Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, I introduce the District of Columbia Medicaid Reimbursement Act of 2011 today to increase the Federal Government's reimbursement for a portion of the District of Columbia's Medicaid costs because the District is the only city, except for New York City, that pays any portion of Medicaid, an expense that is carried by the Federal Government and States. New York City, the jurisdiction that powers the economy of New York State, contributes a 25 percent share for Medicaid costs, while the state pays 25 percent, less than the District's federally mandated 30 percent contribution. The District's continuing responsibility for the share of Medicaid costs that are borne by entire states is a major component of the District's structural deficit and a threat to the financial stability of the city itself, according to the District's chief financial officer. Today, considering high unemployment in the District and the expansion of Medicaid eligibility under the new health care reform law, effective 2014, now is the time to make the District's Medicaid burden more equitable.

Under the National Capital Revitalization and Self-Government Improvement Act of 1997 (Revitalization Act), Congress recognized that state costs are too high for any city to shoulder. To address this unfairness in the District, the Revitalization Act transferred certain state responsibilities from the District to the Federal Government, including prisons and courts, and the Act increased the Federal Medicaid reimbursement to the District from 50 to 70 percent, partially relieving this burden. The city continues to carry many state costs, however.

In 1997, a formula error in the Medicaid Disproportionate Share Hospital allotment reduced the 70 percent Federal Medical Assistance Percentage (FMAP) share, and as a result, the District received only $23 million instead of the $49 million it was due. I was able to secure a technical correction in the Balanced Budget Act of 1999, partially increasing the annual allotment to $32 million from fiscal year 2000 forward. I appreciate that in 2005, Congress responded to my effort to get an additional annual increase of $20 million in the budget reconciliation bill, bringing D.C.'s Medicaid reimbursements to $57 million as intended by the Revitalization Act.

However, this amount did not reimburse the District for the years the federal error denied the city part of its federal contribution, and in any case, of course, was not intended to eliminate the District's structural deficit, which this bill partially addresses.

The bill is the eighth in my ``Free and Equal D.C.'' series. The series of bills addresses inappropriate and often unequal restrictions placed only on the District and no other U.S. jurisdiction.

I urge my colleagues to join me in supporting the bill.

I appreciate my friend yielding me 2 minutes. I did not get an opportunity to speak on the last amendment. Although I'm from the region, I did want to reinforce why the compromise fashioned by the chairman and the ranking member is so important. Whenever this bill comes up, there is some individual, usually from the other body, who wants to expand the perimeter.

Dulles and Reagan are essentially airports under congressional control, and Congress has mandated a balance between Reagan and Dulles, and has allocated finances accordingly. Reagan is a short-distance airport. Dulles is the long-distance airport. Reagan has one primary runway. There were stories in the paper just recently about how hard it is, therefore, for planes to land there. Dulles has four times as many. The underuse of Dulles would, in fact, waste substantial investment that the Congress has put into this balance.

The compromise language does at least import competition; whereas, the original amendment would have been a windfall to one or two airlines.

So I very much appreciate this compromise. Remember, those of us in the region would prefer nothing outside of the perimeter, but we're always willing to work with the chairman and with others on the committee, and I am grateful for the compromise that has been accepted, and I'm very grateful that the gentleman from Arizona has been kind enough to withdraw his amendment.

Mr. Speaker, today I rise to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the ratification of the 23rd Amendment to the United States Constitution, which granted the citizens of the District of Columbia the right to vote for President and Vice President. This victory fifty years ago was one of the early victories in the long and continuing struggle of District of Columbia residents for equal rights as American citizens. The 23rd Amendment provided the District of Columbia with three electors for President and Vice President, allowing D.C. residents to vote for the nation's highest offices for the first time since the city was created as the nation's capital.

Only two Members of Congress, Representative John Dingell and Senator Daniel Inouye, remain in office from the period of introduction and ratification of the 23rd Amendment, when both were members of the House of Representatives. I was away at college then, but it was clear that an important catalyst for the amendment was the birth of the civil rights movement with the Birmingham bus boycott. The civil rights movement was key in moving Congress to afford the presidential and vice presidential votes to the citizens of the nation's capital, which had become a majority African American city at that time.

The original joint resolution, H.J. Res. 757, was reported favorably by the House Committee on the Judiciary on June 9, 1960. The accompanying report made clear that the

amendment ``would not make the District of Columbia a state'' and did not grant ``home-rule'' to the District. Home rule, a milestone allowing for democratic self-government, did not come until 1973. Originally paired with a number of unrelated amendments in the Senate, what became the 23rd Amendment passed the House by voice vote on June 14, 1960 and the Senate agreed to the bill two days later. Fifty years ago today, March 29, 1961, Ohio became the 38th state to ratify the amendment, and it was officially declared to have been ratified as the 23rd Amendment five days later.

Unfortunately, the District of Columbia today remains the only capital in a democratic nation where citizens are denied a vote in the nation's representative body of government. Today, we can only hope that the decision of Congress to support the presidential and vice presidential votes for D.C. citizens will lead the way to votes in the Congress of the United States itself.

Thank you very much, and I certainly thank my good friend from Florida for his work on not only this bill, H.R. 471, but for his strong respect for the District of Columbia and its residents and his support for our right to self-government as American citizens.

I oppose this rule, I oppose this bill, and at the appropriate time, I will have a substitute to redirect the funds in this bill in accordance with the home-rule wishes of the District of Columbia. May I say, I appreciate the words of my good friend from Utah, but I do resent the use of the word ``liberty'' at a time when this bill will deprive the residents of the District of Columbia of the liberty every other district has in deciding local educational decisions for itself. They have it in Utah, and we will never be satisfied as long as we do not have each and every right you have in Utah.

Now, the majority ought to approach this rule with caution. Many in the House ran on the promise to reduce the power of the Federal Government and to reduce the budget. Now, we are 3 months into the new Congress, and if they vote for this rule, they will be breaking their promises.

