Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, today I am pleased to introduce the District of Columbia Tax Incentives Improvement Act of 2006. The legislation builds on and adds to federal tax incentives I first got through Congress in 1997 in order to help produce residential and business stability and growth. These tax credits have surpassed the city's highest hopes with a renewed and replenished residential and business tax base to show for it. However, this bill is necessary if this growth is to continue to make up for the fact that the District is not a state.

Studies and investigation by experts widely agree that the D.C. credits have been very successful and have been the single most important factor both in stemming residential flight and in stimulating commercial development in the applicable neighborhoods. However the changes are appropriate to: reduce but target the credits to poor neighborhoods not yet reached; increase the efficiency of the incentives; achieve increased leverage from city and other federal resources; and provide more incentive to purchase homes given the large increase in housing prices in the District.

The legislation would extend the life of the D.C. Enterprise Zone (EZ) Benefits to 2009 to put the District on par with the other cities that have empowerment zones and will allow the city to fully realize and assess the effectiveness of the incentives and eliminate the continuing uncertainty that has plagued the program. There was a disruption of economic activity and planning by the business sector when Congress did not immediately renew those provisions that expired at the end of 2003. The District is experiencing this setback again as H.R. 4297, the Tax Reconciliation Act of 2005, has not yet been passed and the District tax provisions are extended in that bill.

The improved EZ incentives will target the areas of greatest need; align the Zone boundaries with areas designated for concentrated investment by the Mayor's Great Streets Initiative; and more effectively connect the unemployed with job opportunities by limiting the Employment Credit to those businesses that employ persons residing in those census tracts that have unemployment rates twice that of the national average.

The legislation also asks for a triple tax exemption for District bonds which would allow the District to issue bonds at lower interest rates and put D.C. on par with other ``stateless'' jurisdictions, including Puerto Rico, Guam and the Virgin Islands, with no loss of revenue to the federal treasury. Currently, bonds issued by the District are exempt from federal and District taxes, but subject to taxation by state and local governments for bondholders located outside the District.

With the first-time homebuyer tax credit, this bill raises the $5,000 credit for a first-time homebuyer in the District to $10,000 to help meet sharply increased home prices that are driving many lower middle and middle income taxpayers from the city. Senator Trent Lott raised the amount in the Senate bill several years ago, but that bill did not pass the House. The homebuyer credit and the economic development occurring in the District have been almost entirely responsible for significantly stemming taxpayer, residential and business flight, bringing both in significant numbers to the District. However, the improvements in my bill are essential if the District is to achieve the 100,000 new residents necessary to sustain its stability that the former D.C. control board said was necessary.

The federal tax incentives provided under the Enterprise Zone and homebuyer credit programs will be critical to the continuation of the District's essential fiscal partnership with the federal government, which seeks to diversify the D.C. economy, reverse the continuing rise in the unemployment rate in significant portions of the city, strengthen and diversify the District's narrow tax base, and address its structural fiscal imbalance.

The D.C. Enterprise Zone tax incentives and the homebuyer credit alone cannot solve these problems. But by extending and improving these measures, Congress can continue to make a low-cost, efficient and effective contribution to the District's economic well being.

Mr. Speaker, it has become necessary to introduce a bill that is necessary for the Superior Court of the District of Columbia to function as Congress intended. Federal law requires that judges of the Superior Court and the District of Columbia Court of Appeals, Article I Courts, to be nominated by the President and approved by the Senate. This bill, which is the companion bill to S. 2068 introduced by Senator Susan Collins, will increase the number of Superior Court judges by 3 to 61 in order to allow the Superior Court to function at the 58 judge level approved by Congress. However, after the establishment of the new Family Court Division, the Superior Court was temporarily increased by three in order to assist the transition because Congress wanted to assure a full complement of family court judges. However, no permanent authorization reflecting the changes was approved. Consequently, as judges have retired or otherwise moved on, the President has continued to make nominations to fill each judge's seat. With no authorization for the necessary number of authorized judges, an unintended anomaly has resulted in Presidential nominations but no actual vacancies because the court is short three judges. Because as many as nearly 2 years occur after the Senate approval, lawyers are increasingly unwilling to give up their practices to apply for judgeships on the Superior Court, the trial court of jurisdiction for all criminal and civil matters in the District of Columbia. The 15-18 month pipeline for confirming new judges has presented the court with some serious concerns. With such a long waiting period, private and solo practitioners, for example, who are among the best qualified, are significantly deterred, and the court loses judicial talent that would otherwise be available.

The present anomaly has forced the Superior Court to use senior or retired judges inappropriately. Because they are retired, senior judges take on particular cases or a full calendar temporarily, for up to a year. However, inasmuch as confirmed active or permanent judges often cannot be immediately seated, there is no judge to maintain the court's 2 calendars, one for criminal court and the other for temporary restraining orders and warrants. Consequently, several senior judges have taken on this indispensable duty since 2003. While senior judges, of course, take on cases, they do so at their discretion. It should never be the case that senior judges perform an important regular and vital function of the court for years at a time.

I ask that this bill be approved to remedy this problem in the D.C. court system that results entirely from congressional action.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Wisconsin for his working with the chair to get this bill to the floor.

