Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (H.R. 521) to designate the facility of the United States Postal Service located at 2633 11th Street in Rock Island, Illinois, as the ``Lane Evans Post Office Building''.

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

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to join my colleagues and particularly the original cosponsor of this resolution, Mr. Hare of Illinois, in the consideration of H.R. 521, legislation naming a postal facility in Rock Island, Illinois, after former Member of Congress Lane Evans. This measure, sponsored by Mr. Hare, was unanimously supported by our committee and has the support and co-sponsorship of the entire Illinois delegation.

Mr. Evans proudly served our country as a Marine during the Vietnam War and was an outspoken voice for all veterans in the House of Representatives. During his 24-year political career, he sought aid for homeless vets, championed benefits for soldiers exposed to Agent Orange, and was an early critic of the Iraq War. He chaired the Vietnam-Era Veterans Caucus and was the ranking member of the Veterans Affairs Committee, where his service is fondly remembered.

Mr. Evans' ability to keep in close contact with his constituents made him an effective and compassionate legislator. He fought hard for working families and was a strong, progressive leader in the Congress. He continued his dedicated service while fighting Parkinson's disease for the past decade, and his presence is already very much missed in this Congress.

Mr. Speaker, I urge the swift passage of this bill.

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Hare), cosponsor of the bill.

Mr. Speaker, I just want to not only thank the gentleman from California but to just for the record state that in calling Mr. Hare I was calling him out of order. I was yielding him part of my time, because you, of course, by rights were entitled to the next speaker, and I appreciate your statement.

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Maine (Mr. Michaud).

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. McGovern).

Mr. Speaker, I am particularly pleased to grant the gentleman from American Samoa (Mr. Faleomavaega) 2 minutes, noting that in the Iraq war he has lost more than any other Member, more members from his district than any other district in the United States.

Therefore, I know he feels strongly about Lane, who devoted his entire time in the Congress to focusing on veterans and their needs.

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

Mr. Speaker, I have no further requests for time, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (H.R. 49) to designate the facility of the United States Postal Service located at 1300 North Frontage Road West in Vail, Colorado, as the ``Gerald R. Ford, Jr. Post Office Building''.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days within which to revise and extend their remarks.

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to join my colleagues in consideration of H.R. 49, legislation naming a postal facility in Vail, Colorado, after the late Gerald R. Ford, Jr.

President Ford helped ease a Nation during tense times. But even before he was President, he was widely known in this Chamber as a man of great integrity and openness. Although never elected to the office of President or Vice President, President Ford was appointed to mend a bruised American psyche and maneuver our country through the only Presidential resignation ever, to help end the Vietnam War, and to help ease rising inflation.

He succeeded, and for that extraordinary service to his country his legacy should be remembered by all in our country and throughout the world.

Mr. Speaker, I urge the swift passage of this bill.

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

Mr. Speaker, I have no further requests for time, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (H.R. 335) to designate the facility of the United States Postal Service located at 152 North 5th Street in Laramie, Wyoming, as the ``Gale W. McGee Post Office''.

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

I am pleased to join my colleagues in the consideration of H.R. 335, a bill naming a postal facility in Laramie, Wyoming, after former Senator Gale W. McGee.

As a three-term Democrat from Wyoming, Senator McGee played an important role in improving the Post Office and securing deserved benefits for Federal workers. He was an expert on foreign policy and helped push our country into its current role as a world power. During his senatorial tenure that stretched from 1958 to 1976, Senator McGee served on the Interstate and Foreign Commerce, Appropriations, Foreign Relations, and Post Office and Civil Service Committees. He went on to be appointed by President Carter as U.S. Ambassador for the Organization of American States, where he was a strong advocate for the 1978 Panama Canal Treaty. He later started a consulting firm that helped Caribbean and Latin American countries facilitate economic growth.

Prior to his political career, Senator McGee taught high school history and eventually became a professor at the University of Notre Dame. His dedication to service should be remembered by the Congress of the United States.

I urge swift passage of this bill.

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

Mr. Speaker, I have no further requests for time, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding, and for reminding this House of the bottom line.

The delegate vote resolution on the floor will confuse many, anger others, and needlessly divide the people's House about a right to vote settled by the Federal courts 14 years ago.

Mr. Speaker, during the 103rd Congress, I had just finished my freshmen year. When the Democrats were in the majority, I submitted a legal memorandum and requested and obtained the right to vote in the Committee of the Whole for the residents of the District of Columbia.

The House decided to include the other Delegates as well because we normally have all been treated the same. Of course, we had no objection.

The Democrats, however, sent the matter to outside attorneys and experts who confirmed that a Delegate vote would be constitutional, and the House acted.

The Republican minority then sued the House. However, the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia and the U.S. Court of Appeals both confirmed the constitutionality of the House's action in allowing Delegate voting in the Committee of the Whole, just as Congress had long done in subject matter committees created by the House.

The Republicans took control in the 104th Congress and withdrew the only vote the residents of the District of Columbia have ever had on the floor for more than 200 years.

I say to my friends on the other side of the aisle, there is nothing left to debate about. The courts have now spoken. You had your say. In a debate when the Democrats did it the right way, simply put it in the rules and allowed full debate, you debated then. You took it to the courts. You debated again, and you took it to the Court of Appeals, and you debated it again. If there had to be a debate, it should have been on January 4 when this Congress convened.

But for reasons I have not been able to find, it wasn't in the rules the way it was in the rules when I first got this vote. I want to be clear, this was a breakthrough for the District of Columbia when after my first term, I got this vote. My residents, seeing the first thing trotted out of this House now is not H.R. 328, for 4 years we have tried to get the full vote, but the vote I got 14 years ago, regard this as a setback for the District of Columbia.

This House and the Senate in 2006 reauthorized the Voting Rights Act of 1965. My friends, the D.C. vote is the Voting Rights Act of 2007, and we will be held accountable to enact this bill.

This is not my fight. The civil rights movement has spent 4 years, 4 years in actions all over America to get support for the full House vote for the District of Columbia. Most Americans expect that a vote for the District of Columbia will be the vote they see come from the House first. They are going to be completely confused.

I ask my colleagues on the other side of the aisle not to allow this needless debate to poison the atmosphere that Tom Davis and I have struggled to create for the last 4 years in a bipartisan bill for the full House vote for the District of Columbia.

The right to vote was taken out of the rules by the Republicans. If the Republicans took it out of the rules, it obviously was an obligation of the Democrats to put it back in. They had no alternative. Why not put it back in the rules? Why are we having to be drawn and quartered as Delegates out here? There are differences being drawn out here. Why is this debate dividing this House and seeking to divide the Delegates? Why is there a debate that divides me from my brothers and sisters who are Delegates? Why have you done this to us?

And don't you take the bait. Please don't take the bait. Respect the Delegates, not just me who pays Federal income taxes, but the other Delegates who fight and die in war disproportionately compared to the rest of us. What has my side done, giving the Republicans a nonissue?

Worse, they have subjected us to controversy and we don't want to be controversial. We want Delegates to be fully respected.

