traceable to market conditions, but twenty states have shown that you can tackle the gender discrimination-based gap without interfering with the market system. The states generally have closed the discrimination gap over a period of four or five years at a one- time cost of no more than three to four percent of payroll.

In addition, many female workers routinely achieve pay equity through collective bargaining, and countless employers provide it on their own as they see women shifting out of vital female-dominated occupations, as a result of the shortage of skilled workers, as well as the unfairness to women. Unequal pay has been built into the way women have been treated since Adam and Eve. To dislodge such deep-seated and pervasive treatment, we must go to the source, the traditional female occupations, where pay is linked with gender and always has been.

The best case for a strong and updated EPA, with at least the Paycheck Fairness Act, occurred here in the Congress in 2003, when female custodians in the House and Senate won an EPA case after showing that female workers were paid a dollar less for doing the same or similar work as men. Had these women not been represented by their union, they would have had an almost impossible task of using the rules for bringing and sustaining an EPA class action suit. The FPA simply modernizes the EPA to bring it in line with subsequent civil rights statutes. From my tenure as EEOC chair, I know all too well the several ways that this historic legislation needs a 21st century makeover.

Let us start with the Paycheck Fairness Act so we can be prepared to go further with the FPA we introduce today. Let us start now to make the pay worthy of the American women we have asked to go to work.

Mr. Speaker, I come to the floor today to celebrate the 41 District of Columbia elected officials and residents led by Mayor Vincent Gray and five members of the D.C. City Council who were arrested in front of the Hart Senate office building yesterday evening, and hundreds of other residents who gathered to protest their second- class treatment as American citizens by the Republican House, the Democratic-led Senate, and the administration.

The 2011 continuing resolution due on the floor this week contains a sinister trade that takes the District of Columbia's self-governing rights to spend its own local funds on abortion services for poor women, as many jurisdictions have long done. The CR also funds the start-up of a new, private school voucher program but only in D.C., about which no local elected official was consulted.

It is the House Republicans who have been on an undemocratic warpath against the District's home rule. But yesterday, residents did not spare Senate Democrats or the President who, in the end, accepted Republican demands. The House will hear from me again as I try to remove these anti-home rule riders; but this body has repeatedly turned a deaf ear to me on violations of the city's most basic rights to local control.

Congress continually and summarily refused my bill and several amendments to allow the District to spend its own local funds to avoid a shutdown of the city government that would have occurred with a Federal shutdown, even though only our local funds were involved.

Yesterday, however, Congress and the country heard from the people themselves. House rules do not allow Members to organize demonstrations, and yesterday's spontaneous outpouring of citizens, where I was not present, showed why the people must always speak for themselves. D.C. Vote organized yesterday's mammoth demonstration in a couple of days; and residents poured onto Constitution Avenue, anxious for an outlet for their accumulated outrage at being traded on a congressional auction block.

Yesterday, the House, the Senate, and the administration heard the voices and saw the faces of our city. The House may disagree with the views of our American citizens on women's constitutional reproductive rights, but no American would sanction congressional mandates on how our local citizens may spend the local taxes they raise. The Speaker may favor private school vouchers, but no American would agree that his preference should override a city's local decision for public charter schools as the alternative to our private schools.

The House may continue to ignore me; but yesterday D.C. elected officials and residents, like millions of others throughout the world, showed that the people will not be ignored forever.

I will offer a separate statement including the names of the residents and officials who were arrested, with gratitude.

I thank the gentleman for his efforts.

I'm here to say to my good friends on the other side, it's one thing to beat up on the District of Columbia; it's another thing to drop a bomb on the city. And that's what this CR does.

It takes the route of authoritarian governments and dictatorships by dictating to a local government how it may spend its local funds. And it may force the District of Columbia government to shut down, even though the District government had a balanced budget, passed it last spring and had it approved by the committees in this House and Senate since last summer.

But because the Congress can't figure out how to pass its own budget, it now threatens to close down the District of Columbia government, which doesn't have a dime in this federal budget, only local funds. My amendment could have avoided all this by allowing local funds to continue to be spent by the District of Columbia.