I am not on the committee of jurisdiction; so I want to particularly thank the committee for the honor. It is an unusual honor. We do not do this very often, what you do in bringing this resolution to the floor. And I want to give my thanks to Mr. LaHood and Ms. Woolsey, both, for the service they perform by serving on the board of this very important institution. The fact that there are two Members of Congress on the board of Gallaudet perhaps speaks for itself as to the importance of Gallaudet, chartered by the Congress of the United States and still an institution of great importance to the Congress.

I do want to say to the gentleman from Wisconsin and to those of you, if you are one of them, Mr. LaHood, who are going to be at the game this evening, I always come to this wonderful game. As it turns out, I am having a reception myself tonight for the National Teacher of the Year, the first time since the award was given. It was set up in 1952, that the National Teacher of the Year comes from the District of Columbia. So you fellows are going to have to get along without me.

When they asked me to come, they first asked me to be a member of the team. They really did not know what they were saying. I did volunteer to come, however, to be there to do whatever I could. In fact, if this reception is over, I do intend to stop by and to thank you also for that very important work.

As you have heard, Gallaudet is really one of a kind. It is an institution without peer, the only institution for people who are deaf and hard of hearing of higher education throughout the world. So it is very precious to those of us in the District of Columbia who then see people come from all over the world to come to this singular institution.

Now, there has got to be great sadness on the campus of Gallaudet even as we express our appreciation today. Dr. I. King Jordan was not simply an extraordinary educator. He came to his post through a vote of confidence before he even got there from the students who had a demonstration; and as a result of that demonstration, the board of trustees at that time thought about their decision, and Dr. Jordan became the first disabled person to head the university.

It is hard to overemphasize what this meant to us in the District of Columbia. We saw it as wonderful history-making for a history-making institution, but that paled besides the joy of the students. You can imagine if you are going to a university for the deaf and the hard of hearing to see a person of such accomplishments head your own university. It was invaluable, I am sure, in ways that we shall never understand and shall never know.

But then it was up to Dr. Jordan to prove himself, and I am here to tell you as a person who is very familiar with all the institutions, he continues to be a tenured professor of law at Georgetown, where I taught full time before coming to the Congress, and under Dr. Jordan this institution has prospered and grown to even more admiration than it already enjoyed.

In order for that to happen, Dr. Jordan had simply to show that he could do what presidents do, and he has done that to a fare-thee-well, from fund raising, which may be the most difficult to do especially since this university does receive some funding from the Federal Government.

But as my colleagues know from their own State university, that does not matter that much today. Presidents are supposed to get out here on the hustings the way everybody else does, the way that private universities always have. And here when Dr. Jordan did it not only like everybody else does but did it in extraordinary ways, you see evidence of it in the new construction on the campus. You see evidence of it in the way in which the excellence of the institution has even improved. It already had a stellar reputation, and you see it in a very important expansion for graduate education for the deaf and hard of hearing.

Dr. I. King Jordan has performed with the excellence that the students expected. They knew what he could do. They knew from his academic reputation, they knew from his background, what he could do. He has performed up to that standard and well beyond.

The resolution that my colleagues bring forward today could not be more well deserved, and I thank you once again for it. And I thank you for myself and I thank you for the residents of the District of Columbia, including the disabled students who, of course, are resident there during the time they attend Gallaudet.

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

Mr. Speaker, I thank the chairman of the subcommittee with whom I have worked so closely for making sure that this small bill got to the floor and got done.

Mr. Speaker, S. 2116 is a bill to transfer the parcel of property currently under the jurisdiction of the Architect of the Capitol to the jurisdiction of the Supreme Court. The parcel of land is a small triangle of land bounded by Constitution Avenue Northeast, Maryland Avenue Northeast, and Second Street Northeast.

Once the parcel is transferred from the Architect to the Supreme Court, the Capitol Hill Police will no longer have the security responsibility for the parcel; and, further, the definition of the Capitol grounds will be amended to show that the parcel has been deleted from the definition of the Capitol grounds.

The Supreme Court requested this transfer in order to enhance its perimeter security program. Mr. Speaker, I support this bill and urge its passage.

Mr. Speaker, before I yield back the balance of my time I do want to say that this bill brings to mind, especially since it is being transferred for security reasons, the fact that we are operating under an old 19th century organization of the police that guard the complex of most important Federal building in the District of Columbia, the Supreme Court Police, the Library of Congress Police, and the Capitol Hill police.

Mr. Speaker, at the moment we have some jurisdiction over this Federal police force. But the jurisdiction I am speaking of, which has already been passed by the Congress of the United States, is not under our jurisdiction, but because of the security which is the reason for the transfer, I do want to say that what we have with this complex of buildings that are within sight of one another, are very different police forces.

We have a police force that is trained differently for the three most important buildings in this vicinity. The Library of Congress is trained differently. It is as if these were the police forces of Maryland, Virginia, and the District of Columbia.

Mr. Speaker, that is dangerous. That is nothing short of dangerous. We have so shored up the Capitol, that any terrorist on the lookout for something to do in this vicinity is surely going to go to places that she may believe is less well guarded, like the Library of Congress, and like, if I may so, the Supreme Court of the United States.

I have met with the Marshal of the Supreme Court of the United States and the Library of Congress. I am familiar with both their police forces. But now that this bill has been brought to the floor, I urge that we all respond to what has now become public, because the Library of Congress Police have raised the question again.