It is heartbreaking for me. This debate is entirely heartbreaking for me. As you know, this vote is not the full vote. That is what is heartbreaking. Look at the calendar. The calendar is empty because the committees are just organizing. Why isn't H.R. 328 the first bill out of the Democratic House? That is what I cannot explain to my constituents. They don't understand this debate. Somebody has got to come to this floor and tell me why I have to plead for the vote that the courts said I was entitled to 14 years ago.

It is time to go where we left off. Mark up at Judiciary Committee and let us get that vote out of here. For goodness sakes, you have got to give this vote to the Delegates. Move on.

The residents of the District of Columbia have been grateful for those Republicans who have supported our full House vote and for Democrats who have done so for so long.

The Delegate vote is unavoidable. Do it, get it done. But it is less than the full vote that the District of Columbia deserves and that you have supported. It does not set the standard have set for yourselves-- to have me to come to the floor to ask for a vote that I won 14 years ago. The standard we have to meet is the standard we set for ourselves.

Full voting rights for the District of Columbia.

Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding and for his gracious introduction and work on this debate.

The other side really doth protest too much. Most Delegate votes, of course, don't carry the day, so a revote is not necessary.

If the vote doesn't count, if the vote is only symbolic, then it certainly has not been worth 2 hours of votes to adjourn, as if the world was coming to an end. It certainly has not been worth the insults to the Delegates. It certainly has not been worth the disgrace to the House of Representatives to have Members of this venerable House come down and take to the floor to argue against the right to vote that has been upheld by the Federal courts of the United States. It certainly isn't worth besmirching your name in that way, and besmirching ours because that debate has occurred here.

The matter before us is no longer subject to debate in a political body in our political system because that matter has gone the full way in our system. And the courts in our system, my friends, have the last word in our system on matters of constitutional right. You have got to understand that.

Using regular order, Mr. Speaker, right after my freshman year I wrote a memo arguing for the Committee of the whole vote. The Democrats didn't handle this matter lightly. Nobody in 200 years had argued that Delegates should have a vote on the House floor; they sent the memo to outside counsel, then they subjected it to debate in the Rules. The first day of the 103rd Congress the Republicans argued strongly against the matter. And then they did something very unusual, they took the House to court and lost in the district court and the court of appeals. This is a system of laws in which we work.

They had two more times to debate in the courts, in the trial court and in the court of appeals. They finally had their way politically. They had their way, notwithstanding what the Federal courts had found, and they yanked the

authority, court-approved authority of Delegates to vote out of the rules the moment they came to power, showing no respect for the Delegates, and an insult to the Democrats who had tried to maximize participation in the people's House.

I was thrilled and grateful to get that vote then, I welcome the vote now, but it is very hard to be grateful to the House or anybody else for a vote you are entitled to. A vote that offers so little for Americans who have given so much should be hard even for the other side to resist.

The test for the 110th Congress is not the Delegate vote, however. The test is the District of Columbia House voting rights bill, where we left off at the Judiciary Committee.

I want to thank Representative Tom Davis and the cosponsors of that bill. I want to thank the Democrats. I can't go anywhere in my own caucus that they don't say, when are we going to get to vote on your full House bill?

The Democrats have devoted decades of energy to full voting rights. I ask that the House bring forward H.R. 328 so that the House can vote on a full House vote for the District of Columbia.

Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Illinois for yielding and for his early work on this bill, and I certainly thank the gentleman from Delaware, who has worked on this matter with me, which now this makes the fifth time. Indeed, this is the fifth time, and I am grateful that the House has been willing to come back time and again, that we will pass a bill to afford the five insular areas and the District of Columbia a quarter bearing a design of their choice on the reverse side. Inadvertently these Americans were excluded from the 50 State bill affording this same right to the States in 1998.

We owe very special thanks to successive committee and subcommittee Chairs and ranking members of the Financial Services Committee. We especially appreciate the new chairman,

Barney Frank, who reached out to us to put this bill for consideration by the House on the early suspension calendar.

Forty States have had their State designs on the reverse side of the quarter with four more States to be added before this year is ended. All the coins are minted according to the year each State ratified the Constitution of the United States or were admitted into the Union.

Although States have appropriate latitude, there are limitations as to what can be used as a design. According to the law, the Secretary of Treasury has the final approval of each design. The law gives clear guidance as to what is an acceptable design concept. Suitable design concepts include State landmarks, historically significant buildings, symbols of State resources or industries, official State flora and fauna, State icons, and outlines of States. Among the examples of suitable coins are many, New York's Statue of Liberty and the like.

This bill points out the importance of including all Americans in the symbols of American citizenship. The residents of the District and of the insular areas are full and equal American citizens. To leave them out of mere exercises of citizenship is to seem to deny the citizenship they revere and share with other Americans. The Americans who live in these areas have fought and died in our country's wars and have extraordinary records of service, particularly in the Armed Forces, in considerably larger numbers than many States. District citizens, in addition, pay Federal income taxes.

We in the Congress all represent proud Americans. There are, of course, significant differences between the States and the jurisdictions covered by this bill. However, qualification to be part of a program of quarter coins to commemorate congressional districts is not one of them. Under the Constitution all Americans are equal notwithstanding important differences in form, structure, and other significant distinctions. Today, by including all Americans, Congress avoids any appearance of differential or discriminatory treatment and any implication that these areas are colonies, never the intention when the five jurisdictions were not included in the original bill in 1998, as the House has made clear by repeatedly bringing this bill to the floor. Perhaps the other body this time is ready to grant us our citizenship.

Today, when our country is at war and faces unparalleled dangers, this bill is yet another example of our unity as Americans and our indivisibility in honoring all of our country's citizens. By repeatedly passing this measure, the House has made it abundantly clear that we are one country, and that our hope is that the Senate will join us.

Madam Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentlewoman from the U.S. Virgin Islands (Mrs. Christensen).

Madam Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from American Samoa.

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

Madam Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to the gentlewoman from Guam (Ms. Bordallo).

Madam Speaker, may I inquire how much time is remaining.

Madam Speaker, I cannot close without saying a word about the spirit in which the gentleman from Delaware has handled this matter. What is it, we are told 8 years. It was a quintessential moment of bipartisanship.

I was sitting in my office when the bill came to the floor, and staff came in and said the District of Columbia and the territories are not included in this coin bill. I ran to the floor and ran over to the gentleman. It is understandable, it is called 50 States, that it is easy to forget us I guess, and he assured us there had been no intention.

Madam Speaker, I had two choices. One choice was on suspension, as it is today, which was simply to ask my side to vote against it and it wouldn't have passed on suspension. The other side was to listen to what the chairman said, and what he said was that he would put this bill again on the floor. He, and for that matter his successor committee chairs and subcommittee chairs, has never wavered on putting this bill forward. Let us be clear that when we are talking about five times, we are talking about, shall we call them, the other body.

I point this out because I believe we owe the same reciprocal spirit of bipartisanship that, sir, you so kindly granted us. The fact is, this is such a small matter. That such a small matter can be so hurtful may not be understandable to others.

One way to understand it is the disproportionate service in the Armed Forces. I don't know why, but you have only to look at the statistics to be stunned by the disproportionate service in our Armed Forces of people from the District of Columbia and the insular areas. It is not because they during the period of the draft were more often drafted; it was a greater willingness to serve.