The other side has been engaged in many attacks on the city's right to self-government, from stripping our vote in the Committee of the Whole, approved by two Federal courts, to three riders in their H.R. 1. But the ultimate attack on a local self-government is Federal usurpation, a virtual taking of our local funds by not allowing the city to use its own money to keep its own local government running.

Worse, there is an attempt to use the District of Columbia as a bargaining chip in these negotiations. There have been no riders in prior continuing resolutions. Shamefully, here the District of Columbia is paired with a rider that no prisoners can be brought into the United States with another that says D.C.'s local funds shall be captured by keeping the city from spending its own local funds on abortion.

How much more contempt can you show for the citizens who live in the Nation's Capital? If the Republicans are going to require Members to cite the Constitution in introducing legislation, I ask them to stop tearing up the Constitution and throwing it in the faces of the American citizens who live in the Nation's Capital.

I submit the following letters:

Council of the District

of Columbia,

Washington, DC, March 30, 2011.

Senator Harry Reid,

Majority Leader, U.S. Senate,

Washington, DC.

Dear Senator Reid: We write to express our opposition to

renewed efforts to expand a federally-funded school voucher

program in the District of Columbia. We appreciate your

interest in providing support to public education in the

District. We strongly believe, however, that federal funds

should be invested in the existing public education program--

both the public schools and the public charter schools--

rather than diverted to private schools.

We support the decision by Congress and the President

several years ago to phase out the voucher program. Multiple

US Department of Education reports of the program indicate

that the program has not lived up to the promises made by

proponents. Moreover, a Government Accountability Office

report revealed that many of the voucher students attend

private schools with fewer resources and lower standards than

our public schools. The evidence is clear that the use of

vouchers has had no statistically significant impact on

overall student achievement in math or reading, or for

students from schools in need of improvement.

We have serious concerns about using government funds to

send our students to private schools that do not have to

adhere to the same standards and accountability as do public

and public charter schools. For example, private religious

schools, which 80% of voucher students attend, operate

outside the anti-discrimination provisions of the District's

Human Rights Act. Moreover, the voucher proposal is

inequitable: if fully funded, the authorization would provide

at least $8,000 per student for vouchers, but only about $723

per public charter school student, and even less--about $437

per public school student.

Although we believe that students who are already receiving

a voucher should have the opportunity to maintain and use

that voucher through graduation from high school, we do not

support expansion of the program to new students. The

District has devoted considerable funds to public education.

As a result, parents in the District have both public school

choice and access to the most extensive set of alternatives

to traditional public schools in the country.

We appreciate your willingness to take into account the

wishes of the District's elected officials on the

quintessentially local matter of education as you consider

this issue.

Sincerely,

Michael A. Brown,

Councilmember, At-Large.

Mary M. Cheh,

Councilmember, Ward 3.

Jim Graham,

Councilmember, Ward 1.

Phil Mendelson,

Councilmember, At-Large.

Tommy Wells,

Councilmember, Ward 6.

Mr. Speaker, I have come to the floor because in a very real sense I feel surrounded. Mr. Speaker, I was sent to Congress, like every other Member, to attend to the business of the Nation. But in fact, I have been surrounded. I have been surrounded by the new House majority that has decided to spend huge amounts of time, in the most autocratic fashion, trying to deprive the District of Columbia of its self-governing rights.

Mr. Speaker, Congress delegated home rule to the District of Columbia in 1973. Before that time, the District of Columbia had no mayor, city council, was ruled by the federal government without any democracy. That was mostly the work of Southern Democrats, whose reasons were, among others, but most definitely, racial. What is happening today is not the work of Southern Democrats. It is the work of the new Republican majority.

I am pulled off the Nation's business day after day after day because of yet another zinger from Republicans to intrude into the local affairs and local spending of the District of Columbia. I had to call the administration and Majority Leader Reid today, cautioning them that the District must not be used as a bargaining chip in the present battle over Federal spending underway here.