There was an article in Roll Call just a few days ago that there were real security problems with the Library of Congress and its police. I have not heard the same thing about the Supreme Court.

But I do not think we should rest well knowing that we have shored up the Congress of the United States and we hope everything is well with the Supreme Court and the Library of Congress. I think it is our obligation to make sure that it is, in fact, the case.

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

Mr. Speaker, with Government Reform Committee Chairman Tom Davis, I am introducing the District of Columbia Hatch Act Reform Act of 2006 to eliminate the discriminatory treatment of the District of Columbia under the federal Hatch Act. This bill would retain federal Hatch Act authority concerning prohibited partisan and political activity that applies to every state because of the receipt of federal funds and importantly, would require the District to enact its own local version of the Hatch Act barring similar local violations, to become effective. Such a bill would, of course, automatically be held over for Congressional review for 30 legislative days as required by the Home Rule Act, typically affording several months before a District law may become effective, more than ample time for review and compliance with this bill. The House recognized that the present federal Hatch Act jurisdiction over D.C. was obsolete by removing this federal responsibility several years ago, but the Senate failed to act accordingly. Local Hatch Act violations in the District are rare, but the District needs its own Hatch Act to fully account and be responsible for local violations, with which a local objective body would be most familiar and should bear the cost of alleged violations.

This bill will leave in place the federal Hatch Act restrictions on the use of official authority as it relates to elections; the solicitation, acceptance, or receiving of political campaign contributions; and the prohibitions on running for public office in partisan elections and the use of on-duty time and resources to engage in partisan campaign. activity. My bill would remove only the federal Hatch Act jurisdiction that applies solely to the District of Columbia and would require the District to have its own local Hatch Act, like every other jurisdiction, instead of requiring the Office of Personnel Management and its Special Counsel to spend time on investigation, fact-finding and judgment of unfamiliar local matters. The District will bear this local responsibility and a dual inequity--denigration of local government at the expense of the federal government--would end.

Mr. Speaker, I am introducing the District of Columbia Legislative Autonomy Act of 2006, the second in a series of ``Free and Equal D.C.'' bills to remove the remaining congressional statutes that impose discriminatory and unequal treatment on the District of Columbia as a U.S. jurisdiction, on its elected and public officials, and on its citizens. These bills are different from the No Taxation without Representation Act, which in addition to providing equal treatment, would remedy a major violation of basic human rights recognized under international law and treaties and, moreover, a human rights denial found only in the United States. Residents justifiably focus on this most basic of infringements, but our city can and must make more progress on other unnecessary requirements and denials that violate the rights of the taxpaying American citizens who live in the Nation's capital as well.

The Free and Equal D.C. series addresses privileges, rights and benefits universally enjoyed not only by the citizens of State and local jurisdictions, but also by the four territories, under Federal principles of local control that govern the United States. Among the most important are the right to enact local budget, civil and criminal laws free from Federal interference. This bill's fraternal twin, the most important in the Free and Equal D.C. series, H.R. 1629, the District of Columbia Budget Autonomy Act of 2005, sponsored by Government Reform Committee Chairman Tom Davis and I, was introduced last year as the first bill of the series. The Senate passed the bill in 2003, and my goal is to achieve passage by both Houses this session.

Because the period of congressional review involves only legislative days, when Congress is in session, not calendar days, D.C. laws typically do not become law for months, not days. A required hold on all D.C. bills, forces the City Council to pass most legislation using a cumbersome and complicated process in which bills are passed concurrently on an emergency, temporary, and permanent basis to ensure that the operations of the large and rapidly changing city continue. The Legislative Autonomy bill would eliminate the need for the District to engage in this Byzantine process that often requires a two-thirds super majority even for ordinary legislation.

This second bill in the Free and Equal D.C. series would eliminate the congressional review period for civil and criminal District acts of 30 days and 60 days respectively. I have introduced today's legislative autonomy bill before, but today's bill is particularly timely because of substantial changes in congressional approach and practices in responding to Council-passed law. In effect, Congress has eliminated the review or layover period. My bill would do no more than align D.C. City Council practices with the approaches Congress uses today.

Moreover, although control of the Congress changed in 1994 for the first time in 40 years, no resolution of disapproval has been heard in committee or used on the floor of either House. Instead of the cumbersome formal filing of bills that require processing in the House and the Senate, both use other more efficient processes, particularly appropriations or attachments to other bills. My bill would eliminate a formal review system that has died of old age and non-use. Congress has walked away from layover review and should allow the city to do the same.

Today's bill, of course, does not prevent review of District laws by Congress. Under Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution, the House Government Reform Committee and the Senate Government Affairs Committee could scrutinize every piece of legislation passed by the City Council, if desired, and could change or strike legislation under the plenary constitutional authority over the District. However, today Congress prefers more rapid approaches. My bill merely eliminates the automatic hold placed on local legislation and eliminates the need for the City Council to use a Byzantine emergency and temporary process to keep the District functioning under law.

Since the Home Rule Act became effective in 1974, of over 2000 legislative acts that have been passed by the Council and signed into law by the Mayor, only three resolutions to disapprove a D.C. bill have been enacted, and two involved a distinct Federal interest; only 43 acts have been challenged by a congressional disapproval resolution. Federal law to correct for a Federal interest, of course, would be appropriate for any jurisdiction, but placing a hold on 2000 bills has not only proved unnecessary, but has meant untold costs in money, staff and time to the District and the Congress.

