Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman for yielding me time. I thank her for her leadership and the gentleman from California (Mr. Pombo) for his leadership as well.

Let me say what we all know, that there are no veterans, and I think all would agree, that are more deserving than Vietnam veterans, no veterans that got a rawer deal at home and in the field. We cannot do enough. They still are the homeless veterans, not simply the returning veterans.

I support this memorial. And I support it because it has been put underground. But I come to the floor to remind people that that is not where it always was. It was above ground. Now it is going underground and still there is a lot of work to be done to make sure that it is in keeping with the Mall itself. The Mall is becoming a crowded urban area, rather than the Mall it was meant to be.

The Vietnam Memorial, anybody who goes there knows that people who come to the Vietnam Memorial need some place to go. Some people that come, they bring so many things with them. They leave items. It is the most visited memorial. It is a shrine. It is not simply a memorial.

So the need for some place for people to be is apparent here. We have to be very careful, however, as we get pressure from various groups. For example, there is another memorial, because after this wonderful shrine was put there, some came forward and said, we do not like that so we want another one. And so there is another one there which, of course, people ignore because the place where people come is the place where there was a competition. And pursuant to that competition was this extraordinary memorial that could not be improved upon. But there was political pressure, and there is another memorial there that looks like all the other memorials in Washington.

And it is political pressure that I come to the floor to remind people of because political pressures are making our Mall a place where our generation is using up all of the space.

There is a portion of the Senate bill, when this goes to conference, to access the so-called reserve, the access from the White House to the Jefferson Memorial, the Capitol to the Lincoln Memorial. It is unfair to future generations to say, look, I am sorry there is no space there, but we had a lot of things that we wanted to commemorate.

Mr. Speaker, I want to read a letter from the National Capital Planning Commission that reluctantly approved, or said it supported, this memorial but warned the Congress, ``While we applaud efforts of the Vietnam Memorial Fund to seek ways to ensure the visitors center will not visually intrude on the historic open space of the Mall, the Commission is concerned that if this center is approved, Congress will soon find itself under increasing pressure to authorize similar education centers at other memorials throughout the monumental core, including the Vietnam Memorial, the World War II Memorial, the Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial, and the FDR Memorial.''

My position on all these memorials is the same. Martin Luther King, when people wanted to memorialize him before 25 years, no, no exceptions. He had to wait 25 years. We wanted an African American memorial on the Mall, I was against it. It is not going to be on the Mall. We have to have one policy.

I think we have done the right thing here. But this is a real warning to the Congress that it does not have a lot more space left on that Mall.

Hon. Craig Thomas,

Chairman, Subcommittee on Nationnal Parks, U.S. Senate,

Washington, DC.

Dear Senator Thomas: I am writing to express the views of

the National Capital Planning Commission with regard to S.

1076, a bill that would authorize a visitor education center

at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial.

As I stated previously in testimony before the Senate

Energy and Natural Resources Committee, the Commission is

supportive of the establishment of a visitor education

center. We believe such a center could help inform the

millions of visitors to the nation's capital--including

thousands of school-aged children--who are eager to learn

more about the complex history of the Vietnam conflict and

the Vietnam Veterans Memorial. However, the Commission is

concerned that locating an education center at the site of

the Vietnam Veterans Memorial would set an unwelcome

precedent for additional education centers at other memorials

across the Mall. Instead, we believe there are alternative

ways to provide visitors to the Vietnam Veterans Memorial

with an education center that would be more consistent with

Commission policies and avoid setting a precedent for

additional visitor centers on the Mall.

Since 1991, the Commission has consistently expressed

objection to constructing additional elements to the Vietnam

Veterans Memorial. In our view, the memorial succeeds in

evoking a powerful, emotional response precisely because of

its simplicity. The memorial presents a complete and timeless

tribute whose impact could be diminished if it were coupled

with an education center whose main focus would be historical

interpretation and exhibit. In addition, as you may be aware,

in September 2001, this Commission, along with the Commission

of Fine Arts and the National Capital Memorials Commission,

adopted the Memorials and Museums Master Plan to guide the

location of new memorials and related structures in the

nation's capital. The Plan sets forth a policy stating that

visitor services at memorials in Area I, which includes the

Vietnam Veterans Memorial, ``should be limited to only small

information kiosks and restroom facilities and should not

contain buildings or interior housing exhibits, displays,

collection, or other interpretive products and programs

normally found in museums, visitor centers, or education

centers.''

While we applaud efforts of the Vietnam Memorial Fund to

seek ways to ensure that the visitor center will not visually

intrude upon the historic open space of the Mall, the

Commission is concerned that if this center is approved,

Congress may soon find itself under increasing pressure to

authorize similar education centers at other memorials

throughout the Monumental Core, including the Korean War

Veterans Memorial, the World War II Memorial, the Martin

Luther King, Jr. Memorial, or the FDR Memorial. Additional

structures at these sites would further diminish the Mall's

cherished open landscape.

As we move forward to implement the Memorials and Museums

Master Plan, we anticipate working with the National Park

Service on a study that will provide a comprehensive

assessment of landscape conditions, land use, and visitor

services on and adjacent to the Mall. We expect the study

will examine alternatives for educating visitors about

memorials located on the Mall.

We look forward to working with the Committee on this

important issue. Please do not hesitate to contact our

General Counsel, Ash Jain, or myself at (202) 482-7200 if we

can be of any further assistance.

Sincerely,

Patricia E. Gallagher, AICP,

Executive Director.

Mr. Speaker, I think it bears saying that Dorothy Height, who is a District resident, although she lived for many years in New York, is indeed a great American leader among us and one of a kind. There is no comparable leader in American life today because she was a guiding light. She is about 90 years old, still going as strong as any of us on this floor. She was a guiding light in the achievements we have made thus far for equal rights in America today. At the 40th anniversary on the March on Washington we just celebrated on August 23, some of us noted that Dorothy Height had the same position. She was president of the National Council of Negro Women then, but she was not included in the leaders that put on the march because she was a woman, and yet this is a woman who has stood for the rights of people of color and women equally. She is unique in the sense that when particularly black people were confused about whether one could be equally for women and for African Americans, she was a leader to say there is no such bifurcation in human rights.

Mr. Speaker, I want to say that I do support the gentlewoman's work and the work of the Chair on the Defense Production Act, and I am particularly grateful for the Meeks amendment on minority contracting. As we now go abroad, it becomes more relevant around the world.

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased that Government Reform Committee Chair Tom Davis (R-VA) introduced a bill with me today to permit two statues honoring citizens of the District of Columbia in Statuary Hall of the Capitol, just as statues honoring citizens of states are placed in the historic hall. This legislation would allow the city to offer two statues to the Congress on behalf of D.C. residents.

The District of Columbia was born with the nation itself. The city has more than two centuries of its very own rich and uniquely American history. It goes without saying that the almost 600,000 American citizens who live in the nation's capital deserve the honor of having two of its history makers represented in the halls of the nation's Capitol just as citizens who live in the 50 states have long enjoyed.

Our bill would allow the Mayor and the City Council to devise the method for determining the identity of the honorees, who must be deceased. Mayor Anthony Williams has already agreed to find funds in the District's budget for these statues upon the passage of this legislation.

Every time we allow the District to be excluded from its place among the 50 states, we undermine our own fight for congressional voting rights and full democracy. It is for this reason that I insisted on a D.C. coin when quarters were authorized for the states and a D.C. travel and tourism stamp. I got the Postal Service to issue the first hometown D.C. stamp depicting D.C. neighborhoods, as well as traditional monuments, last month. My coin bill has been introduced and is expected to be approved soon on the suspension calendar.

While D.C. residents have not yet obtained the same full political equality and voting rights as the states, they have all the responsibilities of the states, including paying all federal taxes and serving in all wars. Today when we are losing residents in Iraq, the least we should do is to give this city its rightful and equal place in the Capitol. Recently the District lost 44-year old Lt. Col. Paul W. Kimbrough, an African-American engineer who was supporting Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan. A month ago I attended the funeral of 21-year old Specialist Darryl Dent of the D.C. National Guard who was killed in Iraq. There are more than 100 soldiers still serving in Iraq from Specialist Dent's 547th Transportation Company.

Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to recognize one of the nation's premier schools of nursing and health studies, here in the District of Columbia, the Georgetown University School of Nursing & Health Studies, as it celebrates its centennial anniversary.

In December 1903, a committee at Georgetown Hospital formally created the Georgetown University Training School for Nurses. One hundred years later, now called the School of Nursing & Health Studies, the school is celebrating its long-standing traditions as well as its continued status as a leader in health care education.

The School of Nursing & Health Studies, located in the newly renovated St. Mary's Hall, has been at the forefront of the health care field, preparing future leaders to respond to the growing complexity of health care delivery at all levels. Graduates pursue various health professions within nursing, medicine, law, health policy, health management, and public health, among many other careers. Students have an opportunity to study and intern at health care facilities and agencies throughout Washington, D.C., including Georgetown University Hospital, the National Institutes of Health, and the World Health Organization.

