Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, today, I introduce three bills to modernize the Smithsonian Institution and to enhance its governance and fundraising capabilities, in keeping with the recommendations of a number of experts, including the Smithsonian Independent Review Committee, chaired by former U.S. Comptroller General Charles Bowsher. This bill, the Smithsonian Modernization Act, makes changes to the Smithsonian's governance structure by expanding and changing the composition of its Board of Regents, from 17 members, which includes six Members of Congress, the Vice President of the United States, and the Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, to 21 members, comprised solely of private citizens. This change will strengthen both the Smithsonian's governance and fundraising capacity, and it is the first significant change in this old and revered institution since it was established in 1846. The second bill, the Smithsonian Free Admission Act of 2013, seeks to preserve the long-standing free admission policy for permanent exhibits at an institution that is largely funded by the federal government, as envisioned by James Smithson, its founder. Finally, the Open and Transparent Smithsonian Act of 2013 will apply the Freedom of Information Act and the Privacy Act to the Smithsonian in the same manner they apply to federal agencies.

The Smithsonian Institution is an irreplaceable cultural, scientific, historical, educational and artistic complex without any public or private counterpart in the world. Since its founding, the Smithsonian has developed an extraordinary array of world-class museums, galleries, educational showplaces and unique research centers, including 19 museums and galleries, nine research facilities, the National Zoo, and the forthcoming National Museum of African American History and Culture, which is now under construction. The Smithsonian has grown with private funding and donations from American culture and life, but most of its funding continues to come from federal appropriations. Despite receiving 70 percent of its funding from the federal government, the Smithsonian has long had serious infrastructure and other needs.

Congress must help the Smithsonian strengthen its ability to build resources beyond what taxpayers are able to provide. The most important step Congress could take today is to rescue the Smithsonian from its 19th-century governance structure, which keeps it from accessing needed and available private resources and limits close and critical oversight. The Smithsonian Modernization Act provides a governance structure befitting the Smithsonian's unique complexity. The difficulties the Smithsonian has faced result in part from the limitations inherent in its antiquated governance structure. The existing structure may have fit the Smithsonian over 170 years ago, but today the structure has proven to be a relic that does a disservice to the Smithsonian. The present governance structure places immense responsibility on dedicated but overextended Members of the House and Senate, the Vice President of the United States and the Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court. These federal officials comprise almost half of the Smithsonian Board of Regents, and must perform their fiduciary duties as board members while giving first priority to their sworn responsibilities as important federal officials.

In 2007, an independent review committee found that the Board had violated principles of good management during the tenure of former Secretary of the Smithsonian Lawrence Small allowing him to create an ``insular culture.'' The committee's report indicated that the Board had failed to provide desperately needed oversight and had overcompensated Mr. Small. The report also found that Sheila P. Burke, the Smithsonian's then-deputy secretary and chief operating officer, had frequent absences from her duties because of outside activities, including service on corporate boards, for which she earned more than $1.2 million over six years. Further, the Smithsonian's then-business ventures chief, Gary Beer, was dismissed for financial indiscretions. This crisis, caused by unprecedented controversies and irresponsible risks, put into sharp focus the need for new revenue streams and for a modern governance structure. The first full-blown scandal in the Smithsonian's history, replete with embarrassing media coverage, damaged its reputation and perhaps the confidence of potential contributors. The poor judgment and overreaching of Smithsonian personnel during that period requires new and concentrated oversight by citizens for whom the Smithsonian would command priority attention.

The Board, of course, has taken some important action on its own. After irregularities were uncovered by the media, the Board responded to the controversies by creating a governance committee, chaired by Patty Stonesifer, a Regent and former chief executive officer of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, with a mandate to comprehensively review the policies and practices of the Smithsonian and how the Board conducts its oversight of the institution. The Board also established an Independent Review Committee (IRC), chaired by former U.S. Comptroller General Charles A. Bowsher, to review the issues arising from an Inspector General's report and the Board's response, and related Smithsonian practices.

The IRC was forthright in its investigation and recommendations. The IRC stated explicitly that the root cause of the problems at the Smithsonian was an antiquated governance structure, which led to failures in governance and management. According to the IRC, the Board must assume a fiduciary duty that carries a ``major commitment of time and effort, a reputational risk, and potentially, financial liability.'' The IRC further argued that the Smithsonian, with a budget of over $1 billion a year, must have Board members who ``act as true fiduciaries and who have both the time and the experience to assume the responsibilities of setting strategy and providing oversight.'' The IRC cited a lack of clarity in the roles of the Vice President of the United States and Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court on

the Board, and said that ``it is not feasible to expect the Chief Justice to devote the hours necessary to serve as a fiduciary agent.'' The same observation could be made of the Members of the House and Senate who serve on the Board. The IRC recommended that the Board increase the level of expertise and the number of members to ensure that the Board has sufficient time and attention to dedicate to the Smithsonian.

The Smithsonian's own governance committee identified several Board weaknesses, concluding that the Board did not receive or demand the reports necessary for competent decision-making, that the staff whom the Board depended upon for oversight inquiries did not have direct access to information, and that the inability of staff to communicate red flags ``crippled'' internal compliance and oversight.

Only Congress, with the concurrence of the president, can amend the Smithsonian Charter. The last change to the Board's structure occurred over 30 years ago, but it only increased the number of private citizens on the Board from six to nine.

The number of Regents, however, is not the root problem. Although the bill expands the Board from 17 to 21 members, most importantly, it brings the Board into alignment with modern public and private boards by requiring all Regents to be private citizens. The search for private funds by Smithsonian management was a major cause of the recent controversy. Faced with crippling budget problems, the Regents must be free to give new and unprecedented attention and energy to finding and helping to raise substantially more funds from private sources. The new structure envisioned by the bill will improve oversight and the capacity for fundraising from private sources. Unlike federal officials on the Board, private citizens on the Board are entirely free to assist in private fundraising. Most importantly, private citizens have sufficient expertise to serve on the Board, and are able to devote the personal time and attention necessary to fulfill the fiduciary responsibility that comes with serving such a venerable and complex institution.

The bill preserves and strengthens the traditional role of the Speaker of the House and the President of the Senate in selecting Board members while eliminating the self-perpetuating role of the Board in selecting private citizens for the Board. The Speaker of the House and the President of the Senate will each send 12 recommendations to the President of the United States, who will select the 21 members of the Board from those recommendations.