I want to say, Madam Speaker, in closing that a virtual unwritten rule of this House should be that no distinction not proscribed by laws ever be made among American citizens, particularly in the people's House. We will all be challenged, I hope shortly, on an entirely unrelated bill, not the bill that the gentleman from Delaware spoke of that is due to come to the floor on delegate voting, but yet another bill, a bill 200 years in the making, 200 painful years of service in the Armed Forces, of paying taxes without representation which are going to call Congress to account, especially my party, which has flooded this floor with statements of belief in the full voting rights of the people of the Nation's Capital.

To his great credit, Representative Tom Davis when he chaired the Government Reform Committee discovered a magic opportunity, that is the only word for it because it won't come again soon, that the State of Utah had barely missed getting a vote in the last census. And he came to me and suggested that we put Utah and the District of Columbia together just as Alaska and Hawaii came in the Union together, and precisely the only way we have increased representation in the House and the Senate, and that is through political balance.

It was an offer we couldn't refuse, but it took us 4 years of my negotiating with the Democrats who kept telling me what they wanted and Mr. Davis negotiating with Republicans who kept telling them what they wanted, and finally we got the bill through the Government Reform Committee 15-14. This is such an extraordinary bipartisan vote on a controversial bill, 15 Democrats, 14 Republicans voting for the bill, the Davis-Norton bill for a House vote. Not a vote in both Houses, my friends, a vote in the people's House, went to the Judiciary Committee, additional requirements made, they were fulfilled by the State of Utah.

Here, we have the most Republican State in the Union and a big city normally Democratic who come forward together, who are literally joined at the hip together, and say regrettably, although we thank the other side who took this almost to the floor, through two committees, didn't get it to the floor, my party has an obligation written in miles of rhetoric, written in their platform over many decades to bring the bill for the full vote for the residents of the District of Columbia to this floor.

I congratulate my colleagues on the other side who almost brought us home. Now, the challenge is to those who got up and pointed their finger at the other side about not doing enough, the finger is now pointed at us and the time has come. While this bill has nothing to do with that, if you represent the District of Columbia, if you were second per capita in Federal income taxes, if you had gone to Arlington during this war, if you had sat in churches during this war, then you would understand that any opportunity to remind this Congress, including my side, that the moment of truth has come and it has got to come in the 110th Congress for a seat for the District of Columbia this year. Meanwhile, we begin with an entirely noncontroversial ``yes'' symbolic bill. Let this bill pass the House.

I thank the Speaker, and I particularly thank my good colleagues for persevering with us. I hope we have set the tone for the 110th Congress.

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

I thank the gentleman for yielding to me. I particularly thank him for his remarks, because what I am going to talk about, the link I am going to try to make, he knows very well. I appreciate his linking Dr. King to the broad swath of issues for which he stood. How can you honor King without, in fact, talking about his issues.

Madam Speaker, recall the poor people's campaign on the Mall, and the gap between the rich and the poor that is greater today than when King lived, and recall the Vietnam war when his opposition was at high risk. Here we have a President attempting to escalate yet another war. But King's signature issue, my friends, was civil rights.

The House of Representatives must confront a civil rights issue that is 200 years old, the failure of the Congress of the United States for 200 years to grant equal rights to the citizens of the District of Columbia. Most recently, this has been a Republican failure. But Democrats are just as responsible. I would say more responsible in some ways, historically, than Republicans, because race was at the center of the denial. It was Democrats who stood in the way of home rule and a delegate for the District of Columbia. It was Democrats, however, who faced their racial failings 40 years ago, and, to their credit, became leaders in the fight for civil rights.

Yet, the majority African American District of Columbia remains without a vote despite Democratic Party platforms and countless statements, especially on this floor. Now is the time for Democrats to act to deliver. It is the last hope for years to come, a D.C.-Utah bill that delivers party parity, with great credit to my Republican cosponsor, who tried to deliver, great credit to my cosponsor, no partisan advantage.

Nonpartisan research reveals that a possible advantage occasionally raised is so de minimis that no credible argument can be made for further delay in failing to correct one of the most odious injustices in American history, 200,000 men and women in the District of Columbia sent to America's war since the creation of the Republic, second per capita of taxation without representation.

Dr. King held public officials on both sides of the aisle accountable. The only risk to Democratics on this issue is paying only lip service to his principles.

Mr. Speaker, yesterday the House lost one of its own. It is with great sadness and heavy heart that I rise today to honor the memory of Darrell Norman and his service to the House of Representatives.

Mr. Norman collapsed on these premises and died yesterday. Darrell Norman lived in the District of Columbia and served the institution with distinction and excellence as a senior technical support representative for more than 20 years. His colleagues tell us that they will miss his infectious smile and spirit. His daughter, Monea, actually interned in my office for part of 2004.

Kindhearted, professional, and dedicated are words used by Darrell's colleagues to describe him. He is known throughout the House as a person you can rely on to do whatever it takes to get the job done. He has earned the reputation as a person with calm demeanor, steady work ethic, and respect for everyone.

Darrell's kindheartedness and drive to serve others was reflected in his work and set a tone for collegial comradery with customers and colleagues.

His service to the House is respected by the Members, chairmen, officers, and staff that have benefited from his unwavering disposition and willingness to serve in any role needed.

Darrell was always willing to volunteer his time to assist others. His participation on the House emergency preparedness and response teams as a critical staff member was above and beyond his daily responsibilities.

Energy and enthusiasm were his trademark characteristics and earned him recognition as a ``CAO All Star'' for his ``can do'' attitude and living his philosophy to never say no. You could always count on Darrell.

Admired by the people who knew him and appreciated by those he served, Darrell was an exceptional role model. He received the CAO award for distinguished service in acknowledgement of his consistent and selfless service to the U.S. House of Representatives.

Keeping the House an important part of his life did not eclipse Darrell's pride in his children. His eyes would light up and his chest expanded every time he spoke of his daughter and son. Darrell is survived by his mother, Mary Norman, his younger sister Dorita Norman Smith, his younger brother Jeffrey Norman, his daughter Monea Hendricks and his son Darrell Norman, Jr.

It is a privilege to pay respects to a man who lived the spirit of unconditional service. On behalf of the entire House community, we extend our condolences to Darrell's family, friends and colleagues in mourning the loss of a special man.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material on the subject of my Special Order today.

Mr. Speaker, I have initiated this Special Order on behalf of the people of the District of Columbia who are second per capita in the Federal taxes they pay to support our Federal Government; yes, including this House and Senate and all the Armed Forces and our exquisite government throughout the United States, and who have fought and died in every war since the establishment of the Republic. In their name, I come forward.

I came forward Tuesday in a 5-minute Special Order simply to inform the House that I had just filed my vote, my bill, that is to say, refiled the bill that Representative Tom Davis and I had filed and hoped to pass in the 109th Congress, the Fair and Equal D.C. House Voting Rights Act. I came in gratitude to my own party. I came also in some frustration. It is impossible to hide that frustration.

