Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, today is Equal Pay Day, which marks the number of additional days a woman must work to earn what a man earned by the end of last year. The 1963 Equal Pay Act (EPA), the first of the great civil rights statutes of the 1960s, has grown creaky with age and needs updating to reflect the new workforce, in which women work almost as much as men.

The best case for a stronger and updated EPA occurred here in the Congress in 2003, when female custodians in the House and Senate won an EPA case after showing that female workers were paid a dollar less per hour for doing the same or similar work as men. Had these women not been represented by their union, they would have had an almost impossible task in using the rules for bringing and sustaining an EPA class action suit.

Based on my own experience as the first woman to chair the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, I again introduce the Fair Pay Act (FPA) on behalf of the average female worker, who is often first steered to, and then locked into, jobs with wages that are deeply influenced by the gender of women who have traditionally held such jobs. Much of the wage inequality women experience today is because of employer-steering and deeply rooted wage stereotypes, which result in wages being paid according to gender and not according to the skill necessary to do the job. I introduce the FPA because pay disparity most women face today stems mainly from the segregation of women and men in different jobs and paying women in female-dominated jobs systematically less. Two-thirds of white women and three quarters of African-American women work in just three areas: sales/clerical, service and factories. We need more aggressive strategies to break through the societal barriers present throughout history the world over, as well as employer-steering based on gender, which is as old as paid employment itself.

The FPA requires that if men and women are doing comparable work, they are to be paid comparable wages. If a woman, for example, is an emergency services operator, a female-dominated profession, she should not be paid less than a fire dispatcher, a male-dominated profession, simply because each of these jobs has been dominated by one sex. If a woman is a social worker, a traditionally female occupation, she should not earn less than a probation officer, a traditionally male job, simply because of the gender associated with each of these jobs.

The FPA, like the EPA, will not tamper with the legal burden. Under the FPA, as under the EPA, the burden will be on the plaintiff to prove discrimination. The plaintiff must show that the reason for the disparate treatment is gender discrimination, not legitimate market factors.

Remedies to achieve comparable pay for men and women are not radical or unprecedented. State governments, in red and blue states alike, have shown that it is possible to eliminate the part of the pay gap that is due to discrimination. Twenty states have adjusted wages for female- dominated professions, raising pay for teachers, nurses, clerical workers, librarians, and other female-dominated jobs that paid less than comparable male-dominated jobs. Minnesota, for example, implemented a pay equity plan when it found that traditionally female jobs paid 20 percent less than comparable traditionally male jobs. There may well be some portion of a gender wage gap that is traceable to market factors, but 20 states have shown that you can tackle the gender discrimination-based wage gap without interfering in the market system. States generally have closed the wage gap over a period of four to five years at a one-time cost of no more than three to four percent of payroll.

In addition, many female workers routinely achieve pay equity through collective bargaining, and countless employers provide it on their own as they see women shifting out of vital female-dominated occupations as a result of the shortage of skilled workers, as well as because of the unfairness to women. Unequal pay has been built into the way women have been treated since Adam and Eve. To dislodge such deep-seated and pervasive treatment, we must go to the source, the traditionally female occupations, where pay is linked with gender and always has been.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to ask the House of Representatives to join me in celebrating the 46th anniversary of the Gay and Lesbian Activists Alliance of Washington, D.C. (GLAA), a revered organization that has long been a leader in the struggle for equal rights for the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and questioning (LGBTQ) community.

Since its founding in April 1971, GLAA has been a respected and tireless advocate not only for LGBTQ rights, but also for full and equal rights for the District of Columbia, and has been at the forefront of efforts to strengthen enforcement of the landmark D.C. Human Rights Act of 1977. One of GLAA's most significant achievements, on which it worked with coalition partners, D.C. elected officials, and District residents, was the enactment of the D.C. Religious Freedom and Civil Marriage Equality Amendment Act, which allowed same-sex couples to marry in the District.

GLAA also has been an outspoken advocate for LGBTQ youth and seniors; has stood up for the rights of LGBTQ consumers; has upheld the rights of transgender people, including equal treatment by police and access to culturally competent healthcare; has educated and rated local candidates on LGBTQ issues; and has built and nurtured coalitions with other constituencies to advance these causes and defend the District's autonomy.

At GLAA's 46th anniversary reception on April 20, 2017, the following recipients of its 2017 Distinguished Service Awards will be recognized:

Jose Gutierrez is an activist, historian, poet and leather enthusiast who resides in Washington D.C. and is originally from Reynosa, Mexico. His family immigrated to Atlanta, GA in the mid-1980s, where he launched his advocacy career working for AID Atlanta and co-founding Latinos en Accion, a Latino LGBTQ organization. Jose is recognized for his work on human rights and AIDS advocacy both locally and nationally. In 2000, he founded the Latino GLBT History Project, the oldest D.C. Latino LGBTQ organization and most recently co-founded the Rainbow History Project, DiCcion Queer and the Latino Leather. In 2007, Jose organized the first D.C. Latino Pride. Currently, Jose is pursuing his B.S. in psychology at the University Ana G. Mendez, and works at the Department of Homeland Security in the District. Jose is an active member of the D.C. Latino Caucus, LULAC LAMBDA, the OutWrite and the Latinx LGBTQ D.C. Center.

Reverend Cedric A. Harmon is a native Midwesterner with Southern and New England influences--a surprise last child to older parents who shared with him the gift of experience and wisdom. He has a B.S. in media management from Emerson College, and has completed extensive graduate work at Wesley Seminary. Cedric's deep faith calls him to do the work of justice and equality and to equip others to do the same. He is also known for his writing and television appearances--again on human rights and social justice--and serves on several boards having to do with sexuality and religion. He served as pastor of a ``radically inclusive'' congregation in the District, and is currently Executive Director of Many Voices--a new nonprofit creating a Black Church movement for gay and transgender justice.

Mara Keisling is the Executive Director of the National Center for Transgender Equality, the nation's leading social justice advocacy organization winning life-saving change for transgender people. Since founding NCTE in 2003, Mara has led organizational and coalition efforts that have won significant advances in transgender equality, including the inclusion of gender identity in the Employment Non- Discrimination Act, the first-ever congressional hearing on transgender issues, and countless federal administrative and state-level wins. As one of the nation's leading voices for transgender equality, Mara is regularly quoted in national and local print media and has appeared on major television networks. She was part of the first all-transgender television interview on Melissa Harris-Perry's show in 2012. Mara holds a B.A. from Pennsylvania State University, and did her graduate work in American Government at Harvard University.