Considering the seriousness of the findings of the Board's own governance committee and of the IRC, the changes prescribed by the bill are nothing short of necessary. The reform of the fiduciary and governance issues that have brought public criticism to this iconic American institution must begin with the indispensable step of making the Smithsonian's governance consistent with that of other institutions today. Only congressional attention can reassure the public that the controversies that recently besieged the Smithsonian will not recur. In the face of an unprecedented public controversy, Congress would be remiss if it left the Smithsonian to its own oversight and devices alone for improvement.

I urge my colleagues to support the bill.

Mr. Speaker, today, I am introducing a bill, at the request of the U.S. Coast Guard, to direct the General Services Administration to name the new U.S. Coast Guard headquarters, on the St. Elizabeths West Campus, the ``Douglas A. Munro Coast Guard Headquarters Building.'' Signalman First Class Douglas Albert Munro is the U.S. Coast Guard's only Medal of Honor recipient. Signalman First Class Munro died heroically on Point Cruz, Guadalcanal after succeeding in his assignment, for which he had volunteered, to evacuate a detachment of Marines that had been overwhelmed by the enemy.

On September 27, 1942, after making preliminary plans for the evacuation of nearly 500 beleaguered Marines from Point Cruz, Guadalcanal, Signalman First Class Munro, under attack by enemy machineguns on the island, led five small boats toward the shore. As he closed onto the beach, he signaled the other boats to land. Then, in order to draw the enemy's fire from a western attack and protect the boat heavily loaded with the Marines, he placed his boat as a shield between the beachhead and the enemy. When the evacuation was nearly completed, Signalman First Class Munro was killed by enemy fire. Due to his outstanding leadership and willingness to sacrifice his own life, Signalman First Class Munro and his fellow members of the U.S. Coast Guard undoubtedly saved the lives of many service men that otherwise would have been killed in the line of duty.

Signalman First Class Munro was educated at South Cle Elum Grade School in Washington state, and graduated from Cle Elum High School in 1937. He attended Central Washington College of Education for a year and left to enlist in the U.S. Coast Guard in 1939. He had an outstanding record as an enlisted man and was promoted rapidly through the various ratings to a Signalman First Class. In addition to being a Medal of Honor recipient, Signalman First Class Munro was also posthumously awarded the Purple Heart Medal, and was eligible for the American Defense Service Medal, the Asiatic-Pacific Area Campaign Medal, and the World War II Victory Medal.

The new U.S. Coast Guard headquarters building, which I propose to be named for Signalman First Class Douglas A. Munro, will be 1.1 million square feet and will house up to 3,700 U.S. Coast Guard employees. The U.S. Coast Guard headquarters building represents the first phase of the eventual consolidation of 4.5 million square feet of office space scattered around the National Capital Region to the West Campus of the old St. Elizabeths Hospital, located in the Anacostia neighborhood of Washington, D.C. The Department of Homeland Security headquarters consolidation construction project marks the first time the federal government will locate a federal agency east of the Anacostia River.

I believe that Signalman First Class Douglas A. Munro's outstanding service to his country and his unique status as the only member of the U.S. Coast Guard to earn the Medal of Honor ensure that it is particularly fitting to name the new U.S. Coast Guard headquarters the ``Douglas A. Munro Coast Guard Headquarters Building.''

Mr. Speaker, Bill Gray lived the very definition of a fulfilled life--full of family, friends, history making as a public man and above all, as a public servant. The first African American House Majority Whip, third in rank in the House, first African American chair of the House Budget Committee, Member of the House from Pennsylvania, author of the 1985 and 1986 South Africa sanction bills, a storied leader who broke fundraising records as the Chief Executive Officer of the United Negro College Fund, and pastor of Bright Hope Baptist Church for 25 years. At his premature death, Bill was co-chairman of his own consulting firm, GrayLoeffler and Corp.

However, the highlights of Bill's life of public service did not fully define the man. Bill Gray left the Congress before I was elected and many were convinced that he would become the first African American Speaker of the House, had he chosen to remain in Congress. However, you did not have to be a member of Congress to get to know Bill Gray, so wide- ranging were his contributions, activities and his friendships.

Bill was gifted with an agile mind, a magnetic personality, and a generous spirit. The shock, regret, and profound sadness Bill's loss leaves are mitigated only by the certain knowledge of a life fully, richly, and generously lived.

Mr. Speaker, the reauthorized Voting Rights Act was passed in a Republican House, a Republican Senate, and signed by a Republican President. Then the House and Senate Republican and Democratic leadership led Members of Congress to the front steps of the Congress to express their collective pride in the passage of the Voting Rights Act.

Yesterday, the Court did not nullify section 4 of the act. It invalidated it, as applied, and advised Congress to update the formula.

The leadership, who so proudly reauthorized the act on the front steps of the Capitol, remains in place today. If the pride they expressed then in the right of all Americans to vote remains, they will now resume their place of leadership to ensure that the entire Voting Rights Act remains proudly the law of the land.

Mr. Speaker, as we approach the four-year anniversary of the tragic June 22, 2009, Metro crash, in which Major General David F. Wherley, former Commanding General of the D.C. National Guard, his wife, Ann, and seven others were killed when Metro trains collided on the Red Line, I introduce a bill, the Major General David F. Wherley, Jr., District of Columbia National Guard Retention and College Access Act (NGRCA), to permanently authorize funding for a program that provides grants for higher education to members of the D.C. National Guard. In 2010, I renamed this bill after General Wherley because he worked tirelessly with me to get funding for the program for many years, and because of his devotion to the youth of the District of Columbia.

The NGRCA authorizes an education incentive program, recommended by the late Major General David F. Wherley, Jr., and his successor, Major General Errol Schwartz, to stem the troublesome loss of members of the D.C. Guard to other units. Surrounding states offer such educational benefits to their Guards. I am grateful that the Appropriations committees have provided funds for the program in some years, most recently in fiscal year 2013. Naming a permanently authorized program after General Wherley would memorialize his service to the country and to the Guard in a way that I believe he would have appreciated. Authorizing funding is necessary to ensure that D.C. Guard members receive the same treatment and benefits as other National Guard members, especially those in states that provide the higher education benefits we seek for D.C. Guard members. The Guard for the nation's capital has a limited ability to compete for regional residents, who find membership in the Maryland and Virginia Guards more beneficial. A competitive tuition assistance program for the D.C. Guard will provide significant incentives and leverage to help maintain enrollment and level the field of competition. The D.C. Guard is a federal instrument not under the control of the mayor of the District of Columbia. The federal government supports most other D.C. Guard functions and should support this small benefit as well.