I represent people who have been frustrated for 200 years and don't want one single moment more of frustration by having a second-class Member of the House of Representatives while paying first-class taxes and dying and fighting in every war that our country has ever fought, including this war where lives continue to be lost in such large numbers and for what cause. They do not ask, they simply fight like other Americans.

I had hoped to be able to vote on the very bills that have been in discussion here this week, particularly the bills on which Democrats ran and perhaps were responsible for our capture of the House. And my deepest regret was that my Committee of the Whole vote that was taken from me when the Democrats came to power was not automatically put back into the rules.

To his great credit, the majority leader indicates that he intends to introduce a provision to that effect. And I know I speak for myself and all of the delegates when I thank him about thinking about us and about how deeply we feel about that vote. For myself, I have come to the floor to say that I have had to pass that vote. I won't get to vote on the six items. I have been pleased to be able to speak on them as usual.

I am at this point moving forward to where I have been instructed by the people of the United States. They don't even want the Committee of the Whole vote confused with what they are entitled to, and that is the full House vote.

Mr. Speaker, before I go further, I have a number of people I must thank. The bill I introduced today was not a bill that I authored. It was originated by my good friend who also lives in the region, Representative Tom Davis of Virginia, who has grown up in the region and has seen the District of Columbia without a vote and believed that at least a vote on the House floor was virtually mandated by any Congress controlled by either party. He was in the majority and he initiated this idea because it came to his attention that the most Republican State in the Union had missed getting full voting rights, were chafing at that because they believed they were entitled and they had gone all the way to the Supreme Court to get them, and believed that this provided out what turns out to be the case, probably the only opportunity the District of Columbia will have to get its full voting rights in a very long time.

I want to thank the majority leader who lives in the region who has been one of the most steadfast proponents of D.C. voting rights and never gives up and who always stands with us and to whom we will be eternally grateful.

I have special thanks to Henry Waxman, the Chair of the Government Reform Committee, who has been the Democratic leader of the bill that I bring forward today for all 4 years which we have worked on it. He is always a strong supporter of District home rule and for District of Columbia voting rights. He was here years before I came to Congress, and I am second only to him in supporting these issues. He is one of the great problem-solvers of the Congress, and he has been instrumental in bringing this bill forward. It is impossible to believe it could have happened without Henry Waxman.

I want to thank the Democratic and Republican members of the Government Reform Committee, who in the 109th Congress literally gave us virtually a tie vote of Republicans and Democrats favoring this bill: 15 Democrats, 14 Republicans.

I want to thank Representative John Conyers, a founder of the Congressional Black Caucus, the dean of the caucus, who has carried this idea again long before I ever thought of coming to Congress.

At the same time, I want to thank my colleagues in the Congressional Black Caucus who since the founding days of the caucus have given D.C. voting rights a priority, who believe with me that it is an issue of discrimination based on race, and for that matter on location. I say that and will explain it later because of the origins of our voteless condition.

I want to thank Senator Joe Lieberman, who with many other Democratic Senators in the Congress have carried my bill for full voting rights for the residents of the District of Columbia, the No Taxation Without Representation Act. We have reluctantly but with great realism embraced the House-only act because we understand the spirit of the Congress, that it has virtually never acted all at once to do what it is supposed to do. So we know that we have to proceed in an incremental fashion.

I must thank my good colleagues from the State of Utah who have

worked hand in glove with me every step of the way: Jim Matheson, the only Democrat in that delegation; Rob Bishop and Chris Cannon who have thrown aside party lines and thrust themselves into this bill from the beginning.

I want to thank the two Senators from Utah, Orrin Hatch and Bob Bennett, who sent word to their leadership that they were prepared to have this bill come to the floor at the end of the 109th Congress for unanimous passage.

That would have happened, in my view, because the traditions of the Senate are that if a bill affects only one State, as a matter of Senatorial courtesy, the Senate defers to those Senators. It is heartbreaking that the 109th Congress punted the bill and robbed us of the opportunity to have that Senate vote in December.

I have to thank the Governor of Utah, who came here to testify for the bill and has worked valiantly with the Democratic minority in Utah as well as with his own party.

I do want to read from the letter that the Senators sent asking for the bill to be considered right away because, you see, the bipartisanship we must preserve in this bill. They said in their letter to their leaders, Leader Frist and Leader Reid, a letter signed by Senator Bennett, Senator Hatch and Senator Lieberman: ``It is urgent that Congress fulfill its obligation to provide the voting representation that Utah is entitled to as a result of changes to its population. Likewise, we recognize that the 600,000-plus Americans who live in the District of Columbia are without a voting Member of Congress. No doubt the citizens of Utah and the District face different challenges in greatly differing parts of the country and with greatly differing lifestyles, but they share a commonality: the right to be represented in our country's legislature.''

If ever there was a win/win piece of legislation, I think most Members would agree this is it. Certainly the American people agree: 82 percent of Americans support equal voting rights for the District of Columbia in Congress. That is 82 percent, up 10 percentage points in just 5 years.

This professional poll shows some astounding results because then you want to look and see, is this piled up all on one side of the country or one grouping or one race, and you see the same thing throughout. Once people realize you pay Federal income taxes, and if you go to war the way we do, if the blood of the United States runs in your veins, you give up on the question of whether there should be voting representation in the Congress of the United States.

All of the figures are in the high seventies or eighties. Northeast, Midwest. The South is the highest, 84 percent. Or if you look, at have a member of the military, they are 82 percent. These are people who believe in voting rights for the District of Columbia. Regularly attend religious services, 82 percent.

Ages 55-plus, 82 percent; 18 to 34, 87 percent ages. We can find no variation in these figures, and I don't think you will find any variation anywhere in the world.

This is the only country in the world where the residents of the capital do not have the right to vote in their national legislature. You can imagine why there is such great impatience in the District of Columbia. Imagine not having voting rights. Putting aside the taxes for a moment, when in the Vietnam War you had more casualties than 10 States, when in World War II you had more casualties than four States, and in World War I you had more casualties than three States, and in the Korean War you had more casualties than eight States.

Let me finally say a word about the bill, and I am so pleased to see other Members of Congress come to join me in this Special Order.

My thanks again to the originator, the author of this bill. As it turns out, he has given us the only chance we will ever have. The Congress of the United States in House and Senate has never increased its number except on a nonpartisan basis. Democrats have never got it by themselves, Republicans have never gotten it by themselves.

Everybody remembers Alaska and Hawaii. You want to know how deep this goes, slave States couldn't get in unless a free State could. That is the history of our country. I regret that there has to be that kind of equivalence, but I want everybody to know: Utah somehow disjoined from this bill kills it. So I thank Utah for giving us the only chance we will ever have, particularly since I am not sure that we will have another State ever that missed it by the skin of their teeth and would be willing to take this risk with us.

This bill was 4 years in the making after Mr. Davis introduced it. My thanks to him will be eternal because he was gracious in working with me when I wanted matters added to the bill. For example, I said to him, I could not even sponsor the bill unless it also went to the Committee on the Judiciary because that is the committee of jurisdiction. And it was Mr. Davis who convinced Mr. Sensenbrenner to allow us a markup.