They will be voting for an unprecedented expansion of the Federal Government's power into the quintessentially local decision of elementary and secondary education. They will be voting for this rule against the will of the jurisdiction, the only jurisdiction to which it applies, the District of Columbia. They will be voting for this rule with no consultation with any elected official in the local jurisdiction involved. They will be voting to authorize the Federal Government to mandate that a local government offer a program for students to attend private schools at public expense, Federal expense, that is. They will be voting to increase the deficit by $300 million with no offset whatsoever for these funds because this is a new program and their own protocols demand an offset for new programs.

So in the first test of their legislative cut-go protocol, they will be voting to violate it. They will be voting to do so with $300 million added to the deficit at a time when they are cutting $11.6 billion with a ``b'' from education throughout the United States of America. We are American citizens.

Madam Speaker, you know, in the later days of European colonialism, countries like France allowed some representation from the colonies because the whole notion of voting on the fate of the colonies with nobody there who could also vote seemed even then to be a dilemma they could not live with. And I don't understand how any Member of the House believes she has a right to vote on local education matters or any other local matter affecting any part of the United States, including the District of Columbia.

I note, Madam Speaker, that Mr. Polis of the Rules Committee indicated yesterday that there was a county in Colorado that had created its own voucher program. I respect that because they didn't come to the Federal Government to ask that their local voucher program be funded, nor, Madam Speaker, did we.

I think every Member of this House ought to ask, since we've had 5 years of a voucher bill, why is there no national bill on the floor? I think the gentleman from Florida has said one of the good reasons, and that is that the Bush Department of Education found that, when compared with the students in comparable schools in DC, there was no increase in test scores in math or reading. So there's a merit reason why there's no national bill.

But there's another reason why. The majority doesn't have the nerve to put a national voucher bill on the floor because it knows that in each and every state referendum, including in referendums in Utah, from which my good friend comes, not once has such a referendum succeeded.

I don't know why the majority thinks it can go home now and say I voted for vouchers, when you, yourselves, were against the use of public money for private schools in your district. I would not like to be at that town meeting where you have to explain why you voted for a rule for $300

million for one district that did not want that money for that purpose.

Madam Speaker, I very much resent the use of Article I, Section VIII of the Constitution whenever the majority wants to move in on the District of Columbia with one of its pet ideas, or because it disagrees with some issue in the District of Columbia. That's quintessentially the absence of democracy.

It's one thing to have no democracy. It's another thing to press your version of policy on another jurisdiction. That's why I have an alternative, a substitute that I will be bringing at an appropriate time.

Madam Speaker, in 1973, after 150 years, this Congress finally said we have been wrong for most of the existence of our country in allowing no democracy whatsoever in the District of Columbia, no mayor, no city council. We give up. We delegate self-government to you. We are out of your affairs.

Self-government means nothing if the District of Columbia can still be a dumping ground for every pet project and pet idea of the majority. We have our own pet ideas, and we will insist on respect for our own ideas, and not yours.

No one ever said that everybody in the District of Columbia or even every public official was against vouchers.

I yield to the gentleman from California.

On the contrary, a letter is on its way up here from city council members. The present mayor opposes the bill. Yes, the former mayor was for the bill. The largest demonstration of citizens since I have been in the Congress was held when this bill was imposed on the District of Columbia.

If you ask people in the District of Columbia, ``Would you support some Federal money for vouchers?'' a lot of them will say yes. If you ask them the right question, ``Would you want money for private school vouchers or would you want money for public charter schools?'' hands down, they will say, relieve those long waiting lists of all of us trying to get in our public charter schools and give the money to our public charter schools.

Nobody on that side of the aisle knows anything about the residents of the District of Columbia or they never would have put this bill in in the first place.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Maryland for his terrific help on all we have done on this bill.

Let me count the ways I strongly oppose H.R. 471:

Because it reestablished a program that failed to improve academic achievement as measured by standardized reading and math tests;

Because it infringes on the local government's right to make decisions about quintessentially local education matters;

Because it was introduced without so much as consultation with any elected official from the affected jurisdiction, the jurisdiction I represent;

Because it provides Federal funds to send students to religious and other private schools, despite the absence of support for vouchers, as demonstrated by the failure of every State referendum to authorize vouchers, including two in California; and

Because it increases the deficit by $300 million, violating the majority's own CutGo for discretionary authorization legislative protocols.

Although I am a proud graduate of the D.C. Public Schools and strongly

support our public schools, especially given their great improvement, I have always supported public charter alternatives for those parents who are dissatisfied with our traditional public schools. Children can't wait until public schools now in the throes of ``a race to the top'' meet the top.

I'm proud that the District of Columbia has the largest charter school system in the United States of America, with almost half of our children attending. Parents and organizations in the District of Columbia have made this alternative, not the Congress of the United States.

The existence and the phenomenal growth of our public charter schools has fueled the competition that has actually helped our public schools improve. The reason is because the charter schools and the public schools, unlike the voucher schools, are competing for the same local dollars.

So, today, it is interesting to note that the National Assessment of Educational Progress found that the D.C. Public Schools have awakened to the competition, and now is the only one of 18 large urban school systems that showed improvement in the fourth and eighth-grade achievement tests over the past 2 years.

Now, contrast this with what the Bush Education Department found for the very voucher program we will be voting on in H.R. 471, and I'm quoting:

The Department of education found ``no conclusive evidence that the Opportunity Scholarship Program affected student achievement'' as measured by standardized reading and math tests. Yet the program was established precisely to measure and improve performance of the lowest achieving students in our schools.

D.C. charter schools, however, outperform the D.C. public schools and greatly outperform the voucher schools. Our public charter schools at the middle and high school level, with a majority of economically disadvantaged students, scored almost twice as high as their D.C. Public School counterparts in math and reading, and the graduation rate of charter school students is 24 percent higher than the graduation rate of our traditional public high schools and 8 percent higher than the national average. Yet these public charter schools have a higher percentage of African American students and of disadvantaged students than our public schools.

They are entirely accountable. They can be closed and, like public schools, they have been closed.

With this remarkable record, why in the world would anyone pick the District of Columbia to impose a voucher program on, or target the only big school system that has set up an alternative public charter school system?

If the majority were truly interested in our education agenda, instead of their own, they would do what former Speaker Newt Gingrich did. When he approached me about private school vouchers, I told him of public opposition to vouchers in the city, but not to charter schools, as demonstrated by a fledgling charter school program in the District that had attracted few charters. And there was a District of Columbia charter school law. He worked with me, not against me, to introduce a bill----

To introduce P.L. 104-134, which has helped us produce a large-scale robust alternative public school system that is now a model for the Nation.

