Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, today, I introduce the District of Columbia Juror Pay Parity Act of 2018 to require that D.C. Superior Court jurors receive pay for jury service equal to that received by federal jurors.

Currently, D.C. Superior Court jurors are paid $30 per day, and, under the D.C. Home Rule Act, only the D.C. courts and Congress have the authority to increase Superior Court juror pay. My bill would require that Superior Court jurors receive pay equal to that received by federal jurors.

In the fiscal year 2018 omnibus appropriations bill, Congress included a pay increase from $40 to $50 per day for federal jurors, the first increase to federal juror pay in 28 years. My bill would give Superior Court jurors the same pay.

Under the National Capital Revitalization and Self-Government Improvement Act of 1997 (Pub. L. 105-33), Congress took responsibility for paying for the D.C. courts and most other state-like functions. The D.C. courts, however, have always been under the control of Congress, even when they were funded by the District. The Home Rule Act prohibits the District government from enacting any law regarding Title 11 of the D.C. Code. Title 11 provides that the Board of Judges of the Superior Court sets juror pay, but that the pay may not exceed the pay of federal jurors. Therefore, this bill, or action by D.C. courts, is necessary to increase Superior Court juror pay.

I urge my colleagues to support this bill.

Mr. Speaker, I rise to introduce the No Lead in the Air Act. Although the House's Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) reauthorization bill includes my provision encouraging the use of unleaded aviation gasoline by January 1, 2023, that bill is still pending. Therefore, I introduce my bill to prohibit the use of lead in aircraft fuel by 2023. Lead exposure can have harmful effects on children as well as adults. Since 1980, the amount of

lead in the air has decreased 89 percent, but while lead gas for automobiles has been banned since 1995, the piston-engine aircraft industry and airports that supply their fuel continue to use leaded aircraft fuel. Without a federal ban, they will continue to do so and put our communities and children at risk.

Lead particles from airplane exhaust can fall widely during flight and there may be high concentrations of lead near airports. It is estimated that 16 million people live and three million children go to school within a half-mile of airports that sell leaded aircraft fuel called avgas. The health effects of lead in children include behavioral and learning problems, lower IQ, hyperactivity, slowed growth, hearing problems, and anemia. Lead exposure can cause premature births and spontaneous abortions in pregnant women, and adults can suffer from increased blood pressure, decreased kidney function, and reproductive problems.

Seventy-five percent of piston-engined aircraft already operate safely with fuel that does not use lead. However, small airports continue to only sell leaded avgas for these piston-engine aircraft. But small airports will have to comply if the federal government bans the use of leaded fuel. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), which implements the Clean Air Act, announced plans in 2010 to phase out leaded aviation fuel, but in the intervening six years we still have not seen a proposed rule. The FAA has created a task force of government and aviation industry stakeholders to study alternative fuels for piston-engine aircraft that would not use lead.

With so much evidence of the harmful impacts of lead exposure, we can no longer put our communities at risk. My bill would give enough time for a full phase-out of lead in aircraft fuel--five years--by directing the FAA Administrator, in consultation with the EPA Administrator, to issue regulations prohibiting the use of leaded fuel in aircraft in U.S. airspace beginning January 1, 2023.

I urge my colleagues to support this legislation.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to ask the House of Representatives to join me in recognizing Rear Admiral Lawrence Cleveland ``Larry'' Chambers, USNA '52, USN (Ret.), who the U.S. Naval Academy Alumni Association and Foundation honored at an event for its 2018 Distinguished Graduate Award recipients.

RADM Chambers and I share a common alma mater, Dunbar High School, where he graduated as valedictorian of the Class of 1948 and as commander of the JROTC corps of cadets. In 1952, RADM Chambers became the second African American to graduate from the U.S. Naval Academy.

In 1954, RADM Chambers became a Naval Aviator and in 1959, Stanford University awarded him a Bachelor's degree in Aero Engineering. During his time in the U.S. Navy, RADM Chambers became the first African American to achieve:

Officer in Charge of a Fighter Detachment--VA-22 Det R, the ``Fighting Redcocks,'' USS Princeton (CVS-37);

Commanding Officer of an Attack Squadron, VA-15, the ``Valions,'' USS Roosevelt CV-42;

Air Officer, ``Air Boss,'' USS Oriskany (CV-34);

Commanding Officer of a Combat Stores Ship, USS White Plains (AFS-4), ``The Orient Express;''

Commanding Officer of an Aircraft Carrier, USS Midway (CV-41), ``Midway Magic;''

Commander of a Carrier Battle Group (CarGru3);

Commander of a second Carrier Battle Group (Interim Commander CarGru4);

Vice Commander Naval Air Systems Command (NAVAIR); and

Flag rank as a U.S. Naval Academy graduate.