We continually urge the District government to pursue greater efficiency and savings. Congress must now do its part to promote greater efficiency both here and in the District by streamlining its own cumbersome, redundant, and obsolescent review processes. Eliminating the hold on D.C. legislation would not only save scarce D.C. taxpayer revenue; my bill would benefit the city's bond rating, which is effected by the shadow of congressional review that delays the certainty of finality to District legislation. At the same time, Congress would give up none of its plenary power because the Congress may intervene into any District matter at any time.

Thus, the limited legislative autonomy granted in this bill would allow the District to realize the greater measure of meaningful self- government and Home Rule it deserves and has more than earned in the 32 years since the Home Rule Act became effective. This goal can be achieved not only without prejudice to congressional authority. A congressional practice for many years now that has meant savings to Congress should now be reciprocated to the City Council as well. I urge my colleagues to pass this important measure.

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

Mr. Speaker, I would like to begin by thanking Chairman Don Young, Ranking Member Jim Oberstar, and, of course, my subcommittee chairman, Bill Shuster, for their leadership in acting together to assure that unemployment benefits are available to the many victims of Hurricane Katrina and Hurricane Rita who want to work.

We are acting in virtual unison, though under the wire, to pass S. 1777, the Katrina Emergency Assistance Act of 2006, which extends unemployment assistance under the Stafford Act, providing essential unemployment benefits before they lapse on Saturday. This bill extends the period that victims of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita would be eligible for unemployment benefits to an additional 13 weeks, for a total of 39 weeks.

Currently, the disaster unemployment assistance benefit period begins the week following the disaster or the date thereafter that the individual becomes unemployed and can extend up to 26 weeks after the declaration or until the individual becomes reemployed. This bill means 39 more desperately needed weeks, in addition to the first 26 weeks. The Department of Labor has the usual authority to administer the program.

The extension of these benefits would help untold thousands of workers who lost their jobs as a direct result of the unprecedented storms that hit the gulf region late last summer but do not qualify for regular unemployment assistance. The Labor Department reports that more than 500,000 individuals have already filed new unemployment claims.

Unemployment at 12.5 percent for those who had returned in November was more than twice the national rate; and for those still displaced the rate was an amazing 27.5 percent, more than twice the rate for those who had returned.

Unemployment benefits are available, of course, only for workers in search of actual employment. These benefits may, nevertheless, of course, be used wherever these workers are living today. However, the benefits also may encourage needed workers to take the many risks associated with returning to gulf cities and towns at a time when all the basic ingredients of working communities, from housing to health care, are at unprecedented low levels.

For example, relatively few workers have returned, despite a high rate of job openings in New Orleans. With at least the guarantee of unemployment benefits during the job hunt and much more rapid and sensible job training and reconstruction policies, these benefits could leverage new work opportunities for gulf residents that were unavailable even before the storm, leave alone what the benefits could do in helping the reconstruction of the region itself.

At the same time, I regret that a provision similar to the one approved by the committee of jurisdiction in the other body to increase unemployment benefits to 50 percent of the national average of unemployment benefits had to be removed from the final bill to achieve the rapid agreement needed. Mississippi, Alabama, and Louisiana have the lowest unemployment benefits in the country. As a result, disaster unemployment benefits for these States are as low as $87, $90 and $97 per week, respectively.

Fifty percent of the national average for unemployment benefit amounts to $135 a week. In an area of the country that even before Hurricane Katrina suffered long-term unemployment at record levels, this increase could have made a major difference to families who need much more assistance than the typical unemployed worker, because many have lost everything, including their homes.

For the gulf victims, the job search that S. 1777 will afford is much more than finding a job. This bill will help some victims return to the gulf region to begin building their lives from scratch. Many who qualify for these benefits were in the lowest wage categories and are among the neediest for assistance. This extension will help them move forward after experiencing the worst natural disaster in the Nation's history. The American people would want us to take at least the step of passing this urgently needed legislation today.

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

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

I must say, Mr. Speaker, we thought of going forward with this bill under unanimous consent because we did not think there was a single Member of the House of Representatives who would want to deny to people searching for a job after the worst disaster in American history the funds that would enable them to live while they search for a job. So I am amazed. I will be amazed that there is a single vote against the bill.

But I think the chutzpah to stand on the floor and say we are throwing money at a problem, when I have just recounted what these benefits will mean in that part of the country, less than $100 a week for families looking for work, is an amazing statement to make. We are throwing money at a problem? We are giving unemployment benefits to people looking for work who have no other means because Mother Nature has taken their means from them. Moreover, may I remind this House that twice after 9/11 we extended unemployment benefits.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentlewoman from Texas (Ms. Jackson-Lee).

(Ms. JACKSON-LEE of Texas asked and was given permission to revise and extend her remarks.)

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

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the gentleman's comments. The kind of small business owners, for example, that the gentleman was talking about, if you are a hot dog vendor, those are some of

the most industrious people in society. An example would be people who are willing to work for themselves where they get no benefits of any kind, but work harder than most of us.

I used the hot dog vendor, because that is fairly typical of the kind of person we are talking about.

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Washington (Mr. McDermott).