The pattern of this Congress could not be clearer. They began by stripping the District of Columbia of its vote. They have done nothing but try to take from the District of Columbia with bill after bill. Now they want to help us, against our will.

We reject the insult of your help with the children of the District of Columbia. We are not second-class citizens. We are not children. If you want to help us, give us the courtesy, have the good grace to ask us how we want to be helped.

Mr. Speaker, the majority has been obsessed with depriving the District of Columbia of its home-rule rights ever since this Congress opened. They have come now with their choice, their preference, for the people I represent. If, in fact, the majority is correct that this program has been so effective, I ask you why you have not brought a national voucher bill to the floor so that your constituents could have the very same thing my constituents have? I know why. It's the height of hypocrisy to put it on us and not bring a bill to the floor to give the same wonderful, wonderful opportunity to your own people.

I have a home-rule agenda in the amendment coming up. I challenge you, I challenge you to bring a national voucher bill to the floor this session.

Mr. Speaker, I have a substitute amendment at the desk.

Mr. Speaker, first of all, I have to correct the gentleman from California. The District charter school bill was created by Speaker Gingrich in partnership with me. He came to me and proposed a voucher bill. I asked him, since the District had a local charter school bill, if he would introduce, instead, a charter school law. We consulted with the local public officials, with the school board, with citizens. It was the home rule alternative to vouchers, and you can check with Speaker Gingrich.

Now, my home rule substitute would redirect the $300 million in H.R. 471, 50 percent to the District public charter schools, 50 percent to the District of Columbia Public Schools. If the majority wants to add $300 million to the deficit without an offset, then let it at least be on the basis of educational merit; then it should be added to the public schools which have shown major growth, the only public school system of the 18 largest urban school systems that showed significant improvements in math and reading over the last 2 years.

If you want to add to the deficit, then at least add to it by giving money to our public charter schools which outdo the D.C. public schools and way outdo, of course, the voucher schools, which show no improvement. The public charter middle and high schools scored twice as high as the traditional public charter schools in the District in math and reading, and they have a graduation rate 24 percent above the D.C. public schools and 8 percent above the national average. This is where you would give the money if you had any interest in education in the District of Columbia instead of your own parochial interests in making the District a petri dish of the pet project of a few Members of Congress. You would look at our public charter schools as the alternative to the District's public schools.

There are 53 campuses, amounting to almost 100 different charter schools, almost half of the children of the District of Columbia. How did they get there? They voted with their feet. I mean, listen to some of the names of these schools: Washington Latin School; Washington Math, Science, and Technology High School. I have, myself, appointed two students from Washington Math, Science, and Technology to Service Academies. Early Childhood Academy; Hospitality Academy; Howard University Middle School--that's a charter school; the KIPP Schools. We've got eight of them. Those are the top charter schools and some of the best public charter schools in the United States. SEED Residential charter school. You have some money? You want to spend some money? Here is the place to spend it.

To show you just what kind of a home rule alternative this is, with almost 100 different schools, they have got 19 new charter school applications coming for 2012. People keep coming despite the improvements in the District public schools. They are going to have a preschool charter. They are going to have three new high schools: one an all male college prep, one that focuses on public service, another that focuses on math and science.

You want to talk choices, you want to talk creative choices, look at the District of Columbia. We know how to create choices for ourselves, choices that our parents want, choices that our parents create and pay for because they want their own choices, not the choices of the Republicans of the House of Representatives. In a democracy, the choices of a self-governing local jurisdiction trump all other choices, and especially the choices of Members who are not responsible to the people of the District of Columbia, who do not have to stand for election in the District of Columbia but get a free ride, as I do not.

If you insist on adding to the deficit, then, for goodness sake, reinforce the home rule, hard work of our own parents and our own local organizations. Commend them for the dazzling array of almost 100 public, accountable charter schools they have created. Relieve their long waiting lists, which now contain thousands of students waiting to get into our charter schools.

The District of Columbia did not appreciate being an unwilling object of a Republican experiment once. With your cavalier defiance of our choices, we like it much less the second time around.

I reserve the balance of my time.

I am pleased to yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Cummings), the ranking member of the committee.

I am pleased to yield the gentleman another minute.

Will the gentleman yield?

How much time remains?

To the gentleman who didn't have the nerve to yield to me, this bill, of course----

Point of Order

The speaker before the last speaker wanted to know what the offense was. The offense is to the home-rule prerogative to the people of the District of Columbia to decide on educational choices for their own children. That's what the offense is.

Now I am pleased to yield 2 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Andrews).

(Mr. ANDREWS asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

The gentleman cited a number of schools that he said vouchers had helped. There is no data showing that voucher schools--and there have been a few in the United States--have ever scored better than children in public schools. And since Milwaukee was mentioned, let me indicate some news that just came out Tuesday.

Results from the first administration of Statewide exams for students participating in the Milwaukee voucher program showed lower academic achievement than students attending Milwaukee public schools. The results also show that the Milwaukee public schools and voucher schools have significant lower achievement than the Statewide average.

But here, you have a big city public school system that is doing better than the voucher schools. And that is what the data shows all over the United States, including the District of Columbia, where the Bush Department of Education specifically found that the children in voucher schools did not show significant improvement in math and reading scores. While I have shown details here this afternoon of significant improvement of the D.C. public schools, the only urban school system that has in fact shown significant improvement in math and science, and particularly dazzling results in the D.C. charter schools.

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

I respect my good friend, but I have got to stand for and with the people I represent. And if the gentleman wants to put the joy in the hearts of my parents, I challenge him to put joy in the hearts of the parents of his beloved Indiana, as he says, by bringing a national vouchers bill to the floor so that some of them may have the choice that we have not asked for.

I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Cummings), the ranking member of our committee.

I am pleased to yield the gentleman an additional 30 seconds.