Reverend Barry W. Lynn is the retiring Executive Director of Americans United for Separation of Church and State (AU) after serving in that capacity for the last 25 years. GLAA has worked very productively with Rev. Lynn and his highly capable and efficient staff at AU in resisting the federally imposed school voucher program in D.C. These private schools are not accountable to D.C.'s elected officials and their students, staffs, and teachers may lack the protections of the D.C. Human Rights Act. We are also honoring Rev. Lynn for aggressively defending the civil rights of the LGBTQ community on a host of national issues. He has long championed marriage equality, fought against ``bathroom bills'' that demonize transgender men and women and legislative attempts to gut local and national civil rights protections in the guise of ``religious freedom.'' The AU has, with Rev. Lynn's direction, filed numerous amicus briefs in cases directly affecting the LGBTQ community. Few if any other activists have been more outspoken than Rev. Lynn in integrating the interests of the LGBTQ community with the whole range of church-state separation issues.

I ask the House to join me in honoring the recipients of GLAA's 2017 Distinguished Service Award and in celebrating GLAA's 46 years of contributions to the LGBTQ community in the District of Columbia.

Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to come to the floor this evening to coanchor the Congressional Black Caucus hour about the present nominee to the Supreme Court, Neil Gorsuch.

I am very pleased that my good friend from Texas, Representative Sheila Jackson Lee, a distinguished member of the Judiciary Committee, has agreed to coanchor this hour with me.

Mr. Speaker, I am chair of the working group for the Congressional Black Caucus that looks at nominees for Federal courts. So, I have buried myself in the record of Neil Gorsuch and wrote the testimony that we submitted to the Senate.

What I will do is speak for a few minutes generally about the nominee, and then I will go to my good friend from Texas. I am very pleased that another good friend, Mr. Don Payne, Jr., is here from the State of New Jersey, and we will hear from him as well.

Now, just as the Congress has been polarized so has the court been polarized, if you look at the liberal and conservative blocks in that way. But, of course, since the death of Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, there has been a 4-4 split. Justice Anthony Kennedy, who is still a Member of the Court is not always a predictable conservative, though he tends to vote with the conservatives.

What has happened in the Senate is entirely predictable, at least today. In an unprecedented move, the Senate refused to hear from or even meet the nominee of President Obama. There was almost a full year, yet the Senate refused to take up that nominee.

What happened today was not payback. If you listened to the testimony, you would see that there are good reasons why the Senate Democrats today decided to filibuster Judge Gorsuch.

I want to begin because I am speaking for the Congressional Black Caucus with his views as they affect African-Americans and, by definition, others who depend upon the antidiscrimination laws and the Constitution of the United States.

There is more than enough in the record on race related matters from Judge Gorsuch's 10th Circuit service to oppose his nomination. But let me focus for a moment on his pre-court service, which seems to have predicted what he would do in the court of appeals.

He was a principal deputy to the principal who had jurisdiction over the Civil Rights Division. We have to pay attention to the fact that the inspector general, during Judge Gorsuch's time in the Justice Department, found that the Civil Rights Division, where he had some oversight, had been politicized in order to stifle civil rights enforcement. As you might imagine, the Congressional Black Caucus had to pay attention to that finding by a neutral investigator.

We also are very concerned about how Gorsuch is a Justice Department Official treated a Georgia election law. As we know, election laws from the South--of course, there has been a historic decision that has made the Voting Rights Act far less effective than it was--but certainly during most of the time of the Act, Southern states had to go through the Justice Department to

see if the laws in southern States, that had kept African-Americans from voting for reasons of race, to see if newly enacted laws affecting voting rights, in fact, discriminated against African-Americans and others or not.

A Georgia election law was found by the Civil Rights Division to be discriminatory. Judge Gorsuch was part of the team that overturned the Civil Rights Division. That was, of course, challenged in the courts. And the ruling of the Justice Department that pre-cleared the law--that said it was all right to go ahead with this law that the Civil Rights Division had found discriminated against Blacks--the court overturned that finding of the Justice Department.

It used quite pregnant language. The District Court said that the Georgia election law was reminiscent of Jim Crow laws. Those words have special meaning in our history--and I speak not here about African- Americans alone. But if you have found yourself in the minority on any issue--it could be a First Amendment issue, it could be a criminal justice issue--you want a court that will protect your rights, not only the rights of the majority.

But this nominee has shown a hostility to litigation in the courts that have been the primary ways we have vindicated constitutional rights and the rights of minorities of every kind. In a telling op-ed, this nominee, Mr. Gorsuch, said: ``American liberals have become addicted to the courtroom, relying on judges and lawyers rather than elected leaders and the ballot box, as the primary means of effecting their social agenda.''

What? What else was there? The majority had enforced laws against the minority--in this case, African-Americans. He conceded that Brown v. Board of Education the school desegregation decision. But he went on to say that liberals should ``kick their addiction'' to constitutional litigation. This is a man who wants to get on the Court whose most important mission is constitutional litigation.

I submit to you that even the Justice who epitomized conservatism, Justice Scalia, never showed hostility coming to Court to vindicate the rights of people who felt themselves to be offended. So in that respect, I think it is clear that--and this is a very important respect--Judge Gorsuch is more conservative than Justice Scalia was on the Court.

Nothing could be more concerning than a Justice who says: Look, the preferred way to vindicate your rights is the political process.

Who would disagree with that?

It is the failure of the political process that sends people to the court.

It shows, it seems to me, little appreciation for the Bill of Rights itself. The entire Bill of Rights is about the rights of the minority. And again, the word ``minority'' means any of us could be in that minority at any given point. You could be in that minority when it comes to religious rights. You could be in that minority because of a search and seizure case. You could be in that minority because of a free speech case. And, yes, you could be in that minority because you are part of a classic minority group.

That is why the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments were added to the Bill of Rights. The Framers, of course, shared Gorsuch's preference for the political process. A Constitution is a, small D, democratic document. But they created a separation of powers government knowing full well that majoritarian democracy sometimes treads on the rights of minorities. That is why we have the Supreme Court of the United States which Mr. Gorsuch seeks a seat.

Mr. Speaker, before I go on to discuss some cases, I yield to the gentleman from New Jersey, (Mr. Payne), my good friend from New Jersey's 10th Congressional District.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Payne) for those cogent remarks.

I yield to the gentlewoman from Texas (Ms. Jackson Lee).

I thank my friend for her comments.

Mr. Speaker, I was the chair, before I came to Congress, in another life, of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, dealing with job discrimination in our country. I was interested, in my own research on Judge Gorsuch to find that he has written more opinions in discrimination cases than other cases.