I said that there had to be an increase of two seats so no Member would think that they would lose a seat because we were gaining a seat. And I asked for something that was purely symbolic but important to the residents of the District of Columbia: I asked Mr. Davis who was then chairman of the committee if there could be a vote on my bill, the No Taxation Without Representation Act, so my people will know that I will never give up until they have full citizenship even if Congress requires us to do it step by step.

But that is how we got home rule. Indeed, now we have the atrocious situation where my budget and laws have to sit here before we can spend our own money. So everything happens in this House incrementally.

Mr. Speaker, Members on the floor who have been particularly gracious to me, always with me when I needed help, and I have needed help a lot as a Member from the District of Columbia with no delegation and no Senators, and some of them have come down in order to indicate their concern about our denial of voting rights and to say their piece. I could not be more grateful to them.

I am told that the first to arrive was the gentlelady from the Virgin Islands, who is in perhaps not a comparable position because I am sure that the people of the Virgin Islands are glad not to have to pay taxes to the Government of the United States, but who indeed represents American citizens as free and full as any others in the House; and I am pleased she has come down this evening, Mrs. Christensen of the Virgin Islands.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlelady for coming forward.

Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Butterfield) who represents the district where my own mother was born and raised.

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank Mr. Butterfield, the gentleman from North Carolina, in memory of my mother, Vela Lynch Holmes, who came to the District of Columbia and died at 90 here, while her daughter was still trying, in the name of my father's side of the family, the native Washingtonians, to make us all first class citizens, the way finally you are in North Carolina. Thank you, sir.

I would like to yield now to my good friend who came in my class with me, the gentlelady from California, who 16 years ago came. I think we tripled or quadrupled the number of African American women in the Congress then. I know that the gentlewoman from California won't let this House have any peace until there is justice for the District of Columbia.

Mr. Speaker, this was classic Maxine Waters. The gentlelady is as gracious as she has always been militant in the pursuit of justice. Ms. Waters one session was on the floor with me for 10 hours on the DC Appropriations as people came forward to try to attach things to our appropriation. So she has been a stalwart friend that has been by my side when I most needed her. I particularly appreciate those remarks from a classmate who came with me to the Congress.

The next to arrive was my good friend from Illinois, Mr. Davis, a very good friend who serves with me on the Government Reform Committee, who I believe is going to chair the subcommittee on which I serve. He certainly has been a leader on issues on that committee and one of the greatly admired Members of the House, the gentleman from Illinois, Mr. Davis.

(Mr. DAVIS of Illinois asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

I just want to thank the gentleman for the kindness and graciousness of his remarks. This is his signature in this House. Every time he opens his mouth, he takes command of an issue and captures our attention. That he has given his attention to us in the District of Columbia is a matter for which we are deeply grateful.

I would like to yield now to the gentlewoman from Houston, Texas, whose energy and intelligence and zeal for justice is known by every Member of this House. I am pleased now to yield to the gentlewoman from Texas, Representative Sheila Jackson-Lee.

McMillan.

I want to thank the gentlewoman. The selfless spirit of her remarks, the intelligence of her remarks is nothing new in this body. Indeed, it reminds me of the same spirit she has shown when our own citizens from New Orleans came in huge numbers to her great city and they took them in, because they were Americans.

I also want to thank her for citing and reminding us that Martin Luther King's birthday is coming up and we are all going to be somewhere celebrating. Well, Martin Luther King would be here saying to this House, particularly to the Democratic majority who has spearheaded this issue for decades now, that now is the moment. Do it now. That is what he said when he was on the Mall. Do it now. Freedom now.

Indeed, the new Mayor of the District of Columbia, Adrian Fenty, who has been particularly active on voting rights, has indicated to me that he will be dedicating January 15 here in the District to DC voting rights and kicking off a campaign on January 15 that he calls Give DC The Vote Now Day in memory of Martin Luther King, who would not want his day used in such trivialities as simple ceremonies.

I also want to thank the gentlewoman for her reference to Mr. McMillan. Because the fact is the reason the District hadn't gotten home rule had to do with race and only with race. Mr. McMillan was a Southern Democrat who stood in the way, because beginning in the late 1950s the majority population of the District of Columbia was African Americans. So race has always stood in the way of our full empowerment. Today, it is as likely to be party. That is why we are grateful to the State of Utah for stepping forward.

I don't mean to say that race is gone from this issue. Residents of the District of Columbia, two-thirds of them African American, see this issue as an up-and-down civil rights issue. They are the only African Americans in the United States that don't have their full civic rights, and they know it, and they treat this issue this way.

I treat race as a simple proxy for party, because we are a big city, recognizing as I do that I know full well what second-class citizenship means. And you have to understand that the reason this is important for the District is not only was it a majority black city beginning in the late 1950s, but it was a segregated city for most of its existence. The schools were segregated. Even when I went to the schools in the District of Columbia. Downtown was segregated. And that was all at a time when Democrats in particular ran this House.

That is why this issue knows no party and why it has huge racial connotations in our country and in the District, and that is why this is a major issue and has been for decades for the NAACP, the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights, and civil rights organizations across the United States.

They indicate that voting rights for the District of Columbia is second only on their agenda to what this House and Senate achieved on a bipartisan basis last year, and that is the reauthorization of the 1965 Voting Rights Act.

I want to say that, just by point of clarity, I introduced the same bill, essentially, that I had introduced before. That bill had a map in it that had been approved by Democrats and Republicans because Mr. Sensenbrenner, then the Chair of the Judiciary Committee, at the last minute said that he would not accept a compromise that we had all fashioned, that Utah, that our leadership, on both sides agreed to, and that was that there be an at-large seat so there would be no redistricting. The redistricting issue had been a very thorny issue because there is only one Democrat in Utah. He has been the target of gerrymandering. Nobody wanted that on the table any longer. And therefore, we came forward with a compromise of an at-large seat. Mr. Sensenbrenner insisted upon redistricting.

Let me say, the people of the District of Columbia don't care one way or the other, whether it is at-large or redistricting the at-large. The redistricted seat there apparently is perfectly satisfactory to both sides. Whatever is easy, whatever gets me to sit in this seat as something other than the way I sit today, as a second class citizen, is acceptable to us. What we want is the vote, and we want our voting rights in the 110th Congress.

I do want to say that we haven't given up on full citizenship, and we never intend to. But we recognize the way in which the House has always operated, and that is incrementally.

It was not until 1967 that we incrementally began to give this, move this District toward having self government, would you believe. It had no mayor. It had no city council because it had been governed since the 19th century by three commissioners appointed by the President of the United States; 800,000 people then living as a straight out colony in their own Nation's Capital.

Lyndon Johnson abolished the commission and appointed a council. Then, in 1968, they gave the District the right to vote for their own board of education. Then, in 1970, the District got the right to vote for a delegate. And my good predecessor, a man who fought valiantly for our full rights, Walter Fauntroy, became the first Delegate. And then, finally, in 1973, the Home Rule Act itself was enacted, and the District got the right to elect its own city council and its own mayor. And notice, that is 32 years ago only that your Capital has even had the right to self government.

All of this is a real scar on our democracy. The scar has to be taken off of this House and can be this year; and we ask that that be exactly what the House does.