The small education incentives in my bill would not only encourage high-quality recruits, but would have the important benefit of helping the D.C. Guard to maintain the force necessary to protect the federal presence, including members of Congress and the Supreme Court, and visitors if a terrorist attack or natural disaster should occur. I am pleased to introduce the bill based on the advice of Guard personnel, who best know what is necessary.

It is especially important for the D.C. Guard to be able to attract the best soldiers, given its unique mission to protect the federal presence here, in addition to D.C. residents. This responsibility distinguishes the D.C. Guard from all other National Guards. The D.C. Guard is specially trained to meet its unique mission.

I urge my colleagues to support the bill.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to ask the House of Representatives to join with

me in congratulating Danielle L. Scott, the recipient of the Beacon Foundation, Inc. Scholarship Award. The scholarship, which is awarded to college students aspiring to become future leaders, was awarded to Ms. Scott based on her exemplary academic performance and extensive community service. I also commend the Beacon Foundation, a relatively new foundation, for its record in education.

Danielle is currently a junior at Howard University studying Political Science with a minor in Community Development. Prior to her enrollment at Howard University, she attended Monticello High School in Charlottesville, Virginia. During her time at Monticello, she held numerous leadership positions and was very involved in her community. She oversaw the school's Peer Mediation Program and Big Brother Big Sister mentoring program, and was class president all four years. Upon her graduation in 2011, she received the $10,000 Congressional Harry F. Byrd Jr. Leadership Award, the Susan N. Gilkey Award for Leadership, and the Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority Incorporated Leadership Scholarship.

With her acceptance to Howard University, she was awarded the Legacy Scholarship and was accepted into the College of Arts and Sciences Honors Program. Since her arrival at the University, she has continued her service and is active in the university. She serves as the Chief of Staff for the Howard University Student Association and is also a member of Alpha Chapter, Delta Sigma Theta Sorority Incorporated. In addition, she mentors young girls on a weekly basis as a cheerleading coach at the George Ferris Jr. Clubhouse 6 Boys and Girls Club. Maintaining a 3.95 grade point average, she is on the College of Arts and Science's Dean's List. Currently, Ms. Scott holds an internship at the Economic Development Administration in the Department of Commerce.

After Howard, Ms. Scott hopes to continue her education in pursuit of a Master's degree and potentially a PhD. She hopes to help underserved communities in the United States. Specifically, she would like to help urban black communities by reinvigorating the basic infrastructure, function, and atmosphere of these areas. She lives by the words of Mary McLeod Bethune, ``Faith is the first factor in a life devoted to service, without it nothing is possible, with it, nothing is impossible.''

Mr. Speaker, I ask the House of Representatives to congratulate Ms. Danielle L. Scott as this year's recipient of the Beacon Foundation, Inc. Scholarship Award.

Mr. Speaker, I rise to introduce the National Patriots Memorial Act today, the anniversary of the start of the War of 1812, a war that was fought in the streets of Washington, D.C. The bill would authorize the establishment of a memorial on federal land in the District of Columbia to honor the patriots of the Revolutionary War and the War of 1812, as well as our international allies that fought in support of preserving our nation's freedom during these wars. Funding for the memorial will come entirely from private funds provided by the Benjamin Harrison Society, which suggested the memorial. The National Patriots Memorial will be an important addition to the nation and the District of Columbia alike. It will preserve and help educate the nation about both the Revolutionary War and the War of 1812, and the link to our own city. The National Patriots Memorial would remind the nation that D.C. residents fought in the Revolutionary War, the war that created the nation itself, the War of 1812, and every war since. The memorial also will serve to educate visitors to the nation's capital about the early years of our country's issues, conflicts, and growth. I urge my colleagues to support the bill.

I thank the gentlewoman from California for yielding to me.

Anti-choice groups tried and failed to use D.C. to nullify Roe v. Wade just last year. They are now using a single criminal case in Philadelphia to go after the reproductive health of all the Nation's women. We will defeat this bill, too, with its bogus science, man-made myths about rape in a bill reported to the floor by an all-male majority of the Judiciary Committee. They are already losing ground; witness the changes forced on them in the language of the bill and the stripping of the rightful manager of the bill.

This bill is part of a parade of 20-week abortion bills moving through conservative States. None will succeed. They will not succeed not only because they are clearly unconstitutional, but because women won't have it. This bill goes down the same road that helped women elect Barack Obama as President of the United States. In the end, whatever happens here today, women will win.

Madam Chair, I rise to strongly oppose Amendment #171 to H.R. 1960, the National Defense Authorization Act

for Fiscal Year 2014. This amendment is part of what for many of our Republican colleagues is an obsession with singling out the District of Columbia for anti-democratic bullying. There is no federal law that exempts active duty military personnel in their personal capacities from otherwise applicable federal firearms laws, except for residency requirements, or from any state or local firearms laws. Yet this amendment expresses the sense of Congress that active duty military personnel should be exempt from the gun laws of only one local jurisdiction, the District of Columbia. If the sponsor of this amendment believes that active duty military personnel should be exempt from federal, state or local firearms laws, why did he not offer an amendment that would apply nationwide instead of only to the District of Columbia? Republicans, who profess to support a limited federal government and local control of local matters, pick on the District of Columbia because they think they can. They are wrong.

The sponsor of this amendment lives in the past, acting as if the changes D.C. made to its gun laws after the Supreme Court's Heller decision in 2008 had never happened and as if a federal district court and a federal appeals court have not upheld the constitutionality of those revised gun laws. The sponsor also acts as if the Supreme Court's McDonald decision in 2010 had not happened. In McDonald, the court said that the Second Amendment does not confer the ``right to keep and carry any weapon whatsoever in any manner whatsoever and for whatever purpose.''

This amendment is the second time this year the sponsor has tried to interfere in the local affairs of the District of Columbia. Earlier this year, the sponsor introduced this amendment as a stand-alone bill. Although this amendment is non-binding, we will fight every attack on our rights as a local government, just as any member here would. This amendment does nothing less than attempt to pave the way for actual inroads into the District of Columbia's gun safety laws. The majority can expect a fierce fight from us whenever they treat the American citizens who live in the District of Columbia as second-class citizens. The House adopted this amendment last year, but, working with our allies, led by Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl Levin and House Armed Services Committee Ranking Member Adam Smith, we were able to keep it out of the final bill, and we will fight to do so again this year.