The latest intrusion is hard to bear. The District has decided to spend its local funds, among other things, on abortions for poor women. Dozens upon dozens of jurisdictions do that. No Federal funds. Funds raised by the taxpayers of the District of Columbia. What does that have to do with the Federal budget? What does that have to do with overspending or a deficit here? That has to do with somebody's, some majority's, ideological obsession with placing their autocratic desires on a jurisdiction that did not elect them, cannot put them out. It's the very definition of an autocracy.

So they pick on the jurisdiction that has no Senators and throw us into the pot because the far right social conservatives here want something in this CR. So give them the District of Columbia. You can't have us. Who do you think you are? The residents of the District of Columbia are free and equal citizens. We will not be traded off like we were slaves or a colony that can be thrown in by those who don't care. We care.

So whether it is the other body, or this body, or for that matter the President of the United States, get your hands off the local funds of the District of Columbia. You didn't raise a penny of it. We will spend it the way we please. And especially in this battle, which has to do with your deficit spending.

D.C. has a budget that is balanced. Why should that budget be over here in the first place? Our budget was approved last year. It came here and was approved by the House and the Senate before the lame duck. Yet last year's D.C. budget is still here, and we are now sitting on the possibility that when the Federal Government, which now looks like it's stupid enough to close down because the Republicans won't take the best deal anybody has had in the history of this body for what they wanted, that may shut down. And the American people will be shocked to know that would mean that the local government of the District of Columbia, which is not in this fight, will be shut down too.

This has gone much too far. It's one thing to start the session with your first act being to strip the District of Columbia of its vote in the Committee of the Whole, although two courts have said that that vote is constitutional.

Then to move on to intrusion after intrusion, reinsert riders that we just got out, riders that have nothing to do with any Member of this body except me, who represents the citizens of the District of Columbia, a rider that would increase HIV/AIDS in D.C., the District of Columbia, by keeping the city from using its own funds to fund needle exchange.

Again, dozens upon dozens of jurisdictions have driven down their AIDS rate this way. We have the highest AIDS rate in the United States only because the Congress of the United States has killed--I use these words advisedly--killed men, women and children in the District of Columbia by keeping the District for 10 years from using needle exchange, so that AIDS spread throughout the city.

So we have a higher AIDS rate than Baltimore--poorer city--than New York, than Detroit, than Los Angeles because of the wishes of the Congress of the United States which is responsive to nobody in the District of Columbia.

They move to abortion. And if it wasn't enough to keep us from using our own local funds in this budget, as they still hope to do, they have put us in H.R. 3. H.R. 3 is a bill, and instead of a rider which lasts 1 year, they would permanently keep the District from spending its own funds on abortions for women. This is the majority that does not even want the Federal Government in Federal matters. What in the world are they doing in the matters of the local jurisdiction?

What kind of tea party Republicans are these who have just added to the deficit by voting $300 million for private schools in the District of Columbia, adding to the deficit and not paying for it? How do you explain that back home? We didn't ask for these vouchers. Nobody even consulted with public officials in the District of Columbia before they put that voucher bill on the floor last week. That's the kind of contempt this majority has for the residents of the District of Columbia.

We are going to fight back each and every time, and we are going to say to this administration and to the Senate: Don't give in. Don't give us away because they want a chit and they have decided that chit is the District of Columbia.

I went to the Rules Committee from the very beginning when a shutdown looked like it was going to occur. I said, look, this is our money. We are

not in this fight. We all agree on that. This is about Federal spending, the Federal deficit, not a deficit from the District of Columbia. Let us have a provision here that says the District can spend its own local money for the rest of the year. I don't think that there is a single American citizen that would have said that we shouldn't be able to spend our own local money for the rest of this year. The Rules Committee turned a deaf ear.

And so we have had a threat of shutdown after shutdown. And the only reason the District of Columbia is open is because the Federal Government hasn't shut down. Now it looks like these people are going to shut it down anyway because the tea party Republicans have tied the hands of the Speaker behind his very back and taken him prisoner.