Mr. Speaker, the residents of the District of Columbia see a pattern here. The majority begins by taking away my vote in the Committee of the Whole so I can't vote on any part of this bill this afternoon, then they take away or try to take away the needle exchange program that keeps HIV-AIDS from being spread throughout the District of Columbia. Then they are also trying to take away the choice of low- income women in the District in two bills, the reproductive choice of low-income women in two bills: H.R. 1 and H.R. 3.

They have introduced a bill to put their version of gun laws on the District of Columbia, although the courts have found our new gun laws to be constitutional. This morning we hear that they are coming forward yet again with more to do to the District of Columbia by trying to erase our marriage equality law.

Now they say, after taking all of that from you, we have got something for you, something you never asked for, vouchers, instead of funding your own home rule choice, your public charter schools.

Yes, we know you fund the charter schools as well; but you then fund your choice, not ours. My amendment says if you want to fund something, ask us. Fund what we want, not what you want. And if you want vouchers, bring a national voucher bill right to the floor.

I can understand Republicans voting against my substitute. They will argue perhaps that it adds to the deficit. But if you vote against my substitute, then I don't see how you can vote for H.R. 471, because it certainly adds to the deficit, too; and you will be voting for your choice, not ours.

Many of you have come to the House under the banner of liberty, to get the Federal Government out of even Federal matters. Now you're trying to get into a purely local matter involving our children and our local schools. If this were your district, you would ask us to defer to you. I'm asking you to defer to our preferences. The District of Columbia asks to be treated exactly as you would want to be treated--as free and equal citizens of the United States of America and not as second-class citizens, not as children, and certainly not as the colonial subjects of the Congress of the United States.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Announcement by the Speaker Pro Tempore

Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

Mr. Speaker, I rise to ask the House of Representatives to join me in recognizing Coach Natalie Randolph, the first female boys varsity head football coach at Calvin Coolidge Senior High School in Washington, DC, where she also teaches.

As we commemorate Women's History Month this year, I want to celebrate the coach for becoming the first permanent female boys varsity head football coach in the District of Columbia and the only current female boys varsity head football coach in the nation.

Natalie Randolph, a native Washingtonian, is not only a football coach, she also is a superb athlete. Coach Randolph made her mark with the DC Divas of the Independent Women's Football League. After playing five seasons there, she became an assistant boys varsity football coach at H.D. Woodson Senior High School in the District for two seasons.

In her youth, Natalie nurtured her athletic skills in track and field at Sidwell Friends School and later at the University of Virginia. Her love of football grew after her father first introduced her in high school to women football players.

Natalie began her professional career as an educator, after receiving a Bachelor of Arts degree in Environmental Science and a Master's degree in Education from the University of Virginia. She first taught at H.D. Woodson and currently teaches Environmental Science and Biology at Calvin Coolidge.

Calvin Coolidge's winning record of 6-4 in Coach Randolph's debut season vindicated the decision to make her head coach. At the same time, the new coach required mandatory study halls and SAT prep courses to improve the team's academic performance. Coach Randolph is committed to winning, both inside and outside the classroom.

Mr. Speaker, I ask the House of Representatives to join me in honoring Natalie Randolph for her accomplishments as a teacher who encourages strong academic achievement, as a world-class athlete, and as the first permanent female boys varsity head football coach in the District of Columbia. May we wish Coach Randolph and the Calvin Coolidge Senior High School Colts the best on the upcoming season, both on and off the field.

Mr. Speaker, I rise to ask the House of Representatives to join me in recognizing Lindsay Czarniak for her outstanding work in sports broadcasting as an anchor and reporter for NBC Washington. This month we are celebrating Women's History Month in the District of Columbia by honoring Lindsay Czarniak, whose excellence in a field dominated by men has made her a favorite on television here.

Lindsay, who was born in Pennsylvania and raised in Northern Virginia, is seen by her viewers as a quintessential Washingtonian because of her credibility and effectiveness in connecting with residents while reporting on our teams for NBC4 sports. After serving as co-host of the George Michael Sports Machine, Lindsay struck out on her own on NBC4 with her signature show, Lunch with Lindsay. She has interviewed many great sports figures, including Art Monk, Sugar Ray Leonard, and James Brown. Lindsay also has covered the 2008 Winter Olympics in Beijing, China, as well as NASCAR races as a pit reporter on TNT.

This year, our celebration of Women's History Month will honor not only Lindsay Czarniak, but also another female groundbreaker, Natalie Randolph, the only current female boys high school varsity head football coach in the nation. Lindsay also has generously agreed to participate in an assembly, where she will interview Natalie Randolph, a member of the D.C. Divas, a woman's professional football team, and a member of the Calvin Coolidge Senior High School football team concerning Coach Randolph's football and coaching career.

Lindsay Czarniak is an inspiration to young girls, to women, and to all Americans who support equal opportunity on the basis of ability and hard work. The excellence of her work in the male-dominated sports world makes all who are fortunate to see her on television understand that nothing is beyond a woman's capability, and that no field, sports or otherwise, is off limits to women.

Mr. Speaker, I ask the House of Representatives to join me in honoring Lindsay Czarniak, as a trailblazing example of excellence in her profession.

Mr. Speaker, today, I introduce a bill that would give the mayor of the District of Columbia authority over deploying the D.C. National Guard, after consultation with the Commanding General of the D.C. National Guard, with the President retaining final authority. In local emergencies, including natural disasters and civil disturbances unrelated to national or homeland security, the mayor of the District of Columbia should have the same authority that governors exercise over the National Guard in their states. Each governor, as head of state, has the authority to mobilize the National Guard to protect his or her state, just as local militia did historically. The National

Guards in the 50 states operate under dual federal and local jurisdiction. Yet only the President and the Commanding General of the D.C. National Guard currently have the authority to deploy the D.C. National Guard for local and national purposes, respectively. Today, the most likely need for the D.C. National Guard here would be for natural disasters and to restore order in the wake of civil disturbances. The mayor, who knows the city better than any federal official and who works closely with federal security officials, should be able to call on the D.C. National Guard for local natural disasters and civil disturbances, after consultation with the Commanding General of the D.C. National Guard. The President should be focused on national matters, including homeland security, not local D.C. matters. Homeland security authority, with respect to the D.C. National Guard, would remain the sole province of the President, along with the power to nationalize the D.C. National Guard at will. It does no harm to give the mayor this authority for civil disturbances and natural disasters. However, it could do significant harm to leave the mayor powerless to act quickly. If it makes sense that governors would have control over the mobilization and deployment of their National Guard, it makes equal sense for the mayor of the District of Columbia, with a population the size of a small state, to have the same authority.