We remind the House that change for the District of Columbia only came at the Civil War, a true indication of the way race has decided matters in the District of Columbia.

My own people came to this city through my great grandfather, a runaway slave. He was in Washington in 1862 when Congress abolished slavery here.

But it is very interesting to note, when you see where the parties stand, that in 1848, when this House was controlled by the Democrats, the Democrats did give the District some home

rule. But it gave it the right to have its own Board of Assessors, this is like a council, and voting rights to all white male voters.

It took the radical Republicans, the abolitionist Republicans, to grant black males the right to vote, and that was in 1867. That was the proud history of the Republican Party. And we will never forget the roots of that party, Abraham Lincoln, the first Republican President, the President that abolished slavery, first in the District of Columbia, then of course, led our country to the abolition of slavery nationwide.

It was in 1878 that this notion of government, not by this self government that had been set up for white males by the Democrats, that the Republicans had converted so that everybody who could vote in the United States could then vote.

By the way, you notice women were not given the right to vote then, but they didn't have the right to vote anywhere.

But what happened in 1878, when Reconstruction came forward, when the reaction to the Civil War came forward, then we had the Congress, obviously, in the hands of Democrats again, providing that the District of Columbia be governed, not by a self government, as had been allowed, but by these Presidentially appointed commissioners who were, in fact, the government of the District of Columbia until 1974.

Mr. Speaker, occasionally you will hear some opposition to our bill based on the Constitution. Every other day somebody raises a constitutional issue about some bill that comes to the floor. And we concede that there is some division of opinion on whether or not Congress can give the District the right to vote through the Constitution, or whether it would take a constitutional amendment, as has been tried in the past, but the requisite number of States did not also ratify.

On the basis of very respectable constitutional opinion, and we are certain that the bill is constitutional under Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution, Congress has full plenary power over all matters relating to the District of Columbia. We are certain that Congress can have the right because we are certain that that is what the framers intended.

When the Constitution was ratified in 1789, it clearly contemplated that the vote would, in fact, be enjoyed by the people of the District of Columbia. Everybody lived in a state then, including the people of the District of Columbia. But notably, the citizens living on the land designated by the Constitution, in the Constitution itself, as the District, continued to have voting rights until 1801, because that land had been given to the Federal Government by Maryland and Virginia.

When 1801 occurred, and the land came under the total control of the Congress, only Congress could step forward and say, now that you are under our jurisdiction, we just want to assure that you still, you have not lost your voting rights by becoming the Nation's Capital. And the people of the District of Columbia so petitioned, and Congress failed to act. Therein lies the fatal flaw. Congress did not act. But you certainly can't blame that on the Framers.

Imagine, would Maryland and Virginia have conceded the land to create the District of Columbia if they thought they were disenfranchising their own citizens? Impossible. And the Framers themselves indicated that everybody in the United States would have their rights. So we are quite confident that the bill is constitutional, although you will hear words to the contrary from time to time.

We are also confident that if we were to decide to use the at-large seat, as opposed to the map that is agreeable now, that that would be constitutional because every voter in the State of Utah, only for a very short time, because it then could revert, as the State desires, to the present system from an at-large system; but every voter in Utah would have the same equal right with no dilution of that right to elect this at-large member for such period as the State chose to have it.

These issues have been thoroughly vetted, and we have constitutional authority that I think the House would find persuasive. And I ask to be able to enter into the Record the testimony of Kenneth Starr, who testified to the constitutionality of the bill. This constitutional lawyer, respected by all for his constitutional background, even as he is regarded as controversial, perhaps that controversial side of his career helps to explain that this bill must be constitutional. And I thank Mr. Starr, and will submit that for the Record.

[From the Washington Post, Sept. 17, 2006]

Congress Has the Authority to Do Right by D.C.

(By Kenneth Starr and Patricia M. Wald)

More than 40 years ago, the Supreme Court declared that

``no right is more precious in a free country than that of

having a voice in the election of those who make the laws

under which, as good citizens, we must live.'' And yet, for

more than 200 years the citizens of the District have been

denied this right because they have no voting representation

in Congress. To its credit, Congress is taking steps to begin

correcting this longstanding injustice.

Specifically, the House Government Reform Committee has

approved, and the House Judiciary Committee is considering, a

bill that would give D.C. residents the right to full voting

representation in the House. While conferring this right is

surely the right thing to do, a legitimate question has been

raised concerning Congress's authority to confer the right by

simple legislation, rather than through constitutional

amendment. We have carefully considered this question and

believe for three reasons the bill is within Congress's

authority: It is consistent with fundamental constitutional

principles; it is consistent with the language of Congress's

constitutional power; and it is consistent with the governing

legal precedents.

First, interpretation of Congress's Article I legislative

authority should always be guided by the fundamental

principles upon which the nation and the Constitution were

founded. Those principles include a commitment to a

republican form of government and to the proposition that the

laws enacted by the legislature should be based on the

consent of the governed. There is nothing in our

Constitution's history or its fundamental principles

suggesting that the Framers intended to deny the precious

right to vote to those who live in the capital of the great

democracy they founded.

Second, Congress's specific power over the District of

Columbia is one of the broadest of all its powers. In the

words of the Constitution, ``Congress shall have power . . .

to exercise exclusive legislation in all cases whatsoever''

over the District. In a 1984 case decided by the U.S. Court

of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, on which we both sat, Judge

Abner Mikva noted that through this constitutional provision,

the Framers gave Congress ``a unique and sovereign power''

over the District. In that same case, Judge (now Justice)

Antonin Scalia wrote that the broad language of the power

gave Congress ``extraordinary and plenary'' power over our

nation's capital. And in another case, that same court held

that this broad power gave Congress authority to ``provide

for the general welfare of citizens within the District of

Columbia by any and every act of legislation which it may

deem conducive to that end.'' It is hard to imagine a

broader, more comprehensive congressional power than this;

and it is also hard to imagine that the power could not be

used to advance a fundamental principle of our Constitution--

that the right to vote should be extended to all citizens.

Finally, and equally important, the most analogous legal

precedent addressing Congress's authority over the District

confirms that Congress can act now to give the vote to D.C.

residents. That precedent concerned the fact that Article III

of the Constitution confers on federal courts jurisdiction to

hear suits brought by citizens of different states against

each other. But the Constitution did not give any such

express jurisdiction over suits brought by or against

citizens of the District of Columbia. As a result, Congress,

relying on its broad Article I power over the District of

Columbia, remedied that unfairness through legislation that

extended the right to District residents. In a 1949 case

called National Mutual Insurance Co. v. Tidewater, the

Supreme Court upheld that extension and also said that

Congress was entitled to great deference in its determination

that it had power to address this inequity. The logic of this

case applies here, and supports Congress's determination to

give the right to vote for a representative to citizens of

the District of Columbia, even though the Constitution itself

gives that right only to citizens of states.