Now, the Rocky Mountain States of the Tenth Circuit do not have large numbers of African Americans, but the way in which the Supreme Court has interpreted antidiscrimination laws doesn't, in fact, basically differ from one group.

The EEOC also has jurisdiction over disability discrimination. For example, the Court has always indicated that anti-discrimination laws should be read broadly in order to capture discrimination. Whether we are talking about the antidiscrimination laws as they affect women or racial or ethnic minorities or religious minorities, the Supreme Court simply will not read these laws narrowly.

But that is not how Judge Gorsuch has operated on the Tenth Circuit. He has given a cramped interpretation of the antidiscrimination laws, and yet it is interesting to note that, when there is a claim of discrimination based on religion, he gives a very broad interpretation.

He is perhaps best known for his opinion in the so-called Hobby Lobby case. This is the case in which he found that a closely held corporation was within its rights when it refused to adopt the Affordable Health Care Act's mandate that women and men be granted contraceptive protection as a part of health insurance. Judge Gorsuch found that this was a violation of the rights of the closely held corporation, the first time there has been such a holding.

It is very interesting also to note that right after that, there was a case called Little Sisters of the Poor. Now, the Little Sisters of the Poor, unlike the closely held corporation, is, in fact, a religious organization, and they too said they do not wish to have contraception be a part of any of the institutions that they govern.

Remember, we had a religious organization there, not a closely held corporation. The Court found that, to accommodate both women and the religious scruples of the Little Sisters, the Little Sisters had only to acknowledge that they did not desire to enforce the contraceptive mandate, and then it would be taken away from them and would be done by a third party, by the government. That was allowed as a way to accommodate the Little Sisters. Judge Gorsuch opposed that and wrote an opposing opinion.

So to see this difference in the way he treats discrimination, reading antidiscrimination statutes affecting minorities of every kind in a narrow fashion; when he finds religious discrimination by statute, he reads those statutes very broadly.

His technical rulings are of statutes that the Supreme Court has broadly interpreted, would have made these statutes worthless. You simply cannot enforce antidiscrimination statutes by treating them as though they were technical statutes that, for example, govern financial dealings. And yet this nominee has brought that kind of interpretation of antidiscrimination statutes.

I was shocked at his holding in Hwang v. Kansas State University, which illustrates what I am saying. There, a professor brought a case because her university had refused to follow the guidance of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. She was entitled to a 6-month leave to accommodate her condition. This is a statute involving disability rights. She took that 6-month leave and asked to have it extended until a day certain, not indefinitely, to recover further from cancer and a bone marrow transplant.

Now, the EEOC guidance said that an additional leave beyond 6 months was possible as an accommodation to an employee unless there was an undue hardship. There was no undue hardship.

But this nominee, Judge Gorsuch, found that the ``6 months was more than enough to comply with the law in nearly every case''--yes, in nearly every case--but the EEOC guidance said that there obviously could be extensions. I can think of no case that would call for more of an extension than a professor who said: I will come back on a date certain, but I have a cancer diagnosis, and I have had a bone marrow transplant.

I hope that that case would give some pause to anyone who hears about it. The nominee has been quite consistent in how he has ruled in the Tenth Circuit, which gives every reason to believe that he is going to carry that consistency to the Supreme Court.

I was very interested to see how he ruled on a Planned Parenthood case where the Governor of Utah had seen these notorious false videos that purported to show the sale of fetal tissue.

Now, those videos--every court that has considered those videos have found that they had nothing to do with Planned Parenthood and what it actually did. So this matter has been litigated in a number of circuits. It was litigated in the 10th Circuit in a case called Planned Parenthood Association of Utah v. Herbert; and the 10th Circuit found, as the other circuits have, that these videos were not, in fact, associated with Planned Parenthood--the false videos that surfaced.

Interestingly, the court, on rehearing, which Judge Gorsuch had sought, characterized his dissenting opinion as ``mischaracterization of this litigation and the panel opinion at several turns.''

Here again, we see Judge Gorsuch going out of his way to rule in a fashion that he sees as necessary to sustain his broad views of religious claims. I am trying to give you an overview of Judge Gorsuch's opinions in a number of different areas, and I am mystified by how he would reach the conclusions he has reached in discrimination cases.

Here is one that is very revealing: A.F. ex rel Christine B. v. Espanola Public Schools, where a student was found by Judge Gorsuch not to be able to sue for violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act because she had earlier settled a suit for violations of another act, the so-called IDEA Act.

Well, she has a right under both laws. She would have obviously raised perhaps different claims, but his view was that she should not be in court. This closing of the courts must be taken seriously in evaluating Judge Gorsuch. Because if you can't get into court in the first place, particularly if you are a member of a minority group, or for the moment find yourself in the minority on a particular issue, then you are out of court before you are in court. You have lost before you cross the threshold.

I can't imagine why Judge Gorsuch didn't allow a student to continue when she had, in frustration, left her school because of violations of her disability rights. That frustration, as far as he was concerned, closed the courthouse door to her.

Why would we want to interpret discrimination laws in a fashion that you can't get into court to make your case?

A particularly cruel case, Compass Environmental v. OSHRC, a case where Gorsuch wrote the dissent, involved a worker who was electrocuted and died as a result. The corporation had trained its workers. This worker happened to be hired after the training had taken place; therefore, was not aware of all of the safeguards.

The Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission found that the electrocution of the worker could have been avoided if the corporation, Compass Environmental, had provided the necessary training. So it cited Compass and it fined Compass. Gorsuch dissented. He found that the company had not violated the law. The company hadn't provided the requisite training. The man was electrocuted, and it is very instructive what Judge Gorsuch said:

``Administrative agencies enjoy remarkable powers in our

legal order. Their interpretations of ambiguous statutes

control even when everyone thinks Congress really meant

something else.''

He didn't like the administrative ruling, so he dissented and would have ruled against the family of a man who was electrocuted.

That is not a man I want on the Supreme Court. This is not a man who knows how to interpret the discrimination statutes which have always been interpreted broadly by the Federal courts. This is not a man who should sit on the Supreme Court of the United States.

Mr. Speaker, I now yield to the gentlewoman from Texas (Ms. Jackson Lee), my good friend who is coanchoring this hour with me, who would like to say a few words.

I thank my good friend for helping us document why we believe this is not the time for this Justice to be on the Supreme Court.

We recognize that it is not the House of Representatives that decides this matter, but the Congressional Black Caucus represents 17 million Americans who will be deeply affected by who sits on this Court. I appreciate that we have had this full hour to express our views.