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

Mr. Speaker, I just want to say that I mentioned 9/11 because I think there is a standard here, a kind of control group. I mentioned that we had had to extend unemployment benefits twice during 9/11. This was a terrorist attack, 3,000 people killed. Thank God, the entire City of New York was not wiped out.

Compare, however, that disaster, as tragic as it was, with wiping out an entire city, the whole city gone, all means of employment gone, now being slowly revived. And I think we will have some appreciation for the American heart.

We knew what to do on 9/11. We will be there for people as long as you need us. And the wonderful thing about unemployment benefits is, they go straight to the person. And, of course, what unemployment benefits do, because the people who get them spend them for necessities in their communities, so what unemployment does at the same time is, of course, to help the community, the economy of the community where the unemployment benefits are being spent.

This is very good money for very desperate people.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Kucinich).

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from New Orleans (Mr. Jefferson), the city which suffered the worst natural disaster of any big city in American history.

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

I just want to say, Mr. Chairman, thank you once again for the kind of bipartisan cooperation that I think truly reflects the spirit in which this bill comes to the floor today.

Our country is so well known for disaster relief, generously and spontaneously given to the rest of the world, that the rest of the world actually came forward and offered relief to the United States after Katrina occurred.

In a real sense the standard we have set for ourselves in the rest of the world sets the standard for what we do in our country. Will we be known when this disaster has cleared for the generosity of the response to Katrina?

Despite the sour note of one Member only at the beginning, I want to say that I have seen anything but that in the workings of our committee. It did make it necessary for us to make the case in a way we thought would have been unnecessary. For example, when you talk about throwing money at a problem, it makes me realize that some people do not even understand what unemployment benefits are about. They do not understand that you can only get unemployment benefits if you have had a job so that we are by definition talking about working people. And because many have not been unemployed, they may not understand what you have to go through to keep getting your benefits, to report to the office, to show evidence of having looked for a job.

In other words, we are talking here about people who worked, who have every desire to work, and who need a meager benefit in order to keep looking for work. That is why this bill is minimally reflective of where most Members would be. I think the bill at its base reflects the bipartisan spirit of this House when it comes to extending benefits that would allow people who want to work to, in fact, do that work.

And, indeed, if we should be so fortunate that these benefits may inspire some to go back home to places few of us would want to go because of all the future comforts that are gone, to go back home with meager benefits, with no housing, with insufficient health care, to go back home to help rebuild their community, that is the America that we all know.

Mr. Speaker, how much time do I have?

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Waters).

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

Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased at the way the press has not closed up shop and gone home after Katrina. Story after story continues to tell us what is happening in the gulf region. We have just seen Mardi Gras stories over and over again. I was pleased to see Mardi Gras celebrated in the region.

The region is doing for itself what it can do. As I think about this bill, I think that there are people who are on unemployment benefits who got a job during Mardi Gras and who came back home who no longer need unemployment benefits.

I want us to also remember that New Orleans, in particular, which is known for its Mardi Gras gaiety, this is the oil producing, the energy producing region of our country. We need it to get back on its feet.

This bill will help the region, the whole region, Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama, to do just that. We are helping the people, and that is the way to help the region.

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

Mr. Speaker, today I introduce the University of the District of Columbia Graduate Programs Act that amends Section 326 of the Higher Education Act to provide federal Historically Black College and University (HBCU) grant funding to the qualified graduate programs at the University of the District of Columbia.

The University of the District of Columbia, or UDC, is the District's only public university and institution of higher learning. An open admission institution at the undergraduate level, the University has consistently and historically provided higher education opportunity to D.C. residents at low and affordable cost. The University justifiably prides itself on its vital role in educating the leaders of the next generation by producing theoretically sound and practically skilled graduates, ready to undertake careers in service in both the public and private sectors.

UDC also is one of the Nation's oldest HBCUs, but the university did not receive federal funding as an HBCU until 1999, when Congress passed the District of Columbia College Access Act that my good friend, Government Reform Committee Chair Tom Davis, and I sponsored to establish the D.C. Tuition Assistance Grant program.

Funding from the Historically Black Graduate Institutions (HBGIs) program will allow UDC to increase its production of skilled graduates in vital disciplines and jobs in which African Americans, Hispanics and others are underrepresented and to strengthen its graduate programs in occupations where there are shortages in our region. For example, the University has graduate degree programs in cancer biology prevention and control, early childhood education, mathematics, special education, and speech and language pathology, and other graduate programs in the College of Arts and Sciences, the David A. Clarke School of Law, and the School of Business and Public Administration. A graduate curriculum is being developed in the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences.

I urge all of my colleagues to support this bill.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for his kindness in yielding. My condolences first to Yolanda and Martin the Third, and Dexter and Bernice. I come to the floor to speak of Coretta Scott King, the woman, and of Coretta, my friend.

Mr. Speaker, I hope that we will remember Coretta as I am sure she wanted to be remembered, as a movement woman, fully engaged from the outset in the work of her husband, except it was their work.

King himself said, ``I did not bring Coretta to this work, she was there.'' These two people found each other, these southerners who went north for education, precisely because, alone and in the North with few blacks and whites who believed that they did, they were fully at one with each other.

Coretta Scott King did not come to the movement by marriage. She once herself said she was married to the movement as well as to Martin. She therefore is not like most widows of great men. Of course, she carried on his legacy, but anyone who watched how ceaselessly and magnificently she worked for the essence of his legacy, nonviolence and universal human rights, will of course understand that Coretta Scott King deserves to be remembered, in justice, for her own extraordinary work.