The mayor of the District of Columbia, as head of state, should have the authority to deploy the D.C. National Guard in instances that do not rise to the level of homeland defense activities. My bill requires that the mayor only deploy the D.C. National Guard after consultation with the Commanding General of the D.C. National Guard. The bill is another important step toward completing the transfer of full self- government powers to the District of Columbia. Congress itself began with the passage of the Home Rule Act of 1973, when it delegated most of its authority to the District of Columbia. The bill follows that model.

I urge my colleagues to support the bill.

Mr. Speaker, today I introduce a bill, the Major General David F. Wherley, Jr., District of Columbia National Guard Retention and College Access Act, NGRCA, to permanently authorize funding for a program that provides grants for higher education tuition to members of the D.C. National Guard. The NGRCA authorizes an education incentive program, recommended by the late

Major General David F. Wherley, Jr., and his successor, Major General Errol Schwartz, who suggested that education grants would be useful in stemming the troublesome loss of members of the D.C. Guard to other units, in part because surrounding states offer such educational benefits to their Guards. I am grateful that the Appropriations Committee has provided funds in some years, most recently in 2010. Authorizing funding is necessary to ensure that D.C. National Guard members receive the same treatment and benefits as other National Guard members, especially those in states which provide the higher education benefits we seek for D.C. National Guard members. The Guard for the Nation's Capital has a severely limited ability to compete for the pool of regional residents, who find membership in the Maryland and Virginia Guards more beneficial. A competitive tuition assistance program for the D.C. National Guard will provide significant incentives and leverage to help counteract declining enrollment and level the field of competition. The D.C. National Guard is a federal instrument that is not under the control of the mayor of the District of Columbia, which we are trying to change for local emergencies. The federal government supports most other D.C. National Guard functions and should support this small benefit as well.

The small education incentives in my bill would not only encourage high-quality recruits, but would have the important benefit of helping the D.C. National Guard to maintain the force necessary to protect the federal presence, including Members of Congress and the Supreme Court, and visitors if a terrorist attack should occur. I am pleased to introduce the bill based on the advice of Guard personnel, who best know what is necessary.

It is especially important for the D.C. National Guard to be able to attract the best soldiers, given the unique mission it has to protect the federal presence here, in addition to D.C. residents. This responsibility distinguishes the D.C. National Guard from all other National Guards. The D.C. National Guard is specially trained to meet its unique mission.

I urge my colleagues to support the bill.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to ask the House of Representatives to join me in honoring the life of Christopher Calomiris, who is fondly remembered by the residents of the District of Columbia and this region for a landmark business, Calomiris Fruits & Vegetables at the Eastern Market--a family owned and operated business for 62 years.

As the child of Greek immigrants, Christopher grew up on Capitol Hill and was groomed in his father's D.C. produce business, which was located in several markets before settling at Eastern Market. With Christopher Calomiris' gentle and dependable guidance, Calomiris Fruits & Vegetables thrived and continues to offer their signature friendly, high-quality customer service with the leadership of Christopher's wife, Maria, and the Calomiris children, Tom, Leon, and Joy, all of whom helped in this classic generational business.

Christopher Calomiris' battle with cancer over the last several years did not prevent him from working on weekends to continue to support the family business. The business that Christopher Calomiris built represents the best tradition of family-centered, American-made business.

In recognizing his lifetime of hard and productive work and service to the community, I ask the House to join me in honoring the life and legacy of Christopher Calomiris of Calomiris Fruits & Vegetables in Washington, DC.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to ask the House of Representatives to join me in honoring Bert Randolph Sugar for his contributions to the boxing profession, as well as for his support of youth in the District of Columbia at Kids In Trouble, Inc. By serving as a member on the Board of Directors of Kids In Trouble, Inc., Mr. Sugar, a native Washingtonian, a graduate of District of Columbia Public Schools, and a boxing historian, has provided our youth with special inspiration by his achievements. His induction into the International Boxing Hall of Fame in 2005 speaks to his special talents, and makes all D.C. residents, particularly our children at Kids In Trouble, Inc., proud.

Throughout his career, Bert Randolph Sugar has honed his skills as a boxing analyst, making frequent appearances on HBO's pay-per-view boxing broadcasts and ESPN. He has published dozens of books and articles, and has served as an editor of Boxing Illustrated and of Ring Magazine.

Over the years, Kids In Trouble, Inc. has grown to serve thousands of D.C. youth, especially in the Brightwood neighborhood in Northwest D.C. Bert Randolph Sugar has contributed to our youth at Kids In Trouble, Inc. over several decades, and was honored with the Kids In Trouble, Inc. 2005 Lifetime Achievement Award at the 40th Anniversary Toy Drive for needy children in D.C.

I applaud the contributions Bert Randolph Sugar has made to Kids In Trouble, Inc. to help improve the lives of minority and underrepresented youth residing in the District of Columbia. Mr. Speaker, I ask the House of Representatives to join me in honoring Bert Randolph Sugar for his contributions to Kids In Trouble, Inc., his commitment to youth in the District of Columbia, and particularly for a lifetime of achievements.

Look, the majority has chosen to run the government, the Federal Government, from CR to CR. But the majority has no right to inflict this operational outrage on the local funds of a local jurisdiction, the District of Columbia.

The majority may want to incur for the Federal Government the operational difficulties. After all, the District of Columbia delivers services to Federal officials, including the President, Federal buildings, foreign embassies, and the like. But does the majority really want to risk, to put the District and its operations at risk or to place, what Wall Street almost surely will do, a risk premium on the District due to the uncertainty that we are at bay from CR to CR?

This is a fragile economy for every big city, but D.C.'s local budget was approved a year ago in the city and last summer by the Appropriations Committees. Yet the District of Columbia is being held hostage to a Federal fight, although the District of Columbia can do nothing to free itself from this Federal fight.