Both the Nursing and Health Studies majors focus on cura personalis-- the care and development of the whole person--by educating students for a meaningful life, challenging them intensively, but also supporting them in their learning. The School embraces the Jesuit inspired principles shared by the entire University community, which emphasize the pursuit of knowledge with a responsibility to contribute to the common good.

Mr. Speaker, one hundred years have seen remarkable changes and advances in health care, yet the School of Nursing & Health Studies continues its core mission of developing exceptionally qualified health professionals who can recognize and respond to the full human experience encountered in the health field. I hope you will join me in congratulating the School of Nursing & Health Studies and Dean Bette Keltner on this auspicious occasion.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman for New York (Ms. Slaughter) for her steadfast work to preserve a woman's right to choose, as this bill does not, and to keep us from endangering that right from the thirteenth week on. And that is what this bill does.

I want to speak to the constitutional issues. I understand where many Americans are on what they think is misnamed partial birth abortion. You know, that is a 1984 gamut, call something what it is not, trying to focus the American people on a viable baby being aborted as it comes out of its mother's womb. My friends, that is not this bill.

This bill is a virtual twin of a bill in Nebraska law that was struck down 3 years ago by the Supreme Court in Stenberg versus Carhart. This is a redux of that unconstitutional law. And though there have been some attempts to fiddle with the bill in those terms, there is not a dime's worth of difference between this law and the Nebraska law.

Now, the Republicans are not as dumb as they look. They have read the decision. They are not even trying to ban one procedure. They are trying to dip into the second trimester, and, boy, have they done it. And Ms. and Mrs. America do understand that, beginning with the thirteenth week, the procedures most commonly used and understood to be the safest procedures for performing abortions after the thirteenth week would be banned by this bill. In the law we say it is unconstitutionally vague. That means it is so broad that it goes beyond what might be legal. Of course, this would not be legal because it has no health exception.

The majority is trying to practice medicine without a license. It certainly is not capable of practicing law without a license, because each and every time this and similar bills have been overturned. Worse, there is no health exception. It is as if Roe versus Wade never said that in order to be constitutional there always had to be a health exception. These folks just slide right over that.

I want to leave you with the words of the Supreme Court in Carhart, because you are going to be hearing them again. This is not my Supreme Court, this is a conservative Supreme Court. And it said, ``Using this law some present prosecutors and future attorneys general may choose to pursue physicians who use the most commonly used method for performing previability, second trimester abortions. All those who perform abortion procedures using that method must fear prosecution, conviction, and imprisonment. The result is an undue burden upon a woman's right to make an abortion decision. We must quickly find the statute unconstitutional.''

It was unconstitutional 3 years ago, my friends. It is unconstitutional today, even if we enact it.

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate that the Members understand the vulnerability we feel here in the national capital. The gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Cummings) is in this region as well. And, of course, there is almost no attention being paid to vulnerability at home. I am on the Select Committee on Homeland Security, and I can tell you that those issues have been moved off the screen by what is happening in Iraq, by this $87 billion request.

I want to thank the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Cummings) for coming forward this evening to continue this dialogue in the way he is continuing it among the members of the Congressional Black Caucus. I thank the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Meek of Florida) and the gentlewoman from Texas (Ms. Jackson-Lee of Texas) for the repartee and colloquy that they have.

I see I have two of my good friends and sisters who need also to be able to speak before our time is up, so I will try and have consideration and bear that in mind as I speak briefly.

I want to congratulate my colleagues. I heard some of their colloquy on the troops. I am tired of talking about the war. I want to talk about the people who are being forced to make this war. Yes, they are volunteers, but none of them, none of them expected and indeed none of them were promised what has happened to them now.

We of the Congressional Black Caucus are concerned. A third of the U.S. Army is African American. About 20 percent of the armed services are all over, but when we speak about troops, we are talking about the American men and women who are in Iraq. I am saying, Mr. Speaker, they are not just in Iraq. My God, one begins to wonder where are they not? We are still in Europe and Japan. How long ago was World War II? When did the Cold War end? Nobody is talking about burden sharing anymore, about pulling them out. Korea. I guess most of the Congressmen were not even alive. Nobody is talking about going home from there. We are in Philippines, Bosnia, Kosovo, the Sinai Peninsula, Liberia. This is all that has come to mind. I have not done the encyclopedic rendition of where we are.

I am very, very frightened for my country now. Because my country is overly dependent on what we have come to call the weekend warriors. We know who the weekend warriors are. The weekends warriors are not your daughter and my son. They are not the folks who can go to college. The weekends warriors are the people who, knowing full well they may have to go abroad to fight a war, nevertheless had no expectation, for example, of having 6 months turn into a year and then come back and have to go again.

They want more troops. They say more foreign troops. They do not have enough troops to fight this war. They say foreign troops because they do not want to tell the American people the truth: They need more folks. We know from what has happened at the U.N. they are not going to get them from France and Germany. We are paying for the troops that are there from other countries already, so we are getting no financial relief. There are drips and dabs from other parts of the country.

Where is the pool going to go come from, Mr. Speaker? There is no place else for it to come from. It is going to come from the people who are now supporting their families here that have not been called up yet. The people who are in the Reserves and in the National Guard, largely for financial reasons, and are now becoming the blood and guts of the Armed Forces.

Mr. Speaker, I do not believe, and I think it can be easily proved, that this notion that we talked about endlessly of being able to fight two wars at the same time is any longer the case. We are hardly able to fight Afghanistan and Iraq at the same time, and there were howls about how Afghanistan was being neglected.

I defy anybody to tell me if a major war were to break out somewhere else in the world today how we would be prepared to go even a fight that war. But that was always the paradigm. We could do that. Because we invaded Iraq, a war of choice, that was unnecessary, we can no longer do that.

Mr. Speaker, I just want to say why a country, not simply we who feel for the troops, should be concerned about this. For the Active Duty and the Reserves thus far, there have been no particular impact of this war; and the reason the analysts tell us is there is no impact is the bad economy. People are, in fact, still joining the Active Reserve and Active Duty because they cannot get a job at home. Thank you, Uncle Sam. What you are not providing in America, people are getting their job risking their lives in the armed services.

But watch out for the National Guard. The National Guard is already 20 percent down on meeting its goal for the year. I ask you, Mr. Chairman, do you think the average person seeing National Guard targets in Iraq would now sign up to be in the National Guard? Moreover, the parents and the relatives of those who are there now say that, in the units where their husbands are fighting, three-quarters of the unit is going to go as soon as they are able to get out.

Who is going to fight the wars at all if going into Iraq means nobody wants to be in the Reserve anymore, nobody wants to be in the National Guard?

Mr. Chairman, did you know that you cannot get out now when your time is up because there is something called the Stop Loss for mobilized units? So your time is off. You signed up to X date; X date is passed and you are still in. Last time I looked, that was called a draft, and yet these are supposed to be volunteers.

Finally, Mr. Speaker, let me indicate a particular outrage that came to public note only this week. I do not know if I were to ask the average person what employer do you think has the largest number of Reservists? And I think people might think of AT&T or General Motors. Mr. Chairman, it is the United States Government. There are 65,000 Reservists who are employed by the Federal Government, people who serve their country in a civilian capacity, serve their country as a Reservist, the single largest employer in the United States is Uncle Sam, and so it should come as no surprise that we would have more Reservists. I did not realize until recently that 48,000 Federal technicians, there are 48,000 Federal technicians who are required to be members of the National Guard as a condition for employment by the Federal Government. So you would think that we would do what we could having so many of these Reservists.

We are not among the 200 private sector employers and 50 local and State governments who make up the difference in pay between what they earned on the job and their military pay. We are not among them, although many State governments are and many private employers are. So we have a chance to close that, to say we realize there is a war no one expected to fight. We realize horrific things are happening to families, so let us do what large companies do.

Instead, this week we learn that there was no chance, indeed, the defense appropriators in conference indicated that there was no chance that there would be a provision to close the gap that the civil service employees who have been called to active duty face. It was being considered by House and Senate negotiators working on the fiscal 2004 defense authorization bill, and word came on Monday that provision is dead, and they said it costs too much money.

Let me tell you what is too much money to make up the difference, the huge financial sacrifice to families would have cost over 5 years, $160 million dollars. We are talking about $87 billion. The notion that we cannot find in the huge defense budget, $160 million to do what 200 private companies do, to make sure that the sacrifice which is already horrific because you are already in the first place, would not come in dollars and cents to you and your family. So I say shame on you, Congress. Shame on the conferees for coming to the floor every day that this Congress is in session to talk about the troops. And when time comes to put up or shut up for the troops, they shut up.

Mr. Chairman, I want to invite one of my sisters to come forward now who has not had an opportunity to speak, and I would like to thank the gentleman for his leadership on this special order.

Mr. Speaker, I was pleased to support enactment of H.R. 13, the Museum and Library Services Act of 2003. In addition to authorizing Federal funding support for our Nation's museums and libraries, the bill contains a small provision with great importance to the District of Columbia. It designates the Capital Children's Museum as the National Children's Museum which will be a new state-of-the-art, interactive museum offering a national model for exhibits oriented and dedicated to children. The purpose of the museum will be to explain the Nation's institutions and ideas to American children, providing a gateway of understanding not only for children in the Washington, DC, metropolitan area, but also for the millions of school children and families who visit the Nation's capital from across the Nation and the world.