Mr. Speaker, Representative Phil Gingrey of Georgia filed a National Defense Authorization bill amendment that was included in en bloc amendments expressing the sense of the Congress that Active Duty military personnel in their private capacity should be exempt from the gun laws of the District of Columbia, but not those of any other State or locality. This antidemocratic amendment continues a pattern of Republican assault on D.C.'s local rights and gun safety laws. But we have shown we know how to fight back. We defeated the Gingrey amendment last Congress, and we will work with our Senate allies to defeat it again.

Today, after Newtown, when there have been serious attempts to toughen gun laws across the country and even here in the Congress, the Gingrey amendment goes in the opposite direction and attempts to use Active Duty personnel to further his own gun agenda.

Rather than addressing the needs of his own Georgia constituents, Phil Gingrey is spending his time meddling in a district more than 600 miles away from his. If there were a problem involving guns and our Active Duty military, he would not target only the District of Columbia.

The District will not be used to further the agenda of Members of Congress unaccountable to our residents. We particularly resent being used as fodder by a Member in his campaign for the Senate.

I thank the gentlelady from California for her consistent, heartfelt, energetic leadership on this issue for many years. And I see the gentleman from Georgia is here. I am so pleased he brought down his stash for the week. I had to ask him, Did you really get those bananas? He budgeted so well that he was able to stay within the $31.50 for the week.

Now we've done this before, and I can tell you, it's not pleasant if you're really adhering to this budget. But we had an effect before. When Members joined together and took the challenge, we were able not only to keep the cuts from occurring, but to raise the level for those on food stamps.

I was interested to hear the gentleman from Massachusetts talk about the low error rate, something like 3 percent. I just sat through a committee hearing this morning, and the discussion was about how much waste and fraud reported in a 2011 report about the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. They reported that about 30 percent was attributed to waste and fraud. Here we have poor people in a program with the lowest error rate I've seen in a long time.

I want to thank all of the Members who visited at what I call our neighborhood Capitol Hill Safeway at 14th and D Streets, Southeast, where we had the help of employees who helped guide us toward the least expensive food.

What we're talking about here is the House outdoing the Senate. The Senate bill already cuts $4 billion. The House wants to up that five times. How much damage can we do and sit up straight and feel that we are worthy to be in the Congress of the United States?

We succeeded because of the stimulus in raising the per meal amount from $1.40 a day--isn't that an amazing number--to $4.50 a day. When I was going down the aisle, one of the clerks said to me, Don't you want to get some water? I said, God, go to the spigot, please. I hope people are not buying water on the food stamp challenge because you'll have to eat it. Bottled water is very expensive--and unnecessary.

We believe at least 20 million children will be affected, and 10 million of them are labeled in deep poverty. These people are going to be off the rolls altogether. The reason they are on food stamps at all is because in our wisdom, food stamps, SNAP, has become an entitlement. There are some on the other side who want to take that away from them. I don't know where poor people would be. TANF, for example, its rolls have not increased. So what people have at least been able to do is eat.

And let me tell you about eating. The calculation is that the monthly amount of food stamps will last you about 2\1/2\ weeks. If you're eating anywhere near what you should be on $4.50 a day, it's going to last you, according to all the statistics, 2\1/2\ weeks. What do you think people do the rest of the month on a month's worth of food stamps that lasts 2\1/2\ weeks? They go to the churches or the food pantries. They get the rest of what they need from the pantries, which is why the charities' cupboards are bare. You go there, and even the food charities are begging for food because so many people are coming to the pantries because food stamps cannot sustain a family. These are the poorest people. So all we're trying to do is just try to raise the consciousness really right here in the House of Representatives.

If we got even where the Senate was, that would mean hundreds of thousands of people losing foods stamps that have no other sustenance.

What more can we do to people on food stamps?

It seems to me we have hit bottom, with a provision in the Senate bill that seeks to ban certain ex-convicts from receiving food stamps for life.

Now, wait a minute. I understand--they list certain kinds of violent crimes, and it's very easy to get everybody worked up about giving them any food. I mean, if this is what you want to do to them, why don't you just give them a life sentence and leave them in jail where they'll be fed three meals a day.

But this provision means that if you committed one of these crimes, and they do mean only murders, rapists and pedophiles, so these are not people for whom anybody will speak up. If you've committed one of those crimes, even if it was a single crime, even if it was decades ago, even if you've been doing well--but, of course, if you committed one of those crimes you're not doing well, perhaps, so you may need food stamps. Not only would you not be permitted food stamps, but the family allotment would be decreased by your portion.

What are we trying to do?

By the way, don't they say they have a lot of Christians on the other side of

the aisle, Christian conservatives? Where are they? Where are they?

Aren't these the people that Jesus would have reached out to and said, let me feed you because nobody else will?

I just don't think that when you hit people when they're down as low as they can get, you ought to be proud of yourselves as a Congress.

We even find, among low-income workers, if I could make just one point, most of them try to keep from getting on food stamps. And you have some States going out and saying, Instead of going hungry, these are low-income people who work on the pantries--I think you're entitled to SNAP.

We had people in the streets here in the District of Columbia, just last month, who work in these iconic buildings, Federal buildings, for retail, and some of these are great big retailers, like fast food who pay them the minimum wage with no benefits. Guess who pays?

Those who, in fact, have some knowledge, supplement their low incomes with food stamps. And guess where they get their health care? You and me, the taxpayers.

Why are we allowing people to pay people so little that they depend upon the taxpayers to make up the rest?

So my good friend from California, I say to you, thank you for taking your usual leadership here and again, particularly your leadership on the SNAP challenge.

Don't feel sorry for us. We're going to have plenty to eat before and after. It doesn't begin, I think, until the 13th, for a week. We ask only that you think deeply about those who we will represent on this SNAP challenge.

I yield, and thank the gentlelady from California.

Mr. Speaker, as the Atlantic hurricane season begins, a time when many of our National Guards will be deployed to various parts of the country, I introduce a bill that would give the mayor of the District of Columbia authority over deploying 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 of Columbia should have the same authority that governors exercise over the National Guard in their states. Each governor, as head of state, has the authority to mobilize the National Guard to protect his or her state, just as local militia did historically.

The National Guards in the 50 states operate under dual federal and local jurisdiction. Yet only the President and the Commanding General of the D.C. National Guard currently have the authority to deploy the D.C. National Guard for local and national purposes, respectively. 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 nationalize the D.C. National Guard for federal matters at will. It does no harm to give the mayor this authority 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 mobilization and deployment of their National Guard, it makes equal sense for the mayor of the District of Columbia, with a population the size of a small state, to have the same authority.