I have tried to get the District on successive CRs so that we could spend our own money all year. There is no disapproval of that here. I wager that very few Members even know that the District would close down if the Federal Government closed down; would be perplexed by it; would have no objection to our spending our own local money all year long.

We raise and manage $8 billion. We have a right to spend our local funds without being dragged into a Federal fight.

You can't run a big city from CR to CR. I ask you to find a way between

now and 3 weeks to free D.C. to run its own city for the rest of the fiscal year.

Let my people go.

Mr. Speaker, today I rise, in advance of leading a special order this evening, to offer a resolution supporting the rights of all workers, including federal employees and other public employees, and calling for the end to attacks on their ability to organize and to collectively bargain. There are only a few salient rights recognized by every democracy, such as freedom of religion and freedom of speech, and on that list always appears the right for workers to organize in order to bargain collectively with an employer. It has long been recognized that individual workers have little, if any, bargaining power sitting alone with an employer who has hired or could hire her. When unions organize workers, the ground becomes more level and economic conditions decide the outcome.

Mr. Speaker, the American labor movement has been a major catalyst for the formation of a majority middle class in the United States by leading the way for improvements for all workers, which unions have gained through collective bargaining. I ask the House to join me in recognizing the American union movement and those who work in the public and private sectors.

Mr. Speaker, I rise to lead a Special Order this evening in tribute to public employees everywhere, and especially our Federal employees here in the United States, 85 percent of whom do not work in Washington. I hope that my colleagues and I will be able to offer some little

known facts about Federal employees today so that the word ``Federal employee'' gets a face and you know who it is we're talking about.

Today I introduced a resolution supporting the right of all workers to bargain collectively, public and private workers. I'm grateful that Representative Donna Edwards cosponsored this resolution with me and invite others to cosponsor the resolution. The resolution reminds us of what our grandfathers and our forefathers would have told us, that for a long time there was a fight waged after it became clear that individual workers standing alone have little or no bargaining power against some employer that they hope will hire them or in whose employ they find themselves. Thus rose, and finally was legalized as the National Labor Relations Act, the right of workers to form unions.

In no free society in the world is the right to bargain collectively barred. That right has been under attack for decades, and the decline of unions in the United States is directly attributable to the difficulty in organizing workers today because the National Labor Relations Act is a figment of another century.

I think we will see in some of the statistics coming out of Wisconsin and out of the country at large that the decline of unions today does not mean that unions are not prized institutions in our country, and I will have some statistics that show that.

What I think most Americans recognize is that they owe to the American trade union movement much that they take for granted today, even if you are not a member of a union movement. Unions could have been content to bargain at the table for health and safety conditions, for a 40-hour week and the rest of it. Instead, they led the country in making laws that require a 40-hour workweek, child labor laws, require health and safety conditions, require overtime pay, and encourage health insurance and pension insurance. Those matters which began at the bargaining table now many Americans enjoy, and yet we have seen targets especially placed on the backs of public employees.

I'd like to open by giving you an idea of who a public employee is by speaking of a public employee in my own district, the District of Columbia. I don't know Anthony Hutchinson, but I've heard about him. He is an example of an exceptional Federal employee, I understand. He is a husband and a father of two. He lives on Savannah Street in southeast Washington. He is a transportation security officer, and he has worked at the Ronald Reagan National Airport for the last 6 years. He is also a member and shop steward of his union, which in this case happens to be the National Treasury Employees Union. He has been named the Transportation Security Officer of the Year. He has received outstanding ratings from his employer. He was once the chair and once the vice chair of the Safety Committee. He is on a team that has designed ways to keep transportation security officers up to date on techniques for identifying weapons and prohibited items through x-ray machines. He served on the Emergency Readiness Team--that's a team that deploys within 24 hours in the event of an emergency or national disaster. Anthony Hutchinson is a Federal employee.

When you speak of Federal employees, it seems to me we owe them at least the courtesy of recognizing them for what they do for the American people. But you would not have understood that if you have been watching over the last few weeks the episodes in Wisconsin. These were shocking. And many I think thought, well, maybe it has come to this. Unions aren't very popular and maybe people are ready to bash unions in just this way. But look what the polls are showing us.

The polls show, following Wisconsin, when there have been national polls about the standing of public employees and public employee unions, that Americans oppose weakening the bargaining rights of public employee unions by a huge margin, by a margin of 2-1, 60 percent to 33 percent. Only a slim majority, just a slim majority of Republicans favored taking away bargaining rights. It's as if Americans understand a right when they see one.

Now, bargaining rights are not like the rights of freedom of religion or freedom of speech.

But they're right up there on my list of six or seven rights that Americans believe, once you get, you are entitled to because you have gotten them democratically. You had to go worker by worker. You had to organize. And it looks as though there has been a horrific backlash from Wisconsin.

Indeed, now Americans, when asked how they would choose to reduce their own State deficits, having watched Wisconsin, say they prefer tax increases over benefit cuts for State workers by a margin of 2-to-1. That is what Wisconsin has given the country. It has laid bare what a frontal attack on a basic right means. And what it means is Americans are not for it.

We saw what happened in Wisconsin overnight, that through the tricks of parliamentary maneuvers they were able to, in fact, weaken the bargaining rights of Wisconsin workers. There is going to be a price to pay in Wisconsin, I believe, and I'm going to point to why.

The present Governor of Wisconsin came in with a six-point margin of victory. His polls show seven points behind now. Forty-five percent strongly approve of his performance. The man has only been in office a little more than 3 months. Public employees' unions, including teachers' unions in Wisconsin, now have favorable, positive ratings, 16 points higher than Walker's ratings.

The turnaround in Wisconsin I think tells us where the country is headed when they see the overreaching here in Washington and when they see the overreaching at the State level.

The Wisconsin results are just astounding. They fly in the face of everything Walker was doing. They are the classic backlash to overreach. The State's population now believes that Walker should reverse course and raise taxes on those making $150,000 a year. That's by a 72 percent to 27 percent margin.

There you have it. A kind of incubator in one State that I think, writ large, tells us where the country stands when it comes to public employees.

Now, the national poll found, not unexpectedly, that 71 percent of Democrats opposed weakening collective bargaining rights. But there was also almost as strong opposition from Independents--71 percent Democrats, 62 percent of Independents. And only a bare margin of Republicans were for weakening collective bargaining rights.