Well, look, don't take us prisoner with him. We don't have anything to do with that fight. Imagine what it would mean to shut down a big city in America, and especially since that big city is the Nation's capital. Imagine what we look like to the world that we even shut down the Nation's capital when the Federal Government was shut down. Don't do it. Don't shut the Federal Government down. Speaker Boehner, himself, said that it would cost the government more to shut it down than to keep it open.

But if you do shut it down, for goodness sake, keep the District of Columbia open. That's what Speaker Gingrich did when the Federal Government shut down. He kept the District of Columbia open after the first time--because it shut down several times--because he recognized you can't do that to a big city, a very complex mechanism. You simply can't shut it down and expect that it can keep on moving.

It's a terrible thing to have H.R. 3 on the floor in the first place. That would strip women of a vital portion of their reproductive rights, but it would also go after the insurers to make it almost impossible for a woman to get comprehensive insurance, because the insurer would almost surely have to exclude abortion.

What kind of a place is this? I thought that the new majority came to town on a bandwagon that said let's create jobs. Where is the jobs bill? Why the obsession with a local jurisdiction that has nothing to do with jobs or even with the cutting of spending that you have been so successful in getting?

It's your battle, not ours. To pull us into your battle is tantamount to what bullies do in the schoolyard. Somebody is watching the fight or is passing by, they just get pulled into the fight. We are not even onlookers. We simply are not in it.

It's as if Republicans had a meeting: How many things that we haven't done can we do to the District of Columbia, and how many things that we have done can we do? Well, they have introduced a gun bill. The courts have already found the new gun law the District passed constitutional.

They have introduced a new one that, among other things, would say that you could carry guns in the streets of the Nation's capital and conceal them as well. How would you like 20 million visitors to see people walking around with guns that you can see, and what do you think that means for the many official delegations who frequent the streets of the District of Columbia?

You know, there have been so many things that the Republicans have thought of to do, I need to sit down and consider: Is there anything they haven't thought of to do?

One thing that occurs to me to show you how deep is their contempt for democracy in the District of Columbia, when they put the District of Columbia in their bill that goes after women and insurers nationwide, they tucked us in there, too, to make sure we could never spend local money for abortions for poor women. I mentioned that earlier.

So, of course, as you might imagine, since mine was the only district named in the bill that I would ask to testify--denied. Excuse given? Well, the Democrats already had their witness. I wasn't a witness for the Democrats against the bill.

I asked for common courtesy, the right to be heard on a section of the bill that involved my District. Somebody else needed to speak for the Democrats as the minority witness on the bill itself.

If they look for every attempt, every occasion to deny us democracy, they also look for every occasion to deny the Member who represents this city the rights that I am due simply as a courtesy as a colleague.

Nothing is more precious to Americans than the right to be able to spend their local funds the way they want to. I thought that the new tea party House Republicans would be the first to understand that. Remember what we are talking about. We are talking about local funds of a local jurisdiction.

Time and again, the Republicans use the fact that our budget comes here in order to attach, in the most undemocratic fashion, matters that are their pet projects. Vouchers is an example of a pet project of the Speaker, so that gets priority in coming to the floor. The District is the only jurisdiction that has ever had federally funded private vouchers. There was wholesale resentment and demonstrations against that when it was first put on our city.

Ultimately, we made some compromises. We let the law go 2 years past its expiration date. The Obama administration said anybody who is still in private school can remain until they graduate. You can never compromise enough with the House Republicans.

Now they want it all over again. They want to restart it. I particularly resent the voucher bill because the District of Columbia is one of the only jurisdictions that has allowed public charter schools, separate from our public schools, to flourish. Almost half of our children are educated in these independent, publicly accountable charter schools. You go to the jurisdiction of virtually every Member of this House, you will find that their local school board or their State school authorities have kept charters out and kept them growing. We let them in as a home rule matter, and they flourished.