The mayor of the District of Columbia, as head of state, should have the authority to deploy the D.C. National Guard in instances that do not rise to the level of homeland defense 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 of Columbia. Congress began that process with the passage of the Home Rule Act of 1973, when it delegated most of its authority over District agencies to the District of Columbia. The bill follows that model.

I urge my colleagues to support the bill.

Mr. Speaker, last week while Congress was out of session, we had the kickoff for the second season of ``Lunchtime Music on the Mall,'' which brings local and regional musicians to the National Mall to perform during the lunchtime hour, giving visitors and particularly our federal and other office workers downtown a break from the pace of business in Washington and an opportunity to enjoy their National Mall. The performances, featuring amateur city and regional residents, are sponsored by the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA), the D.C. Commission on the Arts and Humanities, and the National Park Service (NPS), in conjunction with my office. To preserve and enhance the National Mall, a priceless space, I am reintroducing the National Mall Revitalization and Designation Act. Until the Trust for the National Mall was established in 2007, the National Mall was Washington's most neglected and underutilized federal property, despite being well-known and treasured. The Trust for the National Mall is already making a noteworthy and important difference, and its plan will give the Mall the majesty it deserves. In the meantime, there is much that can be done, from defining the Mall's official identity for the first time to adding low-cost basic amenities. My bill authorizes the National Capital Planning Commission (NCPC) to expand the boundaries of the Mall where commemorative works may be located, requires NCPC to study the commemorative works process, and requires the Secretary of the Interior to submit a plan within 180 days of passage to Congress to enhance visitor enjoyment, amenities and cultural experiences on the Mall.

I worked closely with NCPC and other agencies in drafting the bill. The bill would give NCPC the responsibility and necessary flexibility to designate Mall areas for commemorative works and, for the first time, to expand the official Mall area when appropriate to accommodate future commemorative works and cultural institutions.

In addition, tourists and workers downtown should be able to walk to the Mall and hear music and other entertainment, from string quartets to solo singers during lunch at attractive tables where good--not fast--food is available. Residents of the city and region should be able to find space for fun and games on the Mall, beyond the space between Third Street and the Lincoln Memorial.

Bordered by world-class cultural institutions, the Mall need not continue to be reduced to a mere lawn with a few--too few--old, ordinary benches and a couple of fast food stands until the expansive work the Trust for the National Mall is completed. The plan by the Secretary of the Interior required by the bill would ensure chairs and tables for people who bring lunch to the Mall and the presence of cultural amenities. The NPS has my thanks for implementing and indeed sponsoring the part of the bill that calls for cultural amenities with Lunchtime Music on the Mall, which began last week.

Lunchtime Music on the Mall is a good start to bringing the Mall alive during the workday. With the necessary imagination, making the Mall an inviting place with cultural and other amenities is achievable now.

The NCPC is well on its way to meeting the bill's requirement for an expansive, 21st-century definition of the Mall, particularly now that the Trust for the National Mall is doing such important work. Frustrated by continually fighting off proposals for new monuments, museums, and memorials on the already-crowded Mall space, I asked the NCPC to devise a Mall presentation plan. In 2003, Congress amended the Commemorative Works Act to create a reserve area--a no-build zone where new memorials may not be built. This action was helpful in quelling some but by no means all of the demand from groups for placement of commemorative works on what they view as the Mall.

However, recognizing the need for more commemorative work sites, NCPC and the Commission on Fine Arts (CFA) released a National Capital Framework Plan in 2009, which identifies sites near the Mall that are suitable for new commemorative works, including East Potomac Park, the Kennedy Center Plaza, and the new South Capitol gateway. Five new prestigious memorials are scheduled for such sites, including the Eisenhower Memorial and the U.S. Air Force Memorial. I appreciate that NCPC and the CFA work closely with the District of Columbia in designating off-Mall sites for new commemorative works. The District welcomes the expanded Mall into our local neighborhoods to increase the number of tourists who visit them, enhancing the work of the District of Columbia government and local organizations such as Cultural Tourism that offer tours of historic District neighborhoods. The off-Mall sites for commemorative works also complement development of entirely new neighborhoods near the Mall, particularly with the passage of my bills that are redeveloping both the Southwest and Southeast Waterfront.

I urge my colleagues to support this important legislation.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlelady, first, for yielding and for her kind words. But I thank her even more for what she's done this afternoon. She has come to the floor--my good friend from Texas-- and has rendered one of the most informative highlights of the career of this Attorney General since he has held the office.

I would like only a few minutes to say a few words about the Attorney General because he began when in the Clinton administration I got the courtesy that's normally given to Senators--we have no Senators--so I got the courtesy of recommending to the President the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia and District Court judges. Although the District of Columbia has long had a large African American population, for most of its 200 years there have been no African American United States attorneys. Even though the United States attorney in the District of Columbia handles not only what he does for, for example, my good friend in Texas, that is Federal matters, but because there are some limits on our home rule, also handles all of the local criminal matters. Using a 17-member distinguished committee of citizens who vetted a great number of candidates and gave to me the top three, I chose the man who is now Attorney General as the first African American U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia. He acquitted himself so well that he became an assistant Attorney General and finally Attorney General of the United States.

We are accustomed to seeing Attorneys General get in trouble. The last two Attorneys General were virtually chased out of office because of the mistakes they had made. I think that's because the Attorney General is close to the most controversial business of the President of the United States. I'm not surprised that the Attorney General would be a target. I am surprised that he would be accused so recklessly of, for example, perjury. I believe he will be vindicated shortly because it's so clear, on the face of this matter, that there has been not even a scintilla of an attempt to mislead the Congress or anybody else.

I think of Ambassador Susan Rice, who was yesterday appointed to be the National Security Advisor, the closest advisor to the President on foreign affairs, and of what she went through. She now has been thoroughly vindicated and yet she lost the possibility of being Secretary of State on the allegation that she had somehow misled the Congress in reporting on Benghazi.

Now, of course, the truth is out. All the emails are out. She wasn't part of any of the emails. She was the one who read the statement from the CIA. We now know that the statement was written by the CIA and that the State Department participated in writing it. The State Department was concerned that the State Department would be blamed for what was really a cover. The attack against the temporary U.S. compound in Benghazi was essentially a cover for a CIA operation. And so the CIA got into it. The State Department got into it. All of the intelligence officials got into it.