We know that when it came to Walker, there was no doubt what he was after, because the unions, seeing that the State was indeed in trouble, had a huge deficit, gave him what he desired in savings. And still he would not compromise. He held his ground, and in holding his ground, appears to have lost his State.

This is a turning point moment for the country. This is a moment that is sorting out those who linger on the extreme from those who have fought to find their way to the mainstream. And Wisconsin is a harbinger of what overreach will reap here in the House of Representatives as polls in Wisconsin show it has already done there.

Look what we have here. The President already announced a freeze, a 5-year spending freeze, on Federal employees in the State of the Union. They didn't like that. But that seems to have whet the appetite of Republicans for more and even more.

They come to the floor with bills that would furlough Federal workers for the 2 weeks, would impose an additional 1-year pay freeze, and cut 200,000 Federal jobs. There's another bill that would limit the ability of Federal workers to bargain collectively.

The bills just roll out of Republicans--a freeze, a cut in the Federal workforce by 15 percent. Don't you think somebody would want to look and see who the workers are before coming up with a number like that? Cutting agency funding to 2008 levels in 2012, as H.R. 1 does, and then to 2006 levels for the next 9 years. That would reduce most agency budgets by 40 percent.

I see that my good friend who has also cosponsored the resolution paying tribute to America's public and Federal employees has come to the floor, and I am pleased to grant her such time as she may desire.

The gentlewoman is making a very important and much misunderstood point with these comparisons between apples and bananas. Half of the Federal workforce, I learned, work in the nine highest paying occupation groups: judges, engineers, scientists, nuclear plant inspectors. That's half of the Federal workers. Less than a third of private sector workers work in these same nine top-drawer occupations. So when you hear these comparisons, you are not comparing comparable workforces. The private sector has categories we don't even have here like cooks and manufacturing workers.

So these comparisons that you speak of, I say to the gentlelady, could not be more important to distinguish. We are talking about the highest level workforce in the United States of America. And I will say to the gentlelady, I learned as well that there are far fewer of them than when I was a child. In 1953, there was one Federal worker for every 78 residents. Today, there is one for every 147. How did you go from one Federal worker for every 78 residents to one for every 147 residents? Productivity. This is a knowledge workforce. It is a workforce to die for.

I yield to the gentlelady from Maryland.

I thank the gentlelady, and I hope she will remain with us, because the gentlelady is pointing out distinctions that the public is largely unaware of. Some of these job categories that my friend from Maryland points to ought to be instructive: rocket scientists, VA nurse, park ranger, cancer researcher, prison guards.

It's interesting that the cooks in the Bureau of Prisons are probably paid more than the cooks in the private sector because they have supervision of prisoners, who also work in the kitchen. How do you measure that? You don't do it by throwing out a bunch of statistics, public versus private, and believe that that tells the whole story.

Now we are very pleased to be joined by the gentlewoman from Hawaii, our new Member from Hawaii, and I am pleased to grant her 5 minutes.

If the gentlewoman would yield, I think it's very interesting that we have on the floor Members from, perhaps, the most dense part of the Federal workforce, all the way to Hawaii. Eighty-five percent of Federal workers does not work in the Washington region. Ms. Edwards and I feel fortunate to live in the National Capital Region, but we by no means regard ourselves as representative of Federal workers. Every Member has Federal workers in her district. So, when you're bashing Federal employees, you'd better watch yourselves because you're bashing your own constituents.

Does the gentlelady from Maryland want to speak to that issue?

Mr. Speaker, may I inquire as to how much time I have remaining?

I am glad to yield to the gentlewoman from Hawaii.

They deserve just the opposite.

Far from scapegoating, it seems to me we ought to stand up

and salute Federal employees for what they're doing for this country now.

Ms. Edwards, you are probably also aware that we hear about the best and the brightest. The Federal workforce, now with many baby boomers, is eligible to retire, and there is absolute panic about whether or not we will ever see a workforce as good as the workforce we got in the post-Kennedy period. These were people who came fresh with all of the notions of the Kennedy era that public service was a wonderful thing, and they made their careers in the Federal service. Ninety percent of them could retire in the next 10 years. Now the whole world is open to them. They could go to the high-tech companies. They could go to Hawaii. They could go to California.

Will we be able to attract the best and the brightest right when we most need them--in an era when the country needs, on this side as well as on the military side, the very best talent we can find?

That's such an important point about translating them. Unlike what the Federal Government is required to do, the people who have been throwing around the comparisons don't do what the Bureau of Labor Statistics does. Now, this is very, very difficult work.

When the Bureau of Labor Statistics compares workers in the public and private sector, they have to, for example, look beyond the title of budget analyst. In the Federal Government, they may be dealing with a budget analyst who has oversight over multimillion-dollar agency budgets.

In the private sector, that may be somebody who is sitting in an office pushing papers, is qualified, but nowhere near the same kind of responsibility. What the Bureau of Labor Statistics does, and only the government can do this, because only the government has the resources, is to literally get into the weeds so that when you see the government statistics, those are the statistics to be trusted.

I have got to ask my good friend to help me as well on one of the great distortions, and that is on Federal benefits.

I think most Americans don't know that Federal employees pay for 30 percent of the cost of their health care. If you get dental and vision, you pay 100 percent.

If you have group life insurance, the employee pays 66 percent of the premium and the full cost of any additional coverage, and if you have, and many employees now have, Federal long-term care, 100 percent.

The Federal Government, yes, is a decent employer. It is by no means an overly generous employer. Just compare that to Fortune 1000, Fortune 500 employers and see if these employees who pay 30 percent of their health care premium are coddled. I don't think so.

Another issue that is often raised is contractors. One of the most astounding things about the Federal workforce, and some things should be done by contracting out, but there are more contracted, contracted Federal employees than there are Federal employees. When you are attacking Federal employees, you are attacking people who work in the agencies, who work, as my two colleagues have spoken in detail, work as a park ranger, who work as a rocket scientist.