In 1975, a month into his command of the USS Midway and during ``Operation Frequent Wind,'' the final helicopter evacuation of Saigon, then-Captain Chambers performed a notable act of valor. During the mission's 18 hours of ``controlled chaos,'' the USS Midway received 3,073 of the nearly 7,000 evacuees while helicopters covered her flight deck. Major Buang-Ly of the South Vietnamese Air Force crammed his wife and five children into the two-person cabin of a Cessna O-1 ``Bird Dog.'' Maj. Buang-Ly took off and followed the helicopters out to sea. He found the USS Midway, and after three attempts, dropped this note on the deck, ``Can you move the helicopters to the other side? I can land on your runway. I can fly one hour more. Please rescue me.--Maj. Buang- Ly, wife, and children.''

The admiral commanding the Midway's Carrier Battle Group ordered CAPT Chambers to tell the pilot to ditch the airplane. However, CAPT Chambers saw through his binoculars that a woman and children were on the aircraft. As a naval aviator, he knew when the Cessna's fixed landing gear hit the sea, the light land plane would flip and sink with its passengers on board.

CAPT Chambers called all personnel not on watch to report to the flight deck. More than 3,000 of the 4,300 compliments came topside to carry out CAPT Chambers' order, ``clear the deck!'' The sailors heaved the helicopters blocking the USS Midway's landing area overboard into the South China Sea. He then ordered 25 knots and pointed the USS Midway into wind. Maj. Buang-Ly managed to strike a perfect deck landing in the over-loaded Cessna with no arresting hook. CAPT Chambers quickly met Maj. Buang-Ly and resumed landing more inbound choppers.

In 1984, after 32 years of service, RADM Chambers retired from the Navy with more than 5,000 flight hours and 1,000 carrier landings. He then went on to work in private industry. In his civilian retirement, he continues to embody the U.S. Naval Academy's mission and values.

Therefore, I ask the House of Representatives to join me in recognizing and honoring RADM Chambers for his service to our country and in commending him on being selected as a 2018 Distinguished Graduate Award recipient.

Mr. Speaker, today, as hundreds of thousands of our federal workers face uncertainty in wages and work, I rise along with my House colleagues Robert J. Wittman and Andre Carson to introduce a bill to clarify certain due process rights of federal employees serving in sensitive positions. Our bill would overturn an unprecedented federal court decision, Kaplan v. Conyers and MSPB, which stripped many federal employees of the right to independent review of an agency decision removing then from a job on grounds of ineligibility. The case was brought by two Department of Defense (DOD) employees, Rhonda Conyers, an accounting technician, and Devon Northover, a commissary management specialist, who were permanently demoted and suspended from their jobs after they were found no longer to be eligible to serve in noncritical sensitive positions. In 2014, the Supreme Court declined to hear the case, which allowed the appeals court decision to stand.

Specifically, the decision prevents federal workers who are designated as ``noncritical sensitive'' from appealing to the Merit Systems Protection Board (MSPB) if they are removed from their jobs. Noncritical sensitive jobs include those that do not have access to classified information. The decision would affect at least 200,000 DOD employees who are designated as noncritical sensitive. Even more seriously, most federal employees could potentially lose the same right to an independent review of an agency's decision because of a rule by the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI), which went into effect in July 2015, that permits agency heads to designate most jobs in the federal government as noncritical sensitive.

The Kaplan decision undercuts Title 5, section 7701 of the Civil Service Act, which ensures due process rights for federal workers required by the U.S. Constitution. Stripping employees whose work does not involve classified matters of the right of review of an agency decision that removes them from their jobs opens entirely new avenues for unreviewable, arbitrary action or retaliation by an agency head and, in addition, makes a mockery of whistleblower protections enacted in the 112th Congress. Our bill would stop the use of ``national security'' to repeal a vital component of civil service protection and of due process.