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

Mr. Speaker, I move that the House do now adjourn.

The motion was agreed to; accordingly (at 8 o'clock and 45 minutes p.m.), under its previous order, the House adjourned until tomorrow, Tuesday, April 4, 2017, at 10 a.m. for morning-hour debate.

Mr. Speaker, today, I introduce the District of Columbia Home Rule Clemency Act, a bill that would give the District of Columbia exclusive authority, like the states and territories, to grant clemency to offenders prosecuted under its local laws.

While District law appears to give the mayor authority to grant clemency (D.C. Code 1-301.76), it is currently the opinion of the Department of Justice (DOJ) that the president, and not the mayor, has the authority to issue clemency for most local offenses prosecuted under D.C. law, particularly felonies prosecuted by the U.S. Attorney in the D.C. Superior Court. Under current practice, clemency petitions for D.C. convictions, like federal convictions, are submitted to the DOJ for the president's consideration.

Whether or not the DOJ's view is correct, my bill would remove all doubt that the District, and not the president, has the authority to issue executive clemency for local offenses. The District, like states and territories, should have full control of its local criminal justice system, the most basic responsibility of local government. Since the D.C. Council has the authority to enact local laws, District officials are in the best position to grant clemency for local law convictions. My bill would provide all clemency authority not currently reserved to the Mayor under D.C. Code 1-301.76 to the District government and would give D.C. the discretion to establish its own clemency system.

This bill is an important step in establishing further autonomy for the District in its own local affairs. I urge my colleagues to support this measure.

Mr. Speaker, never before, in more than two centuries of American history, has Congress taken back benefits and replaced them with a package that, in turn, reduces benefits in use by the American people. The effect on the District of Columbia would be particularly disappointing because the Affordable Care Act (ACA) has brought the city to virtual universal coverage (only 3.4 percent not covered). Moreover, most Americans, including D.C. residents, get their coverage through their employers. The untold story about Trumpcare is its effect not only on the ACA, but the harmful effects it could have on the one- sixth of the U.S. economy that is accounted for by healthcare costs.

The reason Americans oppose Trumpcare is its take-backs: 24 million people would lose coverage; premiums and deductibles would increase; essential coverage for maternity care, prescription drugs, and emergency room visits would end; healthy pre-Medicare elderly would be charged five times what others pay; and instead of lengthening the Medicare Trust Fund, Trumpcare would shorten it by three years. The most devastating effect of repeal would be felt by the lowest-income Americans who benefit from the Medicaid expansion in the ACA with the end of the Medicaid expansion in 2020. Seventy-four percent of Americans, including 54 percent of Republicans, oppose cutting Medicaid funding.

I urge my colleagues to join the American people in voting no: recent polls show only 17 percent of the American people support the Republican Trumpcare bill.

Mr. Speaker, I thank my good friend for the excellent job she is doing in leading this Special Order.

I don't know about you, but the uninsured in my district are down to 3.8 percent. If you think I am going to let the Republicans take away near universal health care from my district, the District of Columbia, without a fight, just watch me, and watch my colleagues.

We had a healthcare townhall. Unlike some of the townhalls of my colleagues, there were not people jumping up saying: Why are you taking away my health care? Instead, they were people like Debbie.

Debbie is a lifetime sufferer of asthma. She also has diabetes. She reached her cap. That meant that the medicine she was on, which cost $10,000 a month, would have to be paid by her. She worked every day. How many of you--how many of us--could pay $10,000 a month, no matter what job we have? That, along with her diabetes, makes her a paradigm of the kind of person whose life and death depends on this bill.

I want to just say a few words not about all of the important information you have had, but about what I call the worst of the worst.

First, let me congratulate my Republican colleagues on doubling down on the number without health care because you double the number without health care. As we are rising with the number who have health care, you now turn downward. We can't possibly live with that, and I don't think the American people will allow you to get away with it.

I think about our hospitals, and people say: Why should we pay any attention to the hospitals? Well, when we get back in the era of uncompensated care, what you will have is the Federal Government will never compensate your hospital, so you will compensate your hospital. We are back in the era of free health care, except there is no such thing as free health care. You and I will be paying for it out of our pockets.

What they do to the tax credits is shameful. Flat tax credits, unrelated to the costs, replace the kind of tax credits we have in the Affordable Care Act, which are just, as you might expect, up and down according to the value of insurance.

What good is a flat tax credit unrelated to the cost of insurance or to your income? Do my Republican colleagues really think they are going to fool anybody with those kinds of replacements?

What is perhaps worst of the worst is the work requirement. You get sick, you can't afford to work, you have got to be on the Affordable Care Act, and you need Medicaid in order to do it. They tell you that you have got to go to work in order to--while you are sick, I guess-- get your Medicaid. Get sick, go to work, and qualify for health care under the Republican plan.

Those are just some of the worst of the worst. I have got a whole list here, but I thought it important to focus on who gets hurt and why, and why we are simply not going to let that happen.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to ask my colleagues to join me in recognizing the extraordinary life of Eni Fa'aua'a Hunkin Faleomavaega, Jr., who passed away last month at the age of 73. Eni Faleomavaega was not only my colleague, he was my friend. Eni was the senior delegate and, therefore, the dean of the delegates. We became friends from the time I was elected in 1990. Eni was as affable as he was serious and dedicated to his constituents in American Samoa. He was the first person of Asian-Pacific descent to chair the House Subcommittee on Asia, the Pacific, and the Global Environment, later serving as ranking member.

Eni was fully prepared for his leadership roles in the Congress. He served his country for three years during the Vietnam War. Eni put his education at Brigham Young University and the University of Houston Law Center to a lifetime of public service. He served the people of American Samoa in critical positions. Eni Faleomavaega was deputy attorney general and, later, lieutenant governor of American Samoa. Eni was the administrative assistant to American Samoa Delegate A.U. Fuimaono before he was elected to that position himself in 1988.

Even though the District of Columbia pays federal taxes (highest per capita in the U.S.), the delegates have much in common and always worked together. When I discovered that the D.C. flag was not carried by D.C. troops as state troops do, further investigation showed that the troops of the territories also did not carry their flags. Yet, the territories and the District have served their country in notably- disproportionate numbers. All of us signed a letter to House and Senate Armed Services committees. Working together, we got this failure to acknowledge all our troops corrected by the Congress.

I was particularly appreciative of Eni's initiatives. For example, he introduced the bill to cancel the trademark using the disparaging word ``Redskins,'' the name of the District of Columbia's football team. That challenge has been vindicated, but is now on appeal.