The National Children's Museum designation is critical for several reasons. The designation enables the museum to highlight its activities and exhibits, and expand the reach of its educational experiences to children both in the United States and abroad. The museum serves as a flagship for the Nation's children's museums, and the Association of Children's Museums supports the designation because it increases public understanding of the purpose of all children's museums. In addition, the designation will help facilitate partnerships for the National Children's Museum with other regional museums to create models for innovative learning experiences.

For almost 30 years, the Capital Children's Museum has been serving the children of the Nation's capital. I hope my colleagues will join me in thanking the Capital Children's Museum on its service to children for these many years, and in congratulating the museum on this designation and its commitment to the creation of the National Children's Museum.

Mr. Speaker, I thank our hard-working ranking member for yielding me this time, and I thank both of our ranking members and both of our Chairs of our committee and our subcommittee for the diligent work they have put in. I congratulate them on that and on trying to get us as far as we could thus far.

We are on suspension, which is really the only thing we could do, and it probably is the easiest thing we can do; and when you are doing the easiest thing, you have to watch out. Everybody knows that if something happened after 5 months and we were not ready, we would have to be right back here extending this bill. We just have to. We are not going to let a transportation bill expire. That is why I am sorry it is not for 6 months.

I am glad we are doing this on the floor today. For me it is a message for now and it is a message for the future. In this jobless recovery, folks out there need to know that we are working on jobs, and when they hear this bill is on the floor, they think, oh, goodness, at least they are not going to cut off what jobs are still going and maybe there will be some jobs coming. I am terribly concerned about a jobless rate of 6.4 percent, and 6.9 percent in my own district. Among African Americans, it is an amazing 11.5 percent, more than twice what it is for whites, and 5.5 percent for Hispanics, 50 percent higher than it is for whites. I hope we will not forget what this bill means to Americans: roads. Transportation means that we are going to put people to work, and today we are saying that we are trying our best to do that.

Mr. Speaker, I want to second the remarks of our ranking member about funding, the $375 million figure. I have begun to understand that figure as I became a member of the Committee on Homeland Security, and more and more of what I am asking for roads really has to do with security. The money I am asking for really has to do with things like bridges and tunnels because you cannot get out of the District of Columbia the way it is now if there were an emergency.

So I ask us all to focus on this bill, to focus on getting it done now, and to focus on doing what we have to do to get it out at the earliest possible moment.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in recognition of Constitution Day to submit to Congress a petition from nearly 1,000 District of Columbia residents for voting rights in the Congress. I commend Joseph N. Grano, the leader of the Voting Rights Petition who has gathered the signatures of prominent Washingtonians contained in the petition. Full democracy and voting rights for the District of Columbia residents have been my chief goals since I was first elected to Congress. Joseph Grano has furthered the goal for DC residents through this petition.

Last year in the 107th Congress, a 9-0 Senate Committee vote sent my DC voting rights bill, No Taxation Without Representation, to the Senate floor for the first time in 25 years.

Mr. Speaker, I ask the House to join me in acknowledging that the denial of full congressional voting rights is a denial of fundamental rights to District of Columbia residents.

District of Columbia Voting Rights Petition to Congress, 2001-2002

To the Honorable Senate and House of Representatives of the

United States of America:

We, the undersigned residents of Washington, DC and

citizens of the United States, respectfully petition for

representation in Congress as is duly granted to all citizens

residing in the fifty States.--Washington, DC, February 2,

2001-June 14, 2002.

petitioners

Elected Officials

Delegate, U.S. House of Representatives: Eleanor Holmes

Norton.

Mayor, District of Columbia: Anthony A. Williams. Council

of the District of Columbia: Linda W. Cropp, Chairman; Harold

Brazil, At Large; David A. Catania, At Large; Phil Mendelson,

At Large; Carol Schwartz, At Large; Jim Graham, Ward 1; Jack

Evans, Ward 2; Kathleen Patterson, Ward 3; Adrian Fenty, Ward

4; Vincent B. Orange, Sr., Ward 5; Sharon Ambrose, Ward 6;

Kevin P. Chavous, Ward 7; Sandy Allen, Ward 8.

Advisory Neighborhood Commissioners: Jacqueline Arguelles,

1A01; Mack A. James, 1A04; Regina Upchurch, 1A08; Lawrence T.

Guyot, Jr., 1B04;

Statehood Delegation to Congress: Florence H. Pendleton,

Senator; Paul Strauss, Senator; Ray Browne, Representative.

Board of Education of the District of Columbia: Peggy

Cooper Cafritz, President; Julie Mikuta, District 1; Dwight

E. Singleton, District 2; Tommy Wells, District 3; William

Lockridge, District 4. Theadore B.

Butler, 1B10; Josh Gibson, 1C07; Christopher Shaheen,

1E01; Maria Tyler, 2A03; Dorothy Miller, 2A05; Norma Z.

Chaplain, 2B01; Alexander M. Padro, 2C01; Doris L. Brooks,

2C03; Richard B. Westbrook, 2D01; Roger Moffatt, 2D05; Len

Levine, 2E02; Thomas L. Birch, 2E07; David H. Stephens,

2F01; All Lloyd Breed, 3B03; James C. Lively, 3B05; Kurt

Vorndran, 3C02; Gertrude E. Reeves, 3C06; Lars H. Hydle,

3C07; Rosalyn P. Doggett, 3C08; Nancy J. MacWood, 3C09;

Thomas A. Dibiase, 3E03; David J. Bardin, 3F04; Frank

Gordan, 3E05; Allen E. Beach, 3G04; Douglas Sloan, 4A01;

Jourdinia S. Brown, 4A02; Louis Lieb, 4B03; Pat Kidd,

4B04; Luis W. Thurston, 4B06; Joseph Bowser, 5A03; George

A. Jackson, 5B05; Kathy Henderson, 5B10; Cleopatra Jones,

5C03; Vicky Leonard-Chambers, 5C04; Matthew J. Hanka,

5C12; Ronald T.T. Nelson, 6A11; Kenan P. Jarboe, 6B05;

Kathy Chamberlain, 7B05; Terrance Johnson, 7C03; Ramon

Murchison, 7D06; Johnnie Scott Rice, 7E08; Charles Wilson,

8A03.

Former Elected Officials

United States Senator: Charles H. Percy (R-IL).

U.S. Representative: Fred B. Rooney (D-PA).

Delegate, U.S. House of Representatives: Walter E.

Fountroy.

Mayor, District of Columbia: Walter E. Washington; Sharon

Pratt.

Council of the District of Columbia: Sterling Tucker,

Chairman; Arrington Dixon, Chairman; Betty Ann Kane, At

Large; William Lightfoot, At Large; Hilda H.M. Mason, At

Large; Douglas Moore, At Large; John Ray, At Large; Frank

Smith, Ward 1; James E. Nathanson, Ward 3; Charlene Drew

Jarvis, Ward 4; William Spaulding, Ward 5; Nadine Winter,

Ward 6; H.R. Crawford, Ward 7; Wilhelmina Rolark, Ward 8.

Statehood Delegation to Congress: John Capozzi,

Representative.

Board of Education of the District of Columbia: Tonya Vidal

Kinlow, Member; Alaire Rieffel, Member; Barbara Lett Simmons,

Member; Wanda Washburn, Member; Phyllis E. Young, Member.