I urge my colleagues to support this bill.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to ask the House of Representatives to join me in recognizing John Clay Smith, Jr. for his years of service as interim chair of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) and as Dean of Howard University School of Law. John passed away on February 15, 2018, due to complications from Alzheimer's disease. My thoughts are with John's family during this difficult time.

John Clay Smith, Jr. was born in 1942 just outside of Omaha, Nebraska. He knew he had a passion for law at a very early age. He moved to Washington, D.C., to work as a judge with the Army Judge Advocate General's Corps and as an associate at the law firm Arent Fox. In 1974, he joined the Federal Communications Commission as chief of the cable television bureau, but later became an associate general counsel there. John Clay Smith, Jr. was named interim chair of the EEOC in 1978. It was also during this time that he was elected as the first African American national president of the Federal Bar Association.

As the first female to chair the EEOC, I served alongside John to reform it and to develop and implement guidelines related to workplace sexual harassment. Once John stepped down from his post at the EEOC, he went on to serve as Dean of Howard University School of Law from 1986 to 1988, obtaining updated equipment and increased funding for faculty members not only to raise the school's profile, but also to assist in it maintaining its accreditation. In addition, John helped raise scholarship funds for the law school. During his time at the law school, he also served as president of the National Bar Association and the Washington Bar Association. In 2004, John retired from Howard.

John graduated in 1964 from Creighton University, where he paid his tuition through scholarships and part-time jobs, and graduated from Howard University School of Law in 1967, where he was class president. He later went on to receive master's and doctoral degrees in law from George Washington University.

Mr. Speaker, I ask the House of Representatives to join me in remembering the life and legacy of John Clay Smith, Jr. as interim chairman of the EEOC and as Dean of Howard University School of Law.

Mr. Speaker, today, I rise to reintroduce the Lifelong Improvements in Food and Exercise Act, authorizing a national initiative to attack a major health problem in the United States that cannot be remedied through the health care system alone. Increasing rates of overweight and obesity are now found in Americans of every age, race and other major demographic groups, and threaten the health of Americans like no other disease or condition. In fact, the key to eliminating many of the most serious health conditions is

not only to reduce overweight and obesity, but also to encourage exercise of all kinds.

The LIFE Act would provide $25 million to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) for a coordinated national effort to reverse increasingly sedentary lifestyles and diets that are high in fat and sugar. Specifically, my bill seeks to provide the first national strategy to combat the overweight and obesity epidemic by directing the CDC to do three things: train health professionals to recognize the signs of obesity early and to educate people concerning healthy lifestyles, such as proper nutrition and regular exercise; conduct public education campaigns about how to recognize and address overweight and obesity; and develop intervention strategies to be used by the states in everyday life, such as in the workplace and in community settings. This legislation, however, meets the bare minimum for what is needed to address our most important health crisis.

In 2010, estimates from the CDC National Center for Health Statistics showed that since 1980, the percentage of children who are overweight has more than doubled, and the percentage of adolescents who are overweight has tripled. The CDC also reports that Type 2 Diabetes, once considered an adult disease, is now widespread among children. The rising cost of the health care system, including insurance premiums, reflects this epidemic. Today, chronic diseases, many of which are caused or exacerbated by overweight and obesity, account for 70 percent of all deaths in the U.S., and 86 percent of U.S. medical care costs.

A focused national health initiative would provide guidance to the states to engage in similar programs, as mayors of some cities have done. A national focus could lead to changes, such as full participation in high school physical education classes, which dropped from 42 percent in 1991 to 33 percent in 2005. Changes in nutrition are equally critical because more than half of all young people consume too much fat, a factor in the doubling of the percentage of overweight youth. Data also show an increase in unhealthy eating habits for adults and no change in physical activity.

According to a 2017 study conducted by the American College of Sports Medicine, the District of Columbia is one of the fittest cities in the United States and, yet, even here, obesity continues to be a severe problem. Most of the obesity epidemic is exercise-and-food-related. Approximately one-fifth of District residents are considered obese.

I urge my colleagues to join me in support of this important legislation to mobilize the country now before entirely preventable health conditions, which often begin in childhood, overwhelm the nation's health care system.