Delegates have always supported one another on issues unique to their districts. I appreciate that all the Democratic delegates are original cosponsors of my bill to make the District of Columbia the 51st state. In the same way, we supported Eni's work against nuclear testing in the South Pacific. Eni led in the Congress on this critical issue, even boycotting then-French president Jacques Chirac's address before a joint session of Congress. Only days before that speech, France was conducting a series of nuclear tests in the South Pacific, despite protests.

Eni led the Congress on issues important to American Samoa and to our country. He set a high standard for representation. Eni Faleomavaega was kind and generous, and he was intelligent, able, dedicated, and hard-working. I miss my friend. So does the Congress.

Mr. Speaker, today I introduce the District of Columbia National Guard Home Rule Act, a bill that would give the mayor of the District of Columbia authority to deploy the D.C. National Guard, after consultation with the Commanding General of the D.C. National Guard, with the President retaining authority on federal matters. In local emergencies, including natural disasters and civil disturbances unrelated to national or homeland security, the mayor of the District should have the same authority that governors exercise over the National Guard in their states. Each governor--including the governors of three U.S. territories with Guards--has the authority to deploy the National Guard to protect his or her state or territory, just as local militia did historically.

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

The mayor of the District, as chief executive, should have the authority to deploy the D.C. National Guard in instances that do not rise to the level of federal homeland security activities. My bill permits the mayor to only deploy the D.C. National Guard after consultation with the Commanding General of the D.C. National Guard. The bill is another important step toward completing the transfer of full self-government powers to the District. Congress began with the passage of the Home Rule Act of 1973, when it delegated most of its authority over District matters to an elected mayor and Council. The bill follows that model.

I urge my colleagues to support the bill.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to ask my colleagues to join me in recognizing the extraordinary life of Thomas S. Williamson, Jr., who passed away this month at the age of 70. Mr. Williamson was a former president of the D.C. Bar and a member of our Federal Law Enforcement Nominating Commission, which advises me on the selection of important federal officials for the District of Columbia, including federal district court judges and the U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia. Tom will be especially remembered as a champion for equal legal access to justice for all. His service will be held at the National Cathedral tomorrow.

Tom Williamson began his career at the law firm Covington & Burling LLP in 1974, where he became a partner, focusing on employment law, complex litigation, and health and welfare law matters for state governments. As a student, Tom played varsity football at Harvard College and excelled academically. He went on to Oxford University, where he was a Rhodes Scholar, and then to the University of California at Berkeley School of Law. From the beginning of his career and for more than 40 years, Tom had a deep commitment to pro bono service and civil rights. His passion for equal justice was influenced by his experience as a child when his family integrated a white neighborhood in Piedmont, California and experiencing the racism that resulted.

District residents are particularly grateful to Tom, who was an influential member of a team of attorneys representing the District in Adams v. Clinton, a case that sought voting rights for the District in the House and Senate. Throughout his years in successful private practice, Tom continuously provided legal service to those most in need of good lawyers--whether providing pro bono service to residents or leading the defense of the District's marriage equality law. Tom's career in law also included public service, where he served as the deputy inspector general at the U.S. Department of Energy and the solicitor of the U.S. Department of Labor.

Mr. Speaker, as my thoughts are with Tom's wife, Shelly Brazier, and his family, I ask my colleagues to join me in recognizing the extraordinary life of Thomas. S. Williamson, Jr.

Mr. Speaker, today I introduce the District of Columbia Local Prosecutor Establishment Act of 2017, to give District of Columbia residents another element of the self-government enjoyed by all other American citizens, including those in the U.S. territories. The bill would establish a local prosecutor's office designated under local law to prosecute all local crimes in the District. Under federal law, the U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Columbia, a federal entity, is responsible for prosecuting most local crimes committed by adults here, which is the greater part of its caseload, in addition to prosecuting federal crimes. This bill is special because it effectuates a 2002 advisory referendum, approved by 82 percent of D.C. voters, to create a local prosecutor's office.

There is no law enforcement issue of greater importance to D.C. residents on which they have less say than the prosecution of local crimes here. A U.S. Attorney has no business prosecuting the local crimes of a jurisdiction, an anachronism that is out of place in any, American self-governing jurisdiction. In fact, the territories of the United States, Puerto Rico, Guam, the U.S. Virgin Islands, American Samoa, and the Northern Mariana Islands, all have local prosecutors to prosecute local crimes. The absence of a local D.C. prosecutor is one more anachronism from the pre-home rule days when D.C. had no local government. The goal of this bill is to give the District the same jurisdiction over the criminal justice matters that state, local, and territorial jurisdictions justifiably regard as mandatory.

Amending federal law to create a local prosecutor would be an important step toward our goal of achieving true self-government. I urge my colleagues to support this important measure.

Mr. Speaker, today, I introduce the District of Columbia Paperwork Reduction Act, to eliminate the wasteful congressional review process for legislation passed by the District of Columbia Council and to align longtime congressional practice and the law. The congressional review process for D.C. bills is almost entirely ignored by Congress, providing it no benefit, but imposes substantial costs, in time and money, on the District. Congress has almost always used the appropriations process rather than the disapproval process to block or nullify D.C.'s legislation, and entirely abandoned the congressional review process as its mechanism for nullifying D.C. legislation 24 years ago, having only used it three times before then. Yet Congress still requires the D.C. Council to use Kafkaesque make-work procedures to comply with the abandoned congressional review process established by the Home Rule Act of 1973.

Our bill would eliminate the congressional review process for legislation passed by the D.C. Council. However, Congress would lose no authority it currently exercises because, even upon enactment of this bill, Congress would retain its authority under clause 17 of section 8 of article I of the U.S. Constitution to amend or overturn any D.C. legislation at any time.

The congressional review process, 30 days for civil bills and 60 days for criminal bills, includes those days when either house of Congress is in session, delaying D.C. bills from becoming law often for many months. The delay forces the D.C. Council to pass most bills several times, using a cumbersome and complicated process to ensure that the operations of this large and rapidly changing city continue uninterrupted, avoiding a lapse of the bill before it becomes final. The congressional calendar means that a 30-day period usually lasts a couple of months and often much longer because of congressional recesses. The congressional review period for a bill that changed the word handicap to disability lasted nine months. The Council estimates that 50 to 65 percent of the bills it passes could be eliminated if the review period did not exist. To ensure that a bill becomes law, the Council often must pass the same legislation in three forms: emergency (in effect for 90 days), temporary (in effect for 225 days) and permanent. Moreover, the Council has to carefully track the days the House and Senate are in session for each D.C. bill it passes to avoid gaps and to determine when the bills have taken effect. The Council estimates that it could save 5,000 employee-hours and 160,000 sheets of paper per two-year Council period if the review period were eliminated. House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy addressed the issue of saving such resources by eliminating the amount of paperwork sent to Congress when he proposed a cut in the number of reports that federal agencies are required to submit to Congress. Our bill is a perfect candidate because it eliminates a paperwork process that repeats itself without interruption.