Additional Signers, in Alphabetical Order, Last Name First

Abate, Mary M., Abbott, Richard O., Adielou, Jean-Francois,

Adkins, Mark, Agostinelli, Floyd H., Aikin, Robert H.,

Albers, Gerardine M., Albright, Craig M., Alexander,

Clifford, Alexander, Harry, Toussaint, Alford, Susanne E.,

Ali, Kamil B., Ali, Virginia, Allen, Hugh, Allen, Mildred,

Alley, Dionti, Alston, Wanda R., Alvarez, Anne, Anderson,

Eleanor A., Anderson, John W. R., Anthony, Lewis M., Apple,

Janet, Aranha, Lesley G., Archer, Vivian, Artisst, Robert,

Athy, Andrew, Audette, Rose Marie, Auld, Barbara Ann,

Axelrod, Kimberly, Baker, A. Cornelius, Baker, Johanna,

Baker, Josephine C., Baldrige, Letitia, Barbara, Green,

Barker, Dorothy, Barnes, Denise Rolark, Barnes, Johnny,

Barton, Shari, Bashkin, June C., Bass, Gerald H., Bates,

Barbara D.,

Battle, Roma, Bauch, Michael M., Baxter, Nathan D., Beach,

Martha Page, Beach, Walter, Bearden, Janet, Becker, Mary H.,

Beghe, Bina, Bell, T. David, Benjamin, Julie, Bentley, Jerry,

Berg, Al, Berk, Sally, Berkley, Marta W., Berman, Lawrence

E., Bermpohl, Barbara J., Bermpohl, Charles, Bernhardt,

Sonya, Berry, Jr., James D., Berry, Max N., Bertran, Silvia

P., Best, Jr., Richard A., Bick, Barbara, Bicknell, Alesia,

Bieri, Sandra J., Birch, Thomas L., Bitondo, Patricia S.,

Bixley, Donna M., Black, Ethel R., Blackwelder, Brent, Blair,

Jr., Philip J., Block, Steven, Blufer, Jennifer, Blume,

Joshua S., Boasberg, Tersh, Bolden, A. Scott, Bolt, Janis M.,

Booker, R. H., Boorstin, Daniel J., Boorstin, Ruth F.,

Borbely, Marc, Borman, Susan G.,

Bost, Samuel F., Boswell, George W., Boteler, William,

Boucher, Marie A., Bourgin, Simon, Bowen, Helen, Bowen,

Tracy, Bowling, Kenneth R., Bradburn, Ben, Bray, Joan M.,

Brazile, Donna, Brizill, Dorthy, Broderick, Katherine S.,

Bronstein, Harriet, Brooks, Doris L., Brooks, Earline, Brown,

C. Dudley, Brown, Chelai, Brown, Danielle M., Brown,

Elizabeth F., Brown, Janet Welsh, Brown, Janice, Brown,

Sherry, Brown, Theresa F., Brown, William B., Brown, William

N., Browne, Elaine A., Browser, Joan B., Brylawski, Henry H.,

Buavie, Earl, Burden, Valerie K., Burger, Charles A.,

Burgess, Julie, Burkhart, Edwardo, Burton, Jr., Melvin M.,

Busang, F. Brett, Butler, Alice Y., Butler, Theodore, Cain,

Bonnie J., Calbert, William E., Cantey, Gloria A., Capozzi,

Susan U.,

Carliner, David, Carpenter, Anne, Carr, Novella M., Carter,

Randolph, Carter, Virginia L., Cartland, Beth, Cassell,

Charles I., Ceja, Kathy, Ceja, Paul, Chambers, Cathy,

Champagne, Rita V., Chane, John B., Charles, Christopher,

Chartowitz, Simon, Cheney, Carolyn, Chevalier, Mellanie,

Christian, Elois Felder, Clark, Bruce W., Clark, Jeannine

Smith, Clarke, Carole E., Clarke, III, Francis M., Clarke,

III, Randolph L., Clay, Carolyn, Clemmons, Richard L.,

Cleveland, Gwendolyn M., Coan, Nancie S., Coates, Mary M.,

Cohan, Marsha A., Cohen, Carla, Cohen, Claire, Cohen, David,

Cohen, Jean, Cohen, Paul J., Cohen, Roberta S., Cohen,

Stephen P., Cole, Carl C., Cole, Michelle C., Coleman,

Stephen, Collins, Michael A., Condrell, William A., Conly,

Robert J., Connors, Jill, Conroy, Sarah Booth, Cooke, Paul

P., Cooper, Dawn M., Cooper, Ethel C., Cooper, Jerry I.,

Cooper, Maudine R., Cooper, Timothy, Corboy, Joan E.,

Corvington, Patrick S., Courtney, Sarah,

Critchfield, Margot, Crittenden, Ann, Croft, Howard R.,

Cropp, Dwight S., Cushing, Joan, Cymrot, Steve, Czaplewski,

Ellen, Davis, Dorothy J., Davis, Ellen P., Davis, Judith,

Day, Alice T., Day, Lincoln H., Deaver, Laura D., DeGoia,

John J., Del Negro, Albert A., Del Signore, Gilda, Demczuk,

Bernard, Derrick, Jr., John M., Devall, Donna, Devall, James

L., DeVoto, Emily, Dial, Lacy Anne, diGiacomantonio, William

C., Dillard, Russell L., Dinan, Donald R., Dixon, Cora O.,

Dixon, Jane Holmes, Dixon, Jr., Walter, Doctor, Charles A.,

Doctor, Marcia, Doggett, Bill, Domike, Joan R., Donkin,

Steven G., Doucette, Dail D., Dougherty, James B., Douglas,

Selma Ford, Downs, Barbara, Downs, Dalton D., Drew, Joseph,

Drissel, Anne, Durant, Bene L., Eaddy, Phyllis C., Earhart,

Farley, Eck, Barbara Coughlin, Eckles, Kathryn A., Edelman,

Peter B., Edwards, Yvonne E., Egendorf, Paul, Eichenlaub,

Dawn M., Eichhorn, Jan, Eiland, Genevieve,

Eilenberg, Eleanor F., Eisenhardt, Julie, Elsworth, Robert

W., Elwood, Patricia, Emerine, Dan, Eng, Ronald M., Epperson,

Audrey I., Erdman, Ann, Espenschied, Peter, Espy, Anita,

Essaye, Eileen, Eugene, Elinor F., Evans, Ronald, Evelyn,

Douglas E., Fagin, Roy V., Falk, David, Farlee, Coralie,

Farley, Kecia M., Farrell, Mary, Farren, Linda, Fasano,

Michael V., Fassler, Bettifae, Fay, Peter J., Feldman,

Abraham E., Feldman, Margaret, Fenton, Mary E., Ferens,

Michael, Fidler, Lillian, Fillmore, Terrence, Fineberg,

Rachel, Fischer, Eleanor P., Fitzgerald, IV, William B.,

FitzGerald, William H.G., Flack, J. Kirkpatrick, Flack, Joan,

Fleming, Carol E., Fleming, Jean, Ford, James R., Ford,

Jessica M., Forster, John J., Fox, Catherine J., Fox, Howard,

Francese, Marge, Freund, Charles Paul, Freundel, Barry, Frye,

Denetra T., Furlong, Joan M., Gaffney, James C., Gaine-

Jernigan, April C., Gaither, Jr., Charles, Gardiner, Laura,

Gardner, Letitia,

Garnett, C. Vance, Gati, Charles, Gati, Tobi T., Gaull,

Eric S., Gauntt, Barbara, Gautier, Philip R., Gemmill,

Frances C., Gemmill, Robert, Gench, Roger J., Gerstle, Tracy,

Gibson, James O., Gildemeister, Joan E., Gildenhorn, Jeffrey

N., Gill, Sr., John W., Gilson, Anne E., Gist, John Earl,

Gittens, Tony, Glickman, Andrew, Glover, Joseph A., Gold,

Gregg H.S., Golden, Ryan, Golomb, Rita, Goodall, Nataki,

Goode, James M., Gordon, Lillian A., Gottfried, Bobby,

Gottfried, Margery, Gould, Michael A., Grana, Teresa, Grano,

Joseph N., Granoff, Nadine, Grant, Denise E., Grant, Evelyn

R., Grant, Miriam, Grass, Eleanor, Graves, Jr. Donet D.,

Gray, Evelyn T., Gray, Harold, Gray, Lawrence A., Graye, Eric

S., Green, Charles C., Green, Marjorie Reed, Green, Tyler,

Greenan, Linda, Greene, M. Sharon, Greene, Natalie C.,

Greenfield, Brad, Griffin, Susan, Gundersheimer, Werner,

Gunn, Zanette, Gunn-Williams, Berna, Gurley, George E.,

Gwynne, J. Guy, Hagerty, Helen M., Hagler, Graylan S.,

Hahn, Jr., Gilbert, Hahn, Margot H., Hallman, E. Patricia,

Hanrahan, Deborah, Hanrahan, John, Hansen, Erling, Hargrove,

Ann Hughes, Hargrove, John Lawrence, Harigan, Merrilee,

Haring, Ellen E., Harles, Andrea, Harles, Charles, Harraway,

Jane, Harris, Janette Hoston, Harrison, Keyla, Hatry, Audrey

H., Hawkins, Ann W., Hawthorne, Annie F., Hayden, Andrea R.,

Hechinger, Sr., John, Height, Dorothy, Hemphill, Gwendolyn,

Henderson, Wade, Henry, James, Herman, Christina C., Herman,

Christopher C., Heurich, Gary F., Hier, Thomas C., Hill,