I cannot help but also remember Coretta the friend, the friend who I would lolly-gag on the phone and laugh and talk about any old thing, not about the movement, but any old thing, particularly in the 1970s and 1980s at the height of her movement work. The last time we spoke, we sat underneath the Lincoln Memorial in those rooms preparing to go up to unveil the marker where King gave his 1963 March on Washington speech. May she be remembered for herself and her great work.

Mr. Speaker, I am particularly pleased to join my colleagues in honoring Helen Sewell as she retires from the House of Representatives. Helen Sewell has honored our city as a longtime resident and the House by devoting extraordinary service under the particularly difficult hours and circumstances of service in the cloak room. Ms. Sewell's devotion to the House, to the people of the United States, and to the District, whom we service, has been so great that she was still serving at 80 years old. Her loyalty to the House and its work has given vital support to Members of Congress and to the important business of the country.

As the House honors Ms. Sewell and wish her well, the residents of the District of Columbia join me in thanking Helen Sewell for dedicated service to the House of Representatives.

Mr. Speaker, I rise to ask the House to honor Dunbar High School, a legendary high school whose importance in American history is well known. I had the good fortune to graduate from Dunbar High School 50 years ago and my class has asked that I bring Dunbar's proud history to the attention of the House on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the Class of 1955.

Dunbar High School was America's first public high school for African Americans and rose to prominence in the era of segregation and remained segregated until 1954, when the District of Columbia was one of the six Brown v. Board of Education jurisdictions that successfully challenged segregated schools in the United States. Dunbar's excellence was so recognized and well known nationally that the best colleges and universities annually visited Dunbar to recruit students. An unusually large number of this country's most distinguished African Americans graduated from Dunbar. Among them are Edward Brooke, the first black Senator, Robert C. Weaver, the first black Cabinet member, Benjamin O. Davis, the first black general, Wesley Brown, the first black graduate of the Naval Academy, Charles R. Drew, the discoverer of blood plasma and Mary Jane Patterson, the first African American to achieve a college degree.

The 50th anniversary of the class of 1955 is another occasion for pride in our class and in our alma mater. Pride and gratitude as graduates of Dunbar High School, which prepared us so well for life and career. Pride in graduating from the first public high school in the United States for African Americans. Pride in Dunbar's storied history of educating so many African Americans who have made notable contributions to society. Pride that our alma mater encourages today's students to strive for the same excellence Dunbar encouraged in our class. And pride that we can celebrate magnificent, irreplaceable, and lasting memories of the fun and fellowship we shared together.

For all these reasons and more, I take special pleasure in congratulating our class, Dunbar High School Class of 1955, on our 50th anniversary. I ask the House to join me in congratulating the Class of 1955 and in recognizing the historic achievements on Dunbar High School itself.

Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume, and I thank my friend from Nevada for sitting in for our good friend, the chair of the committee, Mr. Davis, who has worked so closely with me on the 2005 District of Columbia Omnibus Authorization Act on a home rule basis. I thank Chairman Davis also for getting this important bill to the floor before we adjourn this month and for his leadership on the bill.

The D.C. Omnibus Authorization Act is a welcome committee innovation designed to achieve greater efficiency in considering District of Columbia matters, most of which are of little importance or concern to Congress but must come here only because they, or similar issues, appear in the D.C. City Charter and cannot become D.C. law until sanctioned by congressional action. It is very wasteful, but that is the way it operates.

All of the provisions in this bill have been passed or approved by the District of Columbia. Of the many provisions in the act, three are particularly important: One, a provision allowing greater budget flexibility for the City to carry out necessary business; two, a section permitting the District to spend more of its reserve funds; and, three, strengthening the Chief Financial Officer.

First, the bill alters a semiannual requirement that the District come to Congress to become part of the Federal supplemental before the City may spend taxing revenue that is collected from District of Columbia taxpayers after the annual appropriation bill has been enacted.

I am grateful that the appropriators, Chairmen Lewis and Cochran, and District of Columbia chairs and ranking members Knollenberg, Olver, Brownback and Landrieu have agreed with the authorizers that this change is beneficial both to the Congress and to the District.

Although funds inevitably come in to any local jurisdiction or any State all year as taxes are paid by residents and businesses, D.C. cannot spend these funds for vital services, even though similar expenditures have been approved by Congress in the prior appropriation bill. This limitation applies to any unauthorized amount, even bonds the City must issue.

We saw the perils of this requirement when there was a fear that the District's bonds for the baseball stadium would be held up.

The press, seeing the D.C. baseball stadium in the 2005 war supplemental, repeatedly and gleefully reported that Congress, not D.C., was building a baseball stadium and had put this provision in a vital bill intended to fund defense. This provision also removes the possibility of such unintended effect.

Of great importance to the greater flexibility of both governments, this section moves the District of Columbia toward the long-time goal of budget autonomy over its own taxpayer-raised funds because it allows the District to spend up to 6 percent of its own money between appropriation bills without coming back to Congress midyear during the supplemental process I have just described.

Under existing law and constitutional interpretation, congressional jurisdiction to change any D.C. matter remains, as always, under this provision, and under this provision Congress loses nothing while the District of Columbia gains much that is necessary to run a big city.