My bill would do no more than align the Home Rule Act with congressional practice over the last 24 years. Of the more than 5,000 legislative acts transmitted to Congress since the Home Rule Act, only three resolutions disapproving D.C. legislation have been enacted (in 1979, 1981, and 1991) and two of those mistakenly involved federal interests, one in the Height Act and the other in the location of chanceries. Placing a congressional hold on 5,000 D.C. bills has not only proven unnecessary, but has imposed costs on the D.C. government, residents and businesses. District residents and businesses are also placed on hold because they have no certainty when D.C. bills, from taxes to regulations, will take effect, making it difficult to plan. Instead of using the congressional review process to nullify D.C. legislation, Congress has preferred to use riders to appropriations bills. Therefore, it is particularly unfair to require the D.C. Council to engage in this labor-intensive and costly process. My bill would only eliminate the automatic hold placed on D.C. legislation and the need for the D.C. Council to comply with a process initially created for the convenience of Congress, but that is now rarely used. This bill would promote efficiency and cost savings for Congress, the District, its residents, and businesses without reducing congressional oversight, and would carry out a policy stressed by Congress of eliminating needless paperwork and make-work redundancy.

I urge my colleagues to support this good-government measure.

Mr. Speaker, I thank my good friend from Georgia for yielding. I certainly thank him for being a cosponsor of my bill.

I should start, however, by thanking Chairman Shuster, and Ranking Member DeFazio, who have moved this bill so quickly.

The bill is called the Fairness for Breastfeeding Mothers Act of 2017. This is a real motherhood bill. Mr. DeFazio, Mr. Johnson, and Barbara Comstock have all joined me as cosponsors.

H.R. 1174 requires locations that are either federally owned or leased to provide designated private and hygenic lactation space for nursing mothers. As I will indicate, no new space in buildings or expenditures is contemplated.

Last Congress, I offered this bill as an amendment to the Public Buildings Reform and Savings Act of 2016, and I was pleased to have it pass the House.

Space for lactating women is already required for Federal employees. We are really not talking about a new kind of benefit. Certainly, there is no new money. The reason that this is not new is because Federal employees already have lactating space under the Affordable Care Act.

So I have to ask my good friends on the other side: As you try to repeal the Affordable Care Act, do you propose to erase this motherhood provision as well? Will you preserve it?

My bill extends the lactating space requirement to include not just employees, but visitors and guests of Federal facilities across the Nation. H.R. 1174 also does not require additional Federal funds or space to be mandated at all. Since Federal employees already have this space, I look forward to visitors to Federal buildings also making use of this space. In our country, new mothers often come to visit Federal buildings, not only those who work in Federal buildings.

The reason this is such an important bill is that the benefits of breast milk are so well documented: antibodies and hormones that boost babies' immune systems, lower risks of asthma, diabetes, respiratory infections, and other diseases among breastfed babies.

There are benefits also for nursing mothers. Research has shown that there are lower risks of diabetes and even cancer as a result of breastfeeding. Speaking of motherhood, the Republican healthcare plan would even make maternity care significantly more expensive.

Now, this, of course, is a bill that is very easy to support, but when we think of its links to other important legislation, I ask that there be sincere consideration given to whether or not at this moment in time my good friends across the aisle want their legacy to be: We actually repealed your health care.

I don't think they are going to be able to do it.

My Republican friends have no experience with structural reform. If you look at all the structural reform in our country, beginning with the New Deal, none of it was done by Republicans. Whether you are talking about the administrative agencies that are so important to all that we do in this country, Medicare, Medicaid, the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, whatever you have in mind, these are structural reforms that Republicans

have, if anything, opposed, as they opposed Social Security, for example.

So here what they are trying to do is to unravel, take away health care, and then put something in its place. They have no experience doing anything like it. Anybody who has looked closely at it has to doubt, as I do, that they can do it.

Look what they will be doing. In my own district, the District of Columbia, we have cut in half the rate of uninsured.

Are Republicans going to give me a guarantee that that cut will remain if they replace the bill with the markup that is going on as we speak?

Ninety-six percent of District of Columbia residents have health coverage today. That is comparable to other advanced countries in the world. As we know, most countries in the world already afford this kind of coverage. That makes the District, according to whoever is doing the counting, number one, number two, or number three in the Nation in health care provided to our residents. I am very proud of that. I am going to fight like mad to keep it.

Mr. Speaker, many of us had healthcare townhalls over the recess. We saw what happened at the townhalls on affordable care that my good friends on the other side also had. They met a revolution from their own constituents. We didn't have that problem in our townhalls. Some of the stories that residents brought forward are truly heartbreaking, so I want to leave you with one.

A woman who came to testify at my healthcare townhall, her name is Markita. Markita's grandmother was a D.C. Public Schools cafeteria worker for most of her career. She retired early. She retired before she had Social Security or Medicare. She was suffering from diabetes and a stroke, but she was so prideful that she never let anyone know that she had to slice her pills in half just to get by. Now she is under the protection of the Affordable Care Act. Markita's grandmother is healthier and can afford her medication. She is no longer splitting her pills in half.

Mr. Speaker, I wanted to correct the gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. Sanford), who opined that this bill was not scored correctly.

We are talking about space already designated for Federal employees. The intent of the bill, and I am the author of the bill, which could never have gotten through committee if it involved the expenditure of funds. Yes, sometimes these lactation rooms will be dedicated to lactation, but that doesn't mean they are exclusively designated to lactation.

And the whole notion that some Federal buildings don't have such space means they are in violation of the Affordable Care Act, which requires that they have such space, even if it is not space that is exclusively used for the few women who are lactating or nursing.

Mr. Speaker, I come to the House this afternoon because a very significant event occurred yesterday in the Senate.

The Mayor of the District of Columbia, the city council chair, a statehood representative, a statehood senator all came to the Capitol to deliver a petition from the residents of the District of Columbia. Residents voted 85 percent strong that the District of Columbia become the 51st State. At the same time, I introduced the bill to bring that about.