It is not a surprise that our Constitution, ratified in

1789, contemplated that the right to vote would be enjoyed

only by ``the people of the several states.'' After all, in

1789, all U.S. citizens lived in a state. It was not until

1801, when the process Congress authorized by statute in 1791

to create the District out of lands ceded by Virginia and

Maryland was completed, that District residents lost their

federal voting rights. There is no reason to believe the

Framers intended for this to happen. And in any case they

gave Congress power to address the problem. Congress has

initiated a process to do so, and we urge it to quickly

complete the task. As George Washington said in his first

inaugural address, the American people are entrusted with

``the preservation of the sacred fire of liberty and the

destiny of the republican model of government.'' It is time

to extend that model to the citizens of the nation's capital.

There might be some opposition based on the notion that

Utah gets one more electoral vote if they get a vote. Now, mind you, Utah is going to get that at some point anyway, probably in the near future. But there is some concern that Utah might get that vote now. And we have the kind of situation that people most fear ever since the 2000 election, that there would be some kind of tie or some kind of dispute; we would have no longer a tied number of electors from Democratic and Republican States; and then you would have Utah with one more vote.

Well, this is an issue that we asked a nonpartisan group about that doesn't think, that has a different view of how the present system operates in any case. The nonpartisan group is called Fair Vote, the Center For Voting and Democracy. It is not affiliated with the District of Columbia or with any party.

Apparently, it believes that the national popular vote plan for President is how we should proceed. So they certainly are not making a case for us in any particular way.

But it is important to note what they say about our bill and whether our bill could, in fact, result in a crisis based on the fact that Utah got one new electoral vote. And I am quoting: ``Our estimation of the odds of the District of Columbia Fair and Equal Voting Rights Act directly contributing to a Republican victory in the 2008 Presidential race is,'' they say the odds are, ``approximately 400-1,'' or, in other words, one chance in 1,600 presidential elections.

I want the Member to stand up who would, on this scintilla of a chance, prefer to see us go without the only chance we have to get a vote now or in the foreseeable future.

I want to thank the House for affording me this time, and the time of the Members who have been gracious enough to come and speak on this issue this evening. It is time that, for us, has been invaluable, simply to let the Members of the House know how deeply we feel that the time is on overtime to grant the people of the District of Columbia their House vote now, in this Congress, the 110th Congress.

Madam Speaker, for the fourth time, the House has passed a bill to afford five insular areas and the District of Columbia a quarter bearing a design of their choice on the reverse side. Inadvertently, these Americans were excluded from the 50-State bill affording this same right to the States in 1998.

We owe very special thanks to the successive committee and subcommittee chairs and ranking members on the Financial Services Committee. We especially appreciate the new Chairman Barney Frank who reached out to us to put this bill for consideration by the House on the suspension calendar.

Forty States have had their State design on the reverse side of the quarter with four more States to be added before this year is ended. All the coins are minted according to the year each State ratified the Constitution of the United States or were admitted into the Union. Although States have appropriate latitude, there are limitations as to what can be used as a design. According to Public Law 105-124, the Secretary of the Treasury has the final approval of each design. The law gives clear guidance as to what is an acceptable design concept. Suitable design concepts include State landmarks, landscapes, historically significant buildings, symbols of State resources or industries, official State flora and fauna, State icons, and outlines of States. Among the examples of suitable coins already in circulation are, New York's Statue of Liberty, Missouri's depiction of Lewis and Clark as they paddled down the Missouri River with the Gateway Arch in the background and North Carolina's design depicting the first successful airplane flight. We look forward to the day when the residents of the District of Columbia and of the insular areas can see similar symbols of their jurisdictions and of their American citizenship appear on coins as well.

This bill points out the importance of including all Americans in the symbols of American citizenship. The residents of the District and of the insular areas are full and equal American citizens. To leave them out of mere exercises of citizenship is to seem to deny the citizenship they revere and share with other Americans. The Americans who live in these districts have fought and died in our country's wars and have extraordinary records of service in the Armed Forces in considerably larger numbers than many States. District citizens, in addition, pay Federal income taxes.

We in the Congress all represent proud Americans. There are, of course, significant differences between the States and the jurisdictions covered by this bill. However, qualification to be part of a program of quarter coins to commemorate congressional districts is not one of them. Under the Constitution, all Americans are equal, notwithstanding important differences in form, structure and other significant distinctions. Today, by including all Americans, Congress avoids any appearance of differential or discriminatory treatment and any implication that these areas are colonies, never the intention when the five jurisdictions were not included in the original bill in 1998, as the House has made clear by repeatedly bringing this bill to the floor.

Today, when our country is at war and faces unparalleled dangers, this bill is yet another example of our unity as Americans and our indivisibility in honoring all of our country's citizens. By repeatedly passing this measure, the House has made it abundantly clear that we are one country and that our hope is that the Senate will join us.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding.

Everybody gets a pay raise, Mr. Speaker, except those who need it most, those who work for thousands of dollars below the poverty level. Small business has gotten the benefit of tax cuts and incentives for years, but the least-paid workers have gotten zero increase. The middle class is screaming about health care costs. Most of these workers don't have any health care. Don't get sick on the minimum wage. And not only the 10 percent of the workforce on the minimum wage will benefit. Other low-wage workers will also get a bump-up as a result.

This should be a matter of conscience. How could we look past these workers for almost 10 years? They serve us at the worst jobs with the lowest pay.

Let me remind us welfare is term limited. These mothers go straight on to minimum wage jobs. Do the family values people really want single mothers to continue to work two jobs just to get food on the table? Believe me, these mothers won't hit the jackpot with this small increase.

Madam Speaker, today Government Reform Committee Ranking Member Tom Davis (R-VA) and I keep our promise to reintroduce the Fair and Equal House Voting Rights Act as our first bill of the 110th Congress. Republican Davis was the chair of the Committee when we worked together for 4 years to get Republican and Democratic agreement on this bill to give one voting representative to the mainly Democratic District of Columbia and another to the largely Republican State of Utah. The idea arose after Utah narrowly missed getting a seat following the last census and later failed to get the Supreme Court to rule in the State's favor. The bill also would permanently increase the size of the House of Representatives from 435 to 437 members. I want to thank my colleague Tom Davis, the original author of the bill, for his indispensable persistence, and for his bipartisan spirit that afforded me every opportunity to significantly contribute to the bill during the 109th Congress, when he was in the

Republican majority and I was a minority member.

Democrats have long been outspoken in their commitment to D.C. voting rights, and I appreciate their unwavering support. The bill we introduce today reflects the political history of our country that inalterably demonstrates that additional representation has been granted only on the basis of exact political equivalence, assuring neither benefit nor disadvantage to either party. This bill meets the necessary standard. Party, of course, should not matter when it comes to a democratic right as basic as representation in the legislature that taxes citizens and sends them to war. However, it is the undeniable reality that party equivalence in one form or another has driven decisions for adding voting representation. Many remember the most recent additions of Alaska and Hawaii, when these States entered the union because their voting records eliminated party advantage. However, this pattern was set throughout the nineteenth century as each State entered the union, most dramatically, of course, when no slave State could be admitted unless a free State came in at the same time.

Preserving all their rights as American citizens to voting rights in each house, the people of the District of Columbia and our civil rights and civic allies have nevertheless concluded that there can be no serious attempt to achieve the vote for our citizens that ignores precedents woven so tightly into our history. The linchpin of this legislation is its bipartisan balance, and we are grateful for the rare opportunity we believe will not come again soon, but that the Utah-D.C. bill offers District citizens now, to follow the unerring path to the vote laid out by American history.