Mr. Speaker, today, I introduce the District of Columbia Home Rule Non-Discrimination Act of 2018 to end the unique applicability of the federal Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993 (RFRA) to the District of Columbia. My bill will protect the District's right to self-government, as well as LGBTQ and reproductive rights in

Mr. Speaker, Marco Rubio's Florida State Senate got shocked enough by the Parkland shooting to pass a token gun safety bill. The Florida House has yet to act. Whatever Florida does, Rubio's token gun bill in Washington is belied by his pending bill to eliminate virtually all of the District of Columbia's gun safety laws. Worse, Rubio has put his D.C. bill in the Congress to raise his NRA rating for the last two Congresses. It did raise his NRA rating from B plus to A.

I have managed to save D.C.'s gun safety laws, but Rubio's shamefully token responses in the Senate to the Parkland tragedy will be seen as one more act of hypocrisy until he stops meddling in the District of Columbia's affairs and withdraws his D.C. gun bill.

Mr. Speaker, today, I introduce a bill similar to one I have introduced in five previous Congresses, the Universal Prekindergarten and Early Childhood Education Act of 2018. This bill is particularly important today because recent reports indicate that Americans are limiting the number of children they have due to the cost of child care. My bill begins the process of providing universal prekindergarten education in public and public charter schools in states that have or plan to phase in or are phasing in prekindergarten education for three-and four-year-old children. The District of Columbia has made considerable strides since I first introduced this bill, but today's bill is still needed to fill a hole in the ``Every Student Succeeds Act,'' which addresses elementary and secondary education, but ignores the prekindergarten years, the most critical years for children's brain development. My bill also seeks a breakthrough in public education by providing the initial funding for states to encourage local school districts to add prekindergarten for children at three or four years of age, whereas kindergarten programs for five year olds are now routinely available in public schools. This bill would eliminate some of the major shortcomings of unevenly available ``day care'' and, importantly, would take advantage of the safe facilities required in public schools. Unless early education becomes a necessary part of a child's education, it almost surely will continue to be unavailable to the majority of families with children.

My bill provides federal funds to states, which must be matched by at least 20 percent with the state's own funds, to establish or expand universal, voluntary prekindergarten in public and public charter schools for three-and four-year-olds, regardless of income. The classes, which would be full-day and run throughout the entire school year, must be taught by teachers who possess equivalent or similar qualifications to those teaching other grades in the school. The funds would supplement, not supplant, other federal funds for early childhood education. The unique money-saving aspect of my bill is that it uses the existing public school infrastructure and trained teachers to make early childhood education available to all, saving billions of dollars in its implementation.

The success of Head Start and other prekindergarten programs, combined with new scientific evidence concerning the importance of brain development in early childhood, virtually mandate the expansion of early childhood education to all children today. Early learning programs have been available only to the affluent, who can afford them, and to low-income families in programs such as Head Start, which would be unaffected by my bill. My bill provides a practical way to universal, public preschool education for the majority of families. The goal of the bill is to afford the benefits of early childhood education to the majority of the American working poor, lower-middle-class and middle-class families, most of whom have been left out of this essential education for their children.

We cannot afford to continue to allow the most fertile years for childhood development to pass, only to wonder why a child cannot read. The bill responds both to the great needs of parents who seek early childhood education, as well as to today's brain science, which shows that a child's brain development begins much earlier than had been previously understood.

Considering the staggering cost of day care, the inaccessibility of early childhood education and the opportunity that early education offers to improve a child's chances of success, schooling for three-and four-year-olds is overdue. The absence of viable options for working families demands our immediate attention.

My bill reflects what jurisdictions throughout the nation increasingly are trying to accomplish. The District of Columbia, for example, has achieved an extensive integration of early childhood education as part of a larger effort to improve D.C. public schools. A recent report highlighted the economic benefits of early childhood education, emphasizing its role in expanding job opportunities and decreasing the amount of money spent on programs to address teen pregnancy, crime and the like.

I strongly urge my colleagues to support this legislation.