This afternoon I want to discuss why the residents of this city would want to become a State. I find that Members of Congress are almost entirely ignorant of the status of the District of Columbia, and, frankly, I cannot really blame them.

Members of Congress have no reason to be concerned about the District and its 670,000 residents. That is my concern. Candidly, I wish Members of Congress would not be concerned at all. There are a number of ways in which the Congress could leave the city alone.

Statehood is, of course, the ultimate reason and way; and it is the only way that the residents of this city can become equal to the residents represented by my colleagues. This is indeed, as we come now full throttle into the 21st century, in the name of democracy and of American values, why statehood for the District of Columbia simply must come.

On this House floor, the residents of the District of Columbia have no vote and, of course, they have no senators whatsoever.

What do they give to their country?

Let us begin with something very tangible. The residents of this city are number one per capita in the federal taxes they pay to support the United States of America. Let us translate that into a comparison to the taxes my colleagues pay. The residents of this city pay more in federal taxes than the residents of 22 States, and this city is not yet a State.

When a matter comes to this floor, every Member can vote on that matter, even when that matter involves uniquely the District of Columbia--every Member can vote on that matter, except the Member who represents the District of Columbia.

The Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, where the Member representing the District can vote, just voted to eliminate a District law. Imagine that. In the United States of America, the Congress of the United States, unaccountable to the residents of the city of Washington, D.C., on local matters can overturn a bill. They have done so in committee on an admittedly controversial bill.

I don't expect every State and city to agree with the District of Columbia on matters affecting our city. The DC Death with Dignity bill would allow people to take their own lives with a drug in their possession administered by themselves. In order to do so, two doctors have to have found that the resident does not have more than six months to live, among other requirements.

A third of those who choose this option in the United States never use the drug.

How do I know that?

Because six States already have death with dignity laws. That means 24 Republican Members of this House represent States that have death with dignity laws yet the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform under Chairman Chaffetz just voted to keep the District from doing what six States already allow.

This bill was introduced as a so-called disapproval resolution. Such a resolution requires an actual vote in the House and the Senate. It was introduced very late and taken up very late because I believe that the Oversight and Government Reform Committee and the Speaker of the House didn't want to bring that bill to the floor because there are six States that have precisely this kind of law and because there are 24 Republican Members who would be implicated and would be caught in a matter of supreme hypocrisy if they voted against the very same bill for the District of Columbia.

Yesterday, the Mayor of the city, Mayor Muriel Bowser, and council chair Philip Mendelson came to the Senate, who hosted us, to deliver a petition to become the 51st State. This is a procedure that is allowed under our Constitution.

It is a procedure that was used in Tennessee where all the prerequisites for statehood have to be fulfilled, the boundaries, et cetera; and you simply present a petition. That is how Tennessee and a number of other States became States.

I am very grateful to Senator Tom Carper for hosting us in the Senate where we have no representation. Senator Carper of Delaware is a champion of statehood. He has introduced this bill for years now and did so again in the Senate.

It is not unusual for Democrats in the Senate to support D.C. statehood. The four top Democratic leaders are among those who cosponsored the bill last year. I expect that to be the same this year because Senator Tom Carper introduced the bill in the Senate yesterday, even as I introduced the bill in the House at the same time.

I want to just say, once again, how faithful and true to his own principles Senator Carper has been in supporting D.C. statehood and stepping out front to introduce the bill.

You might ask: What chance, with a Republican House, Senate, and President, do you have of getting D.C. statehood? Why would you bother?

No matter who sat in the White House today--and Hillary Clinton was a strong champion of statehood--we are about where we would have been. The work really isn't in the Presidency. The work is in the Congress and, even more so, in the District of Columbia.

The District of Columbia has to itself get this shameful record out of having residents who have served in every war, including the war that created the United States of America, paying taxes beyond those paid by other residents. This is on us, and we recognize it.

I think you will see a social media campaign informing the American people of what they do not now know because they wouldn't tolerate it if they did.

It was very difficult, until the age of social media, to get such word out without a massive advertising campaign. All we need to do now is use the existing social media, and I think we can change this shameful situation.

I am very encouraged by what has happened. Yesterday, 60 Democrats joined me as original cosponsors. An original cosponsor is a Member who stands with the sponsor on equal footing to introduce the bill. That already beats the record we set for last year when we had 93 original cosponsors in the 114th Congress. By the end of that Congress, 72 percent of House Democrats were cosponsors of the bill, and we could have gotten many more than that but for the logistics and the timing involved.

Our goal is to improve our chances for statehood every year; one way to do that is to get more cosponsors every year, and we are meeting that goal.

Why are we pursuing statehood? It is not out of hubris. It is not that we want to be like Delaware and New York. It is because it is the only way to become full and equal citizens of the United States, and because we have tried everything else.

Without statehood, Members will continue to bring our matters to the House floor for unaccountable Members to vote on them. Without statehood, we won't have the right to vote on this House floor. We won't have the right to vote in the Senate.

We have tried short of statehood. I pay tribute to former Representative Tom Davis, who, in the majority, sponsored a bill with me to get a House vote, only a House vote for the District of Columbia. This was a very important effort strongly supported by the residents of the District of Columbia to say: look, you don't give us statehood, let us get there gradually, give us the House vote.

Tom Davis saw that Utah did not have the House vote because their missionaries were not counted by the census, and they had expected an additional House Representative. The Governor of the State and the State legislature supported the action and most States have used similar bipartisan action to come into the Union.

This, of course, would have been only a House vote; one for very Republican Utah, one for Democratic D.C. This bill was passed in the House--thank you, Utah--and was passed in the Senate.

And the only reason the District of Columbia does not have a vote, as I speak, is because the National Rifle Association was able to place an amendment on the bill that, in the event D.C. got a vote, would have eliminated all of our gun laws, each and every one. A big city without gun laws, of course, is open territory, and we were left with the woeful and shameful option of giving up our vote, a vote we could have had.

We also have tried, short of statehood, to get budget autonomy.

Imagine bringing our budget, raised in the District of Columbia, $7 billion, and asking Members who don't know anything about it to vote on it. That is what the residents of the District of Columbia have to do.

I pay tribute to the former Republican chairman of the House committee of jurisdiction, Oversight and Government Reform, Darrell Issa, who held a hearing when he chaired the committee on D.C.'s local matters, including its local budget.

Upon hearing the testimony about this district's financial conditions, its reserves, its growth among the best of the Nation, upon hearing in testimony from the Mayor, the city council, the chief financial officer, despite meeting those marks, then-Chairman Darrell Issa supported budget autonomy for the District of Columbia, and worked tirelessly for this goal during his chairmanship of the Oversight and Government Reform Committee.