Second, because of its prudence, the District now has emergency reserve and contingency funds that would be the envy of most jurisdictions, and Congress has reinforced these savings with unique requirements not found anywhere else in this country. In the meantime, residents watch the neglect of basic services while the District grows an ever-larger reserve fund that cannot be tapped for any reason. There is special outrage that many of our children attend dilapidated public schools, some as old as I am and that I remember well when I was in school here as a child. This provision authorizes the District to borrow up to 50 percent of the fund balance from the emergency and contingency reserve funds

through the end of 2007 provided that the fund is reimbursed within 9 months of the borrowing or by the end of the fiscal year in which the money is borrowed.

Third, although the city's financial officer is a city, and not a Federal, official and is appointed by the Mayor, the provision for this office is in the charter. Therefore, even the pending D.C. Council action to strengthen the CFO needs congressional sanction, even though the provision makes an already strong official even more independent by giving him a term of 5 years with dismissal only for cause by the Mayor subject to the approval of the council by resolution approved by at least two-thirds of its members.

The bill also confirms the CFO's personnel and procurement authority under D.C. law and confirms that the collective bargaining rights of CFO employees are preserved.

Finally, an important provision bears mentioning because it helps preserve the justice system in case of emergency. This provision allows the District courts to conduct business outside of the district in case of an emergency. I appreciate that the House has moved this important bill forward so it may obtain early passage in the Senate where its provisions have strong support.

Madam Speaker, I strongly urge my colleagues to support this bill.

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

Madam Speaker, I cannot help but note the irony of a bill celebrating Christmas or its symbols coming on the floor in a session that has just destroyed Christmas for millions of poor people.

I am going to make a request of this Member, because I know her and I respect her and I regard her as a friend. And as a Christian, I am going to ask

her in the name of interfaith tolerance if she would withdraw this resolution because it is needlessly divisive, and I think she did not realize when she put it in how divisive it is.

For example, the gentlewoman said Merry Christmas to you, Madam Speaker. I do not know what your background is. But I do not believe she would have said Merry Christmas to the gentleman from New York (Mr. Ackerman). And in a real sense, that sums up where our country has come simply to be tolerant of the fact that we are from many faiths, and we do not want to insult anybody. And I say to you that, far from references to Christmas needing to be supported, they are glorified, and we all know it. The notion of giving any aid and comport to the Fox campaign against ``happy holidays'' would be funny if it were not so serious.

Understand how ``happy holidays'' developed. It developed out of a country, first and foremost, where there was rampant anti-Semitism. Now, of course, we have many more, we have many more religions and much more diversity. It developed simply out of a sensitivity, so we developed proxy language, and so everybody feels comfortable even when it is not your particular religious holiday. I am not going to go up to a brown-skinned person in a turban and say, merry Christmas. I think that it is more appropriate to say, happy holidays. Maybe the gentlewoman understands why this is important for people who, unlike her and unlike me, are not Christians. If you do not want to feel guilty for wishing someone merry Christmas, I do not want to feel guilty for saying happy holidays to someone whose religious background I do not know.

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

Mr. Speaker, I presume this is either All Saints Day or the Christmas season because we are certainly honoring two saints, and I do not think there will be a single ``nay'' vote on this bill. I am pleased to endorse these bills to name buildings respectively after Mother Teresa and Rosa Parks.

As if a bio was needed for Mother Teresa, the record probably should reveal some of the background of Mother Teresa who began life as an ordinary human being like the rest of us. She just went on to sainthood even before she died.

She was born in Macedonia in August of 1910. At the age of 18, she left home to join the Sisters of Loreto, an Irish community of nuns conducting missionary work in India. In 1931, after training in Dublin, Sister Teresa arrived in India, where from 1931 to 1948 she taught at St. Mary's High School in Calcutta. In 1948, Sister Teresa received permission to leave the high school to minister to the poorest of the poor in the slums of Calcutta. In the ensuing half century, she created a legacy of human charity and good works that have become the standard for all to emulate.

In 1959, she received permission to start her own order known as the Missionaries of Charity whose primary task is to look after those left with no one prepared to look after them.

The Society of Missionaries has spread all over the world, including the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. The society provides help to the world's needy in a number of countries and houses alcoholics, the homeless and AIDS sufferers.

Mother Teresa's work is acclaimed throughout the world. Her awards and distinctions are countless. In 1979, she was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in recognition of her work to bring help to suffering humanity. She is one of only nine women to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

Respect for individual dignity and each person's innate value are at the core of her beliefs and provide the basis for her charitable work. Her order receives the dying, the destitute, abandoned lepers and the poor. Her work and her personal philosophy is grounded in her Christian faith. It is certainly proper and appropriate that the building located on the campus for the Centers for Disease Control at 1600 Clifton Road, Atlanta, Georgia, be named in Mother Teresa's honor.

Also, at the same location, a building dedicated to Rosa Parks will be identified as the Rosa Parks Emergency Operations Center.

We honor Rosa Parks for her courage and conviction. By now, Mr. Speaker, we all know the story of that December evening in 1955, 50 years ago, when a 42-year-old black woman riding a bus in Montgomery, Alabama, refused to give up her seat to a white passenger on demand. Montgomery segregation laws were complex and deeply humiliating, but Rosa Parks' personal and quiet strength and sense of justice changed not only the laws of Montgomery she challenged, but also the laws of the United States of America.