Barbara, Hinman, Brian R., Hinton, Shauntay, Hinton, Solomon,

Hitchcock, Joanne, Hobbs, Loretta M., Hobson, Phyllis J.,

Holeman, Larry E., Holman, Kwasi, Holmes, Anastasia M.,

Hoover, Bette, Hopper, Janice H., Hoskins, Marilyn W.,

Howard, John M., Hubbard, Reginald, Huff, James E., Hughes,

Reginald T., Hughley, Alisa M., Hugo, Glen, Hunter, Deitrich,

Hurst, Paul R.,

Hussey, Sandra R., Hydle, Lars S., Hyman, Robert E., Hyman,

Toby R., Imperatore, Catherine, Isaac, Donald, Isaac,

Fulwood, Ivey, Mary E., Jackson, Jr., Arthur H., Jackson,

Jumoke, Jackson, Maurice, Jacques, Kenneth R., Jaffe, Lorna

S., James, Sandra P., Jamison, Kay, Janke, Lucinda, Jarvis,

Ernest D., Jashinsky, Judy, Jenkins, Anise, Jenkins, Lauretta

C., Jenkins, Mark, Jenkins, Timothy L., Jewett, Martha,

Johns, Marie C., Johnson, Aaron L., Johnson, Edith, Johnson,

Jermaine, Johnson, Linda, Johnson, Mark F., Johnson, Michael,

Johnson, Mzilla Boyd, Johnson, Sr., James R., Johnson,

Wendell R., Johnstone, James M., Jones, Brenda, Jones,

Cecily, Jones, Cliftine, Jones, Elaine R., Jones, Germaine,

Jones, Gwen, Jones, Jean C., Jones, Mary C., Jordan, Jr.,

Vernon E., Joynt, Carol Ross, Junge, Emilie, Kameny, Franklin

E., Kaplan, Joel, Kaplan, Michael, Katz, Kenneth S., Kaufman,

Sarah E., Keenan, Joan S., Keeny, Jr., Spurgeon M.,

Keeny, Sheila S., Kelley, Kitty, Kelly, Brandy, Kemp,

Virginia, Kendrick, Dolores, Kennedy, Adele, Kennedy, Emily

A., Kennedy, Mary T., Kidney, Judy, Kiger, Keven, Kimber,

Stephanie, Kinch, Patricia, King, Branda J., King, Catherine

Y., King, Jean A., Kingsley, Rebecca, Kinlow, Eugene D.,

Kissel, Sharon M., Klein, Max, Klein, Suzette, Kleinhenz,

Laura M., Knot, Kenneth, Koenigs, Marion, Kopper, Starr,

Korzenik, Jeremy F., Koskinen, John A., Kraft, Barbara S.,

Kreitzman, Elizabeth, Kreitzman, Horace, Krowl, Michelle A.,

Kukulski, Raymond J., Kurtz, Gwendolyn M., Larh, Jack, Larh,

Joanna Hanes, Lake, R. Renita, Lancastre, Johncie L., Lane,

Joseph, Lane, Madelyn A., LaRoche, George S., Larsen, Amy

Gracey, Lawrence, Charles, Lawrence,

Krystal, Lawton, Virginia, Lee, Ethel Delaney, Lee, Vilma L.,

Leiman, Robin, Leonard, Lloyd S., Levin, Vivian, Lewis,

Charles Thomas, Lewis, Iris R., Lewis, Stacey L., Liberatore,

Robert G.,

Lidoff, Marjorie, Lindenblad, Irving W., Linder, Geraldine,

Linton, Ronald M., Loikow, Ann Hume, Lowe, Charles, Lowell,

Kathyrn Solorzano, Lucas, Anne, Luchs, Allison, Luchs,

Barbara B., Lugo, Elena, Lynch, Jr., Willie J., Lynch,

Terrance, Lytle, Lelia A., Madison, Joseph, Mahone, Othello,

Malasky, Gary, Malone, Brenda D., Marsh, Anna, Marsh, Luther,

Martin, Elizabeth, Marx, Jay, Marzin, Anne D., Mason,

Charles, Mason, Ernest J., Mawber, Carolyn, Maza, Rudy, May,

Jr., Ernest N., Mayes, Stanley J., Mayoch, Melanie, McBride,

Lindsay, McCauley, Mary T., McClintic, Dusty, McFarlane,

Jonda, McIntosh, Janet, McIver, Dale, Mckee, Pamela L.,

McKiney, Arthur D., McKoy, John H., McLeod, James, McLeod,

Kate, McMahon, James B., McSweeny, Dorothy Pierce, McWaters,

Mary Harris, Meade, Barbara M., Meehan, Robert, Meehan,

Susan, Meigel, Robin, Melder, Keith E., Melendez, Norma.,

Melgren, Linda M., Mersha, Wondimu, Merz, Mary Frances,

Method, Francis J., Metzger, Nancy Pryor, Miller, H. Crane,

Miller, Iris, Miller, Janette S., Miller, Joan, Miller, Joyce

D., Miller, Nancy E., Miller, Rosemary E. Reed, Miller,

Sabrina, Miller, Victor J., Mills, Yvette, Minott, Gloria,

Mitchell, Cynthia T., Mitchell, Hedrick E., Mitchell, Shirley

G., Mitten, Carol J., Moe, Richard, Molinelli, Lucille,

Monagan, Rosemary, Mondale, Clarence, Mondale, Virginia,

Monteilh, Richard, Moody, Linda H., Moore, Carol, Moore,

Carolyn, Moore, Robert L., Morris, Debra S., Mosely, Bill,

Muier, Adam E., Mumford, Jennifer, Mumin, Ibrahim, Munson,

Marit, Najjab, Jamal, Neal, Beverly, Neil, Cynthia S.,

Nelson, Judith G., Nelson, Karen, Neumann, Loretta, Neverson,

Angela P., Neverson, Norman C., Newsman, Elaine L., Nichols,

Susan, Nickerson, Lisa M., Nijjeri, Redus, Noherty, Sean

Patrick, Norouzi, Parisa, Norris, Alice L., Noto, Nonna A.,

Nyguard, Debra, O'Field, Jr., William R., Odabas-Geldiay,

Filiz F., Odum, Joel, Ogilvie, Phil, Oldham Molly, Olender,

Jack H., Oliver, Anne, Pannell, Philip E., Parker, Cheryl A.,

Patrick, Jaquetta, Patterson, Michael, Payton, II, Douglas

Neil, Payton, Pamela, Pearson, Shawn L., Pearson-West,

Kathryn A., Peck, Robert A., Peete, Etta C., Perry, Keith

Andrew, Peterson, Sushila J., Pigott, Howard, Plotkin, Mark,

Pollard, William L., Pollock, Lucia, Pontius, John F.,

Pontius, Ruth C., Pope, George, Popkin, Joanne, Poteat,

Willard C., Potter, Julian, Powell, John, Present, Sheri,

President, Delure, Price, Woodruff, Pridgen, Marguerite,

Priemou, Lina, Quander, Carmen, Quander, Rohulamin, Quinn,

Brigid, Raines, Franklin D., Rainwater, Peggy E., Rausch,

Richard L., Ravens, Robert B., Ray, Kathryn C., Redman, Gail,

Redwood, Rene A., Reed, Jeanne P., Reeves, Brian, Rega,

Elizabeth, Rega, John, Regardie, Renay, Regardie, William,

Reid, Sheila A., Rhodes, Samuel W., Rice, Bill, Rich, Sr.,

Frank, Richards, Laura, Richards, Mark David, Richardson,

Bernard, Richardson, Charles, Richardson, Neil, Richardson,

Ronald, Rieffel, Lex, Riley, Paul J., Rimensnyder, James N.,

Rimensnyder, Nelson F., Rivers, Beverly D., Rivlin, Alice M.,

Robbins, Stacey, Robbins, Warren, Robin, Alex, Robinson,

William L., Rodriguez, Hector, Rogers, Helen H., Rojo, Eric,

Roles, Margaret, Rollins, Jr., Robert A., Romanek, Walter,

Rooney, Angela, Rooney, Thomas P., Roosevelt, Kermit, Rose,

Loraine, Ross, Glyndola C., Ross, Pete, Ross, Tayloe, Roth,

Alan J., Rothschild, Kenneth, Rouncie, Hollace, Rowan, Mary

Pat, Rowen, Paul R., Russell, Elizabeth, Ruttenberg, Charles

B., Rybeck, Richard, Sacks, Benjamin R., Saez, Miriam,

Sanders, Charles E., Sandvold, Irene, Sarla, Leo, Saul, Judy

Hubbard, Saunders, Sherry J., Schaefer, Christie, Schaefer,

Mark A., Scher, Barry F., Schietinger, Egbert F.,

Schietinger, Helen, Schlefer, Marion K., Schyler, Krista,

Schmidt, Kathy, Schott, Peter, Schussheim, Hanna L., Schwinn,

Gerald Allan, Scott, Edith M., Scott, Paul D., Seegars,

Sandra, Seligman, Michele, Sellin, Anne, Sellin, David,

Semans, Linda K., Sericca, Cherie, Shaffer, Joseph, Shannon,

Donald H., Shannon, Sally, Shapiro, Carol Ann, Shapiro,

Sarah, Sheehan, Kathleen M., Shema Yah, Queen Mother,

Sheppard, Anthony M., Shepperd, Randall J., Short, Jr. James

N., Shulman, Judith L., Sibert, Karen M., Sigerson, Bartlett,

Sivlerman, Gary S., Silverstone, Gail, Simmons, Jacquelyn S.,

Simmons, Nancy L., Simon, Gottlieb, Simons, Elaine D.,

Simons, William H., Simpson, Alec, Singleton, Harry M.