Together they issued a statement which now has been found not to have misled the Congress. If the joint statement didn't mislead the Congress, imagine the vindication now of Susan Rice, who only read a statement that she had no part in developing and had

no reason to believe--since it came from intelligence sources--that it was anything but the facts as they knew it. And indeed, it turns out they were the facts as they knew it.

I mention Ambassador Rice because of her recent appointment and because she stood accused in the same way that the Attorney General does.

Now, the gentlelady from Texas, my good friend Representative Lee, and I sit on two committees who have spent a lot of their time investigating the Attorney General. Please note that this is a Congress that has no agenda. Had it not been for these so-called scandals I'm not sure there would be anything to do in this House. They tend to go home early, to come late. There is nothing of much consequence on the floor. And indeed, I'm grateful for the appropriations period because at least there is something of substance to come to the floor.

If you don't come here to legislate, if you come here to malign, if you come here to keep the President from getting legislation, then you run out of ideas. We're now at the lowest deficit in 50 years, so they can't continue to talk about that the way you did before. They won't come to the table, as the American people have said they want, for a balanced deal. So we've got a floor where nothing happens and where people went home today--I think the last vote was around noon. There's nothing happening here.

Well, the vacuum has been filled by the committees, who have, each of them--there were five committees--looking into these various matters. Today, there was a Committee on Oversight and Government Reform on which I serve looking into the misuse of money by the IRS, except it turns out that was before this President's Executive order. The worst of the IRS misuse of funds during a travel session began in the last administration, much worse in that administration, and, by the way, in prior administrations. But it's now all over, long ended. But for House Committees, it's another way to go after the IRS.

All of us have been very critical of the IRS. We still don't know what really happened there. But without knowing it, there are some on my committee who are tracing it back to the President of the United States without a scintilla of evidence. That, 50 years ago, would have been called what it is--McCarthyism.

So, when the gentlelady comes to defend the Attorney General who has been attacked, I come simply to join her and to thank her.

In our committee, for example, we spent, perhaps, most of last year on the so-called ``gunwalking,'' where there was the tragedy of a border security agent who was killed. Our committee over and over again asked for the full slate of witnesses. If we'd had those, then we would also have had the last Attorney General from the Bush administration as well as his lieutenants because that's who started the gunwalking, and this Attorney General, of course, stopped it. Over and over again, they raked Attorney General Holder and his top lieutenants over with charges of perjury. Unable to prove them, they went so far as to try to subpoena documents that the President believed should not, in fact, become a part of the public record, so he invoked executive privilege. Why did he do that? Once he invoked executive privilege, then he, too, was accused of being part of a coverup.

Yet it is, in fact, the case--and here I'm going to quote--that the Supreme Court has said:

Human experience teaches that those who expect public

dissemination of their remarks may well temper candor with

concern for appearances. Thus, Presidents have repeatedly

asserted executive privilege to protect confidential

executive branch deliberative materials for congressional

subpoenas.

Otherwise the President cannot expect to get the truth from his Attorney General or from others who report to him.

Then they said the President had asserted executive privilege too late, when they ran out of other excuses, except the reason that he asserted it when he did was he was hoping they would negotiate the matter. You don't come up with executive privilege when you think reasonable men and women will come to a reasonable conclusion.

The failure to look at the root causes of the gun walking tragedy involving two administrations, to call no official from the administration that was responsible for thinking of the idea of gunrunning in the first place and for carrying it on for some time does demonstrate a Congress engaged in fairness. If this Congress is not known for its fairness as a general matter, I'm not sure why, perhaps, we should expect that the high-profile Attorney General, who has become, as some of the press has reported, something of a proxy for the President of the United States, himself, would then get fairness.

The gentlelady mentioned the coconspirator matter. She and I are both attorneys. We are accustomed to indictments in which the prosecutor names a ``coconspirator,'' never attempting to prosecute that person, but because the information has to allege precisely what happens, he will name a person. No person in the press has ever been, and there was never an attempt to prosecute anyone in the press. However, those involved are at a disadvantage: we cannot be told what they were going after because it is an intelligence and a secured matter. That leaves everyone here who is out for the Attorney General free to allege whatever he wants to, unless he has some sense of responsibility.

I must say I thank the gentlelady from Texas for that clarification. Not only that, the Justice Department has issued a statement to the effect it has no intent and never has had any intent of prosecuting the coconspirator as is the case and as has been the case for 100 years of the listing of coconspirators.

Just a moment more on this important matter. You mentioned that my committee has a lot of lawyers, like you and me. Your committee is the Judiciary Committee. I surely would have expected more of it than the way they've gone at the Attorney General.

On this matter of the AP reporters, of the AP-Rosen matter, the Attorney General recused himself. I'm not sure why he recused himself, but I imagine it is because, if you're looking for a leak and if you're doing a thorough investigation, you look from the top to the bottom. So, once he'd been questioned just as a President could be questioned, then, of course, he did the right thing, if that's the reason, by recusing himself. But when it came to the Rosen matter, which is simply signing off on the prosecutorial information--a routine ceremonial matter--there was nothing contradictory about that and his statement that he had no knowledge of the prosecution. He had

recused himself. Having recused himself, he'd better not have any knowledge of it.

These are fine points we are making, and I'm afraid, for many in the public, they are fine points because, as the gentlelady says, most people are not trained as lawyers, and if they are, they don't want to hear lawyer talk; but these are really important questions if you want to accuse somebody of something.

Of something as serious as perjury--and a lawyer at that.

I thank the gentlelady for coming to the floor so that these accusations--these wild and reckless accusations--against the Attorney General have not gone unanswered.

And charged on the basis of some evidence.

Your point about an officer of the court is something that most Americans may be unaware of.

Every piece of paper that a lawyer files before a court of any kind-- it may seem perfunctory--is subject to perjury precisely because when you're admitted to the bar, you become an officer of the court. So you risk your professional life because you could be disbarred not only for committing perjury, but even for misstatements in an offering before a court. That's the high standard to which we, who are members of the bar, are held. And for that reason, it would be unseemly for any lawyer, much less the highest lawyer in the land, to risk perjury.

And I submit that not only has perjury not been committed; the word ``perjury'' should never have entered into this conversation without the slightest bit of evidence. That's what ``reckless'' means, and I thank the gentlelady for the question.

Mr. Speaker, I'd like to speak a few minutes this afternoon on two subjects. The first involves both a wonderful evening for any Member of Congress and a tragedy in our Capitol Hill neighborhood nearby. The second involves the upcoming appropriations period.