For her boldness, she was arrested and found guilty of disorderly conduct. These actions led to the famous Montgomery bus boycott that lasted over a year and ultimately to a Supreme Court decision that banned segregation in city public transit systems, led also to the great civil rights laws enacted in the 1960s and led also to the civil rights movement itself which followed her lead and took up the struggle with an army of black and white nonviolent activists working in imitation of Rosa Parks.

It is impossible to overstate the impact of her actions in defiance of segregation. Her story has become part of the American story and of the story of Congress itself where she became the first woman to lie in State in the Rotunda in November.

I am honored to support this bill that acknowledges the contributions of two exceptional women.

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

Mr. Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Davis) and a cosponsor of the bill.

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

I understand the gentleman's point. But I do not understand this bill to be a retort or a response to Senate action. I understand it to be an affirmative act on the part of the bipartisan House of Representatives. The only reason I raise it is because we are not a party to whatever is the discussion that has gone on on that. I do understand the concern, and I listened to it.

But I would not want anything to take away from the way I opened my remarks about All Saints Day and the Christmas season because I think the gentleman perhaps did not mean it. And if I may so, by inserting that, and I am not questioning it, I have no personal knowledge of it, it leaves, I think, an unfortunate impression that I do not think the gentleman means to leave. Perhaps it should have been inserted into the Record if the gentleman thought so.

I will be happy to yield to the gentleman from Iowa.

Mr. Speaker, the gentleman made that clear. I appreciate that the gentleman made that clear. I was trying to think, as my colleague spoke, about whether or not we have named things after Members of the House while they were still here.

I had a young man, kid from D.C., some people brought him in today, along with a whole group of students, and I showed him pictures, I explained pictures on my wall that when I came to Congress, instead of putting some fake Picassos, I put pictures of old Washington. I went to the Library of Congress and to the D.C. Historical Society. And this child interrupted me, he is a high school student. He said, why do you not have a big picture of yourself there? It simply provided an opportunity for me to let him know that he ought to wonder about a Member of Congress who had a big picture of herself in her office. I do not know who she ought to have, and I did not suggest to him who she ought to have.

But in this season, when we have the opportunity, and I was called, literally, only a couple of hours ago to say would I manage a bill that would name buildings at the Centers for Disease Control against these two women, I said, well, here is one that I know this is only love and praise and I really think we should rest on that, whatever is the predicament that the gentleman discussed.

And I do not mean to cast any aspersion upon what he said because he is talking about matters that are of some concern, insertions into the bill and so forth. But that is not the spirit in which I came forward on this side to offer this bill, and I do not think it is the gentleman's spirit, and I do not think it is the spirit of the House today. And Merry Christmas everybody.

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

Mr. Speaker, I am particularly fortunate to have in my district one of the country's best public broadcasting stations, and Members of the House share in that good fortune while they are in Washington. If Members have had the pleasure of tuning in to WAMU 88.5 FM on Saturday nights you will understand why I rise today to congratulate WAMU and Host Rob Bamberger on the occasion of the 25th Anniversary of Hot Jazz Saturday Night, Washington's only regularly scheduled show devoted to vintage jazz and one of the longest running locally produced shows on WAMU.

Rob Bamberger's commitment to vintage jazz began in 1963 at an elementary school book fair in Shaker Heights, Ohio. Waiting until the mad rush was over; an admittedly shy kid with glasses approached the record table to see if anything was left. While the table had been picked pretty clean, Rob spied a two-LP set with a trombone and a top hat on the cover, set against an elegant red curtain. It was a two- record set of broadcast recordings by Tommy Dorsey and his orchestra. It cost Rob a dime, a fateful investment because all he had to hear was the ``Hawaiian War Chant'' and he was hooked. That two-LP set became the cornerstone for a life-long love and scholarly interest in American music of the 1920's, 30's and 40's, and the start of a record collection that has been the mother lode for the music featured on Hot Jazz Saturday Night.

WAMU listeners get a weekly glimpse into Rob Bamberger's record collection every Saturday night from 7 to 10 p.m. Rob often focuses on an artist or theme, illuminating the story behind the music and the artists from his own intimate and extensive store of knowledge, and the most recent scholarship. It becomes a lesson in American history and culture, but never stuffy or professorial. Rob's succinct and informative commentaries are laced with dry humor that endears him to his weekly fans.

Rob Bamberger's Hot Jazz Saturday Night represents programming that listeners can't get anywhere else. Listeners who danced to some of the musicians and groups featured on the show enthuse about hearing artists and songs they have not heard in decades. Other listeners once had the impression that jazz is a remote unapproachable music enjoyed only by denizens of smoke- filled bars. Rob disagrees and says there are no prerequisites to enjoying jazz or Hot Jazz Saturday Night. His commitment to introducing this treasured American art form to new listeners is boundless. You can neither be too old or too young to discover and revel in the music of Benny Goodman, Louis Armstrong, Glen Miller, Ella Fitzgerald, Billie Holiday and countless others who are enduring images of a bygone era evoked every Saturday night on WAMU.

I join jazz supporters in the Nation's Capital in paying tribute to WAMU and Rob Bamberger on the occasion of the 25th Anniversary of Hot Jazz Saturday Night.