So I am not here to say that there is no sense of a necessity to have something done, as you see that in former Chairman Darrell Issa's actions.

For that matter, Chairman Jason Chaffetz, last week, called for the District of Columbia to be made a part of Maryland in order that it would get Senators and Representatives. He wasn't joking. He wasn't making fun of us.

There has long been a small group of Republicans who acknowledge the shame of having almost 700,000 Americans without representation in the House and the Senate. And one of the easier ways to get it, they think, is to retrocede, that is the word, because the District was created out of Maryland and Virginia. Virginia itself cast off, the District of Columbia because it was afraid Congress would abolish slavery. So the notion is, go back to Maryland.

My first notion or response is: Have you asked Maryland? In other words, you don't decide to reconfigure a State with a big city, and Maryland has only one big city, because you are fulfilling one value without fulfilling the other value, which is to make sure you have the permission of that State.

Now, Maryland has been a very friendly State to the District of Columbia. But the District is not asking Maryland to become a part of its State. We want to become the 51st State of the United States of America, and it would probably be easier to do that than to become a part of Maryland.

Now, we also are not insisting that there is nothing else that will do. We have asked for legislative autonomy.

Why should our legislation have to lay over here for 30 days, or 60 days? They must be legislative days, so that often means 6 months, 9 months, to give the Congress time to see whether the Congress wants to overturn legislation it had nothing to do with and knows nothing about.

The fact is that the legislative autonomy provision is virtually never used. Instead, the Congress tries to add amendments to the District's budget, a sneaky, easy way, they think, to overturn a law. So they keep legislative autonomy on the books inconveniencing the District and never use it.

They fear budget autonomy because they wouldn't have anything to attach matters to like overturning our gun laws. They regularly try to do that on appropriations.

So what you have is a kind of invitation for Members to interfere with somebody else's district, my district, instead of attending to your own business. People did not send my colleagues here to attend to the business of the District of Columbia, and we intend to call them out every time they interfere.

So, yes, we are struggling for the components of statehood, even before we achieve statehood, knowing how difficult and what a high climb that is.

Madam Speaker, could I inquire how much time I have remaining.

Madam Speaker, if there is such a thing as earning statehood, and of course there is not, let me indicate the ways in which the District of Columbia has, indeed, earned statehood.

Our economy is one of the strongest in the United States. It is a $12.5 billion budget total. That is a budget larger than 12 States represented in this House by my colleagues.

How many of my colleagues can boast a $2 billion surplus the way the District of Columbia can? That would be, of course, the envy of most States.

Our city has a per capita income higher than that of any State. We are not asking for any handouts. Our total personal income is higher than that of seven States. Our per capita personal consumption expenditures are higher than those of any States.

This is a prosperous district, that would bring luster to the United States as the 51st State. Its growth rate is third highest in the Nation; 1,000 new people coming to live in the Nation's Capital every single month.

As to our population, the population of the District of Columbia, is in the league with the population of seven States. We have a greater population than Vermont and Wyoming.

And, if you look at the seven States that have one Representative, as the District of Columbia does, then you will see that we are all about the same. Yet, those seven States that are about the same in population as the District of Columbia, each has one Representative and two Senators, while we are unrepresented in the Senate of the United States.

I don't even want to speak, but I must, about perhaps the most poignant reason why the District should have statehood. The residents of this city have fought and died in every war, including the war that created our country itself.

I remember coming to the floor on those occasions where we have voted whether or not to go to war, and on each of those occasions, residents of the District of Columbia have gone. I remember the purple fingers in Iraq and Afghanistan that signified that our country had given them the vote, while the very members of the armed services from the District of Columbia who had served came back to the District of Columbia without a vote themselves.

Is that an irony that this body can even stand any longer? Fought and died in all the great wars of the 20th century, and we remember especially Vietnam, when there were more District of Columbia casualties than from 10 States of the Union.

I don't want to go into the technicalities of congressional power, but Congress has the authority to make our city a State because of its Article IV, section 3 power to admit new States to the Union. When you combine that with Congress' Article I, section 8, clause 17 power over the seat of the Federal Government, which is what the District is, it is an accident, an accident of history that the District does not have the same votes as other Americans.

It is a slander to think that those who went to war on the slogan of ``no taxation without representation'' would leave any residents of our city without representation.

There was a march by Revolutionary War veterans when the Capitol was in Philadelphia that frightened, frankly, the Framers. So they thought: Well, you can't have a separate State, and it can't be part of a State, and we don't know what to do, so let's just make it a district. But they never believed that it would be a district without any rights, and that is exactly what it became.

Indeed, the District was carved out of Maryland and Virginia, but for the 10-year period of transition the citizens of the new district did not lose the votes in the Senate and the House. Only in 1801, when the District became the Nation's Capital under the Congress of the United States did we lose Senate representation and representation in the House.

Enormous change has occurred in our city in the 216 years since we became the Capital. I am a third-generation Washingtonian. My great- grandfather was a runaway slave from Virginia, so my own family has seen 150 years of those changes. This is no longer a sleepy Southern city where I went to segregated schools--segregated by the Congress of the United States, indeed, because it had the sole authority to do it. In fact, today, it is one of the most cosmopolitan cities in the United States, a city that people are flocking to for residence.

Everything about the District of Columbia has changed except its status and the status of its residents as second class citizens in their own country. We are sick and tired of being voyeurs of democracy. That is why the District of Columbia gave itself budget autonomy, although the Congress did appropriate a budget. Thank you for nothing. That is why the city voted 85 percent for statehood for itself. The citizens of the District are simply not going to sit still with the status quo. They are not going to sit on their second class citizenship.

So I come to the floor after we have brought our petition to the Congress to become the 51st State. I come to the floor the day after I have introduced the bill to put the Congress on notice: Be ready. Be ready for a campaign by the residents of the District of Columbia and our allies throughout the United States to be treated fairly, or as Frederick Douglass said, ``not as aliens.''

We can decide to get rid of this anomaly as we have so many others that deprived citizens of the right to vote, whether they were slaves or women. We have gotten rid of those. Statehood does not require a constitutional amendment. All it takes is the conscience of the House of Representatives and the Senate of the United States.

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

Madam Speaker, I move that the House do now adjourn.

The motion was agreed to; accordingly (at 12 o'clock and 49 minutes p.m.), under its previous order, the House adjourned until Monday, March 6, 2017, at 4 p.m.