Mr. Speaker, today, I introduce a bill to recognize and preserve the Civil War Defenses of Washington located in the District of Columbia, Virginia, and Maryland. The defenses of Washington, including forts, unarmed batteries and rifle trenches, created a ring of protection for the nation's capital during the Civil War. This bill would redesignate the 22 Civil War Defenses of Washington currently under National Park Service jurisdiction as a national historical park, and allow other sites associated with the Civil War Defenses of Washington that are owned by the District of Columbia or a unit of state governments to be affiliated with the national historic park through cooperative agreements. This bill would also require the Secretary of the Interior to facilitate the storied history of the Civil War for both the North and the South, including the history of the Defenses of Washington and the Shenandoah Valley Campaign of 1864, being assembled, arrayed and conveyed for the benefit of the public for the knowledge, education, and inspiration of this and future generations.

The Civil War Defenses of Washington were constructed at the beginning of the war, in 1861, as a ring of protection for the nation's capital and for President Abraham Lincoln. By the end of the war, these defenses included 68 forts, 93 unarmed batteries, 807 mounted cannons, 13 miles of rifle trenches, and 32 miles of military roads. The major test of the Civil War Defenses of Washington came with the Shenandoah Valley Campaign of 1864, when Confederate Lieutenant General Jubal Early, directed by General Robert E. Lee, sought to attack the nation's capital from the north, causing Union forces threatening to attack Richmond, the capital of the Confederacy, to be withdrawn. General Early was delayed by Union Major General Lew Wallace at the Battle of Monocacy on July 9, 1864, and was stopped at the northern edge of Washington at the Battle of Fort Stevens on July 11 and 12, 1864. The Shenandoah Valley Campaign ended when Union Lieutenant General Philip Sheridan defeated General Early at the Battle of Cedar Creek, Virginia, on October 19, 1864.

Nearly all the individual forts in the Civil Defenses of Washington-- on both sides of the Potomac and Anacostia rivers--were involved in stopping General Early's attack, and the Battle of Fort Stevens was the second and last attempt by the Confederate Army to attack Washington.

Taken together, these battles were pivotal to the outcome of the war and the freedom and democracy that the war represented for this country. It is therefore fitting that we recognize these sites by redesignating them as a national historic park.

I urge my colleagues to support the bill.

Mr. Speaker, today, I introduce the Protecting Independent Contractors from Discrimination Act to extend to independent contractors the same federal antidiscrimination protections enjoyed by employees. My bill would extend the antidiscrimination protections of the following statutes, which apply to employees, to independent contractors: Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967, Title I of the Americans with Disabilities Act, Section 505 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, and Title II of the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act of 2008.

In a Bureau of Labor Statistics 2005 analysis of the American workforce, approximately seven percent were considered independent contractors. That number has surely only grown in the 13 years since that analysis with the growth of the so-called ``gig economy.'' These workers, who often do the same work as employees, have almost none of the protections guaranteed to employees, including health insurance, collective bargaining, retirement security and even antidiscrimination. My bill focuses only on the employment discrimination, such as discrimination based on race, age and gender, from which every worker is entitled to be free.

I strongly urge my colleagues to support this legislation.

Mr. Speaker, today, I introduce a bill to provide Salvadorans who have Temporary Protected Status (TPS) lawful permanent resident status and a pathway to citizenship after five years.

Of the 200,000 Salvadorans living in the U.S. with TPS, nearly 30,000 live in the Washington, D.C. metro region, the largest concentration in the nation. This bill would change the status of Salvadoran TPS holders to lawful permanent residents and allow them to apply for naturalization after five years. Deporting Salvadoran TPS holders raises unique issues because of the great number of years they have spent in the U.S. and the large number of their children who were born in this country and are American citizens. The Trump Administration's callous and unnecessary decision to end TPS for Salvadorans requires immediate pushback. I am also pleased to be a cosponsor of the American Promise Act (H.R. 4253), which would protect from deportation all individuals currently receiving TPS or Deferred Enforced Departure.

My bill would begin the effort to protect from deportation Salvadorans who have lived here for nearly two decades and have made long-term contributions to our region and to the nation. I urge its adoption.

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank both sides for the bipartisan way in which this bill has proceeded.

Today, the House is doing no more than bringing itself in line with what we have long required of the public sector and Federal agencies.

When I became chair of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission in the late 1970s, sexual harassment was not even recognized as a form of employment discrimination.

We remedied that with sexual harassment guidelines, later ratified by the Supreme Court. In drawing the sexual harassment guidelines, it never occurred to us that Congress would adopt special procedures for themselves, preferential to Members and prejudicial to employees.