Sinzinger, Kathryn M., Sislen, Myrna, Slemmer, Amy, Smalls,

Betty L., Smith, B. Harold V., Smith, Dane F., Smith,

Jeffrey, Smith, Judith A., Smith, Juliette W., Smith, Kathryn

S., Smith, Kimberly R., Smith, Lloyd D., Smith, Naomi B.,

Smith, Nelson, Smith, Sherwood,

Smith, Vivian L. Smith, Wallace Charles, Smith, Walter,

Snyder, Tanya, Sockwell, Robert N., Softli, Linda E.,

Solomon, Daniel, Solomon, Elizabeth, Solorzano, John, SoWell,

Richard, Sparkman, Jennifer L., Speight, Chester, Spencer,

Annette L., Spillinger, Barbara, Springmann, Ruth E.,

Standing, Benjamin M., Stanmore, Stuart, Starke, George,

Steacy, Richard, Steen, Jim, Stein, Gary, Stephens, David H.,

Sternlieb, Joseph, Stewart, Rhonda, Stock, Richard H., Stout,

Anna, Stowell, Kerry H., Strawser, Neil E., Sulton, Cynthia

Gayle, Sussman, Michael, Szulgit, Karen A., Talbott, Strobe,

Tangherlini, Daniel, Tank, Mary L., Tanney, Faith, Tate,

Constance P., Tayler, William, Taylor, Clara S., Taylor,

Inell P., Teasley, Inez L., Tellis, Edward L., Temple, Donald

M., Tennly, Emanuel Tanen, Terry, Diane, Tess, Dillon,

Theobald, Ursula, Thomas, Annie Marcs,

Thomas, Hazel B., Thomas, J. Maurice, Thomas, Martin,

Thomas, Romain B., Thomas, W., Thorne, Doris, T., Thorp,

Matthew B., Tierney, Mary B., Tillman, Joan E., Tingling,

Michele A., Tobias, M., Todd, Ellen, Tottenberg, Polly,

Tractenberg, Stephen Joel, Trumbull, Kuann, Tuckerman, Jane,

Turner, Wayne, Tyrance, Marian T., Tyson, Harriet, Updike,

William A, Valenti, Jack, Van Susteren, Lise, Van Williams,

David, Vandivier, Elizabeth, Vicary, Scott, Vigderhouse,

Mildred, Volk, Joann, Walker, Alice, Wallace, Elizabeth F.,

Ward, Derrick, Washburn, Abbott M., Washington, Mary Burke,

Washington, Paul, Washington, Robert E., Washington, Shirley

A., Waters, Joyce N., Watkins, Erikka B., Watkins, Frank,

Watkins, Robert P., Watson, Loretta M., Ways, Sherry B.,

Weaver, Gladys C., Wedderburn, Daniel H., Weill, Daniel F.,

Weisman, Jr., Malcolm L., Weiss, Chris, Weiss, Marc A.,

Weiss, Nancy, Welch, Delores H., Wellborn, Clay H.,

Wellborn, Edna P., Wenham, Gerard R., Werronen, Betsy W.,

West, Jr., Togo D., Westbrook, Richard B., Wheeler, A.L.,

Whitman, Sue, Wilbourn, Beverly J., Wilcher, Vickey M.,

Wilkins, Roger, Willet, Sheila A., Williams, Anthony M.,

Williams, Elsie B., Williams, Paul, Williams, Shelore,

Williams, Virginia Hayes, Wills, Kathleen H., Wilson,

Charles, Wilson, Joan R., Wilson, Joann L., Wilson, Raymond

J., Wilson, Vaughn, Winborne, Annie M., Wirtz, Jane Q., Wirtz

W. Willard, Wiseman, Dewey, Wholberg, Jeffrey A., Wolf,

Muriel D., Wolf Richard N., Wolff, P.L., Wooby, William,

Woodfork, Ethel S., Woodfork, Sterling V., Woods, Elizabeth

M., Woodson, Roderic L., Woosley, Dorothy L., Worthy, Ruth,

Wynn, Lester M., Yancey, Elizabeht C., Yeomans, Barbara,

Zanders, Miriam, Zeldin, Zelda, Zobgy, James, Zupa, Mary

Beth.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the Chair of the Congressional Black Caucus for yielding. We all owe him particular gratitude for the way in which this entire session he has brought this caucus together on this floor on important issues, none more important than the issue before us today.

If I were to summarize what I have to say today, it would be that the troops have become an abstract concept. I want to deconstruct the concept. The proposition that I want to put forward is that two inexcusable errors by the administration are endangering our troops in Iraq: first, the rush to war without allies, and, secondly, the inexcusable failure to plan for the peace.

The context of what I want to speak about further is a young man whose funeral I went to a couple of weeks ago, Darryl Dent, 21 years old, due home several times, extended each time. Dead.

I believe that the Darryl Dents, who are mounting up every day, are unnecessarily mounting up; and I want to make that case today.

I want to congratulate the Chair once again on his ``Statement of Principles as to War against Iraq'' that the caucus issued before that war. The most important principle has been vindicated, that a unilateral first strike action by the United States without a clearly demonstrated and indicated threat of attack on the United States, that notion that you do not do that kind of strike unless you know you are in imminent danger, has been fully vindicated by multiple failures of the administration.

I want to spell out what those failures are. First, the failure to form a pre-war and a post-war alliance to provide adequate civilian and military assistance to our troops in the field and to the people of Iraq after the war; the failure to secure the peace; the failure to prepare for the probability of an Iraqi resistance. What did we think they were going to do, just melt into the woodwork? Or, finally, to understand that once there was the chaos of war, we would draw in terrorist elements following the war, the failure to prepare for what U.S. commanders now themselves now call a guerilla war in Iraq. Was all of this necessary, Mr. Speaker? I think not.

It comes up now in the context of an astonishing request. Nobody expected $87 billion more. What is that, for this year alone?

I want to talk about the troops through Darryl Dent, because I think the words need to be humanized. The only people who have been asked to sacrifice for this war are the military. We certainly have not been asked to sacrifice a thing, whether we are rich or poor, since we are getting tax cuts thrown at us.

The greatest hardship has been on the people we call the Weekend Warriors. You will notice that the Congressional Black Caucus does not feel defensive at all about indicating that we support the troops. We do not need to come forward and let everybody make sure you know we support the troops. That is a truism, particularly since the troops are disproportionately African American.

Mr. Speaker. Yes, we do support them. That is a given as well.

We also believe that once you destroy somebody's country, you invade somebody's country, you ought to fix it up and not simply leave it in chaos. That is the obligation that comes once you invade somebody's country. That is an obligation, by the way, under the U.N. charter.

Winning the war in Iraq was a virtual given. But we had a special obligation not to engage in a war of choice unless we were in imminent danger the moment we decided to have a volunteer Army, because that Army we knew from the outset would be composed disproportionately of Weekend Warriors.

We were under a particular obligation to make sure that we did not call people who we gave to understand that, yes, in the event of a war of last resort you will be called up, but basically there was not much chance that you would be called up. We had no right to go into a war of choice unless we had no other choice. They were prepared to fight a defensive war, they were prepared to fight this war of choice, but it is unfair that we have asked them to do that. They are all surprised. They are as astonished as anybody is. And we are having a snowball effect.

We are having a snowball effect on the troops, on their families, on small businesses, and on employers. We know it, because employers and families are beginning to escalate their use of the mechanism in the Defense Department that allows you to ask for particular troops to come home because of emergency or hardship. Businesses are using that as well. We know it because families are organizing to bring the troops home, for goodness' sake.

And we know one other thing: we had better not get up ever again and declare that we can fight a war on two fronts. We now know we cannot fight a war on two fronts without substantial aid from substantial allies using a military force composed so disproportionately of Weekend Warriors, of people in the Reserves, of people in the National Guard. Nobody can fail to understand that now, particularly when the commanders are calling for troops. They call them ``foreign troops,'' but what they mean is they need reinforcements.

We know they need reinforcements because of the horror stories we are hearing, for example, of people coming home after a year of service and being called back after a few weeks on the job. How long do you think you will have a volunteer Army when you are

treating troops this way? How long? Not long.

In particular, we ought to remember who the National Guard is. They perform triple duty: homeland defense now in the age of domestic terrorism, which is what Americans are truly afraid of; natural disasters, like the hurricane that is bearing down upon us; and, of course, the regular military duty that so many of them are engaged in now. We had better hope and pray we do not need the National Guard at home, because they simply are unavailable to us at the moment.

The administration changed the rules of the game once these young people were signed up and in the field. Now they find that commanders can decide when and if they will go home. They are getting extension after extension of duty, and they are getting back-to-back service, all of which they were promised would almost never happen.

Where does this spring from? From the go-it-alone attack on Iraq that this administration did, against all of the advice of our allies, indeed, of the whole world. The way in which we have handled Iraq has already wrecked American foreign policy and its relations with its allies.

Yes, I support the Congressional Black Caucus statement of principles. I also believe it is time to do more than ask tough questions. It is time to do more than talk about the troops, as if they were some inanimate body. It is time to come to grips with our duty to protect the troops, not only in the field, but here at home, against policies that could wreck the volunteer forces on which we have become so dependent in an age when we do not use the draft.

Mr. Speaker, I again thank the chairman for his leadership.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to recognize the work of one of the finest public servants with whom I have had the pleasure of working in the District of Columbia. After 30 years, Herbert Leonard, Jr., a native Washingtonian, will be retiring from his position as the Government Relations Officer for the District of Columbia at the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority WMATA. WMATA will be losing a valued employee and I will be losing a treasured counsel and advocate.

Since 1973, Herb has worked closely with other elected and government officials in the District of Columbia as well as civic associations, advisory neighborhood commissions and businesses. Over the years, many of these groups have recognized Herb for his efforts in their communities. Today I, too, honor his work.

I cannot count the number of times that Herb has gone above and beyond the parameters of his job in order to assist me in bringing comfort and support to my constituents. Whether facilitating transportation for a constituent with disabilities or helping disadvantaged children at my annual Christmas parties, Herb has been dedicated, respectful, and responsive to the needs of the people of the District of Columbia, particularly those in the greatest need of assistance.