I have appointed students from the charter schools for service academies. We've got terrific charter schools. We've got a Latin charter school. We've got eight KIPP charter schools. Those are the top of the mark of public schools. I don't know what we can do. We're the last to claim that our public schools are what they should be. In fact, our public schools have improved because of competition from the charter schools. That's the kind of competition you want because the charter schools and the public schools are competing for the same dollar. The private schools are funded out of a separate pot.

Now, a budget resolution comes out today, and it would trade off perhaps the most valuable education program the city has ever had for this voucher program which is unpaid for and should never pass the House. So they want it in next year's bill, and this is how they do it.

They take D.C. TAG, which Congress in the most bipartisan fashion passed because the District of Columbia does not have a State university system where you can go to any one of usually dozens of colleges. So it funds youngsters to go to other States. It has doubled college attendance in the District of Columbia. In order to get a decent job in the District of Columbia, because we are the upscale Nation's Capital, you need some college.

And yet what the budget resolution does is trade off the few for the many. He would make the program means tested. That defeats the whole point. By sending our students to the public colleges of other States, we are trying to replicate what is available as a right in the States regardless of income. So if you are rich or poor, if you live in Maryland, Virginia, Ohio or California, you go to the State university. If it were means tested, of course, it would mean that many, many of the students could not go. After all, they've got to go out of the District of Columbia simply to take advantage of the program in the first place, and it pays only for tuition. They have to pay for their room and board and for their food. If they had to, if it is means tested, then, of course, what you are doing is killing the program.

Somebody had to sit down and think that one up. And they thought it up as a way to pay for vouchers we never asked for, neither I nor any other public official in the District of Columbia was consulted about. We are tired of it.

We are depending on the Senate to be a bulwark against madness because that's what we have here. We see it in

the move to shut down the government. No, they don't want to shut down the government, but they don't have control of their own people. There's no discipline on the other side of the aisle. There's no democracy there. They let a few Members who are the most extreme slice of America decide what their whole caucus will do.

We simply will not be hostages to the new House majority. If you can't get what you want on the floor when you control it, don't put it on the District of Columbia. You should be able, because of your majority, to do what you want to do. We are not the repository for every pet idea that you otherwise dare not put on the House floor. And that is what we have become.

We had hoped that the new majority would focus on the Nation's business, what it said it wanted to do. It has focused on the deficit as the Nation's business, although it's taking food out of the mouths of children in the process. But at least that's a focus on national business.

The average American would ask those who voted to increase the deficit by $300 million last week for private schools in the District of Columbia, why in the world did you do that? Why did you want to give them this? I will tell you why. It was the pet idea of the Speaker, and they don't dare put a national voucher bill on the floor.

The way to do it, you wouldn't have to coerce anybody. You would say, we have vouchers available nationally. Let's have competitive grants. Anyone who wants vouchers can have them. You compete for them. That's how we do things in the Federal Government.

Why didn't they do that? They didn't do that because there's been referendum after referendum in the states, and not one private school voucher referendum has been won by private school voucher proponents. You go home and you tell any American that you are spending Federal money for private schools now, you will get your head handed to you. That's how it was when these referenda ran their course.

Imagine now when the Republicans are cutting billions of dollars from every public school district in the United States, imagine how it looks when they are spending money for private school vouchers on a district that never asked for it and doesn't want it because it's somebody's pet project. Take your pet projects and you know what you can do with them. Do that with them; don't do it here in the District of Columbia.

We ask the majority to stop your obsession with one jurisdiction, the District of Columbia. We ask you if you shut down the Federal Government, for goodness' sake, don't shut down one of America's big cities and a city on which you depend greatly. Many of you live here. Many of the services for the Federal Government are taken care of by the District of Columbia.

This is not something you want to do to the Nation's Capital. It makes us look idiotic to the world at large. For myself, I want to go back to doing the Nation's business. I don't want to be taken off of that business every other day because some Republican or the Republican majority has decided to do something undemocratic to the district I represent.

I put forward an amendment that would get rid of the issue of who gets shut down when the Federal Government gets shut down once and for all. It simply says, look, when the Federal Government shuts down, if the District of Columbia budget is over here and it has gone through the process, the District of Columbia can spend its own local funds. Remember, the budget that comes over here was raised in the District of Columbia and should not be over here in the first place.