But the invisible workforce is the contracting workforce. At the Department of Homeland Security, for example, we have 188,000 employees but there are 200,000 contracting employees working for the Agency. So if the public really wants to know where the money goes, they shouldn't be targeting the employee who stands up, has USA written across their chest, is proud to work for the Federal Government. They should look at the entire workforce, which turns out to be many, many contracted workers.

It's interesting to know that the President is cutting the number of contracted workers and expects to save $40 billion annually by, in fact, bringing that work in-house, so that we know who is performing it, we can measure them. We can get rid of the work we don't need. You contract the work out, it's gone, and it gets a life of its own.

This is such an important point. I would say to my friend from Maryland because, remember in Wisconsin, the public employees said, look, we will do our share. Yet the Governor insisted upon going at collective bargaining. Anyone who thinks public employees are not willing to do their share does not understand how unions operate.

If you have a workforce that needs to be downsized, if you have a workforce that needs to give up some of what it has for a period of time, the best way to deal with that workforce is through an agent that the workers trust. If the employer has no agent and simply goes in and does it, that becomes a deflating, morale-sapping exercise. Unions are very sophisticated. Unions operate within our capitalist system. They know when there's money on the table and when there's not. Unions are said to have been the major agent in creating the American middle class.

What do we mean by that? After all, there were businesses, automobile companies and managers. What we mean by it is that when that money was coming, when that revenue was coming to business, it was sitting across from a union who said, workers help produce this product, the revenue from this product should be shared with workers. Out of that came the great American middle class. That is why an automobile worker, for example, who didn't have a college education, could get a pension and could support a family.

And unions did this, yes, across the bargaining table; but in doing it for their own members, they spread it through the society, because then competitors had to meet the union wage. And so what happened was you got a great American middle class that you did not have before the unionization of American workers. And they deserve credit for that. Unions deserve credit for that. They don't deserve to be bashed.

I have to say to my good friend, I was never so gratified to read what the polls show us. And I indicated some of those figures when we began this special hour that 2-1, Americans oppose weakening the bargaining rights of public employees. After all that has happened in Wisconsin, instead of their reaping the whirlwind for it, American people understand what it means to take away a precious right, even a right some of them don't enjoy. And so they say they would rather have their taxes raised than to even weaken--weaken the collective bargaining rights of workers.

If that is not a lesson for the other side of this Chamber, which is overreaching in 1,000 different ways, nothing is. It is a bellwether of what is to come.

I want to thank the gentlelady for coming down. You make a very important point about the stagnation of the American standard of living. It correlates with the stagnation of the American labor movement. The stagnation of the American labor movement has everything to do with the difficulty under the National Labor Relations Act of organizing a union today.

When unions were first legalized in the 1930s, they were encouraged. Today, it is very difficult under the existing statute to organize a union; and I'm amazed that unions are still alive and kicking. But I must say what we've seen from Wisconsin is a national reawakening of the American trade union movement. I think unions are going to be able to organize in ways they would never have been able to organize without Wisconsin. Thank you, Governor Walker.

As I close this hour, I want to particularly thank my two friends from Hawaii and from Maryland for coming down to share this special hour with us. We think the least we can do is to, every once in a while, say to Federal employees and to public employees, we appreciate what you're doing.

President Obama perhaps said it best. I don't think it does any good, he said, when public employees are denigrated or vilified or their rights are infringed upon. We need to attract the best and the brightest to public service. These times demand it.

Again, I thank the gentlelady for coming forward.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to offer the District of Columbia Local Funds Continuation Act, to permanently protect both the 600,000 residents of the District of Columbia and the Federal Government from an unintended catastrophe in any future Federal Government shutdown. The bill would allow the District to spend its local funds at the start of a fiscal year if Congress has not approved the District's budget by such time and thereby avoid a District government shutdown if the Federal Government shuts down. Although the District raises and manages its own $8 billion budget, Congress technically appropriates these local funds back to the District, a holdover and throwback to the pre-home-rule period. Several years ago, Republican appropriators and I reached a bipartisan agreement to approve the District's local budget in the first continuing resolution, CR, allowing the District to spend at next year's level, if Congress has not passed the District's regular appropriation bill by the start of the fiscal year. We are grateful that this agreement has held through Democratic and Republican congresses and administrations. This agreement has enabled the District to operate its complex big-city functions more effectively than during the many years when the city's local budget was only approved months after the start of the fiscal year.

However, this year we see the limits of even this helpful agreement. As I speak, if the Federal Government shuts down when the current fiscal year 2011 CR expires on March 18, 2011, the District government would shut down as well, even though the city's local budget was forwarded to Congress on time last year. I am working with our Senate allies to permit the District to spend its local funds for the remainder of fiscal year 2011, but, regardless of whether the Federal Government shuts down this year, a permanent solution has become necessary to avoid disruptive, unintended consequences. The District of Columbia Budget Autonomy Act, to end the anti-democratic anachronism of Congress appropriating to the District its own local funds in the first place, is, of course, the best long-term solution, but today's bill is a critical stopgap measure.

The District urgently needs relief now because even more is at stake than the cessation of vital municipal services. If the District shuts down, it could default under certain financing agreements and leases. When Congress cannot reach agreement on regular appropriation bills, it often operates under successive CRs to avoid a Federal Government shutdown. However, successive CRs greatly hinder the operations of the District. Not only do they make it difficult for the city to plan its activities for the year, successive CRs greatly increase the city's costs of doing business. The city's partners, from Wall Street to small vendors, may charge it a risk premium due to the uncertainty created by successive CRs.

Members who were not here during the last Federal Government shutdown are probably unaware that the District government was forced to shut down, too. The District government had passed its budget months earlier, but Congress had not yet voted for final approval. I am grateful that after the first of several government shutdowns and partial shutdowns, Speaker Newt Gingrich and I worked together to ensure that the District remained operating.

Disputes over the Federal budget have nothing to do with the District's local funds. I do not believe that any Member wants to shut down the D.C. government and bring a large, complicated city to its knees because of a purely Federal matter. Moreover, D.C. residents are not alone in relying on vital District services. Federal officials, including the President, Federal buildings, foreign embassies and dignitaries, and businesses rely daily on the city's services, as well.

It is time we remove the District and the multiple, unintended consequences of a District government shutdown from Federal Government shutdown controversies. I urge my colleagues to support the bill.