With his energy and intelligence, Herb Leonard could have been a success in any line of work he desired. Indeed, Herb holds several U.S. patents and in 1965, he was chosen by then-Vice President Hubert Humphrey, as one of 85 prominent black businessmen to visit predominately black colleges in order to convince minority youth of the importance of getting a good education and to encourage them to take advantage of the increasing career opportunities in business and industry. With the world at his feet, Herb chose to make public service his vocation, and for that, we should all be grateful.

Mr. Speaker, I ask the House to join me in wishing Mr. Leonard the very best in his new endeavors.

Mr. Speaker, I very much appreciate the leadership of the gentleman from Illinois and his counterpart on the other side of the aisle for her leadership in bringing forward this important resolution.

I want to recognize the leadership of two gentlemen from Georgia, of the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Bishop) who is the sponsor of this resolution for stepping forward with a resolution that belongs on the floor, and, of course, the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Lewis) who has just spoken, who led a commemoration in Statuary Hall for the 40th anniversary of the march before recess, and who is the last remaining living leader of the civil rights march on Washington. He led us, who were then members of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, as a very young, the younger leader then, and he continues in that role as one of America's preeminent civil rights leaders today.

I do not think this is an occasion for doing what people around the country have been doing all through August, were you there. Of course, we were there, and people really think about being there in a way they ask where were you when John F. Kennedy was killed. They remember where they were then or where were you on September 11. The march on Washington is like that for millions of Americans, where were you, and people like to say

I was there, and of course, people are very proud of having been there because it was the first civil rights march for equality in the history of the United States here in Washington.

I was there as a law student, a staff member of the march on Washington. Frankly, this is not a time for nostalgia. I think that grand occasions like this, when we commemorate a change-making event like a march on Washington, are occasions for taking stock, the distance traveled, the distance to go.

Nothing could have been more moving than the events around the 40th anniversary, our own commemoration, here in the House, the moment the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Lewis) will remember when he and Mrs. King and I unveiled that stone marker and saw for the first time the marker where Martin Luther King spoke before, now on the Lincoln Memorial. Three of Reverend King's four children were there, the very four children he spoke of in that speech on August 28, 1963.

This is an occasion, if one is a Member of the House of Representatives, for looking at how the world has changed since then and how the civil rights movement has changed our world. When the march was held, essentially African Americans had carried one demand, one single demand for the more than hundred years since the civil war. It was not a plethora of issues we had before us. It was one demand: Enact into law, country of mine, equality unto law. That is all.

After that march, that happened, the 1964 Civil Rights Act. Little did I know then that I would come to enforce a section of that Act, Title VII, as Chair of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission 15 years later. The 1965 Voting Rights Act, perhaps the most important because it empowered African Americans to do what they had to do for themselves; and the 1968 Fair Housing Act.

Actually, much of the legislative agenda of black America has been accomplished if we think about actual laws that need to be written to say thou shalt not discriminate. We will have a hard time thinking about it. Most of our time will be spent on enforcement.

There is one I hope this House thinks about and that is a law that should be attached to the Transportation Bill outlawing racial profiling.

Mr. Speaker, that is the single example of overt discrimination left unattended in our laws. But while we had one challenge and I can tell Members that staff had no problem coming up with that idea at the March on Washington, today if I would ask what is the one demand of the civil rights movement, Members would say wait one moment, and then go down a whole list of demands because we can now come forward with those demands: economic parity; educational opportunities; the criminal justice system where a whole generation of young black men are being locked up for minor drug offenses, killing the black family in our community; health care.

We can move on to these challenges. We have 38 African American Members, and we can move on to these challenges because the civil rights movement moved us on, the overriding challenge of equality under law. There is much to be done even to that reality, equality under law; but the resolution we honor today, the 40th anniversary of the March on Washington, should send us first into reflection about moving toward the completion of the job of laying aside our racial past and moving on into a period of full equality.

Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word.

Mr. Chairman, this House has a proud bipartisan record of reserving scarce Federal funds for public education. We cannot convincingly make the District of Columbia an exception to that record.

The majority of the city council, the majority of the elected members of the school board, and as the member who has represented the city for 13 years, the majority of the residents of the city are just like your districts and overwhelmingly oppose vouchers. Hundreds of them, led by the clergy of our city ministers and rabbis, came to fan out to tell the Congress that just last week.

If you are willing to vote to give public money to private schools this year, you better be prepared to answer back home. Of course you can say, well, the District of Columbia is different; you know, the schools are so bad. There are school districts exactly like the District of Columbia in every State of the Union. Those of you from Michigan know about Detroit. If you come from Georgia, you know about Atlanta. If you come from Connecticut, you know about Bridgeport. If you come from Texas, you know about Houston and Dallas. And I do not know all of your rural districts, but I am sure they will match the District in test scores and all the rest of the deprivations that lead to bad schools.

So you go home, if you will, and tell them that in the year when the unkept promise of special education remains outstanding, while the schools in your district are being called shortchanged, that is okay; there was one district in the United States that I was willing to give private money for public schools.

So you go home and tell them, well, I am not for it here, because that is the hypocrisy I hear time and again, but this is one district in the whole United States that I was willing to dig in my Federal pocket and draw out some public money for private schools and it will never happen again. There is a 5-year appropriation here. You will be doing it year after year. And you go home and tell them, when there is a backlash now developing against the bipartisan No Child Left Behind, that that $9 billion unfunded mandate, that is okay, we are taking care of that. Meanwhile, we had some private schools in the District of Columbia that we simply had to fund this year.

This is a voucher-only bill. If you vote for the Davis amendment, you are voting for vouchers for our country. If you vote ``yes'' on final, you are voting vouchers if the Davis amendment is in the bill. Vote ``no'' on Davis. Vote ``no'' on final passage. Do not flip-flop on vouchers. You will pay the price. We will try to see to it that you do.

Mr. Speaker, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding me this time, and I thank the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Frelinghuysen) who has worked in such a bipartisan fashion with the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Fattah) on this appropriation. I want to thank them both for their bipartisanship, bipartisanship without compromising their principles, but also for their sensitivity to home rule and the fact that this is an independent jurisdiction that ought to be able to speak up for itself the way jurisdictions of every Member of this House can.

I am proud how far our city has come under the leadership of Mayor Williams and City Council Chairwoman Linda Cropp and our city council. We have come a very long way from insolvency to a city now that is in better shape than most jurisdictions in the United States because of the prudence of our local leadership.

I want to talk about what this bill is about because this is not our usual D.C. appropriation where I would normally thank the President for funding my tuition access bill, and let me do it anyway, probably the most popular legislation in the District of Columbia because it allows young people to go to any State-supported institution anywhere in the United States; but nobody will remember the D.C. appropriation 2003 for anything but one issue. Members simply have to concentrate on what they are voting on.

This is a bill with a vouchers-only provision. We will hear promises about maybe in the Senate they will have some money. That bill is in huge trouble in the Senate, and of course some money has been put in for public funding when there was an uproar in the city about funding vouchers, and then the pro-voucher officials came forward and said wait a minute, we have a three-sector approach, and we will get some money for the public schools, too.

But everybody understands the public money is a cover for vouchers. It is a way to take the sting out of vouchers. This is one of the most anti-voucher jurisdictions in the United States of America. They have tried it here for 20 years, and this is a jurisdiction which sent me, their Congresswoman, time and again, back here to ask Members to veto their appropriation to keep vouchers from being attached to it until President Clinton could somehow negotiate them off.

So the people of the District of Columbia have not turned around on a dime and flip-flopped and said we want vouchers. All Members need to do is sit in my office and they will know where they stand, because the elected officials, the majority of the elected officials of the school board, the majority of the city council, have written to you to say we do not want vouchers.

What is important for every Member to know and to understand is that this is not only a vouchers-only bill so that is what Members are going to be voting on, but this will be the first time in the United States of America that the Congress of the United States has sent money to private schools, something that huge numbers of Members on the other side of the aisle have crossed to this side of the aisle to vote with us to say we will never do.

There is a reason people do not do it. They do not do it in part because two-thirds of the American people oppose vouchers, if we want to get down to particulars. But this year is the last time we would want them to do it because this is the year when if Members went home for recess, Members heard a bipartisan backlash against a bipartisan bill, the No Child Left Behind bill, because people are now beginning to pay the unfunded mandate for No Child Left Behind, and now Members

are going to vote to send money to private schools with that $9 billion unfunded mandate.

Schools are in the worst crisis that they have been in our country since World War II, the worst funding crisis, according to all of the data coming forward. What do Members have in your own districts on CNN and everywhere else? Slick, expensive ads, national TV, the opening salvo to a new nationwide drive for vouchers in every district, just as that well-funded set of forces have wanted to do for some time.

If Members pass this bill, if Members vote for vouchers, they will send a signal to every private school in the country, every organization of private schools, to every organization of religious schools, that this is the time to bring pressure to get the same kind of private school deal that the District of Columbia got, and Members can expect the same slick ads right in their district.