A similar bill approved by the Committee on Government Reform last May called for the additional seat in Utah to be at-large until the 2010 census, but when the bill was referred to the Judiciary Committee, then-chairman James F. Sensenbrenner, Jr. (R-WI) insisted that Utah adopt a redistricting plan that allowed for four seats before he would approve the bill. The Utah's legislature met in early December and quickly adopted a four-seat plan, which is provided for in today's bill. However, House leadership declined to address the issue in the closing days of the 109th Congress. We now seek our seat to vote in the 110th Congress.

Although we came close to securing passage in the 109th Congress, the District's vote was already long past due. We're in overtime in the 110th. We will proceed based on the same win-win approach that carried us through last Congress. In the spirit of the partnership promised by the new Democratic House majority, I am optimistic that Democrats will see the bill as a historic opportunity to make good on promises for voting rights and equality for the people of the District of Columbia.

Finally, I ask to be forgiven a personal allusion. Throughout this process, I have never referred to the District's vote as my vote or to what the vote would mean to me personally because the vote will not belong to me. I have never mentioned the special reason I personally wanted to be the first to cast the vote because the Fair and Equal House Voting Rights Act is for D.C. residents now and in the future, not for me. However, my 16 years in Congress has been defined by the search for a way to achieve full representation for the city where my family has lived since before the Civil War. That search has included the two-day debate followed by a vote on statehood more than 10 years ago that Speaker Tom Foley afforded me, and the vote I subsequently won in the Committee of the Whole because of the long commitment of the Democratic majority to D.C. voting rights and the commitment of my party to maximize the rights of the citizens who live in the Nation's capital until voting rights could be achieved. The struggle has been driven by its own terms, by the here and now, by the residents of the District of Columbia for over 200 years. Yet, I cannot deny the personal side of this quest, epitomized by my family of native Washingtonians, my father Coleman Holmes, my grandfather, Richard Holmes, who entered the D.C. Fire Department in 1902 and whose picture hangs in my office, a gift from the D.C. Fire Department, and especially my great-grandfather, Richard Holmes, a slave who walked off a Virginia plantation in the 1850s, made it to Washington, and began our family here. I cannot help but think today of this man I never knew, a slave in the District until Lincoln freed the slaves here 9 months before the Emancipation Proclamation. I am mindful of my great grandfather, who came here in a furtive search for freedom itself, not the vote in Congress. I wonder what a man who lived as a slave in the District, and others like him would think if he could know that his great-granddaughter might be the first to cast the first full vote for the District of Columbia in the House of Representatives. I hope to have the special honor of casting the vote I have sought for 16 years. I want to cast that vote for the citizens of this city, whom I have had the great privilege of representing, who have fought with me every step of the way, and who have waited interminably for justice. Yes, and I want to cast that vote in memory of my great-grandfather, Richard Holmes.

Mr. Speaker, I come to the House to inform the House that I have today filed a bill to give full voting rights in this House to the people of the District of Columbia, who are second per capita in the Federal income tax they pay to support this government, this House and this Senate, and who have fought and died in every war since the creation of a Republic, including the outrageous war where we now serve.

I come in gratitude that the House is now governed by my own party, which for decades has supported not only what my bill today would afford, a vote in the House, but a vote in both Houses, and I come to thank my own caucus for that support. But I also come in some frustration and with

some impatience. I come in frustration that I am still a second-class citizen in my own House.

Until I can represent the people of the District of Columbia as a full American citizen, this frustration and impatience will continue.

I had hoped to be able to vote on the bills we all ran on that are now before the House. I came to speak today, but once again, when the vote came, I could not vote. I couldn't vote because I was not even allowed the vote in the Committee of the Whole that I won when the Democrats were last in power.

My people in the District have chastised me for even trying to get the Committee of the Whole vote. They perhaps recognize that it is a hubris that I wished at least to vote in this House as we convened, and they are perhaps right. They tell me, we are not in any way interested in another second-class vote, Eleanor. It is time for first-class rights for the people of the District of Columbia.

So I accept their chastisement and pledge to them that I will not rest, now that Democrats are in power, until Democrats do as they have always said, that they sought power to do, to give votes to the people of the District of Columbia.

I have tried everything, I have tried statehood, I have tried Committee of the Whole. It is time to try the real thing, Mr. Speaker, when there are 650,000 people who pay their taxes and have met every obligation, and are not recognized as citizens in their own House and send somebody to the House that is not even recognized to vote on this House, not even in the Committee of the Whole.

I come to express their frustration, to say I am leaving all that behind. I have introduced the bill they want. I accept their chastisement. We want our votes. We want it in the 110th Congress, and we want it now. I speak for them as a woman who knows what it means to be a second-class citizen, and who, once she left the District went to law school, said, I shall never again be a second-class citizen. Yes, I grew up in segregated schools in this town, in segregated Washington. That is what it meant to be a second-class citizen. Now to be a second- class civics citizen, after 200 years, has become too much to bear.

So I have introduced a bill to make it absolutely clear, as my people have said I must do today, that there is boiling determination among the people of the District of Columbia to get this vote. Not in January. We have respected the right of the Congress to come forward with the bills that are of great importance to the country, but those of us who believe that the vote is basic, is basic to Democrats, is basic to America, I believe we should move on after January and finally keep the promise that at least Democrats have made to the House and that I commend Republicans for getting us very close to in the 109th Congress.

This is the 110th, Mr. Speaker. This is the moment of truth. This is the moment when the Democrats have not only the opportunity, but the obligation to give a vote in the 110th Congress to the people of the District of Columbia.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to join my colleagues in honoring the service of a highly effective and respected 24-year Member of Congress, on the occasion of his departure. I am grateful that I have been able to serve with Congressman Lane Evans, who has long been a champion of working people and will always be remembered as a special champion of our Nation's veterans. The American people and our veterans are particularly fortunate indeed that Congressman Evans served as ranking member of the House Committee on Veterans Affairs, beginning in 1995.

I associate myself with the remarks of my colleagues, who have spoken of Lane's many accomplishments during his tenure here. He has adroitly used his legislative skills and concern to the benefit and well-being of the American people during his entire service, but his single-minded concentration on veterans' issues made that in many ways his very own issue. Lane's experience in the Marine Corps, his service in Vietnam, and the affects of military service on the families of enlisted men and women never left Lane Evans.

Over the course of his career, Congressman Evans led a successful effort to pass legislation compensating Vietnam veterans for diseases linked to Agent Orange exposure, secured passage of legislation that provides health and compensation benefits for children of veterans exposed to Agent Orange, and cosponsored legislation to ban the use of antipersonnel landmines which kill and maim people worldwide. It is no wonder that Congressman Evans was named the recipient of the Vietnam Veterans of America's first annual Presidents Award for Outstanding Achievement, as well as the prestigious AMVET Silver Helmet Award.

I am pleased and proud to have served with Congressman Lane Evans. I am certain that constituents and family are especially proud of his many accomplishments. Lane goes home with the best wishes and gratitude of Republicans and Democrats alike in this House.