I had a budget autonomy bill last session that until the very last moment was going to get through this House and the Senate. It is the very essence of no democracy that somebody's own taxes that they raise in their own local jurisdiction would be subject to somebody else who didn't have anything to do with raising a cent of those taxes. That is what happens to the District of Columbia.

When the District of Columbia's budget comes here, they don't dare change anything in the complicated local budget of the District of Columbia. That is very complicated. You could throw everything out of kilter. So essentially they don't bother with the budget. They spend all of their time seeing what they can attach to the budget, substantive legislation that has no place in an appropriation in the first place and has no place in somebody else's budget above all.

Mr. Speaker, part of the problem may be that some Members either do not know because they are new or have forgotten, either because for 4 years of Democratic control these issues didn't come up, or because they want to forget. I come to the floor this afternoon to assure you I shall not let you forget, we will make sure that in your home districts, they know that you are attending not to the business of that district but to the business of the District of Columbia and that you are doing so in the most undemocratic and autocratic fashion. You who quote the Constitution ought to sit down and think for a moment what the Framers would have done had they seen the Federal Government, which they were afraid of, intervene into the local affairs of any district.

I ask you: hands off, lay off the District of Columbia.

Mr. Speaker, today, I am introducing the Nuclear Weapons Abolition and Economic and Energy Conversion Act of 2011, a version of which I have introduced since 1994, after working with the District of Columbia residents who were responsible for the Nuclear Disarmament and Economic Conversion ballot initiative passed by DC voters in 1993. This version of the bill now requires the United States to negotiate an international agreement to disable and dismantle its nuclear weapons by 2020 and provides for strict control of fissile material and radioactive waste and for use of nuclear free energy resources. The bill continues to provide that the funds used for nuclear weapons programs be redirected towards human and infrastructure needs, such as housing, health care, Social Security and the environment. The bill is particularly timely as Congress continues to make cuts to important human and infrastructure programs and as the world confronts nuclear catastrophe in Japan. This year, I introduce the bill to recognize the Alliance of Nuclear Accountability's DC Days 2011, beginning on Monday, and in memory of William Thomas, who died in 2009 after demonstrating in front of the White House in an anti-nuclear vigil for nearly 28 years. His efforts were the longest uninterrupted anti-war protest in U.S. history. William Thomas made the cause of peace the centerpiece of his meaningful life and was an example for us all.

Following years of dangerous increases in U.S. nuclear capacity during the George W. Bush administration, President Barack Obama has begun to rebuild U.S. credibility with his goal of taking the necessary steps to achieve a world without nuclear weapons. The President's strong push for the New START treaty last year, when Republicans seemed adamant on stalling it, resulted in ratification by the Senate. The treaty requires the two major nuclear powers, Russia and the United States, continue to reduce nuclear weapons by mutually reducing their nuclear warheads by half and their number of intercontinental ballistic missiles and missile launchers, and, within sixty days of the treaty's entry into force, on February 5, 2011, submit to on-site inspections of strategic nuclear weapons facilities by the weapons experts of the other country.

Despite the progress embodied by the New START treaty, the events of the last few weeks remind us of the urgent need to rid the world of nuclear weapons. The tragic nuclear catastrophe in Japan, a result of a massive earthquake and tsunami, demonstrates another, perhaps even more likely, nuclear peril. Radiation has been detected around the world since the Fukushima nuclear plant meltdown. It is painfully ironic that the one country that has been attacked with nuclear weapons is now struggling to control its own nuclear capability after the plant meltdown. The U.S. has an obligation to lead in ridding the world of nuclear weapons.

Today, our country has a long list of urgent domestic needs that have been put on the back burner even though millions of Americans have lost their homes and jobs. As the only nation that has used nuclear weapons in war, and that still possesses the largest nuclear weapons arsenal, I urge support for my bill to help the United States lead the world in redirecting funds that would otherwise go to nuclear weapons to instead be available for urgent domestic needs.