The antidiscrimination statutes typically require some kind of conciliation before moving forward to avoid excessive litigation, but the current process creates multiple steps and time frames that exhaust complainants and deter resolution.

It takes courage to file a sexual harassment complaint because most are unwitnessed and they are difficult to corroborate.

The most important provisions of this bill, I believe, are the provisions for legal assistance to complainants, which Members have long had, and personal liability for sexual harassment lying with the Member, not the taxpayers.

This bill marks the Congress holding itself accountable to the public. However, it is another focus on high-profile workplaces.

I ask the House to move next to the workplaces of America where the average woman and man works--hospitality, factories, offices, retail, and the like. Increasingly, we find sexual harassment is still widespread.

Therefore, I hope the House will pass my bill to create a national commission to hear from ordinary workers so that the average worker gets our equal attention and equal time.

Mr. Speaker, again, I thank the sponsors of this bill and for this bipartisan effort.

Mr. Speaker, today, I introduce the Ensuring Full Participation in the Census Act of 2018, which would prohibit the Census Bureau (``Bureau'') from including questions on the decennial census about citizenship, nationality, or immigration status.

This bill is essential because the Department of Justice recently wrote to the Bureau requesting that it ``reinstate on the 2020 Census questionnaire a question regarding citizenship.'' From 1970 to 2000, this question was sent to only approximately 16 percent of the population during any decennial census through the so-called ``long- form.'' However, the long-form system with that question was dropped from the census and replaced with the current American Community Survey (ACS). The ACS is sent to approximately 3 million people annually on a rotational basis, instead of just with the decennial census, and allows the Bureau to get the necessary information on citizenship, without asking every respondent during the decennial census. Asking questions about citizenship status to every American through the decennial census has not been done in almost 70 years because it would only discourage people, largely in minority communities, which are already underrepresented in the census, from participating in the census. The ACS was created to make the decennial census simpler for American citizens to complete, thus encouraging a higher and more accurate participant rate, and to preserve privacy. Adding questions back into the decennial census about citizenship would defeat this purpose of the ACS. The representative sampling provided by the ACS is more than sufficient to determine citizenship statistics within the United States. We must ensure that all individuals are counted in the decennial census, thereby providing accurate allocation of federal funds and representation in Congress, not reduce participation by already underrepresented minorities because they fear answering questions that are already addressed elsewhere.

I strongly urge my colleagues to support this bill.

Mr. Speaker, today, I introduce the Low-Wage Federal Contractor Employee Back Pay Act of 2018 to grant back pay to federally-contracted retail, food, custodial and security service workers who are furloughed during a federal government shutdown this fiscal year (fiscal year 2018). This bill applies to all three branches of the federal government. After the 2013 government shutdown, federal workers received back pay, but not federal contract workers. While I believe that all federal employees and federal contract workers should receive pack pay after a shutdown, we know that we cannot get Congress to make whole all who are hurt by a shutdown. My bill focuses specifically on low-wage federal contract workers, some of whom work here on the Capitol grounds providing Members of Congress and congressional staff with daily services, because these are the workers most likely to be irretrievably hurt by lost wages during a shutdown.

Many federal contract workers earn little more than the minimum wage and receive few, if any, benefits. While some are unionized with a little better wage, all are the lowest-paid workers in the federal government and should not be punished because Congress has failed to do its job to keep the government functioning. Congress, historically, has provided back pay to federal employees, who often work in the same buildings as these low-wage contract workers, furloughed during government shutdowns--but not low-wage contract workers. However, both groups of workers deserve to be made whole after these shutdowns. I recognize, of course, that contract workers are employees of contractors, but the distinction between federal workers and, at least, the lowest-paid contract workers, who, for example, keep buildings clean, fails when it comes to a deliberate government shutdown. Unlike many other contractors, those who employ low-wage service workers have little latitude to help make up for lost wages. Low-wage, federally- contracted service workers can least afford the loss of pay during a shutdown and should not have to go to work every day while everyone else in their federal buildings likely received back pay.

The nation's capital is the high-profile home of the federal government's complicity with contractors who pay low wages through leases and contracts with federal agencies. At least this legislation would provide some parity to their low-wage federal contract workers.

I strongly urge my colleagues to support the legislation.