Mr. Speaker, last night was a terrific evening if you happened to be there. Members of Congress--it looked like equal numbers of Democrats and Republicans; we are part of the so-called No Labels Caucus; these are Members of Congress who are trying to get beyond the needless polarization in this House--decided to go to the baseball game together, the Nationals Stadium, our new, terrific stadium here in the District of Columbia. It was a Nats-Mets game. I'm sorry to report the Nats lost badly. They also played the night before and won, if I may also report that.

I was coming back from this really wonderful bipartisan experience-- we ate hot dogs together, we ate & drank together--me, wine, a lot of my colleagues beer--and we talked about anything but the House. We talked about what people have said Members need to do more. We talked about the game and what was happening in our lives.

I sat next to a Member I had never met before even though he's on the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee with me. His name is Rodney Davis. It was so funny to hear him talk about how I didn't know him, he said he was the lowest man on the totem pole. He apparently was, at least in seniority on our committee the last member and I'm near the top in seniority. We laughed about that. He laughed about how narrow was his margin in getting to the House. I mean, all of this was fun. And, yes, the game--the game, of course, was the baseball game.

He told me about his 12-year-old twin boys. That was really so touching--how he missed a suspension vote because he was coaching the baseball team where his boys played. So that was the setting of the evening. You can't help but feel good when you come home from an evening like that.

Because I have for many years lived on Capitol Hill--I represent the District, I am a native Washingtonian and I now live on Capitol Hill--I didn't have to go far from Nationals Stadium to come home. But I returned to find a pungent smell in the air because the storied neighborhood hardware store, Frager's, was in the process of being burned to the ground. I could get only so far along Pennsylvania Avenue, then everyone had to take a detour. Even this morning, parts of Pennsylvania Avenue, Southeast were closed off because of, even then, hot spots from the fire. It was like losing a friend--a human friend, that is.

My first thought went to the employees; there are about 65 of them. I'm grateful to have learned that it appears no one was injured or hurt. This pungent odor--remember, this is a hardware store, so there's all kinds of things to go up in flames and all kinds of smells. And even though I'm a number of blocks--about six to ten blocks--I could smell the odor very deeply from the fire. In fact, the city announced that everyone should go in and turn on their air conditioning and not come out for a while.

The employees were still in the building--some of them--but got out of the way of the fire, and no one was injured or killed. I understand that there may have been a couple of firefighters who were injured. We certainly wish them the very best and thank them for fighting what was a horrendous, hot, and unusual fire in the middle of a wonderful residential neighborhood.

When a store that's been in the same location for 100 years goes up in flames, you begin to realize that it was more than a neighborhood hardware store, afterall, and that after almost 100 years in the same location it had embedded itself into our Capitol Hill community as an institution all its own. It stirred in me something like the emotion that I felt when the Eastern Market--our historic, old market that was even older than Frager's--went up in flames a few years ago. Those are parts of your neighborhood we cannot imagine being without.

We have since rebuilt Eastern Market so that it looks very much like it always did--because it's a historic building and great pains were taken to see to it. Now, I'm not yet sure they will be able to do that at Frager's. After all, the Eastern Market is a publically owned market. That's not the case with this private business, which has thrived in our neighborhood through the era of mega-hardware stores. Frager's had survived when the era of the corner grocery and the corner store of every variety seem to have gone by the way.

It says everything about Frager's that it could survive in that kind of competition, where these multipurpose mega-hardware stores are accessible if you want to get in your car. I guess that may be the key to why the best of these corner institutions have survived for so long.

Frager's was not a state-of-the-art building. That's part of the reason it could burn down. You go in and they have squeezed goods into Frager's that you will not find at our wonderful mega-hardware stores. There are

things that may have gone out of style, but they're just what you need and they're just what goes best with your own home.

Capitol Hill is a historic district. I live in a historic house. You can't do anything to the outside of the house; you can change it on the inside. So you can imagine, we're always trying to match up the historic eccentricity of our homes with what's available in the stores. Well, Frager's is always there to help you. So the loss is, for us, monumental.

I think Frager's has survived all these years not only because it happens to often have what we can't find anywhere else, but particularly because of the service ethic that is a part of this neighborhood institution. You go to Frager's, they know you if you've been in there once before. They go out of their way to help you even as you try to find your way through the cramped aisles. They have the amenities you need. You may still go to the big mega-store, but very often you'll try Frager's first--or have to go to Frager's when you didn't find it where you might have thought it should have been.

Above all, such stores in our neighborhoods are tailored to our needs. They've learned what people ask for, and they try to stock it when no one else would.

It made me recall Frager's 90th anniversary--about 3 years ago. I was so impressed that the neighborhood had a store that is where it was 90 years ago--and now we are at 93 or so--that could still celebrate that it's there and has been there all that time. So I came to the floor on that occasion and have since put those congratulatory remarks in the Congressional Record.

So I was really very much looking for another opportunity today to salute Frager's and to say to Frager's that yes, we know you are different from the Eastern Market. Yes, you have insurance, and you don't have taxpayer dollars to help you build. But I think you will find a very grateful neighborhood doing all it can to help Frager's survive, even as the Eastern Market historic market has survived, because there are certain institutions that are endemic to the neighborhood; and if they go, it simply will not be the same neighborhood.

The morning after you still couldn't get close to Frager's. I'm going to go by this evening and I'm going to try to find John Weintraub, who is the owner. This store is located at 11th and Pennsylvania Avenues, Southeast. The cause of the fire is still not known, or at least was not as of this morning.

John Weintraub bought this store, bought Frager's, from the Frager family in 1975. So that tells you that a very good part of its existence one family owned Fragers. John Weintraub has moved it seamlessly from the original family to Mr. Weintraub. He's hoping that his insurance takes care not only of the building, but somehow helps him with the salaries of his 65 employees. I'm very pleased that by the time I awakened this morning, the Matchbox, another store in our neighborhood, had announced that it would offer temporary work to Frager's employees until they are able to find employment.

I was also very pleased to read that the nursery, which was my favorite spot at Frager's, was somehow intact. Beside the hardware store, which is a remnant of its former self now, was a large nursery, an outdoor nursery, with just the kind of flowers you need to start up your window box in the spring with all the plants. You could go and shop for all plants in the outdoors section of Frager's there. Somehow, that section had survived most of the fire. And I hope that we're going to be able to go very soon, notwithstanding the destruction of the building, to the nursery, to remind everybody that Frager's is alive, well, and thriving despite the fire.