Mr. Chairman, many Members have heard from our mayor. He is my good friend, and will continue to be my good friend, even on an issue like this. We will continue to work closely on the issues affecting our city. He has pressed this Congress, but he has not successfully pressed the elected officials of the District of Columbia or the people of the District of Columbia.

We have the letter from the council chair and Members have the letter from the parents' association. Perhaps Members saw the hundreds of D.C. residents, led by ministers and rabbis who fanned out all over this Congress on Wednesday to say do not do vouchers in this city. We are not to be your pilot. Do not experiment in the District of Columbia, experiment in your own States. The city has a situation here which is not cost free. We are undergoing $40 million in cuts, another $25 million will go out if 2,000 students exit if the schools are funded on a per-pupil basis. D.C. has a $50 million unfunded No Child Left Behind mandate right now. All of our elected officials should be down here trying to get that money the way Members of Congress have.

The District of Columbia wants Congress to respect their alternatives. We are ahead of virtually every district in this Congress on alternatives. We have our own charter schools, the largest number in the United States per capita. They have long waiting lists. Those are the chosen options of our people by our people. We have 15 transformation schools for the poorest children in the District of Columbia, the first breakthrough in Stanford 9 scores in the history of the city. That breakthrough will no longer occur unless the funding that the city has put in continues. And then, of course, a child in the District of Columbia can go out of boundaries; something that Members' districts have yet to do or have finally been mandated to do, we have been doing for decades.

Members do not want vouchers in their districts. They have been voted down on the floor. I represent this District of Columbia. I am here to tell Members you do not want them in your district, and we do not want them in our district. This is not a Democratic or Republican issue, it is not because a huge majority, almost two-thirds of the American people, oppose vouchers; and why would Members think it would be any different in the District of Columbia? It is no different.

Mr. Chairman, Members should not forget where their constituents stand when they cast their vote today. I certainly have not forgotten where mine stand.

Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.

Mr. Chairman, this amendment promises to be perhaps the first of three voucher-only votes in this body at this time. The first will be on this bill to remove or strike the funding for vouchers; the second would be the Davis bill, which will try to legislate vouchers onto this appropriation; and, of course, if vouchers remain in the bill, the third would be the vote on the bill itself.

The $10 million in this bill is not a lot of money, and that is really not what this controversy is about. It does not look like a lot until you look at where it comes from and where it is going and what will follow as a result of our vote.

First of all, first let us look at where the money is coming from. This money has come straight out of education. It took a vote in the Committee on Appropriations transferring money from the Labor-Education appropriation over to the District appropriation in order to fund this bill. It came straight out of education for this bill.

So we already see that this is not new money, as has been claimed, that this is money straight out of education, and that is where voucher money always comes from, because there is only one pot of money. Different folks may designate that pot, but there is only one pot of money, and that is where this money is coming from. It is coming from it for the first time, if you vote for this bill and against my amendment.

If you indeed vote to allow vouchers to remain in this bill, it will not go unnoted. I do not know where you were at recess, but I know that every State in the Union is crying about unkept promises for Federal money. The biggest unkept promise is special education, which is taking down education systems in entire States, including the District of Columbia. We promised 40 percent. We have not come close to that.

Then, of course, there is the backlash against the No Child Left Behind bill. That was a bipartisan bill. We are losing folks everywhere because of that unfunded mandate, because there are going to be children that are not going to be able to graduate from high school because the funding to help them prepare for the tests is not there.

As long as there are mandated costs on our States and school districts, it is simply impossible to justify diverting a single dollar of public money to private schools.

Now, I know that there are Members here who voted in committee for vouchers for the District who have never voted for vouchers generally on a Federal bill, because you can do anything on the District of Columbia. You can savage their public schools, as if

your States, I would say to the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Tom Davis), did not have such schools in Southern Virginia, as if California, Mrs. Feinstein, did not have the L.A. School District in it. And yet these folks will not vote to have vouchers so that those school districts, sometimes rural, sometimes big city, can have the same treatment as the District of Columbia.

The District of Columbia schools have improved, but you will not find me an apologist for the D.C. government and its problems or for the D.C. school system. I am proud of the fact that scores have gone up for the last 3 years. I am very proud of the transformation schools, where, with extra services for parents and children alike, we now see a breakthrough that no private school and no public school has ever accomplished. These are the poorest children in the District of Columbia. They have the least conscious parents. They have got foster parents, sometimes they have got no parents at all or hardly any parents; yet we have been able to break through because we provided a lot of extra services for the parents and for the children alike.

Private schools and religious organizations will not see a vote for vouchers for the District of Columbia as a vote that can be contained here, and they are going to try to do all they can to make sure it is not contained here. The pro-voucher forces have shown how well-funded they are. They have been into your States, sometimes two or three times, to get on the ballot; and you have turned them back every single time. Not a single voucher referendum in the United States of America has passed. But they keep coming back, because they have got a lot of money, and you see that money on television ads as I speak.

If you want to fund vouchers, do it the way the Washington Scholarship Fund did it. Fund the vouchers through private funds. Do not displace those private funds with public funds.

Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. Chairman, I claim the time in opposition to the amendment.

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

Mr. Chairman, the gentleman from Virginia is not only a good personal friend, he is a good professional friend, and he has always been a good friend of the District. More often than not we are on this floor arguing on the same side, fighting for what the majority in the District wants, including the majority of the members of the council and the majority of the elected members of the school board. This happens to be an exception, but we are going to keep on working together because we are so close.

It is ironic, I must say to my good friend though, that he has got a legislative rider on here. He made two points of order today. He is regularly on the floor opposing Committee on Government Reform riders, but he has taken this bill to the Committee on Rules in order to allow himself to put a rider on this bill. This bill legislates on an appropriations bill.

But I really want to use my time not to rehash the arguments we have heard, but to make some corrections based on what I have heard.

My good friend from Virginia earlier said during the debate that the District spent more than Arlington and Fairfax, and some others have gotten up to say that we spend more than any other State. I keep hearing that. It keeps being said. It is false.

I want to read from an official schools document: ``Despite differences in student needs, even with Federal funds included, the D.C. public schools spend less per pupil than Arlington or Alexandria, and not much more than Montgomery or Fairfax.''

Remember, Montgomery and Fairfax spend a whole lot of money on children that are not at all disadvantaged, and huge numbers of mine are severely disadvantaged.

The gentlewoman from Pennsylvania said that our schools would actually be better off without these 2,000 children. Actually, we will lose $25 million in combined Federal and local per-pupil funding because schools are funded on a per-pupil basis, and that is in addition to the $40 million that the schools are already being cut this year.

It certainly is not true that we are saying to our children, and I would certainly never say it, Hey, wait until the schools are fixed. Indeed, we applaud the options that are available to our public schools; the largest number of charter schools in the country, the transformation schools, which have seen a breakthrough in test scores that no public or private school has ever done for our most needy children, our out-of-boundary possibilities for our children.

I applaud especially the work of the Washington Scholarship Fund. That is for now. The Washington Scholarship Fund, which with private money as I speak is doing exactly what this bill will do, but probably will not do it if this bill passes, because Federal money will replace their private money that they have been using, much to their credit, to send our children to local private schools.

We want our own choices. That is all we are asking. You take your choices, the ones you have in your districts. Leave us to our own choices. Do not accuse us of giving no choices to our children.

The most important thing I could say at this time, though, would be to correct the notion that the so-called three-sector approach, which developed only after there was great criticism of vouchers in the District of Columbia, somehow amounts to an equivalence of funding for the charter and public schools with vouchers.

Please hear me on this: this Davis bill has 5 years of authorization for vouchers. What happens for the public and charter schools is this year, on a one-time-only appropriation, we throw some money at the public schools in order to ease the way for vouchers.

I was able to get money for our charter schools, a great deal more than this last year, without having to pay a price in vouchers. Next year I guess we will have to come begging at the table because, unlike the voucher money, the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Tom Davis) had the opportunity to add public schools in a bill I offered in committee that would have put us on the same footing, but we are not on the same footing. We have got 5 years of vouchers, one-time-only money for the public schools, in this appropriation. That is the most problematic money the Congress ever has to offer.

We have been demonizing the public schools of the District of Columbia. Be my guest. But if you expect that sending our children to private schools will correct their problems, then you need to look at the GAO study of 10 years of experience in all the schools that have used vouchers. What they have found is there is no significant difference between the children using the vouchers in their performance on tests and the children who are in the public schools.

Thirty-seven States have turned down vouchers. If you vote for the Davis amendment, you are voting for a private school voucher and a voucher only. We do not think that that vote will pass silently into the night. We believe that a vote for vouchers anywhere in the country, especially in this economic climate, will be heard and felt throughout the country, and especially in your own districts.

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

Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Fattah).

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

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

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

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

Mr. Chairman, I simply want to close for my side with one word. Opposition to private school vouchers is one of the few bipartisan policy issues remaining in our country today. You will seldom find an issue where almost two-thirds of the American people are in agreement. And what they believe, according to all the data, is that money from the public Treasury should not be siphoned off to private schools. Diversion via the Davis amendment would begin that process for the first time in U.S. history. I ask my colleagues to think about the momentous nature of this vote and to vote against the Davis amendment.

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

Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.