I want also to salute those who stood with Mayor Vincent Gray and me just about 10 days ago to announce that as the District of Columbia appropriation comes to the floor, we will be looking at the appropriators to make sure that they respect the District of Columbia's 600,000-plus American citizens and the District of Columbia as the independent jurisdiction it is and will refrain from directing our city on how to spend our own local funds.

Standing with us at a press conference were representatives from a number of organizations: DC Vote, the extraordinary organization that leads the fight for district voting rights for our ability to spend our own money, and for our right to be treated as other Americans are treated. Also there were the groups who are targeted the way that we have been targeted. There were the gun safety groups. There were the pro-choice groups. There were the health groups.

The groups include Planned Parenthood Federation of America, Coalition to Stop Gun Violence, AIDS United, DC Vote, Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, NARAL Pro-Choice America, the Center for Reproductive Rights, the National Abortion Federation, the Reproductive Health Technologies Project, the Black Women's Health Imperative, the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice, and the Center for American Progress.

They said they would alert their members should the District's appropriation be targeted for what we call riders, which are undemocratic attachments to the D.C. appropriation to keep it from spending its own local funds in a democratic manner, as directed by its citizens. This, of course, would never be the case for any other jurisdiction. But because the Congress has retained some jurisdiction over the District, there are Members of this body who would take advantage of its jurisdiction to intrude into the local affairs of a local jurisdiction.

Yet, in 1972, the Congress itself recognized that this was wrong. On the heels of the civil rights movement, interestingly, it delegated the authority for governance to the District of Columbia itself. It was about time. It had been done so once before in the 19th century when the Republicans, after the Civil War, allowed the District to have representation in Congress and a home rule government.

However, the Democrats came back to power and abolished local government and the right to be represented in the Congress. We still do not have the vote on the House floor; although we pay taxes at very high rates like every other Member's constituents. But at least there was some representation.

Finally, in the mid '70s, the Congress saw how wrong it was to claim itself to be the leader of freedom around the world and yet have its own capital city with no local governance and no representation in the Congress of the United States. However, when it delegated its authority to the District for local governance, it did leave four or five exceptions.

The exceptions were, for example, that the Districts can't tax the Federal property located in the District of Columbia. And the other exceptions were of that kind. Congress didn't add: and Members may at any time they have a preference keep the District from spending its own local funds the way their own constituents can spend their own local funds.

We will never give up our full rights as American citizens to spend our own funds. We raise $6 billion more than some States every year. When our folks tell us how to spend that money, we're going to always fight to spend it, just as every Member would fight to spend it as democratically directed by constituents.

We had thought when the Republicans--particularly the Tea Party Republicans as they call themselves--came they would be the first to side with us on this matter because they are supposed to, according to their recited principles, resent the intrusion of Federal power, sometimes even where Federal power always has been. So we thought they would be the first to understand that you don't use the big foot of the Federal Government against any local jurisdiction and then somehow claim the Constitution because the District does not have statehood yet. Not a matter of principle.

I appreciate how the appropriators have handled our appropriation for the last several years. When the Democrats were in charge of this body, we were able to get all of the riders off of our appropriation, and only one has come back, an abortion rider, and we intend to get that one off again. But the others have not come back. And I want to express my appreciation to this House for at least keeping those attachments off.

One of them was an attachment that cost lives and has left us with people who are ill. That attachment kept us from spending our own local money on

needle exchange programs, which are widely used around the world and throughout the United States. States can't spend Federal funds for needle exchange programs, but they can spend local funds. Every large city; and many counties spend their own local funds this way because it is one of the few proven ways to keep HIV/AIDS from spreading.

The District was kept from spending its own local funds on needle exchange programs for 10 years. The result was that the District had the highest AIDS rate in the United States for that reason. Right down the road, Baltimore, a much poorer city than the District of Columbia-- and the District of Columbia is not a poor city. It is a city of--yes, it is a modicum of poor people, but it is a very prosperous city.

Down the road in Baltimore, you have had for years a better AIDS rate than you have had in the District of Columbia because nobody could keep Baltimore from using needle exchange programs. These are programs that, for example, when an addict is on the street, allow the one city to wean him from addiction or at least keep him from passing a dirty needle on that will spread the virus, but it is often to wean him from drugs because he expects and wants the clean needles to come every day. It is a highly effective way. Whatever it is, we have the right to save the lives of our own people the way we define if that way is legal and constitutional.

You can imagine the anguish we felt when we could not even save the lives of our own people. To its credit and the credit of this House, that rider has not come back on our appropriation. I had a meeting with Chairman Ander Crenshaw just yesterday. I don't have any idea what will happen, but he seems a fair and open man. I was pleased also to bring the Mayor to have a meeting with him so that he could meet the chief executive of the city. There also are other riders that were on the appropriation that are not now on it.

We've learned to take the offensive, though, because we are left here by ourselves--a delegation of one--so it's real easy to gang up on us because I'm all the District has. It has no Senators, and therefore we try to stop such intrusions before they occur. Yes, partly, perhaps, because of that--because of the action of our allies in writing the appropriators, having their constituents contact appropriators--this may have had an effect; but I think what has also had an effect is there are Members who, I think, listened to the effect of these riders, and who have seen them as inconsistent with the principle of local control and have acted accordingly.

So I say to those Members: you have our thanks and our appreciation.

I say to my own Capitol Hill neighborhood as I close: that we have lived through the tragedy of the loss of a major public institution, the Eastern Market. We saw it come back. As Capitol Hill residents, it seems to me all of us have an obligation to help Frager's come back, too. Frager's has been there when we needed Frager's. Frager's cannot depend upon public money. Frager's needs support--and we'll have to learn what kind of support it is--from all of us if we value such unique neighborhood institutions.

At a time when our country is growing larger, when it is becoming so easy to become anonymous--when the personal and the ability to touch and feel that you are heard often seem so distant, when even those of us who Tweet and Facebook recognize that, at the same time, we are keeping our distance--at a time like this when Frager's brought us close, when Frager's made us walk to the store instead of getting into our cars, and when we found there, what we could not find elsewhere, let us celebrate this institution, with which, I think, every Member of the House from whatever community, large or small, could identify.

I celebrate Frager's. I look forward to its return in a fashion that will remind us of a near century's service to those who have lived in the Capitol Hill community, one of the oldest communities in the Nation's Capital.

I yield back the balance of my time.